So, way back in Story Elements #1, I talked briefly about conflict and why it's necessary. But because of a few things that have been going on in my writing life lately, I decided it's time for a more in-depth redux.
First up, I'm teaching a creative writing class at the moment and having a blast. It's scary, but also exhilarating, and since I'm doing most of the writing exercises at the same time the class does, it's a lot of fun. I even got some useable stuff :o) Woot. One of the things we're concentrating on this week is conflict, and the different flavours thereof.
Maybe because I was teaching it, the idea of conflict was on my radar moreso than usual. Maybe it was because last night I was reading through some really EXCELLENT articles on Janice Hardy's blog. Stuck in the mire of rewrites, I clicked on a random link from twitter and found what I needed - someone who'd been through the process before and not only survived, but who had documented the process and mapped out a path for other people to follow. Really, really excellent articles. Go forth and devour her site.
But anyway, instead of going to chapter 9 and doing more rewriting-from-scratch (which feels suspiciously like drafting, only worse, because you know it's supposed to be better this time), I ended up rereading what I'd written so far - and adding quota for the day just in fleshing out chapters 1 and 2. Oi. Then I hit chapter 3, and chapter 3 hit me back with the realisation that it's not working because it's seriously lacking in meaningful conflict.
So today, conflict, both because I'm working on it with my school class, and because apparently I could use the refresher.
When asked to define conflict, the first thing most people say is some variant on arguing, fighting, etc. But most writers know - explicitly or implicitly - that there's more to it than that. Not every scene in every book has someone fighting, and yet we have this maxim of 'conflict on every page'. So either the maxim's wrong - or our definition of conflict is. Personally, I think it's the definition of conflict. So let's broaden our definition today.
(The following terminology is my own, but the ideas are heavily influenced by Holly Lisle's How To Write Page-Turning Scenes).
1) First of all, we have implied conflict. This is one of the sneakiest and most fun tools a writer can use. It is, essentially, foreshadowing; the reader sees something happen without knowing why it's important, but because of the way it's presented, knows that it is. There are two sorts of implied conflict: agented and unagented.
A. In agented implied conflict, we see something happening that the participants in the story don't recognise as important, but that we as readers do; for example, a cat knocking an important letter off a table, a mother cleaning their child's room and throwing out a bit of 'junk', someone stooping to pick up The One Ring.
B. In unagented implied conflict, there are no actors, but simply a change that we recognise as important. This is the most basic form of conflict, and the most subtle; we're not seeing the stone being thrown into the pond, but the ripples the stone makes. An example would be a red light flashing, blood spilling out from under a door, or a sudden cessation of noise. All of these promise that something important has just changed, and while they create conflict even if you have a character observe this, they can be even more powerful when done in omniscient POV such that the reader is the only one who gets to see the light, or the blood, or hear the sudden silence.
2) Overt conflict. This one is pretty obvious: it's conflict that happens directly on-stage, that we can see and recognise as conflict and that the participants in the story would probably recognise as conflict as well. Like implied conflict, it comes in various flavours: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and external. Overt conflict is where the handy rule of thumb of conflict comes in most useful: that is, conflict is anything that stands in the way of what the character wants. With that in mind, let's examine each in turn.
A. Intrapersonal conflict is when there is something internal to the character preventing them from getting what they want. Perhaps they've been brought up with a deep-seated conviction that no one should eat grass, only now, to get what they want (or perhaps to save their life), they must eat grass. It sounds a bit contrived, I know, but if you played it right, this exact situation could come across as genuine, immediate conflict, because it's something inherent in the character preventing them from getting what they want. Think fears and phobias, habits and beliefs; anything the character does that sabotages, deliberately or accidentally, their own wellbeing and dreams.
B. Interpersonal conflict is the type of conflict everyone reaches for when asked to define conflict. It's two people shouting at each other, two children fighting, bickering, threatening, attacking, and so on. But it's also two people refusing to speak, a child deliberately ruining another's project, cold shoulders and icy glares, bragging, back-stabbing, lying, evading, denial, and misdirecting. It is, in short, anything that one person can do to prevent someone else getting what they want or need. (And I hope it's obvious to you that not all conflict is bad; preventing a toddler from touching the hot stove may be thwarting their deepest desires of the moment and be enough to induce a tantrum, but it's better than the alternative. Sometimes what we want is the worst thing for us.)
C. Finally, external conflict. External conflict can either be personal, or impersonal. Personal external conflict is the larger result of some other kind of conflict. It's where conflict that has nothing directly to do with your character has grown so big that it can't help but affect them; a war, for example, or, in the right story, parents constantly arguing. These are interpersonal conflicts for other people, but for your character, they're not the effect of anything your character has done; your character is just in the wrong place at the wrong time and falls afoul of other peoples' issues. Impersonal external conflict is similar in effect but differs in its source; instead of coming from other peoples' issues, impersonal external conflict is external to everyone. Natural disasters, aliens invading - those are probably the only examples.
And that's conflict in a nutshell, or on a pinhead, or in some other small, easy-to-devour package. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to figure out how the heck I'm going to inject some or all of this into chaper three.
:)
Showing posts with label conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conflict. Show all posts
16 February 2011
05 August 2010
Climate: Temperatures and Precipitation
Read the previous post in the map-building series: And Then It Exploded.
So, a while ago I started the map-building series as a backlash against All Those Authors that get it Wrong, and as an attempt to prevent that happening in the future. I've talked about the very fundamental stuff - the underlying structure of the world, the fun you can have with hotspots and volcanos - and have developed a few rules to keep you on the right track:
- Lesson #0 in Map-Building: Always have a reason.
- Lesson #1 in Map Building: The mountains are where things crash together. So are the volancos and the earthquakes.
- Lesson #2 in Map Building: You need to have a reason for where you put things on your map. But you can pretty much invent a reason for anything.
Today, we're going to move on to above-surface stuff, and look at the basics of climate. Two things form the fundamental basis of all climate: temperature, and precipitation. You can get hot dry climates (like deserts), hot wet climates (like rainforests), warm dry, warm wet, temperate regions that have four distinct seasons and varying rainfall in each, cold wet climates, cold dry climates, climates that are prone to snow and forms of precipitation other than plain rain.
Your plain average rain, however, isn't really plain or average. It can be pure or acidic to various degrees, it can be cold rain or warm rain, come in torrential downpours or gently soaking drizzle. Acidic rain is found in areas of high pollution or places downwind from high-pollution areas; pure rain is often found in low population density areas, but not always, because these places can be receiving pollution from other areas. Torrential rain is most usually found in the tropics; hurricanes need the right mix of airflow and water; thunderstorms need a cold front meeting a bank of warm air; drizzle often accompanies lower temperatures; and so the list goes on.
You can get so caught up in the fascinating minutia of weather - well, at least, I could - that you forget your story is actually supposed to ever be anything more than an excuse to build a really spiffy, perfectly logical world. I don't recommend this.
So, a while ago I started the map-building series as a backlash against All Those Authors that get it Wrong, and as an attempt to prevent that happening in the future. I've talked about the very fundamental stuff - the underlying structure of the world, the fun you can have with hotspots and volcanos - and have developed a few rules to keep you on the right track:
- Lesson #0 in Map-Building: Always have a reason.
- Lesson #1 in Map Building: The mountains are where things crash together. So are the volancos and the earthquakes.
- Lesson #2 in Map Building: You need to have a reason for where you put things on your map. But you can pretty much invent a reason for anything.
Today, we're going to move on to above-surface stuff, and look at the basics of climate. Two things form the fundamental basis of all climate: temperature, and precipitation. You can get hot dry climates (like deserts), hot wet climates (like rainforests), warm dry, warm wet, temperate regions that have four distinct seasons and varying rainfall in each, cold wet climates, cold dry climates, climates that are prone to snow and forms of precipitation other than plain rain.
Your plain average rain, however, isn't really plain or average. It can be pure or acidic to various degrees, it can be cold rain or warm rain, come in torrential downpours or gently soaking drizzle. Acidic rain is found in areas of high pollution or places downwind from high-pollution areas; pure rain is often found in low population density areas, but not always, because these places can be receiving pollution from other areas. Torrential rain is most usually found in the tropics; hurricanes need the right mix of airflow and water; thunderstorms need a cold front meeting a bank of warm air; drizzle often accompanies lower temperatures; and so the list goes on.
You can get so caught up in the fascinating minutia of weather - well, at least, I could - that you forget your story is actually supposed to ever be anything more than an excuse to build a really spiffy, perfectly logical world. I don't recommend this.
The amount of worldbuilding you DO want to do is up to you, but remember:
1) More worldbuilding makes your world seem more real.
2) Most of your worldbuilding won't make it directly into your novel, so it can be a waste of time.
and most importantly,
3) ALL worldbuilding should serve one aim: to increase conflict in your story. If you can't think of a way for it to increase conflict, you're pretty much wasting your time.
I mean, sure, it's important to know what kind of clothes your MC wears, and whether or not their society could actually legitimately make silk stockings - but this all matters a lot more to your reader if it's in some way related to the conflict, like your MC needs to masquerade as an aristocrat from another country only can't get her hands on the kind of stockings they wear, or something. Be creative. Make it matter.
And so to round off on climates: Do know your climate, because it will affect how your people live. More on that later. But don't feel you need to obsess. Most climates exist in most regions of the world, with the exception being the poles and the equator. Mountain ranges or lack thereof, ocean currents and whether they are hot or cold, costalness or continentality, prevailing winds - these are the four key things that will determine your climate. But really, weather is so complicated that even now we can't accurately predict it more than about four days out. So you know. As long as your climate is within the bounds of plausibility, most readers won't try to kill you for them.
With one exception. Please, please, please, don't try to make your poles hot and your equator cold for no reason better than 'to be different'. This will result in you being hunted down and smacked over the head with some basic physics.
Why?
Because the poles are, by the very nature of a ROUND planet, further away from the sun. The equator is closest. Ergo, unless you have some sort of fancy magic field that reverses the effect of the sun, your poles will be colder and your equator hotter.
And, for the love of peace, please have a round planet unless you're writing fantasy and have a deliberate reason for not making it so (and making it, say, a Disc carried by elephants on the back of a turtle). Gravity + spinning = round world.
Note also that it's the TILT of the earth's axis that gives us seasons; straight axis, no seasons. Bear that in mind when designing both round planets and especially non-round planets. If you're not round and/or you have no tilt, will you have seasons, or will your climates be stable?
Lesson #3 in Map Building: In the middle, things are grey and you can do what you like. At the edges, things have a reason. Don't mess with this, unless you have a very good reason.
Tune in next time for more on humanity's favourite liquid: water!
07 July 2010
Where Did All The Mountains Go?
Read the introduction to the Map Building Series.
To really understand how and why things work, it's usually a pretty good idea to strip things back to their most basic level and build your way up from there. Maps are no different, if you want to get really serious. The world works in layers, and really good maps that Work will be designed around the same principles. If you want to go the full hog and draw all your layers (and drawing skills aren't necessary, I promise), tracing paper is the medium of choice, because it allows you to stack all your layers on top of each other and see the whole depth of the map at once.
So, if you're going to start at the very beginning (which we all know is a very good place to start O:)), where exactly is that? Not, alack, with a-b-c, or even do-re-me; rather, with transform, convergent and divergent.
Which are what? Plates, of course! Not the dinner kind, but the continental kind.
Modern science posits that the entire crust (outer surface) of the Earth is not one solid shell, but actually a whole bunch of bits of shell (plates) all forming a patchworky kind of crust. And because the centre of the Earth is full of molten rock, and molten rock is hot, and hot stuff tends to want to rise, creating convection currents as it reaches the highest point it can go and then bounces along at the top for a while getting cooler before it sinks again*, these plates move. In fact, if you were to record the Earth from outer space for a significant while and then hit fast forward, the plates fairly zoom around the surface of the world.
So where do transform, convergent and divergent come in? Well, as map builders we care about plates mostly because the edges where they touch each other have the potential to do Interesting Things. To save you the science infodump, here's a pretty picture that explains what they are (click to embiggen):
And here's another pretty picture that shows you where Earth's plates are and what type of boundaries they have (click through for bigger):
To really understand how and why things work, it's usually a pretty good idea to strip things back to their most basic level and build your way up from there. Maps are no different, if you want to get really serious. The world works in layers, and really good maps that Work will be designed around the same principles. If you want to go the full hog and draw all your layers (and drawing skills aren't necessary, I promise), tracing paper is the medium of choice, because it allows you to stack all your layers on top of each other and see the whole depth of the map at once.
So, if you're going to start at the very beginning (which we all know is a very good place to start O:)), where exactly is that? Not, alack, with a-b-c, or even do-re-me; rather, with transform, convergent and divergent.
Which are what? Plates, of course! Not the dinner kind, but the continental kind.
Modern science posits that the entire crust (outer surface) of the Earth is not one solid shell, but actually a whole bunch of bits of shell (plates) all forming a patchworky kind of crust. And because the centre of the Earth is full of molten rock, and molten rock is hot, and hot stuff tends to want to rise, creating convection currents as it reaches the highest point it can go and then bounces along at the top for a while getting cooler before it sinks again*, these plates move. In fact, if you were to record the Earth from outer space for a significant while and then hit fast forward, the plates fairly zoom around the surface of the world.
So where do transform, convergent and divergent come in? Well, as map builders we care about plates mostly because the edges where they touch each other have the potential to do Interesting Things. To save you the science infodump, here's a pretty picture that explains what they are (click to embiggen):
And here's another pretty picture that shows you where Earth's plates are and what type of boundaries they have (click through for bigger):
One thing should hopefully stand out to you: if you think about where all the major mountain ranges of the world are, they're often along plate boundaries. The Himalayas are where the Indian plate is bashing into the Eurasian plate. The Andes are where the Nazca plate is sliding under the South American Plate. The Alps? Middle Eastern plate smashing up into the Eurasian one. Lots of crashing = lots of mountains.
Of course, plate tectonics at the global level isn't the only reason mountain occur; Australia boasts the Great Diving Range right down its east coast, and you can see in the images that Australia is smack bang in the middle of a plate, not anywhere near a boundary. But in general, plate boundaries are where you have the fun stuff: mountains, volcanos, earthquakes. That sort of fun >:)
How do you employ all this with map building? Very easily. You scribble in some plates, scribble over some continents kind-of roughly based on the plate outlines (but really, you can do anything - look at Australia!), and then have fun deciding where to cause all the chaos >:) Impassable mountain ranges, volcanos, undersea geysers, rifts and trenches both terrestrially and undersea... Bwa ha. So much potential conflict for your poor little characters.
Lesson #1 in Map Building: The mountains are where things crash together. So are the volancos and the earthquakes.Until next time, have fun causing chaos. Chaos #ftw! :D
25 June 2010
Irreversible Change
Come with me to the weekend, about tenish days prior to now, to an exciting place of sparkle and opportunity...
Me: Squee! I am full of squeeful-gleefulness, for BEHOLD! The shiny graphics tablet is now mine!
Graphics Tablet: *shines*
Me: And look! It is conveniently a USB attachment! I can plug that into my laptop! *does so*
Graphics Tablet: *shines*
Computer: Installing your new device.
Me: Even MORE squeeful! It is self-installing! Who needs the installation CD? Pah!
Computer: Your new device is installed and ready to use.
Me: Ooooo, preeeetty. Look! I can has drawing! *opens photoshop and draws*
Graphics Tablet: *shines*
Me: Isn't this the most awesomest awesome ever?
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
Graphics Tablet Pen: *stops working*
Me: Huh. Well, I knew it was battery powered, but I did HOPE the battery would last longer than 15 minutes. Oh well. *packs up tablet*
Graphics Tablet in Box: *shines*
Me: Okay, computer, let's close that drawing...
Computer: *mouse does not reappear*
Me: *wriggling finger on trackpad* Hello? The pen is disconnected. Can I have my mouse functionality back now, please?
Computer: No. *blue-screen-of-deaths*
Me: Oh noes! Woe! Woe is me! *tries to reboot laptop*
Computer: *is dead*
Me: *reads graphics tablet manual*
Manual: Make sure you use the installation CD before connecting the tablet to avoid any problems.
Me: *facepalm*
NOW
Computer: *still dead*
*sigh*
Yes, alack, it is true. The laptop, she still sleeps. However, after many hours attempting to fix her the day after the above, I discovered the problem, and I think it's a relatively simple fix; just reinstall windows. Of course, I have no installation disc; I need to ring Microsoft and get one. I just... haven't been bothered yet. I have a work laptop, and my husband has a laptop. Apart from the mild irritation of not being able to access any files I didn't have in my dropbox (all my writing lives there), it's not too much of an issue.
Which brings me to my point today: irreversible change.
My story about the computer has conflict in it: I want the computer to work, and it doesn't. My needs conflict with its 'needs', and voila, conflict.
But is this story actually worth telling (other than to use as an illustration in this post, of course)? What makes a story worth telling?
Several things, but the one I'm talking about today has to do with the nature of your conflict. See, my story may have conflict, but does it really make you care about what happens? Are you all on the edges of your seats, dying to know if I can be bothered to make The Call and Save My Laptop? Are you? Are you?!
...
If you're normal, probably not. Why? Well, firstly, probably because I'm not exactly projecting a sense of urgency about the matter. You don't care because I don't seem to care. So why don't I care?
Basically, because I know it's fixable. It's a problem, it's conflict, it's there in the background, but I know it'll pretty much be a simple matter of an hours-on-hold phone call, an explanation, and ta da! Fixed. The change that caused the conflict - my computer dying - is reversible.
Now, of course, if it turns out in the end that a whole bunch of important files were damaged on the comp and I'll never ever get them back again, that might not be so reversible. And in that case, (and rest assured you'll hear about it) there would be a more urgent conflict. The change caused by the conflict was irreversible.
Okay, so it's probably not the most inspired example, but you get the point :D A character getting a bad haircut isn't compelling conflict; the hair will eventually grow out. (Although she could be teased and tormented by cruel people, inducing psychological damage that will scar her forever; that would be more compelling >:)) A character breaking a leg is probably a little more compelling, because even though the break may heal, reknit bone is never the same as unmarred bone; there was a lasting change.
It's certainly not the be-all and the end-all when it comes to conflict in your novels, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. How lasting are your changes? Will the character still be affected by them in a year's time, or will they have forgotten them, not notice them any more? Will your readers still remember? Or will they, too, forget?
Me: Squee! I am full of squeeful-gleefulness, for BEHOLD! The shiny graphics tablet is now mine!
Graphics Tablet: *shines*
Me: And look! It is conveniently a USB attachment! I can plug that into my laptop! *does so*
Graphics Tablet: *shines*
Computer: Installing your new device.
Me: Even MORE squeeful! It is self-installing! Who needs the installation CD? Pah!
Computer: Your new device is installed and ready to use.
Me: Ooooo, preeeetty. Look! I can has drawing! *opens photoshop and draws*
Graphics Tablet: *shines*
Me: Isn't this the most awesomest awesome ever?
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
Graphics Tablet Pen: *stops working*
Me: Huh. Well, I knew it was battery powered, but I did HOPE the battery would last longer than 15 minutes. Oh well. *packs up tablet*
Graphics Tablet in Box: *shines*
Me: Okay, computer, let's close that drawing...
Computer: *mouse does not reappear*
Me: *wriggling finger on trackpad* Hello? The pen is disconnected. Can I have my mouse functionality back now, please?
Computer: No. *blue-screen-of-deaths*
Me: Oh noes! Woe! Woe is me! *tries to reboot laptop*
Computer: *is dead*
Me: *reads graphics tablet manual*
Manual: Make sure you use the installation CD before connecting the tablet to avoid any problems.
Me: *facepalm*
NOW
Computer: *still dead*
*sigh*
Yes, alack, it is true. The laptop, she still sleeps. However, after many hours attempting to fix her the day after the above, I discovered the problem, and I think it's a relatively simple fix; just reinstall windows. Of course, I have no installation disc; I need to ring Microsoft and get one. I just... haven't been bothered yet. I have a work laptop, and my husband has a laptop. Apart from the mild irritation of not being able to access any files I didn't have in my dropbox (all my writing lives there), it's not too much of an issue.
Which brings me to my point today: irreversible change.
My story about the computer has conflict in it: I want the computer to work, and it doesn't. My needs conflict with its 'needs', and voila, conflict.
But is this story actually worth telling (other than to use as an illustration in this post, of course)? What makes a story worth telling?
Several things, but the one I'm talking about today has to do with the nature of your conflict. See, my story may have conflict, but does it really make you care about what happens? Are you all on the edges of your seats, dying to know if I can be bothered to make The Call and Save My Laptop? Are you? Are you?!
...
If you're normal, probably not. Why? Well, firstly, probably because I'm not exactly projecting a sense of urgency about the matter. You don't care because I don't seem to care. So why don't I care?
Basically, because I know it's fixable. It's a problem, it's conflict, it's there in the background, but I know it'll pretty much be a simple matter of an hours-on-hold phone call, an explanation, and ta da! Fixed. The change that caused the conflict - my computer dying - is reversible.
Now, of course, if it turns out in the end that a whole bunch of important files were damaged on the comp and I'll never ever get them back again, that might not be so reversible. And in that case, (and rest assured you'll hear about it) there would be a more urgent conflict. The change caused by the conflict was irreversible.
Okay, so it's probably not the most inspired example, but you get the point :D A character getting a bad haircut isn't compelling conflict; the hair will eventually grow out. (Although she could be teased and tormented by cruel people, inducing psychological damage that will scar her forever; that would be more compelling >:)) A character breaking a leg is probably a little more compelling, because even though the break may heal, reknit bone is never the same as unmarred bone; there was a lasting change.
It's certainly not the be-all and the end-all when it comes to conflict in your novels, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. How lasting are your changes? Will the character still be affected by them in a year's time, or will they have forgotten them, not notice them any more? Will your readers still remember? Or will they, too, forget?
23 June 2010
Conflict Week: Part One
A significant while ago, I wrote a story elements post about conflict. Today, I'm thinking again about conflict for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I'm back to working on editing Hunter Hunted again, and I've just gone through and done a conflict check in all my scenes. In honour of the completion of this momentous task, and because I have a story I want to tell you later in the week, I thought I might do a series of posts on conflict :)
Consider the above linked article the baseline; read it first if you haven't already. It talks about what conflict is, which is always a good starting point.
Today, I want to talk about where conflict comes from.
A lot of people hold a somewhat misguided perception that the only kind of conflict that really deserves the name is aggressive conflict, where people are fighting, be it physically or verbally. This, my friend, is not so; aggressive conflict is just conflict's most obvious form. Understanding where conflict comes from helps to debunk the aggression-is-the-only-conflict myth.
So where does conflict come from?
Hopefully, your story has a main character. Check that: do you have an MC? Yes? Good. *pats* O:) Okay, I speak somewhat faceciously, but truly, the MCness of a character can be problematic, especially in large-cast stories; for example, HNOT has temporarily stalled for many reasons, but partly because of feedback I received that said that although Mercury is the MC, Deviran reads like the MC.
Have an MC. Know who they are. Make sure they know they're the MC too :D
So, having an MC, the next Really Helpful thing to know is what they want. When everything else is stripped away, who is a person? Usually, this comes down to their driving force, the one thing they value over everything else, the thing that motivates them. Cutesy tests have been designed to help you figure out what motivates someone, but motivations can be diverse, they can change, and there can be smaller goals on the way to larger ones. For example, your MC's long term motivation may be to rescue their kidnapped sister; their immediate motivation in the present scene might be simply to survive, now that the creepy-stalker-person has hunted them down.
1) MC.
2) Something that drives and motivates them.
3? Something that stands in their way. Someone, often. That someone (which, yes, can be themselves) or something is your antagonist. It too has a need. In the example above, creepy-stalker-guy really needs to kill the MC so that MC can't rat them out to the police. Needs can be more subtle, though. In the MC against self situation, your MC could be torn between the need to support their family through the present crisis, and their equally pressing need to escape the smothering restraint thereof and find a life wherein they can breathe.
Either way, we have two strong, driving needs, and they oppose each other. That's where conflict comes from: opposing needs. The stronger the needs, the stronger the conflict, in a way that is totally separate from the degree of aggression involved.
Conflict: every story needs it, and it doesn't have to be an argument. How does your conflict shape up?
Consider the above linked article the baseline; read it first if you haven't already. It talks about what conflict is, which is always a good starting point.
Today, I want to talk about where conflict comes from.
A lot of people hold a somewhat misguided perception that the only kind of conflict that really deserves the name is aggressive conflict, where people are fighting, be it physically or verbally. This, my friend, is not so; aggressive conflict is just conflict's most obvious form. Understanding where conflict comes from helps to debunk the aggression-is-the-only-conflict myth.
So where does conflict come from?
Hopefully, your story has a main character. Check that: do you have an MC? Yes? Good. *pats* O:) Okay, I speak somewhat faceciously, but truly, the MCness of a character can be problematic, especially in large-cast stories; for example, HNOT has temporarily stalled for many reasons, but partly because of feedback I received that said that although Mercury is the MC, Deviran reads like the MC.
Have an MC. Know who they are. Make sure they know they're the MC too :D
So, having an MC, the next Really Helpful thing to know is what they want. When everything else is stripped away, who is a person? Usually, this comes down to their driving force, the one thing they value over everything else, the thing that motivates them. Cutesy tests have been designed to help you figure out what motivates someone, but motivations can be diverse, they can change, and there can be smaller goals on the way to larger ones. For example, your MC's long term motivation may be to rescue their kidnapped sister; their immediate motivation in the present scene might be simply to survive, now that the creepy-stalker-person has hunted them down.
1) MC.
2) Something that drives and motivates them.
3? Something that stands in their way. Someone, often. That someone (which, yes, can be themselves) or something is your antagonist. It too has a need. In the example above, creepy-stalker-guy really needs to kill the MC so that MC can't rat them out to the police. Needs can be more subtle, though. In the MC against self situation, your MC could be torn between the need to support their family through the present crisis, and their equally pressing need to escape the smothering restraint thereof and find a life wherein they can breathe.
Either way, we have two strong, driving needs, and they oppose each other. That's where conflict comes from: opposing needs. The stronger the needs, the stronger the conflict, in a way that is totally separate from the degree of aggression involved.
Conflict: every story needs it, and it doesn't have to be an argument. How does your conflict shape up?
18 November 2009
Upping the Stakes
So, since I'm officially on holidays from uni now (and never have to go back! Did I mention that? Ha! No more uni! *bounce*), I'm taking the opportunity to catch up on my horrendously long To-Be-Read (TBR) pile. Sometime last year, Merc made a goal of reading 100 books in a year; I decided I couldn't do that many, and would just read all the books I owned but hadn't read.
Yeeeah. No.
Last count that was 200+ books. *blush*
ANYway. I'm reading. And recently, I read a really excellent fantasy trilogy - the Black Jewels tril by Anne Bishop (which, by the way, is definitely R 18+, and DO NOT READ if you're at all squeamish about sex/violence/abuse). These books are stunning, in every sense of the word, and they're one of a handful of series/books that will stick around in my memory for a Very Long Time, and shape not only how I write, but how I think.
Which brings me to today's topic: Upping the stakes.
I read book one of this trilogy, and it gripped me. Like, I spent all night dreaming about it, gripped me. And, being Curious Writer, of course, I wanted to know why. Sure, the plot was intense (esp book 1), the characters so real I wanted to murder some and adore forever others, and the worldbuilding so beautiful I want to steal it all right now and make it Mine.
But none of that is the reason; none of that explains why I balled my eyes out for the last two chapters of the first book, and the second last chapter of the last book, and why I dreamt about these books every night after I'd read them.
Why did these books have such an impact on me? Because everything mattered. Bishop created a character that is not only adored by nearly everyone she meets, but also by the reader. She's an amazing girl/woman, with a magnetic personality. And then Bishop slams her over the head with every kind of heartache and abuse possible.
And the other main characters have to save her.
It works because everything is at stake; the characters literally have everything to lose, everything to gain.
Now, I don't want to suggest that unless you go out and destroy all of your characters' lives and totally tread them into the ground, unless you plot involves the destruction of the entire known universe, then it's not going to be compelling.
That's not true. Books can be very compelling, even if all that will change at the end of the day is the main character's own life.
The point isn't the size of the change; it's the importance of the change. It's our job, as writers, to convince our readers that what we're writing about matters; that actions have consequences, that those consequences will suck for someone the reader cares about, and that they don't want that to happen.
I've been using this lately in my NaNo novel. The story started out a bit fluffy, really: girl graduates from Evil Overlord school, wants to take over her city of birth to get her parents' attention, ends up accidentally blowing things up which is both good and bad for lots of people. Sure, it's a lot of fun - but even fun isn't enough. It has to matter*.
* To the story, to the reader. Not necessarily in some big 'Oh my gosh this is life-changing!' way; more things matter to us than change our lives.
And so, I went on a little romp through my plot and looked for ways to up the stakes. Those of you following me on twitter might have heard some talk recently of the demons raining from the sky; that's just one way I've introduced a bigger threat for Mercury, my MC, to face, one more complication to her plans and motivation for her to act out the final climax of the book. Her actions now matter, because they affect more people than just herself and her small circle of acquaintances; her actions will impact lives, and she knows it.
I know this has been a somewhat rambly post, but the take home point is this: What you write about has to matter in order for it to resonate with readers. Big things matter - but so do little things. It's your job as a writer to convince your readers that what you're writing about is important, even if only for the context of the story.
If you're struggling, if it feels like your work is falling a little flat - try upping the stakes. Give your characters something to work for, and things that will not only get in their way but also shred them into little pieces (physically, emotionally, whatever - your choice :D) along the way.
Conflict. Conflict is the lifeblood of fiction. Conflict matters.
So, tell me: what's your favourite conflict you've ever inflicted on a character? Who's the character who has to fight for the highest stakes? And which character matters most to you? I'll answer in the comments after you do ;)
Yeeeah. No.
Last count that was 200+ books. *blush*
ANYway. I'm reading. And recently, I read a really excellent fantasy trilogy - the Black Jewels tril by Anne Bishop (which, by the way, is definitely R 18+, and DO NOT READ if you're at all squeamish about sex/violence/abuse). These books are stunning, in every sense of the word, and they're one of a handful of series/books that will stick around in my memory for a Very Long Time, and shape not only how I write, but how I think.
Which brings me to today's topic: Upping the stakes.
I read book one of this trilogy, and it gripped me. Like, I spent all night dreaming about it, gripped me. And, being Curious Writer, of course, I wanted to know why. Sure, the plot was intense (esp book 1), the characters so real I wanted to murder some and adore forever others, and the worldbuilding so beautiful I want to steal it all right now and make it Mine.
But none of that is the reason; none of that explains why I balled my eyes out for the last two chapters of the first book, and the second last chapter of the last book, and why I dreamt about these books every night after I'd read them.
Why did these books have such an impact on me? Because everything mattered. Bishop created a character that is not only adored by nearly everyone she meets, but also by the reader. She's an amazing girl/woman, with a magnetic personality. And then Bishop slams her over the head with every kind of heartache and abuse possible.
And the other main characters have to save her.
It works because everything is at stake; the characters literally have everything to lose, everything to gain.
Now, I don't want to suggest that unless you go out and destroy all of your characters' lives and totally tread them into the ground, unless you plot involves the destruction of the entire known universe, then it's not going to be compelling.
That's not true. Books can be very compelling, even if all that will change at the end of the day is the main character's own life.
The point isn't the size of the change; it's the importance of the change. It's our job, as writers, to convince our readers that what we're writing about matters; that actions have consequences, that those consequences will suck for someone the reader cares about, and that they don't want that to happen.
I've been using this lately in my NaNo novel. The story started out a bit fluffy, really: girl graduates from Evil Overlord school, wants to take over her city of birth to get her parents' attention, ends up accidentally blowing things up which is both good and bad for lots of people. Sure, it's a lot of fun - but even fun isn't enough. It has to matter*.
* To the story, to the reader. Not necessarily in some big 'Oh my gosh this is life-changing!' way; more things matter to us than change our lives.
And so, I went on a little romp through my plot and looked for ways to up the stakes. Those of you following me on twitter might have heard some talk recently of the demons raining from the sky; that's just one way I've introduced a bigger threat for Mercury, my MC, to face, one more complication to her plans and motivation for her to act out the final climax of the book. Her actions now matter, because they affect more people than just herself and her small circle of acquaintances; her actions will impact lives, and she knows it.
I know this has been a somewhat rambly post, but the take home point is this: What you write about has to matter in order for it to resonate with readers. Big things matter - but so do little things. It's your job as a writer to convince your readers that what you're writing about is important, even if only for the context of the story.
If you're struggling, if it feels like your work is falling a little flat - try upping the stakes. Give your characters something to work for, and things that will not only get in their way but also shred them into little pieces (physically, emotionally, whatever - your choice :D) along the way.
Conflict. Conflict is the lifeblood of fiction. Conflict matters.
So, tell me: what's your favourite conflict you've ever inflicted on a character? Who's the character who has to fight for the highest stakes? And which character matters most to you? I'll answer in the comments after you do ;)
29 April 2009
High Concept: What, Why and How?
When I first heard the term 'high concept', my first thought was 'literary'. I assumed, because of the word 'high', that high concept novels were those outstanding literary-style (although they may be genre fic too) books that go on to win prizes, that talk about the deep and meaningful of life, that everyone loves and adores because they matter - the books that become 'literary classics'.
In a way, I was right.
But in another, bigger way, I was wrong. Because the sister assumption to my definition assumption was that there was no way I could write high concept fiction. Not yet. Not without learning a whole lot more about life and people and literature.
Beep. Wrong!
I, as I am right now, and you, as you are right now, can write high concept fiction. Because it isn't actually as complicated as it sounds.
But first, why do we want to write high concept fiction? Never mind what it is - why do we have to care? Well, morals and creative impulses and desire to matter and all that aside, here's one very good reason why you want to write high concept fiction:
Because it's what agents are looking for.
Seriously. It's true. Everyone wants something high concept, because high concept sells.
So, what is high concept fiction? Basically, it boils down to this:
"Story ideas, treatments and screenplays can all have High Concept premises. But only High Concept projects can be sold from a pitch because they are pitch driven. Non-High Concept projects can’t be sold from a pitch because they are execution driven. They have to be read to be appreciated and their appeal isn’t obvious by merely running a logline past someone."
It's instantly obvious, reading this, that high concept is what agents want, and what can make your story stand out to the agents who read your queries. The gang over at Murderati put it this way, in what is perhaps the single best explanation of it that I've ever read, the one that made all these nebulous ideas I had about it click into place:
"If you can tell your story in one line and everyone who hears it can see exactly what the movie or book is - AND a majority of people who hear it will want to see it or read it - that’s high concept. ... Here’s another indicator. When you get the reaction: “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that!” or even better, “I’m going to have to kill you” - you’ve got a high-concept premise."
Isn't that exactly the reaction we all want from agents, editors, publishers and readers?
So, how do we learn which ideas are the ones that will illicit this reaction? How do we learn what a high concept idea looks like? One word.
Practice.
If you read through the rest of that article on Murderati, you'll see that the author learned high concept in a script-writing course where students had to come up with a pitch a week, which they presented to the class. For every pitch that was made, the pitcher added a dollar to the prize jar, and the pitch the class voted as the winner received the prize.
With that kind of motivation you learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn't.
So, as of today, I'm giving us all an opportunity to practice coming up with high concept pitches. If you look over in the sidebar, you'll see there's a poll. Those are this week's sentences: three pitches for three brand new ideas I invented off the top of my head this week, just for this purpose.
Each week there will be a new three sentences, and every forth week I'll post the three previous winners to come up with a 'grand winner' for each almost-month.
How does this help you learn? Well, you can learn simply by observing which sentences win - but I'm also giving you the chance to participate. At any time, you can email me at blot.of.ink(@)gmail(.)com with a pitch - or several - and I'll put it in the queue of sentences to appear :) Please include the word 'pitch' in your subject heading - and remember, a pitch is one or two sentences only!
As an interesting addendum, while I was creating these sentences I learned something very important: like creating The Sentence (a very similar concept to the logline, only a bit stricter in its parameters), it's not just the idea, it's how you phrase it. Take the first sentence for example. The original version was:
A newly orphaned girl sets out to determine whether she belongs to the tribe of the ocean or the age-old forest, but discovers the answer is much larger than either.
which I think we can all agree is a lot more boring. Why? Because the focus is on a passive conflict, not an active one. The key verbs are determine and discovers. However, in the new version:
At her father's funeral the people of the sea and the creatures of the forest both arrive to claim the newly orphaned girl for their own - and neither side is willing to let her get away.
the focus switches from her decision (totally internal, potentially very boring, and at the very least cliched) to the fight between the clans for her (external, potentially exciting, a lot less cliched; after all, not every girl is fought over by the ocean and the forest ;)).
Here's to high concept pitching, and to learning how to grab agents' attention! :)
PS - Love this quote from an excellent related article:
"Forgive me as I shrink a few inches, apply some lipstick, don a print dress and look at you from over my glasses as I mix a bowl of cookie dough. Yes, I have become your mother, in order to say this: 'It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man.'
Meaning: It's just as easy to be passionate about a story with some known elements as it is to be passionate about a story with no known elements."
What do you think? Should we be choosey about which ideas we fall in love with? Or is it art for arts' sake?
In a way, I was right.
But in another, bigger way, I was wrong. Because the sister assumption to my definition assumption was that there was no way I could write high concept fiction. Not yet. Not without learning a whole lot more about life and people and literature.
Beep. Wrong!
I, as I am right now, and you, as you are right now, can write high concept fiction. Because it isn't actually as complicated as it sounds.
But first, why do we want to write high concept fiction? Never mind what it is - why do we have to care? Well, morals and creative impulses and desire to matter and all that aside, here's one very good reason why you want to write high concept fiction:
Because it's what agents are looking for.
Seriously. It's true. Everyone wants something high concept, because high concept sells.
So, what is high concept fiction? Basically, it boils down to this:
"Story ideas, treatments and screenplays can all have High Concept premises. But only High Concept projects can be sold from a pitch because they are pitch driven. Non-High Concept projects can’t be sold from a pitch because they are execution driven. They have to be read to be appreciated and their appeal isn’t obvious by merely running a logline past someone."
It's instantly obvious, reading this, that high concept is what agents want, and what can make your story stand out to the agents who read your queries. The gang over at Murderati put it this way, in what is perhaps the single best explanation of it that I've ever read, the one that made all these nebulous ideas I had about it click into place:
"If you can tell your story in one line and everyone who hears it can see exactly what the movie or book is - AND a majority of people who hear it will want to see it or read it - that’s high concept. ... Here’s another indicator. When you get the reaction: “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that!” or even better, “I’m going to have to kill you” - you’ve got a high-concept premise."
Isn't that exactly the reaction we all want from agents, editors, publishers and readers?
So, how do we learn which ideas are the ones that will illicit this reaction? How do we learn what a high concept idea looks like? One word.
Practice.
If you read through the rest of that article on Murderati, you'll see that the author learned high concept in a script-writing course where students had to come up with a pitch a week, which they presented to the class. For every pitch that was made, the pitcher added a dollar to the prize jar, and the pitch the class voted as the winner received the prize.
With that kind of motivation you learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn't.
So, as of today, I'm giving us all an opportunity to practice coming up with high concept pitches. If you look over in the sidebar, you'll see there's a poll. Those are this week's sentences: three pitches for three brand new ideas I invented off the top of my head this week, just for this purpose.
Each week there will be a new three sentences, and every forth week I'll post the three previous winners to come up with a 'grand winner' for each almost-month.
How does this help you learn? Well, you can learn simply by observing which sentences win - but I'm also giving you the chance to participate. At any time, you can email me at blot.of.ink(@)gmail(.)com with a pitch - or several - and I'll put it in the queue of sentences to appear :) Please include the word 'pitch' in your subject heading - and remember, a pitch is one or two sentences only!
As an interesting addendum, while I was creating these sentences I learned something very important: like creating The Sentence (a very similar concept to the logline, only a bit stricter in its parameters), it's not just the idea, it's how you phrase it. Take the first sentence for example. The original version was:
A newly orphaned girl sets out to determine whether she belongs to the tribe of the ocean or the age-old forest, but discovers the answer is much larger than either.
which I think we can all agree is a lot more boring. Why? Because the focus is on a passive conflict, not an active one. The key verbs are determine and discovers. However, in the new version:
At her father's funeral the people of the sea and the creatures of the forest both arrive to claim the newly orphaned girl for their own - and neither side is willing to let her get away.
the focus switches from her decision (totally internal, potentially very boring, and at the very least cliched) to the fight between the clans for her (external, potentially exciting, a lot less cliched; after all, not every girl is fought over by the ocean and the forest ;)).
Here's to high concept pitching, and to learning how to grab agents' attention! :)
PS - Love this quote from an excellent related article:
"Forgive me as I shrink a few inches, apply some lipstick, don a print dress and look at you from over my glasses as I mix a bowl of cookie dough. Yes, I have become your mother, in order to say this: 'It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man.'
Meaning: It's just as easy to be passionate about a story with some known elements as it is to be passionate about a story with no known elements."
What do you think? Should we be choosey about which ideas we fall in love with? Or is it art for arts' sake?
09 February 2009
Fantasy Elements #1: 'True' Language
It's been a while since I posted articles in the Story Elements and Fantasy Elements series, but I thought it was high time to dredge them up again and continue :) So today, the whole concept of true names and language.
There's a lot of emphasis in the fantasy genre as a whole on words and language. You have magic systems based on words, you have made-up languages that embody the culture of the people who speak them - and you have names. Often, you have True Names, which are different from ordinary, everyday names because they have Power. The name of the thing is the essence of the thing, and to call something by its essence is to have absolute power over it.
I was thinking about this the other day, prompted by an old post over on A Nudge In The Right Direction. I have a major in linguistics from university, so have a bit of experience with languages and language and the concepts thereof.
Throughout history there have been many theories of art: art imitates nature, nature imitates art, art should imitate (or at least represent) nature, art is art for art's sake. In the late eighteen hundreds the work of a Swiss linguist called Ferdinand de Saussure changed the way many people thought about the interplay between art and nature, and linguists worldwide began to question and explore the idea of the word as representative of reality.
For centuries it had been assumed that language was in some way mimetic or representative of reality - the term 'dog' was fundamentally doggy, 'tree' was fundamentally treey, etc. But Saussure said that there could be no relationship between a word and reality apart from arbitrariness, principally because if there was some sort of mimetic connection, then all languages would have similar sounding words for similar concepts - and they don't.
There's a lot more to his theory, of course, but I'm trying to keep this non-technical. If you're interested, I'd be happy to expound; it's relevant to the fantasy genre generally and to anywhere you're using made-up words specifically. But for now, assuming that Saussure is correct and that there are no necessary connections between things and the sounds we use to represent them, let's examine some of the issues this raises for the 'true language' idea.
To say there is one 'true' language necessarily disparages all other languages. All other languages are not true, which is to say they are lies...
And who's to say which is the true language? Different ethnic and/or religious groups might reasonably claim that they alone have the true language, and that all other languages are impure, and the people who speak them unclean or infidels. Which leads to language stagnation, where languages refuse to invent or borrow new words for new concepts because that would mean corrupting the language - and this of course leads to societal stagnation, for a language that allows no new concepts will not support a changing society...
And yet despite all this, fantasy still insists on a true language. The world called into existence by a single word or phrase, the breath of some Creator, a sound that resonates throughout all creation and lends it Power, names that have the power to bind a person and their soul, to call up the dead, the capture immorals and trap them to one's will...
Where does our fascination with this come from? And why is it that characters are so much easier to write once we've named them, and so impossible to write when they have the wrong name? Are the two connected? How? Why? What is it we're seeking when we long for a language that is true, and pure, and power?
There's a lot of emphasis in the fantasy genre as a whole on words and language. You have magic systems based on words, you have made-up languages that embody the culture of the people who speak them - and you have names. Often, you have True Names, which are different from ordinary, everyday names because they have Power. The name of the thing is the essence of the thing, and to call something by its essence is to have absolute power over it.
I was thinking about this the other day, prompted by an old post over on A Nudge In The Right Direction. I have a major in linguistics from university, so have a bit of experience with languages and language and the concepts thereof.
Throughout history there have been many theories of art: art imitates nature, nature imitates art, art should imitate (or at least represent) nature, art is art for art's sake. In the late eighteen hundreds the work of a Swiss linguist called Ferdinand de Saussure changed the way many people thought about the interplay between art and nature, and linguists worldwide began to question and explore the idea of the word as representative of reality.
For centuries it had been assumed that language was in some way mimetic or representative of reality - the term 'dog' was fundamentally doggy, 'tree' was fundamentally treey, etc. But Saussure said that there could be no relationship between a word and reality apart from arbitrariness, principally because if there was some sort of mimetic connection, then all languages would have similar sounding words for similar concepts - and they don't.
There's a lot more to his theory, of course, but I'm trying to keep this non-technical. If you're interested, I'd be happy to expound; it's relevant to the fantasy genre generally and to anywhere you're using made-up words specifically. But for now, assuming that Saussure is correct and that there are no necessary connections between things and the sounds we use to represent them, let's examine some of the issues this raises for the 'true language' idea.
To say there is one 'true' language necessarily disparages all other languages. All other languages are not true, which is to say they are lies...
And who's to say which is the true language? Different ethnic and/or religious groups might reasonably claim that they alone have the true language, and that all other languages are impure, and the people who speak them unclean or infidels. Which leads to language stagnation, where languages refuse to invent or borrow new words for new concepts because that would mean corrupting the language - and this of course leads to societal stagnation, for a language that allows no new concepts will not support a changing society...
And yet despite all this, fantasy still insists on a true language. The world called into existence by a single word or phrase, the breath of some Creator, a sound that resonates throughout all creation and lends it Power, names that have the power to bind a person and their soul, to call up the dead, the capture immorals and trap them to one's will...
Where does our fascination with this come from? And why is it that characters are so much easier to write once we've named them, and so impossible to write when they have the wrong name? Are the two connected? How? Why? What is it we're seeking when we long for a language that is true, and pure, and power?
08 December 2008
The Sentence
So, two weeks ago I did a post on outlining, and how it works for me. We had a lovely discussion in the comments about the pros and cons of outlining, and the lovely Liana (Just_Me) made this comment:
"My other problem with plotting is that I move to the logical next step. Which doesn't always have tension. It's just the step that makes sense."
This is precisely one of the reasons why I love the line-for-scene method of outlining: you can see at a glance where the tension is lacking, and fix it before you write the thousands of words that said scene entails. The techniques I'm about to divulge come to you directly from the Think Sideways course that I love so much :o), specifically lessons 4 (How to Recognise and Build On Good Ideas) and 8 (How to Plan Your Project Without Killing Your Story).
See, the line-for-scene (hereafer L4S) method of outlining uses one very special tool: The Sentence. Not, 'the sentence', which is just a collect of words in approximately the order subject-verb-object, but 'The Sentence', capital letters. The Sentence is a powerful tool at all levels of storying: it makes a killer of an opening to a query letter, and by using The Sentence, you can tell immediately if your story or scene has the necessary ingredients for 'Good'.
So, what are these necessary ingredients?
In the words of Holly Lisle, "a protagonist with a compelling need, set against an antagonist with a compelling need, doing interesting things in interesting places, with something slightly askew."
For a good story, the necessary elements are:
* A protagonist with a need. If there is no protagonist, there is no one for the reader to care about, and if there is no one for the reader to care about, there is no reason for them to read the story. If the protagonist doesn't have a driving need, something that compels their actions, they are likely to be flat, boring, unrealistic, or all of the above. Protagonists do not have to be human, they do not have to be people, and they do not even have to be sentient. Inanimate objects can and do work. Needs to not have to be big, or emotional: a character who is driven by the need to observe can, done correctly, be just as interesting as a character driven by the need for revenge.
* An antagonist with a need. This one gets even more loose in terms of definition: antagonists can be situations, events, catastrophes like a hurricane or a battle. Any object that stands in the way of the protagonist's goal is an antagonist. This means you can be a bit creative with the whole 'need' thing: a storm's 'need' is to be a storm, a battle's 'need' is to be fought and won, etc. The essential thing to remember here is conflict: whatever the antagonists is, and whatever their 'need', it must be in conflict with the protagonist and their need.
* Interesting things in interesting places. Yes, the setting can be contemporary, here and now; in this case the onus falls on the 'things' (the conflict) to bear the weight of the interest. Yes, the conflict can be small, quiet, and seemingly unimportant - if the setting is able to take the weight of interest.
* Something askew, aka a twist. Something in your sentence, your story, your scene, needs to be not quite would the average person would have expected: if nothing happens that the reader did not expect, what's the point of reading?
By using this method of outlining (whether you choose to outline at the outset, part way through, or for revision, and whether you outline all the scenes, most of the scenes, or just a few of the high points) and subsequently dissecting your Sentences, it's dead easy to see where your conflict is - and where it isn't. And for the places where it isn't, The Sentence can be a great tool to help you introduce some.
Some examples, noting that when doing this for scenes you don't need to be quite as intensive as when you're doing it for a story - Holly calls it 'The Sentence Lite' :) The following are sentences I used in outlining The Project.
1) Heather and Andrew search the canyon for people, and can't find anything except a strange flickering movement that only Heather can see.
Protag: check. Heather and Andrew. It's not stated explicitly here, but their need is to find the People.
Antag: mm, iffy. Maybe the canyon, the setting - the fact that it's preventing them from finding the people.
Interesting things, interesting places: and here's where it falls down. What are they doing? Uh, wandering around looking for something. Wow. Great conflict there. Where is it? Well, to be fair, the canyon in slightly interesting, since it's known that something weird it up with it, but as it comes across here - buh-bow. Fail.
Twist: eh, sort of. The fact that only Heather can see this strange flickering movement is a bit twisty, but not brilliant.
2) They break into Angela's office and Heather recognises the fish by the door as her father's electronic fish.
Protag: Heather & co. At this point, following on from the previous scene in the book, her need is to find out who's torturing the People.
Antag: negative. I know that it's both the building they're in (trying to break in whilst avoiding capture, etc is a big barrier) and the person that's responsible for the torture, but an antagonist is completely absent from this sentence.
Interesting things/places: breaking in is pretty interesting. Recognising the electronic fish, in the context of the story, is VERY interesting. So this isn't too bad. It could have a better sense of setting, but it is only Sentence Lite after all.
Twist: this chapter is called 'It's All In The Fish' for a reason: the fish are a very major twist.
I could continue - and, if I were planning to continue with The Project, I would, because it's a very valuable exercise - but for now, how about The Sentence for a full story? A friend of mine was kind enough to donate a sentence she's working on for me to dissect.
A double-crossed CIA agent fights to save himself from terrorists and his own untrusting heart.
Okay. We have a protag: the CIA agent. We have a hint at his needs: he's been double-crossed, and needs to save himself. So far, so good.
We have an antag: the terrorists. There's not really any hint of their needs, apart from the implied assumption that they're after the CIA agent, and that they're terrorists. Not terrible, though.
Interesting things/places: well, it's a CIA agent and a bunch of terrorists :o) Interesting things are bound to happen. There's not really any sense of place, though, other than the fact that we can assume it's a reasonably contemporary world.
Twist: assumedly the fact that what the CIA agent must really save himself from is "his own untrusting heart".
This is a solid basis for The Sentence, but it could be tightened, I feel, in the areas of place and twist - and a sense of the terrorists' motives would be good, too. It's a lot to pack in to one, less-than-30-word sentence, I know - but that's the point. This sentence, as it stands, is fine. You can settle for fine.
But you can also shoot for brilliance.
Here are a couple of my own (not necessarily brilliant!) suggestions to close. Bear in mind I've only read the first few chapters, so I may be way off base :D Please feel free to leave your opinions and suggestions in the comments :)
Deep in the South American jungle, a double-crossed CIA agent fights terrorists for his life - and his mistrust for another chance at love.
Fighting for his life against terrorists in the South American jungle, a double-crossed CIA agent is drawn into a bigger battle: the one for his heart.
His (own) untrusting heart proves a bigger obstacle to a double-crossed CIA agent, fighting for his life in the steamy South American jungle.
Even with terrorists hot on his trail through the South Amercian jungle, a double-crossed CIA agent fights a more important battle against his own mistrusts and (something).
"My other problem with plotting is that I move to the logical next step. Which doesn't always have tension. It's just the step that makes sense."
This is precisely one of the reasons why I love the line-for-scene method of outlining: you can see at a glance where the tension is lacking, and fix it before you write the thousands of words that said scene entails. The techniques I'm about to divulge come to you directly from the Think Sideways course that I love so much :o), specifically lessons 4 (How to Recognise and Build On Good Ideas) and 8 (How to Plan Your Project Without Killing Your Story).
See, the line-for-scene (hereafer L4S) method of outlining uses one very special tool: The Sentence. Not, 'the sentence', which is just a collect of words in approximately the order subject-verb-object, but 'The Sentence', capital letters. The Sentence is a powerful tool at all levels of storying: it makes a killer of an opening to a query letter, and by using The Sentence, you can tell immediately if your story or scene has the necessary ingredients for 'Good'.
So, what are these necessary ingredients?
In the words of Holly Lisle, "a protagonist with a compelling need, set against an antagonist with a compelling need, doing interesting things in interesting places, with something slightly askew."
For a good story, the necessary elements are:
* A protagonist with a need. If there is no protagonist, there is no one for the reader to care about, and if there is no one for the reader to care about, there is no reason for them to read the story. If the protagonist doesn't have a driving need, something that compels their actions, they are likely to be flat, boring, unrealistic, or all of the above. Protagonists do not have to be human, they do not have to be people, and they do not even have to be sentient. Inanimate objects can and do work. Needs to not have to be big, or emotional: a character who is driven by the need to observe can, done correctly, be just as interesting as a character driven by the need for revenge.
* An antagonist with a need. This one gets even more loose in terms of definition: antagonists can be situations, events, catastrophes like a hurricane or a battle. Any object that stands in the way of the protagonist's goal is an antagonist. This means you can be a bit creative with the whole 'need' thing: a storm's 'need' is to be a storm, a battle's 'need' is to be fought and won, etc. The essential thing to remember here is conflict: whatever the antagonists is, and whatever their 'need', it must be in conflict with the protagonist and their need.
* Interesting things in interesting places. Yes, the setting can be contemporary, here and now; in this case the onus falls on the 'things' (the conflict) to bear the weight of the interest. Yes, the conflict can be small, quiet, and seemingly unimportant - if the setting is able to take the weight of interest.
* Something askew, aka a twist. Something in your sentence, your story, your scene, needs to be not quite would the average person would have expected: if nothing happens that the reader did not expect, what's the point of reading?
By using this method of outlining (whether you choose to outline at the outset, part way through, or for revision, and whether you outline all the scenes, most of the scenes, or just a few of the high points) and subsequently dissecting your Sentences, it's dead easy to see where your conflict is - and where it isn't. And for the places where it isn't, The Sentence can be a great tool to help you introduce some.
Some examples, noting that when doing this for scenes you don't need to be quite as intensive as when you're doing it for a story - Holly calls it 'The Sentence Lite' :) The following are sentences I used in outlining The Project.
1) Heather and Andrew search the canyon for people, and can't find anything except a strange flickering movement that only Heather can see.
Protag: check. Heather and Andrew. It's not stated explicitly here, but their need is to find the People.
Antag: mm, iffy. Maybe the canyon, the setting - the fact that it's preventing them from finding the people.
Interesting things, interesting places: and here's where it falls down. What are they doing? Uh, wandering around looking for something. Wow. Great conflict there. Where is it? Well, to be fair, the canyon in slightly interesting, since it's known that something weird it up with it, but as it comes across here - buh-bow. Fail.
Twist: eh, sort of. The fact that only Heather can see this strange flickering movement is a bit twisty, but not brilliant.
2) They break into Angela's office and Heather recognises the fish by the door as her father's electronic fish.
Protag: Heather & co. At this point, following on from the previous scene in the book, her need is to find out who's torturing the People.
Antag: negative. I know that it's both the building they're in (trying to break in whilst avoiding capture, etc is a big barrier) and the person that's responsible for the torture, but an antagonist is completely absent from this sentence.
Interesting things/places: breaking in is pretty interesting. Recognising the electronic fish, in the context of the story, is VERY interesting. So this isn't too bad. It could have a better sense of setting, but it is only Sentence Lite after all.
Twist: this chapter is called 'It's All In The Fish' for a reason: the fish are a very major twist.
I could continue - and, if I were planning to continue with The Project, I would, because it's a very valuable exercise - but for now, how about The Sentence for a full story? A friend of mine was kind enough to donate a sentence she's working on for me to dissect.
A double-crossed CIA agent fights to save himself from terrorists and his own untrusting heart.
Okay. We have a protag: the CIA agent. We have a hint at his needs: he's been double-crossed, and needs to save himself. So far, so good.
We have an antag: the terrorists. There's not really any hint of their needs, apart from the implied assumption that they're after the CIA agent, and that they're terrorists. Not terrible, though.
Interesting things/places: well, it's a CIA agent and a bunch of terrorists :o) Interesting things are bound to happen. There's not really any sense of place, though, other than the fact that we can assume it's a reasonably contemporary world.
Twist: assumedly the fact that what the CIA agent must really save himself from is "his own untrusting heart".
This is a solid basis for The Sentence, but it could be tightened, I feel, in the areas of place and twist - and a sense of the terrorists' motives would be good, too. It's a lot to pack in to one, less-than-30-word sentence, I know - but that's the point. This sentence, as it stands, is fine. You can settle for fine.
But you can also shoot for brilliance.
Here are a couple of my own (not necessarily brilliant!) suggestions to close. Bear in mind I've only read the first few chapters, so I may be way off base :D Please feel free to leave your opinions and suggestions in the comments :)
Deep in the South American jungle, a double-crossed CIA agent fights terrorists for his life - and his mistrust for another chance at love.
Fighting for his life against terrorists in the South American jungle, a double-crossed CIA agent is drawn into a bigger battle: the one for his heart.
His (own) untrusting heart proves a bigger obstacle to a double-crossed CIA agent, fighting for his life in the steamy South American jungle.
Even with terrorists hot on his trail through the South Amercian jungle, a double-crossed CIA agent fights a more important battle against his own mistrusts and (something).
24 November 2008
Following a Weathered Outline...
So, you'll have to excuse the multitude of puns in today's title O:) Puns, you ask? What puns? Ahh. Bear with me but a moment, and I shall reveal all *looks wise and knowing*
Firstly, following: I'm sure a lot of you are aware, but blogger has developed this nifty little concept called 'following', whereby you can elect to follow a blog and thence have it appear on your blogger dashboard, conveniently letting you check all blogs you're following at once, and see at a glance who's updated and who hasn't. Consider this your official *poke* to FOLLOW MEEEEEEE! :) There's a handy link over there in the sidebar, right below Works In Progress, if you'd like to become a follower.
(As an aside, don't you just love how secret-cult-shall-rule-the-world that sounds? Hello, everyone, this is my blog, and these are my followers......)
Next, weather. This is completely unrelated to the blog, but it's just so jolly unfair I feel compelled to mention it. I live in Australia. AUS-TRA-LI-A. It is November. NO-VEM-BER. This, dear weather gods, means it's nearly Summer. This is NOT the appropriate time to start dumping the best snow of the year. \:|
Right. Which brings me to outlines, and the following of them :D As every tactician knows, no plan survives first contact with the enemy; and as every writer knows, no outline survives first contact with the story.
When I started writing The Project, I had a vague idea of where it was going, and that was all. It didn't matter too much: the entire object of writing it was an exercise in plot, in learning to race from one troublesome situation to whatever problem my muse came up with next. But there came a point when the time travel and multiple subplots got the better of me, and I outlined. Just one sentence per scene, in a pretty little table in a word document.
It was good enough to get me through to over halfway, but naturally, it couldn't remain intact. So, when I decided to start rewriting TP in order to get the characters right, since I knew the plot and twists etc, I broke out my outlining tools to give the book a bit more oomph, and to make sure I had everything covered. Hence, it's my weathered outline ;) It's weathered the storm of most of a first draft, and is still a bit rough (weathered, ha ha) around the edges! Gwa! *is proud of puns* O:)
This is the complete outline:
Yeah, I know, you can't see a thing. If you could, though, what you'd see would be something like this:
That's nice, you say, but what does it all mean? Well, each card has a sentence on it (roughly; work with me here ;)) that corresponds to a scene. The letter in the circle at the top right of each card is the POV; the green stripe or lack thereof at the top left indicates to me which timeline the card is in (past, present or future). The colours down the right hand side indicate which plot threads the scene relates to, selected from the following:
Don't know if you can read that or not, but it basically says pink is developing sympathy for the girl, blue is solving the mystery (the main thrust of the story), yellow is revealing past events, orange is a third party subplot, and purple is 'Angela', the second POV character.
So, why did I go to all the effort of writing this down on cards, and colour-coding, etc? Isn't that an awful lot of work for something that - again - may not survive first contact?
Well, yes... But no. Writing out the outline like this* has lots of advantages. Firstly, there's the visual aspect - you can see everything at once, all out in front of you, and it's dead easy to pick up the cards and shuffle them around and see what happens to your timeline - and your story. All sorts of connections can be formed that you'd never have found otherwise.
Secondly, you can immediately identify the weak spots in the plot: sentences that drag, that have no conflict, or that are just plain boring are usually indicative of scenes that do the same. Conflict is the meat of any writing, and this is a quick way to spot places you might be lacking.
Thirdly, the whole colour-coordination thing: subplots. Unless you're writing YA, MG, or really short books, you absolutely need subplots. My current wip, Jesscapades, has no less than 11 plot strands at present. And the easiest way I've found to keep track of them all is colour coding. Once again, it's a visual thing: you can see it all there in front of you, and you can tell at a glance how much of the book is devoted to which plot threads, places where perhaps you've ignored a thread for too long, and places where you might be able to introduce a new one - or even ways which you can combine threads if you have too many for the book you're writing. It's also a great way to make sure you've tied up all your threads. That's what the big black dot on card 35 above means: I've tied off plot threads pink and purple.
Not everyone likes outlining, and most outlines end up looking nothing like the finished book. But that doesn't mean there's no use for them, as I hope I've demonstrated. And not only can you use this to do a check of how you're going, getting the cards out and shuffling them around can be a great way to unstick yourself if the story feels like it's getting out of hand; a handful of white squares seems so much more manageable than nebulous story concepts colliding in your head.
So, do you outline? Why or why not? How far do you go? And would you ever consider this method?
* If you're a pantser, who absolutely cannot outline before writing, consider using this method for editing and revising instead. If you're an outliner, you can use this method then too.
Firstly, following: I'm sure a lot of you are aware, but blogger has developed this nifty little concept called 'following', whereby you can elect to follow a blog and thence have it appear on your blogger dashboard, conveniently letting you check all blogs you're following at once, and see at a glance who's updated and who hasn't. Consider this your official *poke* to FOLLOW MEEEEEEE! :) There's a handy link over there in the sidebar, right below Works In Progress, if you'd like to become a follower.
(As an aside, don't you just love how secret-cult-shall-rule-the-world that sounds? Hello, everyone, this is my blog, and these are my followers......)
Next, weather. This is completely unrelated to the blog, but it's just so jolly unfair I feel compelled to mention it. I live in Australia. AUS-TRA-LI-A. It is November. NO-VEM-BER. This, dear weather gods, means it's nearly Summer. This is NOT the appropriate time to start dumping the best snow of the year. \:|
Right. Which brings me to outlines, and the following of them :D As every tactician knows, no plan survives first contact with the enemy; and as every writer knows, no outline survives first contact with the story.
When I started writing The Project, I had a vague idea of where it was going, and that was all. It didn't matter too much: the entire object of writing it was an exercise in plot, in learning to race from one troublesome situation to whatever problem my muse came up with next. But there came a point when the time travel and multiple subplots got the better of me, and I outlined. Just one sentence per scene, in a pretty little table in a word document.
It was good enough to get me through to over halfway, but naturally, it couldn't remain intact. So, when I decided to start rewriting TP in order to get the characters right, since I knew the plot and twists etc, I broke out my outlining tools to give the book a bit more oomph, and to make sure I had everything covered. Hence, it's my weathered outline ;) It's weathered the storm of most of a first draft, and is still a bit rough (weathered, ha ha) around the edges! Gwa! *is proud of puns* O:)
This is the complete outline:
Yeah, I know, you can't see a thing. If you could, though, what you'd see would be something like this:
That's nice, you say, but what does it all mean? Well, each card has a sentence on it (roughly; work with me here ;)) that corresponds to a scene. The letter in the circle at the top right of each card is the POV; the green stripe or lack thereof at the top left indicates to me which timeline the card is in (past, present or future). The colours down the right hand side indicate which plot threads the scene relates to, selected from the following:
Don't know if you can read that or not, but it basically says pink is developing sympathy for the girl, blue is solving the mystery (the main thrust of the story), yellow is revealing past events, orange is a third party subplot, and purple is 'Angela', the second POV character.
So, why did I go to all the effort of writing this down on cards, and colour-coding, etc? Isn't that an awful lot of work for something that - again - may not survive first contact?
Well, yes... But no. Writing out the outline like this* has lots of advantages. Firstly, there's the visual aspect - you can see everything at once, all out in front of you, and it's dead easy to pick up the cards and shuffle them around and see what happens to your timeline - and your story. All sorts of connections can be formed that you'd never have found otherwise.
Secondly, you can immediately identify the weak spots in the plot: sentences that drag, that have no conflict, or that are just plain boring are usually indicative of scenes that do the same. Conflict is the meat of any writing, and this is a quick way to spot places you might be lacking.
Thirdly, the whole colour-coordination thing: subplots. Unless you're writing YA, MG, or really short books, you absolutely need subplots. My current wip, Jesscapades, has no less than 11 plot strands at present. And the easiest way I've found to keep track of them all is colour coding. Once again, it's a visual thing: you can see it all there in front of you, and you can tell at a glance how much of the book is devoted to which plot threads, places where perhaps you've ignored a thread for too long, and places where you might be able to introduce a new one - or even ways which you can combine threads if you have too many for the book you're writing. It's also a great way to make sure you've tied up all your threads. That's what the big black dot on card 35 above means: I've tied off plot threads pink and purple.
Not everyone likes outlining, and most outlines end up looking nothing like the finished book. But that doesn't mean there's no use for them, as I hope I've demonstrated. And not only can you use this to do a check of how you're going, getting the cards out and shuffling them around can be a great way to unstick yourself if the story feels like it's getting out of hand; a handful of white squares seems so much more manageable than nebulous story concepts colliding in your head.
So, do you outline? Why or why not? How far do you go? And would you ever consider this method?
* If you're a pantser, who absolutely cannot outline before writing, consider using this method for editing and revising instead. If you're an outliner, you can use this method then too.
05 August 2008
Fantasy Elements: Introduction
Many months ago (May, in fact), Merc posted an article titled Throwing Down the Gauntlet. I read it, and immediately knew I needed to respond to it - but it's taken me this long to figure out how.
See, Merc's challenge was to explain why you like the genres that you like. It's so easy to get caught up with what you don't like about a genre - and it's much easier, too. I can list a squillion things I don't like about fantasy off the top of my head. It's taken me three months to find a satisfactory answer to why I do like it.
And of course, I figured it out when I was penless, and the words were Perfect and Right. And now that I come to write this, I can't remember them. I hope you'll forgive any awkward moments :)
Fantasy.
It's quite a controversial word, really. People tend to either love it or hate it, and it's part of that oft-scorned cluster known as 'genre fiction'. As in, 'not literary fiction'. As in, 'not real fiction' - not real writing.
We who live in these Other Worlds, of course, know better - but how do we convince the masses that fantasy is not 'just escapism', it's not unreality, it's real, and it's concrete, and it's meaningful?*
This was a discussion I had on Friday night with my husband. He's extremely supportive of my writing, but like so many people I know exists in a state of puzzled bemusement regarding the fantasy aspect.
I hit on it during the discussion though, and I've mentioned it above. Look hard.
Did you find it?
It's one little word: concrete.
Fantasy takes all our fears, our desires, our hopes and dreams - and it makes them real. Concrete.
You're terrified of the dark? In Fantasyland, it can kill you.
You long more than anything to be known as a brave hero? In Fantasyland, you have dragons to kill, maidens to rescue, and evil to overthrow.
There's another key concept: evil.
Most of you who know me well will know I'm religious; those of you that don't, well, now you know too :) As a part of that, I believe whole-heartedly in the battle between good and evil - and nowhere can it be more concretely demonstrated that in fantasy.
In 'real life', evil is (given a majority consensus) murder, rape, abuse, corporate greed and so forth. In fantasy, it can be those things too - but the stakes are higher.
A man murders others in order to preserve his own life? How about a man murders others, rips his soul apart and stashes it around the world to preserve his own life...
A person manipulates others to get what they want? How about a person takes control of other people, leaving them with no will, no thoughts of their own - or at least no way to utilise them...
You see, in fantasy, you have magic. And magic is power. And power means that the stakes are much, much higher.
Because with greater power comes greater responsibility.
In this world, we can fight evil. In fantasy, we Fight it.
As Holly Lisle puts it, we're designed to fight monsters. Our subconscious knows it. And if we don't give it big monsters to fight, it will make big monsters out of little ones.
Fantasy reminds us that there are big monsters, that our little ones here at home really are little in the context of the world, and that there are bigger things, more important things to fight for.
And that is why I like fantasy.
*Assuming, naturally, that we're talking about good fantasy here; no genre, literary and commercial included, are exempt from their share of trashy pink books (the term 'pink' is thieved from my Twin of Darkness and Good, Liana Brooks).
30 July 2008
Story Elements #3: Scenes
It came to my attention the other day that those things we writers like to call 'scenes' are neither as well-known nor as straight-forward as I'd always believed. And since they fit nicely into my Story Elements series, I thought this would be a lovely opportunity to explore my opinion on them :) Prepare yourselves...
Defining Scenes
There are lots of definitions of the word 'scene', but for the sake of brevity and focus, here are the more relevant ones.
Wikipedia:
In TV, stage plays and movies a scene is a part of the action in a single location.
In fiction, a scene is a unit of drama.
TME:
Continuous block of storytelling either set in a single location or following a particular character.
Screenwriting Info:
Action taking place in one location and in a distinct time that (hopefully) moves the story to the next element of the story.
Film/Editing Terms:
Action that occurs in one location at one time.
Screenwriting Glossary:
Continuous action with or without dialogue that takes place in one setting.
Good definitions - but note that they're all from screenwriting. Mostly, this doesn't make a difference, but let's throw in an author's definition here just to round things out.
Holly Lisle:
The simplest definition of a scene is that you've written a scene when something important changes. See her article on scenes and scene creation here.
Which means scenes can be tiny, or massive, depending on the scale of the change you're focussing on.
Scenes often line up with chapters, but they don't have to - and you can have multiple scenes in a chapter, but not multiple chapters in a scene. It's a complete, discrete unit, an event, an episode... A scene :)
However, when I said this to my friends the other day, one of them came right back with:
Oh yes you can [have multiple chapters in a scene]! I just ended Chapter three with Rick peering through a window and someone hits him from behind. Chapter 4 starts with him reacting to the blow and finding out what happened. Same scene. Different chapters. And a coat hanger in the middle.
The question is, does a chapter break equal a scene break? I think so, because it's the change that you're focussing on in the scene that determines where you break the chapter. It all depends on where you cut and why, because this will depend on what change you're trying to show. *tries to think of an example*
A guy comes into a restaurant. That's a change - he's moved positions. If that's the important change, then you could just end the scene there, and start a new scene for the next change that you wanted to show.
If, however, he comes in, and the waiter says something which irritates him, and he gets angry - maybe the change the scene is supposed to show is his change of emotion, rather than his change of position. In this case, the scene will be longer, and will be one scene even if it includes the same things that the previous two scenes would have shown... Yes? It's about figuring out which change you're emphasising.
A great resource that really helped me get my head around the whole business of what makes a scene - and more importantly, what makes a good scene is Holly Lisle's How To Write Page-Turning Scenes. It's a quick read, and for me it was well worth the money to figure out how to tell before writing which ideas had potential to become scenes, and which didn't. It's a great refresher on types on conflict, too. However, I've always struggled with structure (versus character), so if you're pretty confident you know how to plot and structure, it may not be so useful.
Defining Scenes
There are lots of definitions of the word 'scene', but for the sake of brevity and focus, here are the more relevant ones.
Wikipedia:
In TV, stage plays and movies a scene is a part of the action in a single location.
In fiction, a scene is a unit of drama.
TME:
Continuous block of storytelling either set in a single location or following a particular character.
Screenwriting Info:
Action taking place in one location and in a distinct time that (hopefully) moves the story to the next element of the story.
Film/Editing Terms:
Action that occurs in one location at one time.
Screenwriting Glossary:
Continuous action with or without dialogue that takes place in one setting.
Good definitions - but note that they're all from screenwriting. Mostly, this doesn't make a difference, but let's throw in an author's definition here just to round things out.
Holly Lisle:
The simplest definition of a scene is that you've written a scene when something important changes. See her article on scenes and scene creation here.
Which means scenes can be tiny, or massive, depending on the scale of the change you're focussing on.
Scenes often line up with chapters, but they don't have to - and you can have multiple scenes in a chapter, but not multiple chapters in a scene. It's a complete, discrete unit, an event, an episode... A scene :)
However, when I said this to my friends the other day, one of them came right back with:
Oh yes you can [have multiple chapters in a scene]! I just ended Chapter three with Rick peering through a window and someone hits him from behind. Chapter 4 starts with him reacting to the blow and finding out what happened. Same scene. Different chapters. And a coat hanger in the middle.
The question is, does a chapter break equal a scene break? I think so, because it's the change that you're focussing on in the scene that determines where you break the chapter. It all depends on where you cut and why, because this will depend on what change you're trying to show. *tries to think of an example*
A guy comes into a restaurant. That's a change - he's moved positions. If that's the important change, then you could just end the scene there, and start a new scene for the next change that you wanted to show.
If, however, he comes in, and the waiter says something which irritates him, and he gets angry - maybe the change the scene is supposed to show is his change of emotion, rather than his change of position. In this case, the scene will be longer, and will be one scene even if it includes the same things that the previous two scenes would have shown... Yes? It's about figuring out which change you're emphasising.
A great resource that really helped me get my head around the whole business of what makes a scene - and more importantly, what makes a good scene is Holly Lisle's How To Write Page-Turning Scenes. It's a quick read, and for me it was well worth the money to figure out how to tell before writing which ideas had potential to become scenes, and which didn't. It's a great refresher on types on conflict, too. However, I've always struggled with structure (versus character), so if you're pretty confident you know how to plot and structure, it may not be so useful.
22 July 2008
Absent Because of Beginnings
Today's title is somewhat non-sensical, but I like the sound of it, so it's staying :P As it suggests, I have been a little absent from the blog this past weekend because of beginnings - one hundred and fifteen first pages, to be precise, as posted over on Miss Snark's First Victim. I'm proud to say that I've read and commented on every one, and also read what no-longer-secret agent Holly Root had to say about them all. And I'm especially proud because with the ones that I commented on before she did, we agreed on nearly every one ;)
Why is this worthy of a post, you ask? Well, my good friend and Twin of Darkness and Good, who goes by the name Liana Brooks, posted a couple of days ago about which openings she liked and why. Which made me think I ought to do a similar post, since similar thoughts have been coruscating throughout my brain for the last few days. (Yes, coruscating. They're very shiny thoughts.) I'm amazed by how much this competition has taught me, and I know that once again my own writing will be made stronger because of it.
So, what struck me about the openings that I loved, versus the openings that were just so-so? Firstly, and mostly, voice. Stories that opened with a unique, identifiable voice that was in some way quirky had me immediately. It almost didn't matter what the subject of the story actually was, if the voice was great, I was hooked. (I say almost because there was this one that had a great voice, but was about a visit to the dentist... Others liked it, but I just couldn't feel that interested. Probably because I've never had a negative experience with a dentist, I'd say.)
And this is something that I know I need to work on for TP - Heather's characterisation is still all OVER the place, and she needs a solid character with a great voice to really make the book sing. But it has potential, and I'm glad of that much :)
Other things I noticed:
* Big paragraphs of description really suck. I skim. That even relates to paragraphs that may not actually be description, but look long and dense. Hoorah for small paragraphs!
* Punctuation, grammar, and spelling really, really, really count. Especially comma slices. (Death to splices! *waves pitchfork*)
And finally, the other biggie: conflict. You may recall that I wrote an article on conflict a while back, basically saying that there are lots of types and that it's the meat and bread of a story. Beginnings are no different. Even if the beginning has a good voice, is clear of mistakes and has nice sized paras, there has to be conflict. And more, the conflict has to be relevant. There has to be a sense that the conflict portrayed matters somehow within the context of the story.
So, personal checklist for beginnings: voice, conflict, bite-sized paragraphs, and no errors. Easy! :D
Why is this worthy of a post, you ask? Well, my good friend and Twin of Darkness and Good, who goes by the name Liana Brooks, posted a couple of days ago about which openings she liked and why. Which made me think I ought to do a similar post, since similar thoughts have been coruscating throughout my brain for the last few days. (Yes, coruscating. They're very shiny thoughts.) I'm amazed by how much this competition has taught me, and I know that once again my own writing will be made stronger because of it.
So, what struck me about the openings that I loved, versus the openings that were just so-so? Firstly, and mostly, voice. Stories that opened with a unique, identifiable voice that was in some way quirky had me immediately. It almost didn't matter what the subject of the story actually was, if the voice was great, I was hooked. (I say almost because there was this one that had a great voice, but was about a visit to the dentist... Others liked it, but I just couldn't feel that interested. Probably because I've never had a negative experience with a dentist, I'd say.)
And this is something that I know I need to work on for TP - Heather's characterisation is still all OVER the place, and she needs a solid character with a great voice to really make the book sing. But it has potential, and I'm glad of that much :)
Other things I noticed:
* Big paragraphs of description really suck. I skim. That even relates to paragraphs that may not actually be description, but look long and dense. Hoorah for small paragraphs!
* Punctuation, grammar, and spelling really, really, really count. Especially comma slices. (Death to splices! *waves pitchfork*)
And finally, the other biggie: conflict. You may recall that I wrote an article on conflict a while back, basically saying that there are lots of types and that it's the meat and bread of a story. Beginnings are no different. Even if the beginning has a good voice, is clear of mistakes and has nice sized paras, there has to be conflict. And more, the conflict has to be relevant. There has to be a sense that the conflict portrayed matters somehow within the context of the story.
So, personal checklist for beginnings: voice, conflict, bite-sized paragraphs, and no errors. Easy! :D
20 May 2008
Story Elements #1: Conflict
Today, I was going to post about the Archetypes of Fantasy - good versus evil versus well-rounded characters, and the various appeals and turn-offs of both.
Instead, because of this post, I'm going to talk about conflict, because it's something that I've been thinking a lot about lately.
Conflict. What is it?
Dictionary.com gives a nice suite of possible answers:
1. a fight, battle, or struggle, esp. a prolonged struggle; strife.
2. controversy; quarrel: conflicts between parties.
3. discord of action, feeling, or effect; antagonism or opposition, as of interests or principles: a conflict of ideas.
4. a striking together; collision.
5. incompatibility or interference, as of one idea, desire, event, or activity with another: a conflict in the schedule.
6. Psychiatry. a mental struggle arising from opposing demands or impulses.
So, conflict is a bad thing, right?
WRONG.
Here's a writer's definition of conflict: The lifeblood of any story.
And why is that? Bluntly, because Real Life is, on the whole, boring enough. Sure, we get our fair share of conflict in our day-to-day life, but it's ours, it's boring, and for the most part, we just want it to go away.
Fiction is different. In fiction, if you don't have conflict, you don't have a story. You have a random series of events that are almost guaranteed to lull your readers into a deep sleep - or have them throw your book at the wall in frustration. Either way.
But readers read fiction to escape Real Life! If they want their conflict to go away, and if their lives are boring, why don't they want to read about someone who has a perfect, interesting life where everything goes right and all is rosy?
One word. Jealousy.
Well, there might be other reasons too, but personally I'm not going to sit down and invest my time and effort into something that's going to make me want to throw it against the wall and scream, "But life's not like that! I hate you, you perfect person! Stop showing me up!"
Fiction has to be real.
If it sounds like I'm contradicting myself here, then you're obviously paying attention. Well done. I am. Fiction has to be real, but real life is boring, real conflict is boring, but stories must have conflict? Excuse me?
And this brings me to my point for the day. (Are you surprised? I have a point! :D)
There are different types of conflict, and they do different jobs.
At the uppermost level, conflict can be divided into external and internal conflict. External is where, say, a meteorite is discovered to be right on track to demolish the demon home world, and they have to do something about it if they plan to survive.
Internal conflict is where the head honcho demon can't decide what to do, because if he takes option A, everyone except his family survives, and if he takes option B, the entire planet is obliterated - except his family.
What to do, what to do?
It is precisely this question that will get and keep your readers interested. And something I've learned from personal experience - you can't get away with using only one type of conflict in your story. For it to seem 'real', for it to have depth, it must have both types of conflict. My first ideas for TBAEO suffered from too little external conflict (something most of my initial, pre-planning stage ideas contract). My first attempt at Search had far too little inner conflict.
Both resulted in stories or ideas that felt thin, sparse, and either confusing (because the characters weren't reacting to their situations) or boring (because they spent all their time whinging rather than acting).
So, where did this post come from? Two sources.
The post I linked to at the beginning is an article by Merc about the rules of magic. How does that relate to conflict? Because if you don't have rules, and people can do whatever they want with magic, then you don't have conflict. The all-powerful mage can whip up a spell that will annihilate the Dark Lord and Free The World? Great - why didn't he do that in the first place and save us from the pointless meandering of the story? Rules mean limitations, limitations means people might get hurt, and the potential for people to get hurt - aka conflict - is what will make a reader turn the page to find out what happens to that beloved character. Assuming you have likeable characters, that is ;)
Secondly, in two weeks time a group of us will be doing our own version of the tv program 'Thank God You're Here' as part of an all-day youth event. In planning the improv scenarios, I've discovered that in many ways, it's just like writing a story. To keep it moving and amusing, you need conflict. In this case, the easy way we developed to create conflict was to take a person in a position of responsibility and have them fail at that responsibility.
And on reflection, that's not a bad way to approach a novel too :)
Instead, because of this post, I'm going to talk about conflict, because it's something that I've been thinking a lot about lately.
Conflict. What is it?
Dictionary.com gives a nice suite of possible answers:
1. a fight, battle, or struggle, esp. a prolonged struggle; strife.
2. controversy; quarrel: conflicts between parties.
3. discord of action, feeling, or effect; antagonism or opposition, as of interests or principles: a conflict of ideas.
4. a striking together; collision.
5. incompatibility or interference, as of one idea, desire, event, or activity with another: a conflict in the schedule.
6. Psychiatry. a mental struggle arising from opposing demands or impulses.
So, conflict is a bad thing, right?
WRONG.
Here's a writer's definition of conflict: The lifeblood of any story.
And why is that? Bluntly, because Real Life is, on the whole, boring enough. Sure, we get our fair share of conflict in our day-to-day life, but it's ours, it's boring, and for the most part, we just want it to go away.
Fiction is different. In fiction, if you don't have conflict, you don't have a story. You have a random series of events that are almost guaranteed to lull your readers into a deep sleep - or have them throw your book at the wall in frustration. Either way.
But readers read fiction to escape Real Life! If they want their conflict to go away, and if their lives are boring, why don't they want to read about someone who has a perfect, interesting life where everything goes right and all is rosy?
One word. Jealousy.
Well, there might be other reasons too, but personally I'm not going to sit down and invest my time and effort into something that's going to make me want to throw it against the wall and scream, "But life's not like that! I hate you, you perfect person! Stop showing me up!"
Fiction has to be real.
If it sounds like I'm contradicting myself here, then you're obviously paying attention. Well done. I am. Fiction has to be real, but real life is boring, real conflict is boring, but stories must have conflict? Excuse me?
And this brings me to my point for the day. (Are you surprised? I have a point! :D)
There are different types of conflict, and they do different jobs.
At the uppermost level, conflict can be divided into external and internal conflict. External is where, say, a meteorite is discovered to be right on track to demolish the demon home world, and they have to do something about it if they plan to survive.
Internal conflict is where the head honcho demon can't decide what to do, because if he takes option A, everyone except his family survives, and if he takes option B, the entire planet is obliterated - except his family.
What to do, what to do?
It is precisely this question that will get and keep your readers interested. And something I've learned from personal experience - you can't get away with using only one type of conflict in your story. For it to seem 'real', for it to have depth, it must have both types of conflict. My first ideas for TBAEO suffered from too little external conflict (something most of my initial, pre-planning stage ideas contract). My first attempt at Search had far too little inner conflict.
Both resulted in stories or ideas that felt thin, sparse, and either confusing (because the characters weren't reacting to their situations) or boring (because they spent all their time whinging rather than acting).
So, where did this post come from? Two sources.
The post I linked to at the beginning is an article by Merc about the rules of magic. How does that relate to conflict? Because if you don't have rules, and people can do whatever they want with magic, then you don't have conflict. The all-powerful mage can whip up a spell that will annihilate the Dark Lord and Free The World? Great - why didn't he do that in the first place and save us from the pointless meandering of the story? Rules mean limitations, limitations means people might get hurt, and the potential for people to get hurt - aka conflict - is what will make a reader turn the page to find out what happens to that beloved character. Assuming you have likeable characters, that is ;)
Secondly, in two weeks time a group of us will be doing our own version of the tv program 'Thank God You're Here' as part of an all-day youth event. In planning the improv scenarios, I've discovered that in many ways, it's just like writing a story. To keep it moving and amusing, you need conflict. In this case, the easy way we developed to create conflict was to take a person in a position of responsibility and have them fail at that responsibility.
And on reflection, that's not a bad way to approach a novel too :)
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