Ben Bova On Writing Science Fiction

I'm reading Ben Bova's excellent book, "The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells."

I knew I wanted to read it as soon as I saw the quotation Bova used to start off his book:

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer."
-- Ernest Hemingway

Yes. That.

Hemingway was talking about stories in general. What is science fiction? What makes one book a work of science fiction and another not?

The science must be essential to the story.

Bova defines science fiction this way:

"Science fiction stories are those in which some aspect of future science or high technology is so integral to the story that, if you take away the science or technology, the story collapses."

He uses Mary Shelly's book "Frankenstein" as an example.  It passes the test because "Take the scientific element out of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel and what is left? A failed medical student and not much more."

What is unique to science fiction?

Science fiction has special requirements, special demands. Bova writes:

"Every good science fiction story must present to the reader a world that no one has ever seen before. You cannot take it for granted that the sky is blue, that chairs have legs, or that what goes up must come down. In a good science fiction story the writer is presenting a new world in a fresh universe. In addition to all the other things that a good story must accomplish, a good science fiction tale must present the ground rules and use them consistently without stopping the flow of the narrative."

Ben Bova's Tips For Bringing A Character--And A Story--To Life

Make the protagonist interesting. 

He (or she) doesn't have to be likeable, but it's difficult to make a character likeable if he (or she) isn't interesting.

Make the stakes both clear and dramatic. 

Make sure the problem the protagonist encounters is truly dire. If the protagonist doesn't solve the problem then his life should be dramatically affected for the worse. 

For example, if Luke Skywalker (Star Wars IV) didn't destroy the Death Star then he'd be dead, all his friends would be dead, and the resistance would be destroyed. 

Give the protagonist one or two great strengths and one obvious weakness.

For example, take the character of Ender from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Ender had both compassion and ruthlessness. Which trait was either a strength or a weakness depended on the context. Ender's challenge--one of them--was to strike a balance between the two.

I know this isn't science fiction, but I like using the character of Indiana Jones as an example. Indy was resourceful, that was his great strength. Also, he was fearless. His weakness was that he was too trusting, especially of attractive females. Another of his weaknesses, played for comic effect, was his fear of snakes. 

Give the protagonist a problem that preys upon their weakness.

Bova writes: 

"Once you have decided who your protagonist will be and you know his strengths and weaknesses, hit him where it hurts most! Develop an instinct for the jugular. Give your main character a problem that she cannot solve, and then make it as difficult as possible for her to struggle out of her dilemma."

Emotion A vs emotion B

Your protagonist should have an inward struggle. They should have two opposing goals. Bova uses Hamlet as an example. Hamlet struggled between the desire for revenge upon his uncle, Claudius, and the desire to do no wrong. He writes:

"I want to borrow a marvelous technique from William Foster-Harris, who was a fine teacher of writing at the University of Oklahoma. He hit upon the technique of visualizing story characters’ problems in the form of a simple equation: Emotion A vs. Emotion B. For example, you might depict Hamlet as a case of revenge vs. self-doubt. Think of the characters you have loved best in the stories you have read. Each of them was torn by conflicting emotions, from the Biblical patriarch Abraham’s obedience vs. love, when commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, to the greed vs. loyalty often displayed by my own quixotic character, Sam Gunn.

"Whenever you start to think about a character for a story, even a secondary character, try to sum up his or her essential characteristics in this simple formula. Don’t let the simplicity of this approach fool you. If you can’t capture a character by a straightforward emotion vs. emotion equation, then you haven’t thought out the character well enough to begin writing. Of course, for minor characters this isn’t necessary. But it certainly is vital for the protagonist, and it can be just as important for the secondary characters, too.

"With this approach, you begin to understand that the protagonist’s real problem is inside her head. The basic conflict of the story, the mainspring that drives it onward, is an emotional conflict inside the mind of the protagonist. The other conflicts in the story stem from this source [...]."

Ben Bova won the Hugo six times, wrote and published over 120 stories, was an editor over at Analog and was the editorial director at Omni.

I'll close with how Ben Bova defined a story:

"[...] every story is essentially the description of a character struggling to solve a problem."

So simple, so true, yet it is far from easy to create (or discover) stories that embody that principle.

Good writing!

Photo credit: "Supervisors" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Book Talk: Shifting Point of View

Last night I finished "The Testament" by John Grisham. 

Changing POV within a story

Interesting book. It opens with a first person, present tense, account that is intimate and shocking. The story is told by a ridiculously wealthy man, Mr. Phelan, who is at the end of his life. His one overriding goal is that his heirs not get hold of his millions. No, scratch that. Billions.

"Down to the last day, even the last hour now. I'm an old man, lonely and unloved, sick and hurting and tired of living. I am ready for the hereafter; it has to be better than this."

The first person account lasts for the first two chapters, after that Grisham shifts to third person past tense. He couldn't have continued to tell the story in first person perspective because (spoiler alert) Mr. Phelan--the POV character--commits suicide.

"[...] I rise from my wheelchair. My legs are shaking. My heart is pounding. Just seconds now. Surely I'll be dead before I land.

“Hey!” someone shouts, Snead I think. But I'm moving away from them."

Still, it's unusual, shifting both tense and POV two chapters into a book, but I think it worked. I don't see how the story could have been told more effectively another way. The storyteller needed to build up some sort of reader identification for Mr. Phelan and I think that was the best way of doing it. Also, it was interesting. How many times do billionaires about to commit suicide talk to us frankly, truthfully, about their lives, their loves, their regrets?

I think the odd shift in POV and tense was done because all through the book Mr. Phelan's negative points, his many failures as a father, his philandering, his cruelty, are the focus of discussion. But for the purposes of the story, it's important that we, the reader, want the billionaire's last wishes honored even though he was a less than stellar human being. If we don't care about that, we won't care about the story.

Did the shift in POV work?

What do you think? Regardless of whether you've read "The Testament," what do you think about switching from first person to third person, or vice versa? If you read "The Testament," do you think it worked? Was it effective? Necessary? Or would it have been better to have maintained a uniform POV throughout?

Photo credit: "Umbrella Street" by *Light Painting* under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Creating A Creative Outline

Today I'd like to talk about outlining. 

Outlining doesn't have to be mechanical.

From several discussions I've had about outlining with various writers I've come away with the idea that certain writers who are vigorously opposed to outlining see it as in some sense mechanical. I'd like to show that outlining doesn't have to be.

Each method of outlining is unique to the writer.

Before I start, though, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not suggesting anyone else use the same method as myself. Each story is different and I suspect that how each story is written differs as well. 

With this blog post I'm saying, "Hey, by the way, this is what I do" in the hope that some of you will, in the comments, share your own methods.

The Index Card Method

One of the reasons outlining works for me is that stories usually come in fits and starts. I'll get one piece one day, another the next, and usually these pieces don't fit perfectly. 

It helps to have a board where I can scribble down my thoughts on index cards and arrange them in terms of the story's chronology.[4] In my case, the board is several sheets of magnetized metal hanging on the wall, but I could do this on a piece of paper or a file on my computer.

Step One: Write the events of the story down in no regard for order.

Often I'll know that something--a particular event--occurs but won't know if it occurs in the beginning, middle or end of the story. I won't know why it occurred or who it will effect.

That's okay. I write the event down. At first I usually write these down in my journal and then, when my journal is getting full, I'll comb through it and transfer the events onto index cards which I then place on my Lost Scene board. 

Each of these cards ... I think of it like catching the tip of a dragon's tail. Each one could lead me to a different story; they are entry points; they are day-dreaming aids. 

As soon as I have enough cards on my 'Lost Scenes' board I start putting them on my story boards. Then I play. I play with the order, I play with writing new scenes. But most of all I think about the core of the story and dream. Perhaps I'll write new scenes in my journal and start the process again.

Step Two: Give each character a card.

I say this is step two, but I do it at the same time as step one: I jot down the character's name and everything I know about them. Sometimes this uses up several cards.

Step Three: Write down clues.

Occasionally I want to put in hints at what is to come, or perhaps I've included a mystery, so must leave a smattering of clues for the reader. I'll write one clue per index card. Later on I'll pin each clue to the scene where I introduce it.

Step four: Write a scene or write an interview with one or more of the characters.

As soon as I have a clear idea of a few of the scenes I want to have in the book, as soon as I have some sort of fledging sense of my protagonist, I'll start to write. 

What I write is different for each story. Sometimes I'll do a character interview, sometimes I'll write a piece of flash fiction featuring my protagonist (or my antagonist or both). 

I need to connect with the characters and the events of the story (I need to break into the story) as soon as possible so that I know that what I'm working on isn't just smoke and mirrors. 

For me the bottom line is: if I can't connect to the character's there is no story.

Step Five: When the story begins to coalesce I look for pivotal scenes.

At some point the story will more or less coalesce and I'll have grasped certain big events--pivotal events--that change the characters lives. These events help me find the joints of the story.

In case you're wondering, I find the joints of the story by thinking of the movements, the beats, in the classic three act structure. Keep in mind, though, that these points aren't intended to be a straightjacket. I don't feel as though I have to shoe-horn my story into any particular structure. 

That said, thinking about the three act structure often helps me find the beating heart of my story.

Step Six: Plan the pivotal scenes.

Deborah Chester just published two terrific blog posts (Scene Check, Part 1; Scene Check: Part Who) where she lists some of the many questions writers can use to plan a scene:

- Who is the viewpoint character and what is their objective?

- What is the viewpoint character's motivation?

- What is at stake?

- What will the protagonist do to achieve their goal and what will the antagonist do to counter it?

- Why is this event important to the story?

- When will the scene's outcome affect events down the line?

Once I answer a few of these questions for each of my pivotal scenes my mind will be awash in ideas for intervening scenes, scenes which lead up to the big events. 

Step Seven: Keep doing Step Six.

For each new scene I tack up on my board I plan it out in the same way I planned out the pivotal scenes, though perhaps in less detail.

Step Eight: Don't be afraid to reorder, delete or add scenes.

A story doesn't live in index cards (or in computer files or on pages of looseleaf), a story is a living thing that resides within the storyteller. 

Since a story is a living, breathing, growing thing it's inevitable that it will grow and change and transform. When this happens, even though it can be painful, index cards have to be taken down and stored in my RIP pile and new ones created. 

Step Nine: Write an outline.

At some point I'll feel the story is just about there, just about right, and I'll write a hurried outline.

Step Ten: Redo the cards.

Inevitably, whenever I write an outline, the story will change a bit and I'll go back to the cards and shift things around, keeping an eye on whether the clues that I've scattered through the story need to be changed, moved or deleted.

Step Eleven: Type the cards into a word processor.

At this point I'll type all the cards on my story boards into Scrivener and, in so doing, write a detailed summary of the novel. I'll print this out and keep it handy. 

Step Twelve: Don't hesitate to change the outline.

For me, an outline is important because at some point when I'm writing I'll get lost and wonder: Okay, where am I? What happens now?

If I have an outline I look at it and see what I'd wanted to do originally. I don't have to do that, but often I'll look at it and think, "Oh yes, I remember!" and off I go. But I could just as easily change the outline.

I like how Mary Robinette Kowal describes the outline as a roadmap. When I take a roadtrip I like to have a destination and I like to know where I'm going to stop along the way. That way I know (roughly) how much gas I'll have to buy, I can book a hotel to sleep in, I can search for interesting spots along the way I might like to visit.

Having a roadmap doesn't mean I can't change my destination mid-trip. But if I do, and I have a roadmap, it'll be easier to calculate how much more (or less) gas I'll need, see what spots I can stop off along the way, and so on.

Final thoughts.

Some writers get hold of a story through prose. Other writers get hold of a story through daydreams. Other writers ... well, I suspect that the number of ways to get hold of a story--to catch a dragon by the tail--are as numerous as writers.

The important thing is to catch the dragon--to write the story--before it eats you.

Links/References

1. Chuck Wendig's blog is wonderful--plenty of pithy tips about writing, plenty of encouragement. (But be warned, his blog is NSFW.) Here are two articles CW wrote about outlining:

- HOW CHUCK OUTLINES: AN OUTLINE

- 25 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT OUTLINING

2. Mary Robinette Kowal on outlining:

- Outlining the Mary Way

- Mary Robinette Kowal and The Mysteries of Outlining

- Really, your outline does not have to be perfect

3. Lee Goldberg on outlining:

- To Outline or Not To Outline

-  How I Write

4. I use index cards but you can use anything. Strips of paper, a file on your computer, pages in a binder. Use whatever method strikes your fancy.

Photo credit: "Creative Outlining" by Karen Woodward under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.

8 Elements Of A Gripping Tale

This is a question I've asked a time or three: How does a writer keep readers turning the page?

1. Tell a gripping tale.

The best way to keep readers interested, to keep them reading/watching/listening, is the obvious one: Tell a gripping tale, one that connects with universal themes such as sacrifice, redemption, transformation, and so on; themes which readers/watchers/listeners can understand since we tend to go through similar life experiences. 

We want the people we love to love us back (as opposed to ditching us for more attractive, younger, versions) and we want the people who hate us to get the strange syphilis (but not Xander, never Xander). 

2. Tell a gripping tale filled with interesting characters.

The main characters of a riveting tale will be interesting and so we, the readers, will care what happens to them. 

A character (generally speaking) can't be interesting if they aren't believable. And part of a character acting in believable ways; that is, making believable choices; is their choices flowing from the kind of pseudo-people they are. Or, rather, the kind of pseudo-people we perceive them to be.

3. Tell a gripping tale filled with interesting characters who want things.

The characters of a gripping tale will have strengths and flaws and they will want things. Some of the things they want will be insignificant and silly, perhaps even embarrassing, but some of them--at least one of them--will likely be big and important and difficult to attain. 

4. Tell a gripping tale filled with interesting characters who want something that is difficult to attain.

Although in real life it would be wonderful to buy a lottery ticket the day before the big draw and then find out that, yes, you picked the winning number, it wouldn't make for an exciting story. 

"Jane wants to win the lottery. Jane buys a lottery ticket. Jane wins the lottery."

Boring.

"Jane wants to win the lottery. Jane buys a lottery ticket with the last of her savings. Jane discovers she's won the lottery. Excited, she goes to get the ticket from her wallet but ... it's not there!"

Still boring, but better.

5. Create interesting and believable opposition

There needs to be some sort of opposition to prevent the protagonist from getting what he wants too easily. The opposition should be strong and produce a credible threat to the protagonist's goals.

This means that the protagonist has to be better--more skilled, more intelligent, or perhaps just luckier--than the forces that oppose him. 

6. Surprise your reader.

But in a good way. Jumping out from behind a potted plant as your mother gets to the part where the cat morphs into a hideous man-eating monster doesn't count. 

(Major spoilers about American Beauty coming up in three, two, one ...)

I think one of the tensest scenes I've watched was in American Beauty, toward the end, when the protagonist, Lester, is working out in his garage. His daughter's boyfriend's homophobic father, the Colonel, comes over and we--the audience--are sure that something bad is going to happen. We know the protagonist is going to die and we know the Colonel suspects Lester is in a homosexual relationship with his son.

The stakes are life and death, we're just not sure whodunit. Will the next door neighbour be the one to kill Lester?

Then (surprise!) the next door neighbour, the homophobe, kisses Lester! I was stunned. It was a great twist but one that, looking back, made sense. 

That said, this scene wouldn't have been as tense as it was if the audience didn't know what the stakes were.

(To read more about the importance of surprise I recommend 7 Tools to Hook Your Reader by Monica M. Clark. )

7. Make the stakes clear.

In American Beauty the stakes were life and death. Yes, we knew the protagonist was going to die from the beginning, but we didn't know how he would die or who would kill him.

I've mentioned the scene where the Colonel kisses Lester, that scene wouldn't have been tense if we didn't know the stakes. Yes, we knew that Lester died at the end, but that fed the suspense.

8. Write the story you would love to read.

A writer's emotions bleed through into the story. 

To write a good horror story, one that makes the reader too scared to go to sleep and necessitates the use of a night light, the writer needs to be a little horrified. To write a good mystery, the writer needs to construct a puzzle that's interesting to her. 

Above all, if the writer is bored by the story then, chances are, the readers will be as well. 

#  #  #  #

The attribution is contested, but Ernest Hemingway is said to have once muttered: Writing is easy, you just sit down at the typewriter and bleed. That's the key: Sit down and connect with your emotional core then transfer some of that to your characters. 

Good writing!

Photo credit: "Lorikeet Party" by Louise Docker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Guest Post: Being a Writer by Will Hahn

Today I'm turning my blog over to Will Hahn.

I've been interested in Will's writing ever since I learned he considers himself a chronicler of events, something that suggested he observes and records the events of his story rather than creating them.

I asked Will if he wouldn't mind talking a bit about his chronicling and anything else that came to mind. Will's upcoming book is Judgement's Tale, and it will be available on July 4th.

Thanks for taking the time to do this, Will!

Will Hahn says:

Being a Writer: What Does it Take, and Where Will it Take You?

I’m very pleased to be here today--what could be better than interacting with fellow writers and sharing what we know? Karen was interested by my claim to be a chronicler, rather than a writer-- it’s true, I even confessed about it years ago--and I’ll start there. But I want to encourage everyone reading this: finishing and publishing your work is well within your grasp--truly, it’s a marvelous time to be an author.

Chronicler? What’s the Diff?

Some stories are best told from the ending backward. As a chronicler, the most important thing I want you to know is this--at last, at long last, I started.

My tales are all set in a single epic fantasy world. But for a long time I merely studied The Lands of Hope. I drew maps, jotted down notes on important people, wondrous artefacts, rare beasts. I sketched out certain things but not in prose--stars, the cycle of the two polar-orbiting moons, their zodiac.

And I listened, also, to the Lands--battle, the adventurers’ enemies cursing as they went down in defeat, but also merchants haggling, church-goers singing. I saw and heard so much--but I wrote nothing, not in tale-form. Writing stories is something writers do, those wondrous people (like you!) who imagine other places, who make up characters and things that befall them. None of that was happening to me. The Lands are simply there. So I watched and listened and took notes.
How long? Half my lifetime, as it stands now, and ever more as time goes by because the Lands of Hope will never not be on my mind.

My Epic Moment

Then rather suddenly, I had a revelation on a weekend visit with heroic friends--another epic story in itself--the key finally dropped into my hands. I broke down (in joy) and admitted something to myself. I couldn’t keep pretending… that the Lands were NOT real. Simple. I went with what my intuition was telling me all along, abandoned foolish thoughts like “I must be making this stuff up,” and just started to bear witness to what I was seeing and hearing.

I am the chronicler of The Lands of Hope, a world I firmly declare to exist (ever since, I’ve called the place we live the Alleged Real World). I watch what the heroes of The Lands do, and I write it down. I began to draft out the tales in story-form in June 2008: July 4th 2011, I self-published the first two Tales of Hope and today I have a quarter-million words in publication. Judgement’s Tale Part One: Games of Chance, will be available this upcoming July 4th.

So much for “how”--I hardly think many folks will find their path to authorship similar to mine. But what’s really important, as it was for me, is that you finally begin. I have found such tremendous satisfaction since discovering that I am called to write, and of course by the power to publish my own work which is crucial but the subject of a whole ‘nother post.

Are You a Writer? Yet?

Stephen King told how frustrated he became when people, introduced to him at parties and such, would always get that look on their face, and always say the same thing. “You’re a writer? I’ve often thought of being a writer.” Mr. King said he finally landed on the proper response, “That’s great!” he’d say, “I’ve often thought about being a brain surgeon!” And there in a nutshell is as good a definition of a writer as you’ll ever need--it’s simple and it’s merciless.

You’re a writer if you sit there and write something.

Again, don’t copy me--I live and work in a home-office/home-school with myriad interruptions and not a single door. I have a full-time job and part-time talent. My manuscripts go nudge, blip, nudge through the day. I don’t command myself to meet a word count, and I don’t give myself a day off in advance. “Let’s just see” has been my motto.

Four Rules for Getting There

I would say I’ve found these four ideas to be useful for me, so much so that I recommend them regardless of your genre, experience, schedule or voice.

1. Write what you love, starting with what you love to read. 

Others often say to write what you know, but I think that will come with time, and right now the task is to make the practice of writing a joy, not a labor.

2. Read it Aloud! 

There is no better technique for surfacing weird constructions, poor grammar, and accidental, repeated or rhyming words than to actually speak what you have written. More than once.

3. Start Strong.

Having a good opening can be gimmicky and you don’t want to get carried away. But it helps to organize the flow (maybe you’ll figure out how to create chapters by finding places where the line is a really good one).

4. Seek advice, but don’t blindly follow it. 

Putting your draft out there for critique takes courage and can be uncomfortable; but the experience of other folks’ opinions and reactions will be invaluable. When they think of something you hadn’t, be honest with yourself. When they try to push your heroes where they don’t want to go- be honest with them.

As we say in the Lands--Ar Aralte! (Hope Forever)

Will Hahn is the chronicler of the Lands of Hope tales.

Karen Woodward says:

Thanks Will! That's good writing advice. All the best to you on your blog tour for Judgement's Tale.

Will Hahn's contact links:

- Facebook page for The Lands of Hope.
- Will Hahn on Google+.
- First blog post in his tour: Judgement's Tale by William L. Hahn.
- Will Hahn's Amazon page.
- Will Hahn's Smashwords page.

Also, Will has set up a raffle for his upcoming book. I couldn't get the widget to run on my site, but for details take a peek at the first post of his tour. Cheers!

Photo credit: "Unique" by Marina del Castell under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writers: Owning Your Voice

This morning someone asked me: 

What makes a scene gripping? What characteristic, more than any other, draws a reader into a story?

A number of answers sprang to mind: suspense, deep characterization, an intricate plot. Most of all, though, I look for an intriguing voice. 

Hemingway's voice is minimalist, stark, intriguing. Chuck Wendig's voice, on the other hand, is loud, sonorous, poetic, startling.

Sometimes I think a writer's voice is the single most important thing for pulling me into a story. But, of course, one's voice--what makes a voice compelling--is all bound up with developing character and fleshing out setting.

Examples of a strong voice

Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants:

"The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry."

Terry Pratchett, Going Postal:

"They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged."

Stephen King, Misery:

"Then there was a mouth clamped over his, a mouth which was unmistakably a woman's mouth in spite of its hard spitless lips, and the wind from this woman's mouth blew into his own mouth and down his throat, puffing his lungs, and when the lips were pulled back he smelled his warder for the first time, smelled her on the outrush of the breath she had forced into him the way a man might force a part of himself into an unwilling woman, a dreadful mixed stench of vanilla cookies and chocolate ice cream and chicken gravy and peanut-butter fudge."

I picked those three examples because I loved them, their meter, their flow, their rhythm, and because they are from books I couldn't put down (though it took me a while, quite a while, to recover from reading Misery.)

Chuck Wendig is another writer with a voice that jumps out and grabs you (or pushes you down a stairwell, whichever). I find his voice big, bold and startling. Wonderful. If you'd like to sample it, try this excerpt from the start of his serialized story, The Forever Endeavor, over at Tor.com. (Note: Chuck Wendig's work usually comes with a NSFW warning.)

The elements of voice

Voice is a bit like a criminal's signature. It's something that you do even when you don't want to do it. It's a part of you, a part of the way you think, a part of the way you write.

What makes one voice different than another? Good question. On one level, simple things like sentence length--and how that difference ricochets through a work. In the examples I gave, above, look at how short Hemingway's sentences are compared to either King's or Pratchett's.

As Chuck Wendig writes in his incredibly wonderful article on voice (<--NSFW):

"The traditional definition of a writer’s 'voice' is, simply put, that writer’s chosen style. 'John Q. Snarlmonkey writes with snark and panache, using tons of ellipses and lots of capital letters and made-up words. I love Snarlmonkey’s voice.' Voice equals style. That’s the easy answer."

Here's a more difficult one:

"The writer’s voice is the thing that marks the work as a creation of that writer and that writer only. You read a thing and you say, 'This could not have been written by anybody else.' That is voice."[1]

Stephen King has a distinctive voice, one that is his and his alone. Many of King's fans who read Richard Bachman's work recognized King behind the pseudonym long before he was outed.[2]

Developing your own voice

Developing one's voice is a dark art. It happens, somehow, but no one is quite sure how, except that it has a lot to do with writing (a lot) and reading (a lot).

I agree with what Chuck Wendig said at the end of his article, that you have to write with confidence. I would add, though, that if you can't write with confidence--after all, in the beginning confidence can be difficult to come by--write with resignation. 

Resignation that, ultimately, there is one way of writing that defines you, one way that feels more natural than any other.[3] That's scary because what's going to happen if your friends, your family, don't like that style? What happens if it turns out your style is shocking? Unconventional? 

I think that developing one's own style takes brashness. A writer needs to lock up the jabbering, naysaying, sensible, reasonable voices that urge caution and, instead, dip her pen in the blood of her fears and phobias and insecurities and lay herself bare on the page. 

No wonder artistic types are a bundle of nerves.

Links/References

1. 25 Things Writers Should Know About Finding Their Voice, by Chuck Wendig over at Terribleminds.com.

2. "The link between King and his shadow writer was exposed after a Washington, D.C. bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, noted similarities between the writing styles of King and Bachman." (Richard Bachman over at Wikipedia.org).

3. I think that developing one's own style, one's own voice, has a lot to do with the idea of soul, or of whatever it is that makes a person unique. Yes, writers can intentionally mimic the styles of others but, at the end of the day, the way a person writes either grows out of all those inky, inconvenient, personal, individual, aweful-and-exhilerating things that make a person that person, or they turn away from the terror and play it safe. I think we've all played it safe, but when we do our best work we face the terror. 

What makes a story a good story?

This morning I sat down to write a post and all I could think about was the question: What makes a story a good story? Is it completely subjective or are there external measures of good and bad?  

As I usually do when wrestling with a question, I investigated what other writers thought. In so doing I came upon this jewel of an article by Mark Twain: Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. 

It is an excellent article, written by an author at ... well, I won't say the height of his ability, Twain may have soared even higher at other times, but one thing is clear: that man could write. Whatever good writing is, whatever it consists in, this is that.

As Mark Twain execrates Fenimore Cooper he does something else: he spells out what he feels are the hallmarks of good writing. Or, more simply, of good art.

Mark Twain on what makes a story a good story.

Twain lists 18 things, 18 qualities, that separate good stories from their opposite. I'll list them and then make a few, general, observations.[1]

These rules require:

1. "That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere." 

2. "They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it."

3. "They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others."

4. "They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there."

5. "They require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say."

6. "They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description."

7. "They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it."

8. "They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as 'the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest,' by either the author or the people in the tale."

9. "They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable."

10. "They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones."

11. "They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency."

"In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

12. "Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

13. "Use the right word, not its second cousin.

14. "Eschew surplusage.

15. "Not omit necessary details.

16. "Avoid slovenliness of form.

17. "Use good grammar.

18. "Employ a simple and straightforward style."

Once more, those are from Mark Twain's article, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses.

Here's how Twain sums up  The Deerslayer's failings:

"A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language."

Twain did not like that book.

But he does us a great service. He spells out exactly why he didn't like it, he takes great pains to tell us where, precisely, it fell short of greatness.

1. It was disordered.

A story must be structured even in the minimal sense that it has high points and low points. A story has characters who want things and who attempt to overcome obstacles to get them.

2. It had no sense of realism.

A completely made-up world can have a sense of realism. For instance, Tolkien's universe or George R.R. Martin's. 

I'm currently trying NOT to read the latest book in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, Skin Game. (I'm trying not to read it because I would happily put everything in my life on hold so I could dive in and finish the story in one great gasp of reading.) Butcher consistently makes it seem normal and natural and even reasonable that there are things like witches and warlocks and wizards. His world feels real, even though it's not.

On the other hand, a story about a real event in a real place can feel artificial, fabricated.

Realism depends on getting the details right: how people move, how they respond to setbacks, natural dialogue, giving readers a sense of place, and so on.

3. Be precise.

Twain seemed to think that Cooper used words like an eight month old eats crackers: he had a lot of enthusiasm but his precision left something to be desired. When communicating your meaning, be precise. Use the right word, not approximately the right word.

Twain writes:

"Cooper's word-sense was singularly dull. When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he does not say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate words. I will furnish some circumstantial evidence in support of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale called "Deerslayer." He uses "Verbal" for "oral"; "precision" for "facility"; "phenomena" for "marvels"; "necessary" for "predetermined"; "unsophisticated" for "primitive"; [...] "eyes" for "sight"; "counteracting" for "opposing"; "funeral obsequies" for "obsequies.""

Twain's article is well worth reading in its entirety.

So, going back to my question at the beginning, What makes a story a good story: 

A story should be ordered, it should have a sense of realism, and in writing it one should strive to use exactly the right word to express one's meaning. 

Of course, a story can do all that and be horrible! (grin)

What do you think makes a story a good story?

Links/References

1. Twain writes: "There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them." 

These aren't all the rules Twain believed existed, these are just the ones Twain thought Cooper violated.

Photo credit: "sagebrush #1" by Greg Westfall under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story, Part 2 of 2

This is the second part of my two part series on how to write a terrifyingly good horror story. Yesterday I covered points one through seven, let's move on to number eight.

8. Make the stakes clear.

This goes for any story, not just horror stories: make it clear what your character has to gain. Make it equally clear what they have to lose. 

Why is this so important? If the reader doesn't know the stakes she can't fear loss. That's a problem because emotion—fear and anxiety—is exactly what we're trying to produce/create/invoke.

As Chuck Wendig writes: "Fear is built off of understanding consequences. We can be afraid of the unknown of the dark, but horror works best when we know that the dark is worth fearing."[1]

(Tip 11, below, makes a related point. It's important to give the audience an example of how bad your villain is. This not only helps establish the stakes for your hero, but it establishes the villain as someone to be feared.)

9. Create a horrific atmosphere, one that will prime a reader's fears.

One of the key elements in scaring readers—which is what a great horror story must do—is creating a scary atmosphere. Your goal here is to communicate raw emotion.

For me, there's something scary about being in a stairwell, the kind modern office buildings have, the kind that lock you in. You can't get to any other floor from the stairwell, you're trapped inside until you get to the bottom. Combine that with lights going out and strange noises drifting up and, for myself at least, that's one creepy setting.

10. Your character must have hope.

The negative stakes must be clear—the reader/viewer/listener must know how bad it can get—but it is equally important to give the character hope, hope that everything will turn out fine in the end, hope that they'll achieve their hearts desire. CW writes:

"[...] for horror to be horrific, it must also have hope. Unceasing and unflinching horror ceases to actually be horrific until we have its opposite present: that doesn’t mean that hope needs to win out. Horror always asks that question of which will win the day: the eyes of hope or the jaws of hell?"[1]

Usually it's the jaws, but the question needs to seem real and pressing.

11. Show the badness of the Big Bad.

CW writes that dread and revulsion are the beating heart that animates horror, they are the engine that drives (drags) a reader through a horror story.

Dread is about anticipation. Specifically, anticipation of all the nasty things that could happen to your character if they get caught by the monsters. This is why, often, there is a scene early on—a revolting one—that shows how bad the Big Bad can be.

For instance, the villain often does something heinously grotesque to a minor character. This is often played as a gross out scene but it serves a necessary function: it calibrates 'bad'. 

That way, when your hero is put in jeopardy, your reader/audience has something nice, specific, and oh-so-gory to imagine.

(Of course, when the time comes, it won't just be bad—the audience is expecting that—it will be bad multiplied by 100.)

12. The gross out.

People like being grossed out. 

I don't know why. It's something primal. Visceral.

This is true—I accept it as true—even though it isn't true for me. Though I must admit there is a certain oh-it's-an-accident-let's-see-what-happened quality to gross out scenes that's difficult to ignore. (Here's an example of what I mean, it's a scene from Final Destination 5. It's squicky; you've been warned.)

CW mentions, though, and I agree, that ...

"The Squick Factor is not actually a prerequisite for good horror. Some of the best and most insidious horror is devoid of any grossness at all: a great ghost story, for instance, is often without any blood-and-guts."[1]

Take, for example, the movie Paranormal Activity. That movie was shot on a shoestring budget of—wait for it—15,000 dollars. (To help put that in perspective, Sharknado was made for a million and that was considered shoestring.) They couldn't afford special effects and so there weren't any. All the truly hideous things happened offscreen, which worked wonderfully given that the movie was shot with stationary cameras.

This goes back to the earlier point about fear of the unknown. Our imaginations are the best special effect department in the world.

13. The longer the story, the less squicky it should be.

In a short story you can be vivid and in-your-face with the gore but it's impossible to sustain that pace, that intensity of revulsion, for an entire novel. CW writes:

"Horror all but demands you don’t pull your punches, but that kind of unceasing assault on one’s own senses and sanity cannot be easily sustained for a novel-length or film-length project. Hence: short fiction and short films do well to deliver the sharp shock that horror may require."[1]

14. Make them laugh, make them cry.

Weaving comedy into a horror may seem like a wacky idea at first, but think of Scream. Yes, the movie wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but one of the reasons for its success was its somewhat twisted sense of humor, as well as the self-mocking, self-referential, dialogue. CW writes:

"Horror and humor both work to stimulate that same place in our gutty-works, a place that defies explanation. Sometimes you don’t know why you think this thing is funny or that thing is scary. They just are. It’s why it’s hard to explain a horror story or a joke: you can’t explain it, you can only tell it. And both are told similarly: both have a setup, ask a question, and respond with a punch line or a twist."

Humor goes well with any kind of story. For example, Vince Gilligan, creator, writer and producer of the hit TV series Breaking Bad thought of the show as a comedy. A black comedy, sure, but a comedy nevertheless. In one of the Breaking Bad insider podcasts he mentioned that the writers tried to include something humorous in each scene.

15. Sex and death.

CW points out that another duo we often find in horror movies is sex and death. And, under the theory that opposites attract, it makes sense. Sex is ephemeral, transcendent, pleasurable while death is eternal, nullifying and getting there is often painful.

But sex also, in very real ways, contains death within it. As soon as we're born we're condemned to die. As CW writes: 

"We all fear death and so sex—procreative and seductive—feels like an antidote to that, but then you also have the baggage where OMG SEX KILLS, whether it’s via a venereal disease or as part of the unwritten rules contained within a slasher film." 

This is a bit off topic, but I thought the unwritten rules contained in a slasher film were marvelously parodied by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard in their movie, The Cabin in the Woods. As you'll remember, the promiscuous blond had to be the first victim.

16. And now these three remain: why, who and what. But the greatest of these is what.

Today I was reading about something Lee Goldberg said at a recent writers' conference:

"Lee said, 'No one remembers the mystery plot of a Monk episode.' We shared a shocked look, sure that wasn’t true. Lee must be wrong. However, he went on to explain that mostly when fans of the series talk about a storyline, they say 'the one where the trash collection workers were on strike' or 'the one where Monk had a look-alike who was a crime boss.'

"His point was that as writers we often think that the backdrop of the story is secondary, but really it's vitally important to the story as a whole. If plot is 'what' the book is about, the backdrop or sub-plot is tightly hooked into 'who' the book is about. And together the what and who make the why, and that’s the trifecta that creates the richness in a series. It's what makes us remember a book and come back to a character."

That quotation was from Much Ado About Something by Sparkle Abbey over at The Stiletto Gang. CW echoes this sentiment:

"You write horror, you’re trying to shine a light in dark corners. Key word there is “trying”—the flashlight needs to be broken. A light too bright will burn the fear away—the beam must waver, the batteries half-dead, the bulb on the verge of popping like a glass blister. It’s like, what the light finds is so unpleasant, you can’t look at it for too long. Look too long it’ll burn out your sanity sensors. In this way, horror isn’t always concerned with the why or the how—but it is most certainly concerned with the what."[1]

17. Write about what scares you.

Let me leave you with CW's closing words:

"Horror needs to work on you, the author. You need to be troubled, a little unsettled, by your own material. Write about what scares you. Doesn’t matter what it is or how absurd—hell, some people think that being terrified of clowns is ridiculous, until you realize how many people find clowns spooky [...]. Dig deep into your own dark places. Tear off the manhole cover and stare down into the unanswered abyss. Speak to your own experiences, your own fears and frights. Shake up your anxieties and let them tumble onto the page. Because horror works best when horror is honest. The audience will feel that. The truth you bring to the genre will resonate, an eerie and unsettling echo that turns the mind upon itself."

If it doesn't scare you, if you're not just a little freaked out about how dark it is in the next room and ... wait. What was that noise? 

(One moment, let me shut my door, I thought I heard something moving around the next room, but that's not possible. I'm the only one home and, besides, nothing human sounds like that. No matter, I'm sure it was only my imagination.)

Links/References

1. (NSFW) 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror, by Chuck Wendig over at Terribleminds.com.

2.  The thread, What makes a good horror movie, over at AbsoluteWrite.com.

3. How to Make Your Horror Screenplay More Effective, by V Renée.

- I didn't use this article when I wrote the above, but I did come across it while I was doing my research: The 5 C’s of Writing a Great Thriller Novel, by James Scott Bell over at WritersDigest.com. Good stuff.

Photo credit: "Wall of Skulls" by Walt Stoneburner under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

17 Ways to Write a Terrifyingly Good Horror Story

(This is part one of a two part series, to read the next part click here: 17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story, Part 2 of 2)

I've reached a point in my WIP where I have to kill off one of my antagonist's minions in a grisly way and was curious what tips other writers had for creating a gross out scene. Then I thought: Hey! I should blog about this.

That's how this post began, but it's turned into more of an article on how to write a horror story that will terrify readers—at least, that's the hope!

1. The beating undead heart of horror is the knowledge that bad things happen to good people.

Chuck Wendig in his horrifically awesome post, (NSFW -->) 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror, writes that "Horror is about fear and tragedy, and whether or not one is capable of overcoming those things." He continues:

"It’s an existential thing, a tragic thing, and somewhere in every story this dark heart beats. You feel horror when John McClane sees he’s got to cross over a floor of broken glass in his bare feet. We feel the fear of Harry and Sally, a fear that they’re going to ruin what they have by getting too close or by not getting too close [...]"

Once readers identify with a character that character becomes a bit like their child. Readers want the best for the character while realizing that the best rarely happens. 

It's this tension between what we want for a character and what could happen to that character that fuels the engine of your story and drags your readers through the gory bits toward the end.

2. Your protagonist must make mistakes. Big ones. Mistakes that put their life, as well as their sanity, in jeopardy.

CW writes that "[...] tragedy is born through character flaws, through bad choices, through grave missteps."

Characters need to make bad decisions. I'm not talking about refusing to eat the goodness that is brussel sprouts, I'm talking about (as in the first Scream movie) running outside to escape the psycho terror inside only to be strung up and gutted by the psycho terror outside. Like Lennard in The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation, your character shouldn't be able to catch a break.

CW puts it this way: have characters your reader loves make choices they hate. He writes:

"We recoil at mistakes made by loved ones, and this is doubly true when these mistakes put their lives, souls and sanities in danger."[1]

I pondered CW's words of wisdom and, thinking about the scene I have to write, came up with the following:

Step one: Make the reader care about, identify with, your character.

Step two: Put your character in danger BUT don't have this danger thrust on them. Have the danger descend on your protagonist because of a choice they made.

Step three: Have the decision that puts your character in danger be either selfless or smart (or at least not blindingly stupid).  

We've all seen this: An attractive blond teenager hears an ominous noise outside the house. Moments later the lights stop working. Does our heroine run into the bathroom and lock the door? No. She calls out "Is anyone out there?" and in so doing alerts potential bad guys and gals to her location. But that's not all. She leaves the relative safety of the house to, all alone, go and see what made the mysterious noise. And (of course) she gets slaughtered.

I don't know anyone who would act like this. I wouldn't! If I heard mysterious sounds outside the house and then the power went out, I'd call 911, grab a baseball bat, and lock myself in the bathroom.

That said, yes, your victim should decide to go out and face the danger, but give them a credible reason. For instance, perhaps the protagonist let her dog out into the backyard and she's worried it's hurt. That's a valid—and altruistic—reason to face potential danger. It's something most people can relate to.

(Sorry if I belaboured that point, it's a personal peeve.)

3. Horror: the oldest story.

Horror stories have been around as long as humans. For instance, take a look at 10 Creepy Urban Legends From Around The World over at Listverse.com.

The first storytellers sat around a campfire at night making shadow puppets, telling tales of strong, daring, hunters and the creatures that killed them. (The special effects department was the guy who flicked grape juice at the cave wall as the shadow hunter is skewered by the shadow beast.)

CW writes:

"You want to see the simplest heart of horror, you could do worse than by dissecting ghost stories and urban legends: two types of tale we tell even as young deviants and miscreants. They contain many of the elements that make horror what it is: subversion, admonition, fear of the unknown."

4. Write about what terrifies you.

When researching this article I came across a wonderful thread over at AbsoluteWrite.com about what makes a good horror movie. Here are some of the highlights:

Ways to create a situation that will terrify an audience:

Restrict the character's movement.

For example, trap the character in a cellar, a church, an abandoned hospital, an underground parking garage, an island, and so on. 

Ask yourself, What kind of a confined space scares you? Were you trapped somewhere as a child, unable to free yourself, forced to wait and hope someone would come and rescue you?

The character restricts their own movement.

Think werewolves. Perhaps the character senses they're changing and they don't want the thing they are becoming to harm anyone, so they lock themselves up. In the TV show The Vampire Diaries, Tyler was chained up in a vault underground.

Play on primal fears.

• The unknown, the dark. A dark staircase or stairwell. 
• A character is trying to flee then becomes stuck. Perhaps their leg is caught in a trap.
• The forest at night.
• Twist the normal. Not everyone can be menaced by a tiki god in Hawaii but everyone has heard a strange, ominous, groan in the middle of the night and felt the hair at the back of their neck stand on end.
• Horror often plays off of the taboo and off of suppressed emotions.[3]

Don't confuse the audience.

People can either be confused or scared. Not both.

Cheap, but effective, tricks.

In Pet Sematary Stephen King used a cat spitting and jumping into the camera to scare the pants off everyone in the audience. I know, I was there. Some think this is a cheap trick, and perhaps it is, but it was also very fun. My friends rib me about my reaction to that scene till this day.

5. What are your fears?

CW writes:

"The more we know the less frightening it becomes. Lovecraft is like a really advanced version of this. Our sanity is the firelight, and beyond it lurks not sabretooth tigers but a whole giant squirming seething pantheon of madness whose very existence is too much for mortal man’s mind to parse."[1]

Beautiful! And true.

6. What makes you anxious?

Fear is what we hope to provoke in our readers when we sit down to write a horror story, but often we have to make them anxious first. Here are a few things folks are anxious of:

• Closed spaces. (A sealed stairwell, a locked-down parking garage, etc.)
• Crowded rooms. (Or stadiums, banks, crosswalks, fairgrounds, etc.)
• Getting sick, alone. No one finding you.
• Being assaulted, robbed, etc. Dark parking lots, alleys, etc.

7. What revolts you?

Same as for anxiety. Revulsion is often the precursor of fear. Here are a few things folks sometimes find revolting:

- Snakes

- Insects

- Infectious environments

- Disarticulated body parts.

For a list of squick go here but be warned: once these images are in your mind you can't get them out! I know.

That's it for today. I'll finish my list of 17 ways to write a terrifyingly good horror story tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Update: Here's a link to the second part of this two part series on how to write a terrifyingly good horror story.

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I love and recommend it to my readers. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

On Writing Horror: A Handbook by the Horror Writers Association
"In On Writing Horror, Second Edition, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Harlan Ellison, David Morrell, Jack Ketchum, and many others tell you everything you need to know to successfully write and publish horror novels and short stories."

Writers Workshop of Horror
Winner of the 2009 Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction.
Winner of the 2009 Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Book of Non-Fiction - Editors' Choice.
"Writers Workshop of Horror focuses solely on honing the craft of writing. It includes solid advice, from professionals of every publishing level, on how to improve one's writing skills. The volume, edited by Michael Knost, includes contributions by a dream-team of nationally known authors and storytellers, many Bram Stoker Award® winners."

Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development
"By applying the foundation of the Three-Act Story Structure and then delving even deeper into the psychology of realistic and dynamic human change, Weiland offers a beat-by-beat checklist of character arc guidelines that flexes to fit any type of story."

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Links/References

1. (NSFW) 25 Things Your Should Know About Writing Horror, by Chuck Wendig over at Terribleminds.com.

2.  The thread, What makes a good horror movie, over at AbsoluteWrite.com.

3. How to Make Your Horror Screenplay More Effective, by V Renée.

- I didn't use this article when I wrote the above, but I did come across it while I was doing my research: The 5 C’s of Writing a Great Thriller Novel, by James Scott Bell over at WritersDigest.com. 

4. Character Flaws: The Ultimate Guide for Novelists

- This article isn't specifically about writing horror, but it does give a nice overview of the importance of a character's flaws. 

Photo credit: untitled by Nathan O'Nions under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

From Roots To Leaves: How To Grow A Novel

Every time I write a story my process is a little different. 

Part of the reason for this is that I like experimenting, trying new things. But I think another, deeper, reason is that, since every story is unique, so is the process of writing it. Which is my way of saying that if my musings on story structure click with you, great! If not, please take them with a very small grain of salt.

A Biological Metaphor For Story Structure: Plant Growth

We've all heard a story's structure--the underlying ebb and flow of action, events, plot and character which unite to form a story--compared to a skeleton. And that fits. I've used that metaphor myself more than once.

But, lately, another way of looking at story structure has slowly been taking root in my thoughts.

Germination

A couple of weeks ago I planted nine pumpkin sees in cute little terra cotta pots and set them on a sunny windowsill in my kitchen. I made sure they got enough water and waited.

And waited. And waited some more.

Although nothing was happening above the surface, a lot was going on inside the seed as it germinated and put down its first, tenuous, roots.

That process, between the seed germinating and the time I saw a little pale green head poke through the soil, took at least a week.

What was it doing? It was putting down roots, establishing itself. In those few days it laid the foundation for the explosive growth to come.

Using a plant metaphor to help organize a novel.

You might be wondering whether this has anything at all to do with writing or whether I've gone plant crazy. It does!

Yesterday I laid out the index cards for my WIP. I had been using the Index Card app, which I love, but I'd come to a point where I had just about all my scenes and sequels, but I wanted to shuffle a few cards around and weave in a subplot. For that I like being able to see all the cards at once and I can't do that with my app.

It took 120 index cards, two large packs of magnets, and four boards, but I did it. And, afterward, as I gazed at my four magnetic boards covered with index cards, I felt a little strange. The boards gave the room a vaguely Se7en-ish feel. But I digress.

Since yesterday I've spent quite a bit of time starring at those boards, thinking about the cards, the bits/elements of the story, then taking in the gestalt again, the arrangement of all the cards and how they flow into each other. Then I made changes here and there and repeated the process.

As I did this an idea came to me: a story's structure isn't like a skeleton. Rather, it's like a seed germinating and growing beneath the ground, establishing itself, waiting to burst forth in all its greenish splendour at the beginning of Act Two.

For example, in a four act structure the first act takes place in the Ordinary World. At the end of Act One the hero has not only accepted his Call to Adventure but is locked into it.

And that's fine. That's a great way of looking at it. But this is another way I've begun to think about it:

Act One is where the seed germinates, where it slowly unfurls and takes root, where it establishes itself.

Taking this analogy further, the first act is the story's anchor. That is, as the roots of a huge redwood anchor the tree so that it can withstand even the greatest storms so the first act anchors a story.

Let's dig into this metaphor.

Thinking of my first act, I realized that what I'm doing is introducing an event--often called the Inciting Incident--that begins the process of germination.

After the seed germinates (after the story world has been disturbed/changed/violated/radically altered) it begins slowly growing and putting down roots.

The soil/setting is crucial for this. If the soil is rich in nutrients, (interesting setting, characters 'hooked into the setting') and the temperature (a good plot) and humidity (well developed characters) are right, the new sprout will establish a healthy root system (the story will be rich, textured) and will have a the best growth rate (the story will have narrative drive/dramatic tension).

Why Act One is so important.

Children need nourishing food and a healthy physical and social environment to grow up to be the very best version of themselves they could possibly be.

It's the same for plants. And stories.

Which may help explain something I've puzzled over in my own writing. It seems that most of my effort is spent writing the first third of the story.

After I've gotten that down the rest of the story seems--I was going to say, 'to write itself' but that's not true. There's still a lot of blood, sweat and tears. BUT if that first part isn't right, if the roots of the story aren't well-laid, well-formed; if they're not healthy and strong; the rest isn't going to be either.

Without strong roots, the plant won't flourish.

That's enough for now. I was going to talk more about what sort of things need to take root in the first act, but perhaps I'll leave that for another time.

Today I've talked about how I think of a story's structure. How do you think of it?

Good writing!

Photo credit: "Cucumber seedling" by Karen Woodward under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. Based on "its first true leaf" by Sakura under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.