(NaNoWriMo Day 2): 2nd Key Scene: The Climax

I find that when I write, as in life, I need to know where I’m going in order to get there. Yesterday I tackled the first key story scene, now I’ll leapfrog to the second to last: the Climax.

What happens at the Climax will determine everything else in the story, at least in terms of which goals feature in the preceding scenes, sequences and acts.

Subplots: An Aside

I’m not going to go into subplots in any detail today, but I thought I would at least mention them. A subplot has the same structure as any storyline (this sequence is from Shawn Coyne's book The Story Grid): Inciting Incident, Escalating Complications, a Midpoint Crises, a Climax and a Resolution.

In a main arc, all or most of the key story scenes must be onstage—think of a murder mystery where you don’t actually get to ‘see’ the body, you only hear about it after the fact through dialogue or narration, but you don’t get to see it through the viewpoint character’s senses. That would be FRUSTRATING!

In a subplot, on the other hand, omitting key scenes—especially minor ones—is absolutely necessary. After all, if a subplot and the main story arc each have equal weight then you would be writing two stories rather than one. [1]

Depending on the length of your final manuscript you’ll have at least one subplot. The key thing is that the ending of each subplot should integrate back into the main story line in such a way that it ratchets up the stakes and propels the story forward.

For example, in The Matrix Cypher betrays Morpheus to the Machines in exchange for being reinserted into the Matrix. That’s the subplot. (The story question in that movie was: Is Neo the One?) In the first of the three big setbacks, Cypher betrays the resistance and kills Switch.

Cypher is about to kill Neo when he says something to the effect, “If Neo really is the One then I won’t be able to kill him, some kind of miracle will have to happen to stop me.” Right then someone I thought was dead gets up, grabs a weapon and kills Cypher. This closes out the subplot AND ties into the main arc by adding weight to the idea that, despite the Oracle’s denial, Neo is indeed the One.

Let’s test the subplot: 

a. Were the stakes raised because of the resolution of the subplot? Yes! Agents have captured Morpheus and are torturing him for the codes that, if surrendered, will snuff out the last spark of human resistance.

b. Does the resolution of the subplot advance the main plot? Yes! The Oracle has told Neo he will have to choose between his life and Morpheus’ life. Neo decides Morpheus must live and goes to save him. This launches us into the last long and wonderful action-packed race to the finish. Terrific subplot!

c. Was the subplot itself well-formed? Yes, though I won’t step through its structure here.

The Story Question

The story question is simply: Will the protagonist succeed in achieving her goal? For example, here is the story question for Jim Butcher’s novel Storm Front:

“When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago, wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer. But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard, a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police Department?” [2]

Now, let's focus on what this post is really about, the climactic scene of your story.

The Climax: Breaking It Down

Yesterday I said that the Inciting Incident was the most important scene in your story—and it is. If the Inciting Incident falls flat, readers will become bored and stop reading. The Climax, though, is the second most important scene in a story. As someone once said to me: the first few pages of a novel sell that novel, the ending of the novel sells the next novel.

What is it?

The Climax answers the story question. It unambiguously shows the reader whether the protagonist won or lost the final confrontation with the antagonist.

The Climax should be unexpected. The best climaxes surprise us in the moment and then, upon reflection, seem inevitable.

The Climax should unfold because of the choices the main characters (especially the protagonist and antagonist) have made throughout the story.

Where is it?

The Climax usually occurs at some point in the last ten or five percent of the story. After the story question is answered the story is over. All that is left to do is wrap things up and cash out the stakes.

How is it connected to the protagonist’s desires?

Since the Climax unfolds from the choices the main characters make in the story—especially the choices the protagonist makes—and since the protagonist’s choices are driven by their external (and possibly internal) desire, ultimately, it is the protagonist’s desires that drive the action at the Climax.

How is it structured?

I’m not normally going to break down the structure of a key scene, but the climax strikes me as the most persnickety of the key scenes. (Here I draw from Jim Butcher’s article, Story Climax.)

a) Specific and Vivid

A specific, vivid, concrete event should mark the start of the Climax.

b) Protagonist is Alone

The protagonist needs to meet the antagonist by herself, alone, without backup.

c) Protagonist is Active

The protagonist needs to be active, she must bring the fight to the antagonist rather than the other way around.

d) False Failure

There should be one last gut-wrenching moment where your readers think (again!) that all is lost (e.g., Neo dies at the end of The Matrix; he gets back up, but the death itself is an gut-twisting ‘oh no!’ moment.).

e) Actions Must be Voluntary

The hero needs to make one last choice. Jim Butcher writes:

“Your protagonist has to CHOOSE whether or not to stay true to his purpose or to let himself be swayed by fear, by temptation, by weariness, or by anything else. In that Dark Moment, he has to make the call that ultimately reveals who your protagonist really is, deep down.” [2]

Further, this choice should be one that any rational person would consider completely insane. Why would anyone turn away from the only thing that has any hope of working to do thing that can’t work! But sometimes your protagonist has to turn away from the sure thing, from the way things are done, and do the apparently irrational thing that takes faith, that draws on their special skill, their special talent, their special way of seeing the world. Trust yourself Luke, use the force.

f) Dramatic reversal 

Jim Butcher writes, “The intrinsic nature of the story or of the protagonist's character influences or causes the events of the confrontation to be changed in an unexpected way, causing an outcome that is in harmony with the principles of poetic justice.” [2]

In other words, the solution your protagonist comes up with, why she wins the final confrontation, has to stem from your protagonist’s character, her strengths and weaknesses, his internal and external desires.

For more on this see: Jim Butcher On How To Write A Suspenseful Story Climax

The Climax: Examples

At the climax of The Matrix Neo becomes the One and transcends the Matrix. He lives in it but is not of it, he is no longer bound by it. Neo’s transformation reaches back to the desire he had at the beginning of the movie, to know the answer to the question, “What is the Matrix?” In general, Neo wanted to know the truth about the world around him and his place it in. You know, the simple stuff. ;)

Also, notice that Cypher tells Neo (and it seems as though he’s genuinely trying to help) to just do what they all do when they see an agent: run away. And Neo does this. Even after he fights Agent Smith in the penupulate fight of that movie, Neo is forced to flee. Agent Smith is operating on a higher plane, one no human has ever reached. It is only when Neo is forced to stop running (by being shot in the chest several times!) that something entirely illogical happens. After Trinity tells Neo she loves him and gives him a kiss he comes back to life. He has achieved his goal and now transcends the Matrix. Essentially, love played the role here that faith/trust played in the Matrix.

I’ll give you another example just because I loved the ending so much! In Edge of Tomorrow the protagonist, Cage, is branded a coward. This is because when given a choice between fighting and fleeing Cage displayed a decided preference for fleeing. By the middle of the movie, though, Cage has gained some courage and he is learning to care about the good of the group and not just his own personal good. By the end of the movie he is willing to lay down his life for his team and for the greater good. There is a very clear, consistent, entertaining progression from cowardice to courage.

Testing The Scene Example

Does the climax of The Matrix answer the story question, “Is Neo the One?” Yes! We get to see (as much as such a thing can be seen) Neo transform into the One. We also see his power in action when he destroys Agent Smith.

Did the climax of The Matrix surprise us? It surprised me. Even though I was fairly sure Neo was the One it did make me reconsider when Smith shoots and kills Neo. At that moment I honestly thought Neo was going to die and fail in his quest. So I was surprised when, after suitable prompting by Trinity, he gets up and obliterates Smith.

Does the Climax unfold because of the choices of the main characters? Yes. Neo chose to rescue Morpheus, and he did this believing that he wasn’t the One. He did this believing his fate would be to simply die but that his death would ensure Morpheus would live.

How the Climax is implemented in three genres: Action, Romance & Mystery

Action Genre

The Climax Scene is the ultimate confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist. In the action genre—as, indeed, in all genres—the protagonist and antagonist come into direct and final opposition. There can be no ambiguity that, this time, only one of them will walk away from the fight.

Romance Genre

The Climax is where the lovers get back together.

We haven’t looked at this scene yet, but the All Hope is Lost point in a romance is where the lovers break up, and this breakup seems final. Irrevocable. There is no possible way these two people can have any future with each other. The Climax settles whether their breakup really is forever. In the overwhelming majority of romance stories, they join together.

It’s important to note, though, that when the lovers reconcile it is because something deep within one or both of them has changed. They were incompatible because of something essential to each of them—or something they thought was essential. Often this happens in the Proof of Love scene. One or both of them do something selfless for the other even though there is no hope of reconciliation. This act of selflessness demonstrates the change that has occurred, or is occurring, within.

Murder Mystery Genre

In a mystery story the Climax is the big reveal. Here the sleuth goes over each person's motive, means and opportunity for committing the crime. In so doing, all the clues are trotted out and the sleuth explains how each relates to the murder. Most of the clues will prove to either be about crimes (or, possibly, titivating embarrassments) that have nothing to do with the murder.

I’ve written a number of articles on the topic of writing a murder mystery. If you’d like to give them a look I've listed them here along with a brief summary: How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery. (At some point next year I hope to publish the information contained in those many, scattered, articles into a medium sized book.)

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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. :-)

Today I'd like to recommend a book that's on my desk right now. I love it! It's basically a writing prompt generator that's also a pulp-and-paper book. Just now I opened it at random and here's the prompt I got: Upon winning the lottery, a gold prospector develops short-term memory loss. Here's another: On vacation for the first time in years, a night watchman goes on a blind date. If you're a story geek or you love playing around with writing prompt, this book will make you happy! Here's the link: The Amazing Story Generator: Creates Thousands of Writing Prompts.

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That's it for today! Thanks for reading and I'll talk to you again tomorrow, when I talk about another key story scene.

Word count so far: 1678
Word count for this article: About 2,100 words.
Word count so far: 3,778 words.

Notes:

1. This does happen. Some stories are told from the viewpoint of multiple characters, the aptly named viewpoint characters. For example, the lovers in a romance are often viewpoint characters, each finding their voice every other chapter. Sometimes this is effective, sometimes not. But if this is the first long-form story you’ve written don’t worry about subplots. At least, hold off on thinking too much about them until you’ve got the main arc hammered out.

2. Story Climax, Jim Butcher.

(NaNoWriMo Day 1) First Key Scene: The Inciting Incident

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. —Stephen King

Welcome to NaNoWriMo madness! Every day this month my plan is to blog about a key scene, one that pretty much any story of any genre has to include. Then I’ll take a closer look at how this scene, this structure, this general idea, is implemented in three popular genres: Action, Romance and Mystery.

Today I'm going to talk about the Inciting Incident.

The Inciting Incident

What is it?

Exciting. The Inciting Incident—or the Exciting Incident as it is sometimes called—is the most important event of your story.

Shatters the status quo: The Inciting Incident shatters the protagonist’s status quo and sets events in motion. Everything before this event, this scene, is stasis. Equilibrium. After the Inciting Incident the story has a trajectory, a direction.

Necessary.  If this event did not happen there would be no story.

To sum up: the Inciting Incident does two things; it has two functions. First, it excites the attention of the audience and, second, it draws the main character (either immediately or after a chain of actions and reactions) into the story.

Where is it?

Although the exact position of this event will vary depending on the genre and the particular story, it generally occurs in the first ten percent of your manuscript. It’s not going to be the first thing you use to capture your reader's attention (so not on the first few pages) but since there’s really no story without this event, it needs to happen soon.

How is it connected to the protagonist’s desires?

Note: Most characters have an internal desire and an external desire but all have an external desire.

Whatever genre you are writing in, this event needs to be connected to your protagonist’s desires, to her goal. For example, as we’ve seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark the Inciting Incident has to do with Indy’s lifelong dream of finding the Ark.

At this moment in the story the protagonist probably has no idea what achieving her goal will cost her, or even whether she will actually want her object of desire if and when she claims it.

Before I move on to look at the form Inciting Incidents take in various genres, let’s look at an example.

The Inciting Incident: An Example

The Silence of the Lambs by Robert Harris is one of my favorite books, one of my favorite movies and, IMHO, one of the more successful adaptations of a book to the big screen. I’m pretty sure you’ve either read the book or watched the movie so, before you read on, think about it. What do you think is the Inciting Incident?

(* elevator music *)

(* theme from Jeopardy *)

Ready? Okay. The Inciting Incident occurs right after Clarice Starling is pulled off her training run by someone who looks official and who Starling calls “Sir.” She is told that Crawford wants to see her in his office. This creates a question in the reader/viewers mind: What does Crawford—a person who can send other folks on errands and who has an office—want with this cadet? Is she in trouble?

The Inciting Incident occurs when Jack Crawford offers Starling the assignment to get Dr. Hannibal Lector to take a survey and, while she’s at it, to attempt to get as much information from him as she can.

Here's another example, this time from Star Wars IV: A New Hope. Although there doesn't seem to be consensus on the point, I'm one of those who think that, in A New Hope, the Inciting Incident was when Darth Vader, seeking the plans for the Death Star the Resistance 'acquired,' attacks and boards Princess Leia's shuttle.

When Darth Vader attacks Princess Leia's diplomatic craft Vader introduces an imbalance that initiates a chain of events that eventually involves Luke's family and lead to Luke's Call to Adventure.

Granted, the Call to Adventure doesn't come till much later, but the Inciting Incident (Darth Vader boarding the shuttle) has set in motion a series of events which will culminate in the Call to adventure (Obi-Wan Kenobi asks Luke Skywalker to help him deliver the plans for the Death Star to the resistance base on Alderaan).

Testing the Scene

Is it necessary for the other scenes to happen: Yes! If Starling hadn’t accepted the assignment (her acceptance of the Call to Adventure) then none of the other events in the story would have occurred.

Is it exciting? Sure, though not as exciting as the scene where Starling meets Dr. Lector for the first time (that was one of the most riveting scenes in the movie).

Does it connect to Starling’s external desire? Yes! As you will recall the antagonist in SoTL is Jame Gumb, the serial killer who has been dubbed “Buffalo Bill.” Starling has two overriding desires in this story. The first, internal, is to silence the lambs. The second, external, is to catch the serial killer. You’ll notice that it’s here that we first learn of Buffalo Bill and his crimes—news clippings line the wall behind Crawford’s desk. Also, this is the first time the suggestion of a connection between Dr. Lector and Buffalo Bill is made.

How the Inciting Incident is implemented in three genres: Action, Romance & Mystery

Action Genre

Action stays very close to what I’ve just said, but it the excitement needs to be cranked up. (For more on this see Shawn Coyne’s book The Story Grid.) In an action story this event really does have to reach out and grab the reader’s imagination by the short and curlies.

For example, In Raider’s of the Lost Ark this was the scene where Indy finds out the Nazi’s have discovered Tanis, the resting place of the Ark. For me, that was a great hook.

Romance Genre

The Inciting Incident in a love story is the event that initially throws the two characters together and into conflict. Typically this occurs when they meet for the first time.

Generally, two things are communicated to the reader.

First, there is something special between these two characters. They’ve never felt quite this way about anyone before. Sometimes the attraction is purely sexual and sometimes there is more, it depends on the genre and subgenre of the story.

Second, they can’t stand each other. He’s too proud, she’s too prejudiced. He rich and titled, she is poor and a nobody. He is the warden of a prison, she is an escaped prisoner. He is a vampire, she is a vampire hunter. The list goes on. The important thing is that there is, baked into who these two characters are, an inherent incompatibility, a reason why it would be pure foolishness to even think these two people could ever be together.

Mystery Genre

We saw that with an action story we want to ratchet up the excitement, well in a mystery we want to ratchet up the (wait for it ...) mystery. We want to emphasize the strangeness of the event. Imagine that your pen starts to glow a brilliant emerald green or your cat gives you dating advice.

If you’re writing a murder mystery this is usually where the murder happens. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t have to be where the murder happens, but it almost always is. And that makes sense. After all, who-dun-it is the central question! Investigation cannot begin until a body is found.

I’ve found that often when the murder mystery is included as a subplot then the discovery of the body will either be combined with the Inciting Incident of the main plot or the body will be discovered later on in the 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. :-)

Today I want to recommend a book that transformed how I thought about storytelling, Robert McKee's Story. Granted, Story was written primarily for screenwriters, but anyone interested in story structure will find this information indispensable. From the blurb: "In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen."

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That’s it! Tomorrow we will go over another key story scene. Stay tuned and good writing! Please share your word counts, if that would help motivate you. :-)

My word count: 1,678 words written, 1210 published. That’s it so far! I’m going to continue writing and I’ll update my wordcount tomorrow. :-)

Preparing For NaNoWriMo

Every day in November I’m going to lay out the structural bones of a crucial story scene.  I'll then break this scene down for three genres: Action, Romance, and Mystery. Then I'll talk about the different requirements of each. Today I'm kicking things off by talking about what we can do to prepare for the insanity that is NaNoWriMo.

At least, that’s the plan! This is going to be an adventure for me as well since, over the month of November, I’ll be blogging a book, only a non-fiction one. That’s something I’ve never done before!

My hope is that my daily blog posts will provide you with a seed, a start, something to hang your story ideas around—if you want it. Folks have been writing stories for millennia without all this explicit talk of story structure, so if you don’t feel you want or need it, that’s great! Go you!!

But, if you’d like to get an idea regarding what you might want to write on any particular day, or if you want to read something that might help get you started, then please drop by, pull up a seat and let’s write! :-)

Planning for NaNoWriMo

Here are a few things to consider as we head into the month of November (I expand on each of these, below):

1. What is your writing plan? How many words would you like to write a day?
2. What point of view will you write from? First, second or third?
3. What is the core of your story?
4. What is the essence of your protagonist and antagonist?
5. What genre, or genres, will you write in?
6. What is the setting?

1. Designing a Writing Plan.

How many days per week do you want to write?

For instance, you might want to plan on writing six days a week so you can have one day of wiggle room. Life has a way of derailing even the best laid plans, so giving yourself one day off a week isn’t a bad idea. That would give you 26 days to write 50,000 words which means your word count per writing day would be 1,924 words. This is what I did when I participated in NaNoWriMo and it worked out well.

On the other hand, if you plan on writing every day, your word count per day would only be 1667 words.

2. What Point of View Will You Write From? 

Will you write from the first, second or third person perspective? If you choose the first person perspective (which is my favorite!) then, although there are exceptions, you will likely have one viewpoint character throughout. Many of the first person perspective narratives I’ve read include short chapters written from a third person perspective featuring an important secondary character, but this is the sort of thing we’re not going to worry about on the zero draft.

If you choose to write from the third person perspective, then although one character will be the protagonist/hero, you will often have multiple viewpoint characters. For instance, many romance stories involve two viewpoint characters—the two lovers—and alternate their viewpoints every second chapter. Generally speaking, the point of view you open your story with will be that of your protagonist.

3. What is the Core of Your Story?

Generally speaking, a story is about a person (the protagonist) who wants something desperately but is repeatedly prevented from acquiring it by a person/force (the antagonist). Finally the matter comes to a head and the protagonist and antagonist face off in a final confrontation that will settle things once and for all.

If you would like to read more about story structure, here are a few articles:

A Story Structure In Three Acts
STORY STRUCTURE: 10 Simple Keys to Effective Plot Structure
Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction
Short Stories And Their Structure

4. Character Development

Let’s start thinking about our characters:

• Who is your protagonist?
• What does he/she do for a living? What would he/she like to do for a living?
• Is he/she romantically involved with anyone? Does he/she want to be romantically involved with anyone?
• Does he/she have children? If so, how many and what are their ages?
• What is his/her biggest fear?
• What is his/her darkest secret?
• Is he/she an optimist or a pessimist?
• Does he/she have a hobby?
• Is he/she obsessed with anything?
• What does he/she fear above all else? What does he/she love above all else?
• Is he/she religious? Superstitious?
• Does he/she own a vehicle? If so, what kind?
• What special skill or talent does he/she have?
• What could he/she NOT do, even if their life depended on it?

Here’s the most important question of all: What does this character want more than anything else? This is important because it determines the story question that everything else revolves around.

The character's main desire could be something your character doesn't know they want. For example, in the movie Titanic, Rose wanted freedom more than anything else, though I'm not sure she was aware of this at the beginning of the story. On the other hand, Frodo knew exactly what he wanted: to return the One Ring to Mordor.

After you’ve answered these questions with reference to the protagonist, try to answer them with reference to the antagonist.

Keep in mind that the goals of the protagonist and antagonist must be mutually exclusive: if the antagonist gets what he wants then the protagonist can't. Similarly, if the protagonist gets what he wants then the antagonist can't.

Here are additional questions that can help you get to know a character:

Character Question List
Character Checklist
Writer’s Digest: A Checklist for Developing Your Hero and Heroine

5. The Genre

Let's take a look at what Shawn Coyne has to say about genre:

"A Genre is a label that tells the reader/audience what to expect. Genres simply manage audience expectations. (The Story Grid)"

If you're writing a love story then your readers are going to expect a first meeting between the lovers, a confession of love, a first kiss, a break-up, and so on. (See: 6 Scenes Any Love Story Must Have)

In this sense a genre is a bit like a promise you give your readers. If your title is, "Murder at Whitemill" and the back blurb identifies it as a cosy then no matter how inspired your prose your readers are going to come for you with pitchforks if, say, no murder occurs or no one is brought to justice for the crime.

This is why it's important to know which genre, or genres, you are writing in and what the conventions of that genre are. That is, what readers of that genre will expect of your story.

6. The Setting

What is the setting? Where do the events of the story take place?

For instance, in The Matrix the Ordinary World is an illusion—an illusion of cities and office jobs and juicy steaks—and the Special World (reality) is one of human batteries and war between humans and machines. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the Ordinary World is (roughly speaking) England and the Special World is Hogwarts.

The world of the adventure (this includes both the Ordinary and Special Worlds) is sculpted by the writer to provide a crucible for the protagonist. The setting is a cauldron, a crucible, designed to test the main character’s strengths and force him to face, and overcome, his weaknesses. Or, if it’s a tragedy, to fail and die.

Rather than go into this now, here's a post I wrote on this topic: Mind Worms and the Essence of Drama.

See also:
How To Give Your Character Meaningful Flaws
The Key To Making A Character Multidimensional: Pairs of Opposites

Just Breathe

If thinking about all this makes you hyperventilate, don’t worry about it! NaNoWriMo is about writing a zero draft, so it is about creativity and discovery.

I think the object of NaNoWriMo is to get as much of your story developed as possible in the month of November.

For some of us, that will involve writing 50,000+ words. For others, it will mean writing 40,000 or 30,000 or 20,000 or 10,000 or 5,000 or even just 1,000 words. And that’s okay!

If you develop a plan for your story, and begin implementing that plan, then you’ve won in the sense that you've pushed your story forward. If participating in NaNoWriMo gets you to write even one word more than you would have otherwise then, in my books, you’ve won!

For tomorrow: Try to figure out what it is your protagonist wants more than anything. Try to figure out the story goal.

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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. :-)

For a different perspective on NaNoWriMo here is the excellent, No Plot, No Problem!, by Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo. From the book blurb: "Chris Baty ... has completely revised and expanded his definitive handbook for extreme noveling. Chris pulls from over 15 years of results-oriented writing experience to pack this compendium with new tips and tricks, ranging from week-by-week quick reference guides to encouraging advice from authors, and much more."

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That's it! Enough preliminaries and preparation! Got your writer's cap on? Awesome! Know what your character wants above and beyond all else? Excellent! I'll talk to you tomorrow. :-)

Writing to Entertain

I’m going to pick up the thread of my last blog post where I talked about two things that drive us to write: First, the desire to communicate. This is the desire to share ourselves, our thoughts, our souls, with others. Second, the desire to entertain.

Today I cash out what exactly I mean by entertainment and look at how, as writers, we can entertain our readers. The answer: To evoke a reader's emotion, the reader needs to identify with the character. Which means she has to have clearly defined goals, obstacles to those goals, she needs to have something to lose and something to gain, and there needs to be some sort of urgency.

In short, eliciting emotion has everything to do with story structure.

Entertainment: The Evoking of Emotion

Most readers want to be entertained. To entertain another person is to evoke their emotions. Even in some of Agatha Christie’s more cerebral whodunits there was the sedate emotion of curiosity.

Stephen King writes for many reasons but one of them is to entertain others, especially his wife. The following passage is from his book, On Writing:

“When I write a scene that strikes me as funny (like the pie-eating contest in “The Body” or the execution rehearsal in The Green Mile), I am also imagining my I.R. finding it funny. I love it when Tabby laughs out of control—she puts her hands up as if to say I surrender and these big tears go rolling down her cheeks. I love it, that’s all, fucking adore it, and when I get hold of something with that potential, I twist it as hard as I can. During the actual writing of such a scene (door closed), the thought of making her laugh—or cry—is in the back of my mind. During the rewrite (door open), the question—is it funny enough yet? scary enough?—is right up front. I try to watch her when she gets to a particular scene, hoping for at least a smile or—jackpot, baby!—that big belly-laugh with the hands up, waving in the air.”

Making someone else feel good—or feel anything for that matter!—is a thrill. Seeing them laugh or even smile. Seeing them tear up, it’s ... well, as King says, I just love it. It’s a high.

That’s entertainment.

And if you give people a story that makes them laugh and cry, love and hate, they will think their time well-wasted.

But how does one do that? How does one manipulate a reader’s emotions?

The Writer’s Quest

The question of how to evoke a reader’s emotions has defined my writer’s quest for most of my adult life. I want to write a story my father would have loved so much he would beg me to tell another.

Being able to make another person laugh is a valuable skill. Being able to make everyone within earshot hang on your every word has always been advantageous. Even before we had currency, travelers who could tell engaging stories bartered their skill for food and lodging. (In fact, this still happens. My friend was nearly killed on her last vacation—she’s fine now—and, in her words, ‘ate out on that story for a month’!)

What entertains us? You might think that the obvious answers are: sex, violence, death, and so on. And that’s probably right as far as it goes but I think it misses the point.

If I showed you the picture of someone who had been brutally murdered, my guess is that you would not be entertained. In fact, you’d likely be vaguely nauseous and not at all happy with me.

But, yes. For obvious reasons death interests us. A few days ago a friend called to tell me his dog, Zeus, had passed away. I had walked Zeus for years and, of course, had become attached. We both cried and reminisced. But then I asked: How did he die? That mattered to me. As it happens, he died peacefully in his sleep at the end of a long life. I took some solace in that. But I would have felt very different if, say, he had been hit by a car.

Yes, we slow down to gawk at the van with the crumpled front end on the side of the road, but what question do we ask: What happened?

I believe that humans aren’t interested in death as much as we are the story behind it. We want to know: Why? When? What? Where? How? We don’t want that horrible thing to happen to us. We think if we know, maybe we can avoid it.

Going back to something I touched on a moment ago, if I showed someone—let’s call her Beth—a picture of a gruesome murder, I doubt she would be happy with me. The picture itself isn’t entertaining. But Beth would be very interested in the answers to the following questions:

• Who was the victim? Was he a stranger or did I know him? 
• Where did the victim die? Next door or two states over?
• When did the victim die? 50 years ago or yesterday?
• Who killed the victim? Is the killer a stranger or do I know him?
• How did the victim die? Was it a quick death or was it slow and painful?

Reading this, putting myself in Beth’s place, it isn’t the photograph of the dead man that entertains me, it is that one of my goals is put in jeopardy: keeping myself and those I care about safe. It is that automatic, vicarious, sense of danger that puts all my senses on high alert.

These are also the kinds of questions we ask when we’re writing a story.

Beth’s goal: To protect herself and her family from the killer.
The opposition: The killer.
The Stakes: The lives of her family.
Urgency: If the victim lived next door and was killed a few hours ago, then the situation is urgent.

As I see Beth act I identify with her. I care whether she achieves her goal. I care when she suffers a setback. I care when she reaches the All Hope Is Lost Point and it seems she cannot succeed. And, finally, I have a warm cozy sense of well-being as the hero/protagonist bests the forces of opposition and, against all odds, achieves her goal.

My point is that entertainment isn’t static, it comes from the structure itself, from the arrangement of the many parts.

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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. :-)

Today I would like to share a link to one of Dwight V. Swain’s excellent books, “Creating Characters: How to Build Story People.” I bought this years ago and it has helped me enormously. Here’s the blurb:

“The core of character,” he [Swain] says in chapter 1, “lies in each individual story person’s ability to care about something; to feel implicitly or explicitly, that something is important.” Building on that foundation—the capacity to care—Swain takes the would-be writer step-by-step through the fundamentals of finding and developing [characters].

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That’s it! I hope you could make some sense of my ramblings. NaNoWriMo is starting soon! My next post will be on Halloween, Monday, October 31 and then I will post every single day in November, outlining a key scene in a novel. So, if you’re NaNo-ing this year, swing on by!

How to Write Something Others Will Want to Read: In Defense of Constraints

Are you competing in NaNoWriMo this year? I am! Although I’m putting a twist on it. Each day I'll blog about a key story scene as well as what elements it should have. My hope is that my post will provide inspiration and help you organize your story, like an oyster producing a pearl because of the irritating piece of sand that got inside its shell. (Not that my blog post is an irritating piece of sand! Perhaps I need to re-think that analogy. ;)

As my readers know, I’ve been interested in and written about the structure of stories for years.

One question I’m routinely asked is:

You say there are only two hard and fast rules of writing (you must read and you must write) but then you go on about the structure of stories. Sure, you say it’s optional—that wonderful stories can be written which conform to no recognizable structure. But then WHY spend so much of your time blogging about story structure if a story can be perfectly good without it?

This NaNoWriMo I’m going to be writing a lot about structure and so it’s important for me to answer this question. That’s what this post is going to be about, a defense of structure as well as an explanation of why this topic is so important to me on a personal level.

In Defense of Structure: Constraints Aid Creativity

When I was a child I had horrible nightmares.

To try and prevent these nightmares, my dad would tell me a story before I went to sleep, a different story every night. Sometimes he told me about the tiny village he grew up in, the chickens he raised, the pair of wolfhounds that defended him against rabid wolves, or the mean camel his parents made him take care of.

Other times Dad would put his own twist on folktales (how the lion got to be king) but, often, he would just make up a story.

Whatever story he told me there was one constant: I wanted more. I would always beg him to tell me another, and another. Dad would complain: “Karen, I'm going through all my material! I have to save something for tomorrow.”

Well, one day after I’d started kindergarten the inevitable happened. I decided I would tell my dad a story. It went something like this:

This morning Mom made my breakfast and then I put on my coat and that was good because it was SO COLD. Then I saw Jan and we ran to the door and I won! Then Mrs. Bloom taught English but no one likes her because she smells funny. Then the bell rang and I came home!

My dad was not impressed.

My dad was a natural storyteller. He never read an article about how to write, nothing about “Three Tips to Build Suspense” or anything having to do with The Hero’s Journey and if you asked him what an arc was he’d talk to you about Noah!

And yet he told wonderful, interesting, suspenseful stories.

That first, failed, performance changed me. It gave me a desire, a goal, that has lasted my entire life: I want to do what my dad did, I want to be able to tell a story he would want to listen to as much as I wanted to listen to his stories.

My Writer’s Journey

My parents were readers so it was natural that I became one. It was also natural that I began to write my own stories.

After reading C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien I was all about the soft magical silence of a lonely glade, or the feeling of aloneness—but not loneliness—that comes from sitting on the art gallery steps downtown and letting the sights and sounds of the crowd sweep over me.

When I was a tween I would write hopelessly atmospheric non-stories and foist them off on my mother to read. She always came back with, “Oh it was lovely, Dear.”

“Really!?” I would say, excited beyond all reason. “Which part did you like best?" I asked. "Was it the part about the leaf turning yellow?”

“Err... Yes, yes, I think it was,” my mother said, her smile a shade too tight, too stretched.

Then one day I became suspicious and, after Mom said she liked my story, I asked, "What did you think about the gorilla? Was it too much?"

There was, of course, no gorilla.

“On no! I liked the gorilla,” my unsuspecting mother said, absently flipping through her recipe cards, thinking about dinner.

“Ah ha!” I said, my voice exploding into the otherwise quiet room. “You never read it!”

I feel guilty about that now. Mom’s cheeks went bright pink and she spluttered something incoherent. Finally she said, “Well, you give me so much to read and I’m so busy. Sometimes I just want to rest.”

I do give her kudos for telling the truth. Putting what she said another way: it was boring.

And it was.

My mother and father didn’t make allowances for age or inexperience. If a story was boring then it was boring and—regardless of who wrote it—they weren’t going to read it. Life’s too short.

And I get it. I do. Now. At the time they might as well have put my little writer’s heart in a vice and crushed it.

At that time my parents were the entirety of my audience. They were my world. More than anything, I wanted them to want to read my work, to read it because they liked it.

One thing I’ve wondered is ... Why? Why was I so passionate that they like my writing, my stories?

The Intimacy of Prose

Although it took me a while to puzzle it out, I think I know. Consider this:

Although it depends on the kind of story we read (some viewpoints are relentlessly external) we often get to know not only what a character looks like on the outside—long brown hair, button nose, suspiciously large mole—but what she is like on the inside. We know what she thinks, what she feels. We know when she lies and we know why. We know if she is in love and with whom and how that makes her feel.

In short, we feel we completely understand the character because we know her in all her glorious particularity. And with that understanding comes a feeling of intimacy, of familiarity and acceptance. We like them. These characters can become like our friends, our family.

When I was a child all my characters were me. I wrote about myself, about my internal states, my loves and likes and desires, about my perspective on the world. And I thought if I did it right that the people who read my work might come to feel about me the way I had come to feel about my favorite characters.

Two Motivations For Creating Stories

Broadly speaking, I think there are two reasons why I write—and I don’t think I’m alone in this. First, as you've seen, I write to communicate. Second, I write to entertain. I think that, in practice, these two motivations are intermingled. Let's take a look at each.

Writing as Communication

In On Writing, Stephen King tells us a secret: writing is telepathy. He writes:

“And here we go—actual telepathy in action. You’ll notice I have nothing up my sleeves and that my lips never move. Neither, most likely, do yours.

“Look—here’s a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.

“Do we see the same thing? We’d have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth which is turkey red, some will see one that’s scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To colorblind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome—my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out.

“.... The most interesting thing here isn’t even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It’s an eight. This is what we’re looking at, and we all see it. I didn’t tell you. You didn’t ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We’re not even in the same year together, let alone the same room … except we are together. We’re close.

“We’re having a meeting of the minds.”

The thing about communication is that it only really works if we’re honest.

Writing is telepathy and telepathy is communication. We are communicating our thoughts but not just our thoughts. When we write we cannot help but communicate how we see the world, our likes and our loves, our very soul.

For me, this is what is meant by, “The truth inside the lie.”

Some people write because they want to share themselves—how they see things, their worldview, their unique perspective—with others. Of course, this isn’t the only reason anyone writes. If it was, then their story would probably be as entertaining as that first story I told when I was 5!

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I personally have loved 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. :-)

Today I would like to share a link to a book I’ve just published! It’s called How to Write a Choose Your Own Adventure Story. Years ago I wrote a post about how to write a CYOA story and it went on to become one of my most popular. Then I realized why: there were no books on the subject. So I wrote one! If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at writing a CYOA story, it will give you a place to start. If you read it, I would love to know what you thought of it!

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Okay, that’s it! This was a long blog post. Sorry about that! I’ll pick up where I left off next time and talk about writing as entertainment. I’ll go over why I believe writers need to care about the structure of their stories. Stay tuned!

6 Scenes Any Love Story Must Have

What follows is a general structure for any love story. I can't claim credit for this. I’ve begun listening to the Story Grid, a podcast put together by editor Shawn Coyne and book marketer Tim Grahl.

You all know how interested I am in Story Structure. Well! The other day Shawn Coyne went over the basic structure of a love story. What follows has been taken from these two podcast episodes:

The Most Important Genre
How to Write a Great Love Story

Some of the examples, below, are mine and I do, occasionally, draw from my own knowledge of romance books. But the structure itself (unless indicated otherwise) is all Shawn Coyne's.

What Is A Love Story?

For our purposes, a love story is a romance combined with the possibility of physical intimacy. In a love story, "The protagonist pursues or runs away from an intimate bond with another human being." (The Story Grid)

The object of the protagonist's desire: an intimate relationship.

Kinds of Love Stories

There are three kinds of love stories: obsession stories, courtship stories and intimacy stories.

Obsession Story

Obsession stories are driven by issues revolving around desire.

Question: Will Jan and Adam’s twisted passion for each other lead to ruin?

Obsession stories generally have tragic endings.

At the beginning of the story the lovers despise each other but are also profoundly attracted to each other.

At the end of the story one or both of the lovers are dead.

Courtship Story

Courtship stories are driven by issues revolving around commitment. The overwhelming majority of love stories fall into this category.

Question: Will Jan and Adam commit to each other?

Courtship stories have happy endings.

At the beginning of the story Jan and Adam may or may not be dating, but (this is the important point) they haven’t made any sort of commitment to each other.

At the end of the story the lovers have committed to each other and their relationship.

There are two kinds of courtship stories: romantic comedies and dramas.

Intimacy Story

Intimacy stories are driven by issues revolving around truthfulness and faithfulness.

Question: Will Jan and Adam remain faithful to each other?

Judging from my own experience reading romances, I believe Intimacy Stories generally, though not always, have happy endings.

Six Scenes Any Love Story Must Have

In what follows I use a three act story structure. If you would like to read more about this sort of story structure I’ve written an article: A Story Structure in Three Acts.

1. Lovers meet.

This is just what it sounds like. The two main characters meet for the first time.

Before Jan and Adam meet the reader needs to have a good feeling for who the character is. So, for instance, if we are experiencing this story through Jan’s point of view, we would want to know what her main desire is (apart from finding someone to love!) as well as the obstacle to her fulfilling this desire. It would also be nice to know her biggest strength as well as at least one weakness.

Character creation is more complex than that, but I think readers need to have a hint, know at least these things, before Jan meets Adam. That said, readers don’t have to know all this about Adam before they meet, they can learn about him as Jan herself does.

Structure: In many of the stories I’ve read, the lovers first meeting is often the Inciting Incident.

2. Confession of love.

On The Big Bang Theory, when Leonard told Penny he loved her, she broke up with him. She wasn’t ready for commitment; at least, not with him.

In some of the romance books I’ve read the event that breaks the lovers apart isn’t a confession of love.  Instead it is (what is perceived as) an inherent incompatibility.

For example, imagine Jan is a university student and Adam is a lonely billionaire. Adam’s friend, Martha, discovers Adam and Jan are lovers and, jealous, she lies to Jan about Adam. Jan naively believes Martha and breaks up with Adam.

Structure: In many of the stories I’ve read, the confession of love occurs at the end of the first act.

3. First kiss.

It doesn’t have to be a kiss! In most of the romance books I’ve read the couple takes their relationship to the next level at the Midpoint. For some couples this might mean handholding, or a kiss, for others it could mean physical intimacy.

Structure: the First Kiss event occurs at the Midpoint.

4. Lovers breakup.

Forces the lovers have no control over push them apart. This breakup seems final.

One of Adam’s friends, Skyler, is killed and suspicion falls on Adam. Adam believes Jan is the killer and Jan believes Adam is. Adam doesn’t turn Jan in but decides he can’t have a cold-blooded murderer as the mother of his children and so breaks up with Jan.

Structure: This event occurs at the All Hope is Lost point about three quarters of the way through the second act.

5. Proof of love scene.

Even though Jan realizes she has lost Adam, that there’s no longer any hope they could be together, she sacrifices something for him so that he can get what he cares about the most, so that he can fulfill his desire.

Jan thinks Adam is the killer and Adam thinks Jan is. Jan goes to the police and confesses to a crime she didn’t commit in order to set Adam free. Adam has a family, he has a future. She doesn’t.

Structure: The Proof of Love scene happens about half-way through the third act.

6. Lovers reunite.

The lovers uncover the lies told to them as well as the lies they've told themselves. Since this was what was keeping them apart, they reunite happier and more committed than ever.

Adam discovers Sue couldn’t possibly have done the crime and realizes she confessed to spare him. He rushes to Sue and begs her to take him back. She does. The End.

Structure: This occurs at the Climax.

Necessary Characters

a. The Rival

There needs to be a rival for the protagonist’s romantic intentions.

b. Helpers vs Harmers

As the name suggests, helpers are characters who help the relationship grow stronger. Harmers are characters who act to break the couple apart. Note that a character can want the couple stay together but, because they always say and do the wrong thing, they’re really a harmer.

c. External Need

The External Need acts as an engine, an impetus, that brings the two characters together.

For example, in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Jane and her sisters must marry before her father dies because, on his death, the house and income associated with it will go to a cousin. As a result the girls are set on marrying well.

In my Jan and Adam example, it could be that Jan is Canadian and the only way she can stay in the US is to find someone to marry. One fellow is keen to wed her but she doesn’t like him at all. The other, more standoffish, candidate is Adam.

d. Secrets Must Be Held

For example, one of the lovers is a crown prince while the other is a scullery maid. Their affair must remain secret because the scandal of it all would topple the monarchy.

In my Sue and Adam example, Sue doesn’t tell Adam she didn’t kill Skyler, and Adam doesn’t tell Sue, because they want to protect each other.

Also, often, one or both of the lovers will lie to themselves.

e. Rituals

There are all sorts of rituals. People who have been together for years have a shared history. They’re always saying things like, “Do you remember that time when ...” and the other person will remember. It’s a kind of ritual. Shared intimacies that only that couple knows about.

But it’s more than that. It’s a way these two people behave together. A shared memory, a shared experience, a shared way of being.

f. Moral Weight

The lovers become better people over the course of the story.

The lovers have pronounced flaws at the beginning. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth was prejudiced and Darcy was prideful. At the end of the story Elizabeth was less prejudiced and Darcy was less prideful.

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I’ve decided that I’m going to try, every post, to pick a book or audiobook I personally have loved 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 that you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

Today I would like to share a link to Shawn Coyne’s book, The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know. If you swing toward the plotter end of the plotter/pantser continuum, then you’ll love this book. I’m about halfway through it and wish I’d had this information when I first started out. It would have saved me a lot of time.

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That’s it! What do you think of this way of structuring love stories? Do you do something similar? Either way, please share! I love talking to other writers and discovering how they do things.

2 Rules of Thumb for Character Creation

With NaNoWriMo around the corner I thought I'd go over two rules of thumb for character creation that have served me well.

Two Rules of Thumb for Character Creation

Readers need to be able to identify with your characters. You know that.

In order for a reader to identify with your character the reader needs to feel she understands them. In order for that to be the case characters need to make sense. People might not make sense, but characters need to. Even when their desires conflict, they need to make sense. If they don’t, readers will become bored and stop reading.

The First Rule of Character Creation

So, with that in mind, here’s what I think of as the first rule of character creation:

Characters, like people, are led by their emotions, by what they love and hate. 

If you don’t think you are led by your emotions that’s fine. Look at the people around you. Are most people led by their emotions or by their rationality?

Let me give you an example:

A friend offers me a piece of chocolate. I know I shouldn’t have that piece of chocolate because it will ruin my diet, but I still greedily devour every scrumptious calorie! Why? Because I love chocolate! I know how good it will taste. Even though it will mean I can’t fit into my new dress on my birthday I still eat the chocolate, and I really really want to fit into that dress. So why do I eat the chocolate? Because, despite what I tell myself and my friends, at that moment I love chocolate more than fitting into the dress. It’s all about emotion.

The Second Rule of Character Creation

Here’s the second rule of character creation:

Thought doesn’t rule emotion, it picks up after it. 

After I eat the chocolate I rationalize that even though I ate the chocolate I’ll be okay, I’ll still be able to achieve my goal of fitting into my new dress. All I have to do is exercise more. And then of course I don’t and it isn’t!

Cashing This Out

How can we cash this insight out in our story?

What do people care about? We care about our significant others and our friends, we care about food and comfort, we care about having fun new experiences, we care about the work we do. We care about beauty. We crave novelty.

My friend, Sue, wants to be rich. Why? Because then she can afford to go travelling and have a beautiful apartment. When I was a teenager my friend, I’ll call him Brian, wanted to own a Chevrolet Camaro with leather seats and a top notch sound system. Why? Because he loved driving fast, thought the car looked beautiful and liked girls.

Having a character who wants to rob a bank because then he’ll be rich is fine, but that needs to be grounded in the messy particularities of the character, what they love, what they hate.

If someone is going to risk it all, you’ve got to show why that character passionately loves that thing and the only way to do this is to break it down and show what they love and what the hate.

Get intimate with the character. Have them whisper their deepest, darkest, secrets to you and then, at the appropriate moment, splay them across the page.

You might be thinking, “That’s all well and good, but I’ve written stories that I liked and I didn’t do that.”

This kind of deep character development isn’t for the writer. These characters live inside us and so we know their intimate details. When I ask a writer, Would your character do X? They answer me right away, no hesitation. No, we make these things explicit for the reader. Because they don’t (yet) have the character living inside them.

Here’s another article I’ve written on character creation: Be Fearless: Make Your Characters Real.

Writing Exercise

What do you care about? You’ve got goals, perhaps you want to buy a home or earn a certain amount of money a year or spend next summer in Spain or lose ten pounds, but why?

Dive into the particular emotions behind your goals. Do you want to own a home because it would make you feel secure? Do you want to lose weight because you want to find someone to love, someone who will love you back?

After you’ve done this, take those emotions and give them to the main character of your current work in progress. You don’t have to incorporate them into the story, you can just do this as an exercise. Take your main character and give him a mini-adventure, write a piece of flash fiction, where you give him or her your own goals. Then show the reader the messy loves and hates these goals emerge from.

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I’ve decided that I’m going to try, every post, to pick a book or audiobook I personally have loved 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 that you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

Today I would like to share a link to a book I have in my own digital library, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Ackerman writes, "One of the biggest problem areas for writers is conveying a character's emotions to the reader in a unique, compelling way. This book comes to the rescue by highlighting 75 emotions and listing the possible body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for each." An excellent reference!

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That’s it! As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I’ve said. I will admit to drawing a wee bit from Saint Augustine and his idea that we can only have one true great love and that this love will order everything else in our lives—or something like that, it’s been a long time since I took philosophy. (grin)

I'll talk to you again on Friday. Till then, good writing!

Story Structure: What Are Pinch Points?

Today I want to focus on one particular aspect of story structure: pinch points. In what follows I have a lot to say about them so let's start by looking at what they are.

Pinch Points Are Reminders

A pinch point reminds the reader of five things:

• Who the antagonist is.
• What the antagonist wants. 
• Who the protagonist is.
• What the protagonist wants.
• What is at stake.

Often, the first Pinch Point comes directly after the Fun & Games/Tests & Trials part of a story and serves to bring it back to the main storyline, reminding readers of the core conflict. Sometimes this can quickly take the reader from bemused chuckling to a gut wrenching feeling of loss.

Pinch Points Are About Truth And Transformation

More abstractly, pinch points are about exposing the truth. The truth about the protagonist, the antagonist, and their situations/realities. Realizing, understanding, the truth of one's situation often causes pain and destruction but, in the end, transforms the protagonist (or the protagonist fails to transform and has a tragic end).

It has been my experience that truth/transformation pinch points are much more common in literary works, dramas, romantic comedies, and so on, than they are in action/adventures, mysteries and thrillers.

Where Are The Pinch Points?

In a four act structure the first pinch point comes in the middle of the second act and the second pinch point comes in the middle of the third act.

In a three act structure the first pinch point comes in the middle of the first part of the second act and the second comes in the middle of the last part of the second act.

If that’s confusing (and it is!) there’s a helpful diagram in this post: Using Pinch Points To Increase Narrative Drive. As with everything, this is only a general guideline. Fit them in where it feels appropriate for your story.

Now let’s take a look at each pinch point in more detail.

Pinch Point One

The two Pinch Points serve the same purpose:

• Bringing the focus back to the core conflict between the protagonist and antagonist.
• To ensure the stakes of the conflict are crystal clear to the reader. This often means that this scene should be vivid. Dramatic. 

Also, we can take this opportunity to remind the reader of the essence of both the protagonist and antagonist, of who they are, what they want and how far they'll go to get it.

Truth & Pain

Additionally—and whether this is true of the pinch points in your story may largely depend on what kind of story it is (see the examples below)—a pinch point can also be a moment of truth leading to intense pain and radical change (perhaps not right away, but it puts events in motion).

I find that in an action/adventure the pinch points are more about showing the protagonist and antagonist (or the antagonist's agents) in physical conflict while, say, romantic comedies are more about how the protagonist and antagonist (the two lovers) destroy each other’s (false) worlds, destroy each other’s illusions, the lies they tell themselves, by forcing each other to see the truth about their lives, about themselves.

Books could—and have!—been written about this (McKee’s Story, Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey, and so on) but the idea is that it’s easy to get comfortable with one’s life. It’s easy to coast. You have a job, a place to live, perhaps a significant other, perhaps a family, and you’re genuinely happy.

But then things you’re not so thrilled about start happening—you’ve been putting on weight, but that’s okay. You’re older but, hey, that’s no reason to start exercising. Sure you haven’t bought new clothes in a year but that’s not really so important. After all, being swayed by a person’s looks is so superficial. Okay, sure, you’ve been disconnecting from your friends, choosing to stay home and watch TV. And so on. Then you wake up, look in the mirror and realize: I’m my mother!!!!!! (* cue screaming violins *)

Things happen, life events, that you’re not thrilled with but you say, well, that’s okay. I’m happy, or at least not unhappy. Why rock the boat? And, slowly over the years it’s like a game of telephone. You go from being genuinely, authentically, happy with your life to disgruntled, disillusioned. It’s the death of a million cuts, it’s the frog being slowly boiled to death.

Of course your protagonist isn’t a frog being boiled to death! Instead of a frog we could talk about the postal worker who goes on a murdering spree. Or we could talk about the man or woman who gets up one morning and walks out on their family.

Speaking generally, the protagonist is on a trajectory from true happiness to destruction. If not their personal, physical, destruction, the complete and total destruction of their life, their world.

Truth as Destroying/Cleansing Fire

Every once in awhile we need a shock. We need to re-connect with how things really are, with how other people see us, warts and all. The truth, like fire, strips everything away and takes us back to our most elemental, most real, form. And it’s agony because we lose all those lovely illusions that were most dear to us. Here’s how I picture it:

Truth -> radical change/agony -> transformation or failure

At the beginning of a romantic/dramatic story, the protagonist is somewhere in the middle of this arc. What the pinch points do—this isn’t the only thing they do, but it’s one of them—is reveal this truth to your character.

That is, they reveal to the character that they are living a comfortable, happy, lie. In revealing this, the protagonist is forced to deal with it. (When this happens in real life it hurts like hell but you’ve been saved from something far worse. At least, that’s how I look at it.)

In this kind of pinch point you show readers how disconnected the protagonist is from the way things really are. You show the protagonist (and the reader) their perception of the world and then you show them their world (/their life) as it really is. The pinch point itself is about the protagonist being hit with this revelation.

This clash between mental image, between their current belief system and how things really are can be extremely painful. Truth hurts. But in return they get to see how they’ve gone from genuine happiness to something else. Something dark. They see they’re headed for destruction.

Sometimes this destruction can be averted, but not without a cost. If your protagonist is a workaholic who continually puts his family second because he thinks that’s what’s best for them, this revelation can save his relationships with those he loves but it might cost him his business, his dreams for the domination of the corporate world. Truth always exacts a price.

Examples

Okay, that was a lot of information! Let me try to bring this into perspective with two examples. The first is of a classic action/adventure, Star Wars IV: A New Hope. The second is of a romantic comedy—You’ve Got Mail—where the conflict, the tension, between the protagonist and antagonist revolves around using truth to destroy illusion.[1]

Star Wars

I know I use examples from Star Wars IV: A New Hope quite a bit, but the movie has the advantage that almost everyone has seen it! In Star Wars the first pinch point occurs when Imperial Forces, sent to recover R2-D2, menace Luke Skywalker and his allies.

Here the Pinch Point is split over two scenes. In the first scene Imperial Stormtroopers stop Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan to question them about their droids. This is where Obi-Wan says, “These aren’t the droids you are looking for.” It's a great scene!

The second scene (or, really, sequence) in the first pinch point has the Imperial Stormtroopers shooting at Han Solo as he’s going through the preflight check. The Millennium Falcon then takes off only to be chased and shot at by what looks like an Imperial battleship.

So here we’re reminded of the protagonist and antagonist (Luke and his band of allies vs the powers of the Empire exemplified by Darth Vader), what their goals are (Luke wants to deliver the plans of the Death Star to the rebel alliance, the forces of the Empire want to prevent this) and what the stakes of the conflict are (the Empire can blow up your planet!)

You’ve Got Mail

Just before the first pinch point we see Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan’s character) in all out denial about the likelihood that Fox Books is going to put her small independent bookstore (The Shop Around The Corner) out of business. Everyone else sees that her bookstore is in trouble and thinks she’ll be forced to close, but Kathleen is living in a dream world. She believes she can compete. “Everything is fine!” she says and smiles.

The first plot point occurs when Kathleen discovers that Joe (played by Tom Hanks)—the charming guy who came into her bookstore earlier—is Joe Fox of Fox Books (the big chain of bookstores that is putting indie bookstores out of business). They then have a passionate exchange in which Joe tells Kathleen the truth. What Joe says to her begins to destroy Kathleen's comforting world of illusion.

Let me set this scene up. When Kathleen discovers that Joe’s last name is Fox she accuses him of spying on her because she’s his competition. Here’s where they become passionate and the truth comes spilling out:

“It’s a charming little bookstore,” Joe says. What do you sell? About 350 thousand dollars worth of books a year?”

“How did you know that?” Kathleen asks, astonished and oh-so-very suspicious.

“I’m in the book business,” Joe says. He smiles at Kathleen but there is no warmth, only condescension.

Kathleen’s face grows hard. Joe has made a direct hit. She shakes her head. “I am in the book business.”

“I see,” Joe says. “And we are the Price Club, only instead of a 10 gallon vat of olive oil for $3.99 that won’t even fit under your kitchen cabinet, we sell cheap books.”

Joe pauses a moment then shakes his head. “Me, a spy?” Oh, absolutely. I have in my possession the super-duper secret printout of the sales figures of a bookstore so inconsequential yet full of its own virtue that I was immediately compelled to rush over there for fear that it’s going to put me out of business.”

Kathleen is so utterly shocked and completely undone by Joe’s words that she can only make an inarticulate squawking sound.

In my opinion, that’s the first pinch point. It’s a moment of truth and unspeakable pain for Kathleen. Joe is saying: It’s not personal, but the thing you love most in life is going to go away and I’m the one who is going to take it from you. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Kathleen’s loss doesn’t happen all at once, but that’s where she begins to wake up, begins to realize what her situation really is.

Wow, this post is long! I need to stop here. I’ll pick this topic up again later.

I’m intensely interested in what you think about what I’ve said about pinch points. Do you agree? Disagree? Is there something you’d like to add? An example you’d like to share? Please do! I love it when you contribute to the discussion. That’s how I think of these blog posts. We’re sitting somewhere having coffee, chatting, and I’m laying out my thoughts. But it can be awfully one-sided! I want to hear your thoughts too. :-)

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I’ve decided that I’m going to try, every post, to pick a book or audiobook I personally have loved 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 that you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

Today I would like to share links to a series which has become my number two favorite series, behind Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (which I cannot recommend highly enough, the books just keep getting better). Anyway, the series is Kelley Armstrong’s Cainsville: Omens, Visions, Deceptions, Betrayals. Cainsville is a mystery crossed with horror crossed with romance. (BTW, I’m NOT saying that if you like the Dresden Files that you’ll like Cainsville. They are very different. But they are both what I would call urban fantasy.)

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Notes:

1. I should mention that, as near as I can tell, You’ve Got Mail has four pinch points, two for each main character’s arc. So, above, when I talk about the first pinch point, this is really the first pinch point of Kathleen’s arc. Just FYI.

The Structure of a Murder Mystery

I’ve written many stories in many genres but, until recently, I’d never finished writing a murder mystery. Which is odd given that I absolutely LOVE murder mysteries.

I’ve often wondered why I had this particular disconnect. Here’s what I think:

In writing there's 'head smarts' and what I think of as ' heart smarts.' When we write a zero draft we draw from our heart smarts. This means that, no matter how much we know about story structure, that's not what guides us when we write. (It's what guides us when we edit.) And if we try to impose some sort of structure (head) on our words in the creative moment (heart), it can block those words.

Of course we should still make sure our stories are properly structured! But I think it's best to leave that for the first draft.

Elisabeth S. Craig's Take on The Structure of a Mystery

I love Elizabeth S. Craig’s blog—Mystery Writing is Murder. What a great title! Elizabeth Craig is a bestselling mystery writer. When I started reading her blog years ago she was published by Penguin but is now a "hybrid author" which just means she is both traditionally (Quilt or Innocence) and indie published (Myrtle Clover Cozy Mysteries).

Much of what I say, blow, is inspired by her post, “Pre-Writing.” I encourage you to head over to Elizabeth Craig's blog read her article for yourself.

In any case, in what follows I study EC's structure for a cozy mystery in the hope that we can use it to write better mysteries!

A Mystery Structure in Three Acts

I've attempted to keep close to EC's article, though I have included some information drawn from the many mysteries I've devoured read.

Act One: The Ordinary World

1. Setup/Status Quo

Introduce all your characters starting with the sleuth. EC writes: It’s “best to start out with [the] sleuth so that [the] reader knows who to identify with right away.”

2. Inciting Incident

You have two choices here:

(a) Write a “... scene showing [the] interaction of [the] future victim and future suspects ...”

or

(b) Introduce a body.

3. Call To Adventure & Acceptance of the Call

If the sleuth isn’t part of the police force then they have to get pulled into the case somehow. A friend has to beg them to become involved, or perhaps the person who died was someone they cared deeply about, or perhaps the sleuth is a suspect, or ... You get the idea.

Act Two: The Special World of the Adventure

4. Tests & Trials/Fun & Games

A number of things happen here:

• The Sleuth interviews suspects.
• The suspects provide alibis.
• A red herring or two is thrown out by the writer.
• Some of the suspects lie. Perhaps some lies are lies of omission, perhaps other people simply are confused, they mis-recall things. Some lies have to do with awful things they've done, but these things have nothing to do with the murder. And, of course, one person is lying because they're the murderer.
• And perhaps one of the suspects actually tells the truth!

5. Midpoint

In my experience as an avid reader of murder mysteries, I've found that the midpoint primarily does two things. First, it introduces new information—information that changes the detective's view of the Special World of the Adventure. Second, the detective goes from being passive (or reactive) to active. Let's look at each of these in turn.

New Information

Sometimes another murder occurs. If so, then this will scuttle the detectives current theory of the crime. How? Well, perhaps the person found was the suspect the detective thought committed the killing(s). Or perhaps the person the detective currently likes for the murder had to reason to kill the latest victim.

Or the new information could be about the killer's motivation for the crime(s). Perhaps the detective discovers the murderer's real name and history. While this gives the detective a lot of new information about the murderer and his/her possible motivation, it doesn't reveal who the killer is since he/she is living under an assumed identity.

The new information can be anything that transforms the detective's understanding of the case, raises the stakes, increases the urgency and, in so doing, pushes the story forward.

Passive (or Reactive) to Active

In the first half of the story the detective largely reacts to the situations, the conditions, that the murderer creates. In the second half of the story the detective takes the fight to the enemy. Now the detective sets traps for the murderer and, in general, actively works to apprehend him/her.

6. Setback

Whatever happens at the midpoint, it puts the sleuth back to square one. The sleuth has to re-evaluate the previous evidence in light of the new information. This means going back and talking to many of the suspects again.

EC writes, “Give suspects [the] opportunity to refute [the] evidence pointing to them from the previous murder.” See (4) above.

It could also be that the sleuth is personally affected by the previous death, or by the information revealed at the midpoint. The victim could have been a close friend or perhaps someone who was an exceptionally good person and an enormous loss to the community. Of course, it could be anything. Let your imagination be your guide.

Act Three: The Return

7. A New Plan/The Epiphany

This is what I think of as the lightbulb moment. The sleuth has an epiphany, puts two and two together, something sparks a revelation, etc. But the sleuth has to confirm it. He/she has to be sure.

8. Climax

Put the sleuth in danger. Increase the tension, increase the stakes.

From my reading and viewing experience, the sleuth is sometimes stalked by the killer. But sometimes the sleuth isn't threatened with death. Sometimes his/her job is on the line. Sometimes it's 'just' his/her reputation. Sometimes the life of someone the sleuth cares a great deal about is threatened. There are many different kinds of stakes that can be raised.

Eventually, though, the sleuth will turn the tables on the murderer and bring him/her to justice.

9. Wrap-Up

This is the denouement. The sleuth draws the curtain back and, clue by clue, explains how he/she solved the mystery.

ESC writes, “Are there other components in the story? Of course. But this is the basic structure of a mystery, just as other genres have their own skeletons.”

The Characters

Before you sit down to write your zero draft, think about:

• Who will your sleuth have as a sidekick?
• What are the potential motives of the characters?
• How were the murders done? What weapons were used?
• Think about what kind of subplot you’ll have. ESC writes that at this point you’re “just brainstorming.” I’ll add here, courtesy of Lester Dent, that you might want to make the murder method big, bold, dramatic, unusual, exaggerated, shocking, different. Think about all the different ways characters were done away with in Midsomer Murders.
• The murderer. ESC writes that she doesn’t worry too much about the murderer’s identity. Sometimes she doesn’t know this until she’s at the climax of the story! She writes, “The killer’s identity? Not really.  I have an idea who I think may be a good killer, but I frequently change my mind 3/4 of the way through the first draft.  It’s always good to be flexible.”

The Suspects

How many suspects should you have? The suspects are going to be characters who have a reason, a motive, to want the victim dead. In ESC’s example she lists five suspects: the niece, daughter, son, husband and friend.

Did the victim have a lot of money that his/her family and friends had a lively expectation of inheriting?

Did the victim use their money and power to manipulate others? If so, who?

That’s it! I hope you have a great, productive, weekend. I’ll talk to you again on Monday. In the meantime, good writing!

And now, my pitch. :-)

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Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. 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.

Today I'm recommending, Fall to Pieces (A Southern Quilting Mystery Book 7), by Elizabeth Craig. From the blurb: "Dappled Hills quilters are eagerly anticipating new events at the Patchwork Cottage quilt shop. The shop’s owner, Posy, has announced ‘Sew and Tell’ socials and a mystery quilt group project. But one day, instead of emailed quilt instructions, the quilters receive a disturbing message about a fellow quilter. When that quilter mysteriously meets her maker, Beatrice decides to use her sleuthing skills to find the killer before more lives are cut short."

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