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New PDF Guide: Emotion: it’s tough
When I figured out which series were the tops in 2011, I suddenly realized how long it’s been since I put together one of my series into PDF format (hint: years). Plus, it’s my husband’s and my second anniversary of our first kiss. I wanted to celebrate, but I can’t really take you all to dinner. So I made you something instead. (Ten guesses what it is!)
I’m starting with the most popular of last year’s series: Emotion: it’s tough. Portraying emotion in 
fiction isn’t easy—but an emotional experience is exactly why readers buy and read books. Using that emotion makes your writing more powerful—when it’s done right.
Emotion might be a double black diamond ski slope, but it doesn’t have to be treacherous terrain in your writing. Hard work, perhaps always. But impossible? Nope!
So check out the free PDF version of the series Emotion: it’s tough!
Photo by Peter Dutton
Posted in News & Contests, Technique
Tagged emotion, free guide, free writing guide, guide, pdf
1 Comment
Plot Driven vs. Character Driven: I do not think it means what you think it means.
When I first heard the terms “plot driven” and “character driven,” I immediately wanted to classify my work as the latter. The term “plot driven” makes it sound like our characters are jerked around without motivations or any other reasons save it be that “I, the author, need you do to such-and-such.”
That’s not my story, we claim. In my story, the characters are the driving force. They make the decisions (based on the motivations which I carefully crafted for them) that bring to pass those plot action. They are more than just cookie cutter cardboard characters who get jerked around like marionettes. 
This usage is so common that I feel bad for imposing the prescriptivist label of “wrong” on it, but I want to note that there are more than one way that these terms are used, and if you’re using these terms, it’s really important to understand how other people are using these terms.
At Edittorrent a couple years ago, editor Theresa Stevens defines these terms—and reminds us that they’re not mutually exclusive:
Most writers use both character and plot to drive the story forward. Keep that in mind as we go through the ideas in this post. It’s not an either/or. It’s a sometimes this/sometimes that/sometimes a blend of both.
In the simplest form, here are two definitions.
Character-driven: When something about the character’s essential self leads to a particular action or event in the story.
Plot-driven: When a character takes a particular action so that the result is a particular plot point.
(A little too abstract? Theresa gives a good example in the post.)
These definitions work on a macro level as well. When the basic story is driving toward a particular event or plot outcome, that’s technically plot-driven. When the basic story is more about the character’s internal growth and change, that’s technically character-driven.
Many genres of fiction, including mysteries, thrillers and romance, are inherently plot-driven. There is a set outcome: finding and stopping the bad guy, happily ever after, whatever. There is a proscribed plot formula—and if you violate it, writer beware.
However, as Theresa notes later in the article, these formulaic genres also have a specialized use of these terms. In romance, for example, there is both an internal plot (the romance) and usually an external plot (which might be a mystery or basically any other type of story). These plots influence one another an interact.
The internal plot, the romance, has a set outcome: happily ever after—like a plot-driven story. But the plot itself has more to do with the character’s inherent attributes, growth and change than about specific events and actions, like a character-driven story.
Conversely, the external plot, often does not have a set outcome: can they fix up this old hotel? Can they win over his domineering invalid mother? Can they overcome their business rivalry—or might they both lose/quit their jobs? This plot line is driven by events, making it plot-driven. But without a set outcome, it may or may not ultimately be a plot-driven storyline.
Confusing enough for you?
The bottom line, however, comes straight from Theresa:
Now, you’re probably wondering why this matters. Who cares if your story is plot-driven or character-driven? The truth is that the technique will not show in the final manuscript. When I read a book, I can’t tell if they started with a character or an event. And I shouldn’t be able to.
You can start with a character and generate events that suit him or her (as long as those events eventually become a coherent plot). Or you can start with plot and generate a character that suits it (as long as that character eventually becomes a consistent, rounded person). But whichever you use, the end product should most likely have both external plot and internal conflict and growth—coherent plot and rounded characters, character growth and motivated events.
(Important exception: literary fiction may be external plot optional . . . but this may or may not be why literary fiction gets a bad rap from time to time. However, character-driven plots are usually the most important aspect in literary fiction, tracking a character’s emotional journey and change.)
What do you think? Do you start with plot or character? Can you tell what others start with?
Photo credits: marionette & puppeteer: Asian Art Museum; dash & wheel—Ted Fu; steam engine drive shaft—Matthew Hine
Posted in Technique
Tagged character driven, definitions, formula, plot driven, romance, rules, terminology
4 Comments
Making scenes matter
or, How to Save Your Darlings!
We’ve all heard the phrase “Kill your darlings,” right? While sometimes, it feels like the injunction means that we have to carve out anything we liked in our work—whoa, don’t do that! “Kill your darlings” means more to carve out the pieces of your story that are important only to you—if they don’t matter to your characters, your story and your readers, they shouldn’t be in there, no matter how delightful their dinner 
discussion might be.
Janice Hardy has a great article on “Poking Dead Scenes With A Stick,” AKA do you really need that scene. She says:
When you have a dead scene, ask yourself: If I cut this scene, would anyone but me care or even notice?
If the answer is no, cut the scene. Go ahead and move it to a new file called "cut scenes" and save in case you need it later if you’d like. Be ruthless, the story will be better for it.
She has some great criteria for determining whether or not your scene is truly necessary. There might be events, statements or actions in the scene that are important, but you might be able to move them to another scene if you really need them.
But sometimes, we really do need these scenes. Perhaps they contain clues/foreshadowing that won’t work any other place. (But here’s a hint: if that clue is the only reason we need the scene, it’s probably going to stand out to the reader—maybe a little too much—unless we can make the rest of the scene work harder.)
So if we really need to keep a scene, what do we do to make that scene matter? To understand that, let’s take a look at the purposes of scenes.
Mission of scenes
On the Writing on the Wall blog, author Annette Lyon lists six of the most basic purposes of a scene:
- Advance the plot
- Create or show conflict
- Set the setting
- Reveal character
- Show backstory
- Lay groundwork for later plot
Numbers 1 and 2 are probably the most important in any sort of commercial or popular fiction. In fact, Annette says that most of your scenes should have #1 or #2 as a purpose—in addition to one of the other six.
To repeat, nearly every scene should advance the plot and/or create/show conflict, in addition to developing another aspect of the story. A scene just for character development isn’t enough of a purpose.
Look carefully at the scene in question and determine if it’s mostly or entirely serving only one of these purposes—and if it’s serving #1 and/or #2 at all.
So, let’s say you’ve gone through the scene line by line and you’ve determined that there is absolutely no other way to convey this information—but the scene still isn’t doing enough. You need to make that scene matter.
Making scenes matter
When you truly cannot cut the scene, what do you do? You make the scene matter.
First of all, look at the list of scene purposes above (and add to it if you really need to). How can you add those purposes to your scene?
When I’m trying to make a scene matter, I ask myself these questions:
- What is the character’s goal for this scene?
- How can things get worse?
- How can I raise the stakes?
- What is the source of conflict in this scene and how can I make the conflict bigger?
- How can I weave in the antagonist, the plot, a subplot or a character turning point?
- Who is the worst person who could walk in right now?
- What would happen if this scene took place somewhere else?
- What is the character feeling and have I shown it enough on the page?
In a second post on this topic, Janice Hardy also offers a list of things to look at to help make your scenes matter (and there’s some overlap, but I wrote out my mental list after reading her first post):
- What is your protag doing?
- Where does this scene take place (setting)?
- Who else is in the scene?
- Where structurally does this scene take place (act one, midpoint, act two, etc)?
- What happens right before this scene?
- What happens right after this scene?
- What’s your theme?
- What are the stakes?
With all these questions, mine and hers, we want to look for ways to make the scene more integral to the story. Incorporate the themes or the subplots more, heighten the conflict and the
When I was rewriting the book that will be my first published novel, I knew I needed to amp up the mystery plot (and tone down the romance plot a bit). So I went through each scene, specifically looking for a way I could increase the tension and suspense, raise the stakes and bring in the antagonists more.
And you know what? Even though I’ve written four books since that one, I still have to do this. Last month I did the first revision on my most recent manuscript, and I had to look for ways to make the scenes more interesting, state the characters’ goals and tie in the suspense more.
For a more specific example, in the last week, I reread a book I wrote almost 3 years ago as the first step in revisions. I’ve already edited it a bit, so just about all of the scenes are in there for a good reason (though I can see I hadn’t really grasped scene goals at the time). However, some sections of the book really drag, so I’m still brainstorming how I can draw in the antagonist more, how I can keep the threat present and how I can raise the stakes.
One really good example I’d like to share, though, is at a major turning point of the book. It’s the midpoint. Things are looking pretty bad for the future of the romance, and the hero goes home and basically mopes. (It’s my own writing; I can be harsh if I want to.)
This is the midpoint of the book, a major turning point. After the midpoint, says Larry Brooks, the character is ready to go on the offensive. 
The third quarter is all about the attack. But my character basically rolled over and played dead after the midpoint.
When I reread my midpoint scene, I thought, “NO! He does not MOPE! HE WILL FIGHT!” (If you feel like either quoting The Incredibles or singing some Peter Cetera, feel free.) And suddenly the entire third quarter made sense. I still have a lot of work to do to implement these changes, but suddenly this scene matters so much more.
In my example, yet another scene of the hero mourning his losses didn’t add anything to the story, except that we found out he’d gone so far as to buy an engagement ring before they broke up. (This does not help to make him less mopey, LOL.) In my new vision for the scene, we’ll still get that information—which wasn’t vital to the story in the original version. But now, that ring (which will actually be offstage), plus the events of the day, will help my character to a turning point.
And I can’t wait to see him fight.
What do you think? How do you help to make scenes that aren’t doing a lot for your story really integral?
Photo credits: delete—Mixy Lorenzo;
question mark—Alexander Drachmann; sad sack baby—J
Posted in Technique
Tagged editing, editing techniques, revision, revisions, scene charts, scene goal, scene goals, scene structure, scenes, self-editing
3 Comments
How to make characters your readers will love with the intensity of a thousand burning suns
Or, you know, just really really like.
My favorite television show of all time is Law & Order (Vanilla, please). I have literally hundreds of episode plots memorized. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a family member ask me, “Remember the episode where X & Y happen in the first 15 minutes? How does it end?” And I know the answer. (If you’re not yet impressed, remember that these are highly crafted mysteries, people. There are twists and turns and reversals and complicated legal maneuverings.)
My two favorite characters are Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach, may he rest in peace) and EADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston). Every time I remember that Jerry Orbach passed away, I get a little sad. Although personal lives of twhat ihe characters are not a major focus of the show, I teared up watching the episode where Det. Rey Curtis retires the other day. I flat out cry when I watch Lennie walk out of the office the last time. When Jack reunites with his daughter—and they just meet for dinner in the last minute of an episode—I am just as moved and verklempt as he is.
Yeah, I’m a girl. It’s okay.
But I didn’t fully realize my devotion to these characters, specifically Jack, until the other day when I read an article describing his successor as “a force of nature” who was riveting, and you never knew what he might do next.
I didn’t dislike the new character, but to hear that, I took umbrage, to say the least. To be fair, again, Jack had like six times as long as this character did in that office. But it’s taking all my restraint NOT to list the truly creative and sometimes insane things Jack did as EADA.
What is it about Jack that inspires that kind of loyalty from a fan like me? It’s not the actor (I do like him—but that’s because of the role). It’s not the legal maneuverings (though they make things interesting). I don’t even think it’s what he does or how he does it. It’s that he’s 1.) passionate and 2.) unpredictable.
“Unpredictable? But—but—but—our characters have to be consistent,” you might say. You’re right—well, you’re not wrong. After all, as far back at Aristotle’s Poetics, we’ve been taught that characters must be consistent.
But, Aristotle argues, they must also be “consistently inconsistent.”
And what does that mean? (Well, Aristotle means that if a character is an inconsistent person, they should always be similarly inconsistent. But that’s not really helpful.) I like to use it to mean that a character’s actions should be consistent with who they are at their core—if they are a fool, they shouldn’t suddenly become the soothsayer, or vice versa—and at the same time, they should be surprising to the audience.
The reason I love Jack McCoy (and the reason this blogger [whom I managed NOT to lambaste for his/her personal preference] loves his successor) is because we never knew what he might do next—except that we did.
We knew they wouldn’t jump off a building to win a case (that wouldn’t work). We knew they wouldn’t give up lawyering to sing with the Met, paint at the Met or play for the Mets. We knew they wouldn’t kill someone. We knew they wouldn’t go bungee jumping or out to a nice, peaceful lunch or on a pleasant family vacation (shown on the show, that is).
We knew that they did have a code of ethics and morals, but sometimes the end justified the means (and sometimes, they decided it didn’t—and we respected them all the more). We knew that they would think and be resourceful and try again and if necessary lie and mislead and fudge and regard things “from a certain point of view” a little in the pursuit of justice. We knew they’d fight against bad guys, their lawyers, and even each other for the greater good.
We knew that they would do almost anything to win when they knew they were right.
And we couldn’t wait to see what unexpected, unconventional and unbelievable thing they’d do next.
The intensity of a thousand burning suns, okay, maybe not. But it certainly worked to keep viewers tuning in for an hour a week for twenty years—and Law & Order airs in syndication and spinoffs around the world. They did something right.
What do you think? How can you make your characters consistently inconsistent—and memorable and lovable?
Sam Waterston photos by Sharon Graphics
Posted in Technique
Tagged Aristotle, characterization, characters, consistent characters, inconsistent characters, Jack McCoy, Law & Order
1 Comment
Write that Novel 3!
Looking for a story idea? Here are a few titles that just might get you started.
- Courage in the Face of Commas
- All’s Well That Doesn’t End in Murder
- It’s All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses Their (His/Her) Life
- Romancing the Keystone State
- The Top Ten Things I Really Shouldn’t Have Had for Breakfast
- Zen and the Art of Golf Ball Fishing
- Monster Sandwich
So write that novel—but what’s the plot? Share your craziest idea for a book with any of the above titles in the comments!
Photo by Malik M. L. Williams
Fulfilling audience expectations on every page
As we’ve started to talk about marketing, we’ve mentioned how important your genre is. Your genre gives you a built-in audience—with built-in expectations of books in that genre. Those expectations will vary with the genre. In genres that have a fairly standard plot formula—romance (cute meet, conflict, HEA), mystery (crime, investigation, unmasking the criminal), etc.—that’s certainly part of the expectation, but in every genre there are even smaller expectations that we must fulfill to give our readers a good reading experience.
On the macro level, as we talked about in marketing,
we give readers an experience they want: excitement, fun, connection, contemplation, novelty, etc. That “emotional interest” that nonfiction creates is built in for fiction: it’s emotion itself.
Or as author/blogger/marketer Kristin Lamb wrote also last week:
Why do readers buy fiction?
One of the reasons readers are so loyal to authors is because of how that author’s stories made them feel. James Rollins makes me feel like I’ve had an exciting adventure. Sandra Brown makes me feel love is worth fighting for. Amy Tan makes me feel hope and power. J.K. Rowling’s stories make me feel heroic.
Fiction authors are brokers of passionate emotion.
While these emotional experiences are important on the story-level, we need to remember the experiences readers want on each page, or we run the risk of readers giving up on our books long before we can show them the story-level emotional experience.
Rewards Per Page
While we might not be able to fully capture heroism or adventure on a single page, or on every page, there are many, many other emotional experiences that “reward” readers on every page. Vince Mooney points out that a reader “is buying a ‘basket of feelings’” (though he narrows this to romance readers, I really feel it applies to all genres). Beyond the overall payoff of the plot, Vince says that every page should hold “rewards” for the reader—and after studying more than a thousand novels (hello, corpus literature!), he’s come up with 100 types of page-level rewards for readers.
Here are a couple of my favorites rewards he shared on Prairie Writer Chicks and Seekerville:
Vince also suggests looking at your own manuscript to find how many rewards you’re giving to your reader per page.
While the ones he lists on those blogs are fairly universal, there are going to be many rewards that vary by genre. Just as the emotional experiences readers are looking for depends on the genre, the payoffs and rewards do, too.
For example, in a romance, a romantic gesture, especially one tailored to these characters and this situation, rewards not just the characters but the readers, too. (EX: after a fight, he sends her favorite flowers, rhododendron—or better yet, mindful of her flower and food allergies, he sends a GFCFSF cookie basket.)
In a mystery, on the other hand, finding a clue is a type of reward. It can be even better if it’s a clue only a very attentive reader would notice—if the main character is distracted or has a very good explanation for it (making your characters look dumb to make a reader feel smart is not a reward—it’s actually frustrating for the reader). This might be considered a variety of an anticipated event.
And as with all other genre expectations, the best way to figure out the rewards that are most applicable to your genre is to read widely within your genre.
What do you think? What kind of rewards do you see in your genre?
Photo credits: I <3 Mr. Darcy by Jamelah E.; rhododendron by D. Mott
Posted in Technique
Tagged genre expectations, mystery, reader expectations, rewards, rewards per page, romance, vince mooney
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February Thinky Links!
Over the month of January, I collected the stories I found on Twitter and in my feeds that were just too good to miss and put them together for you! Welcome to “Thinky Links“!
Author Janice Hardy offers some good advice on how to cut a scene without hurting your story
Kristen Lamb gives a really good example of how to start in medias res.
The Editors’ Blog looks at the use of coincidence in fiction, why it’s bad—and how to fix it.
I’ve been working hard on revising my Nano novel, so I’m really far behind on my feeds, but I did happen to see two good posts on EditTorrent recently, the kind that make me want to run around telling people “I’ve been vindicated” in an imaginary battle I was having with no one. The first covers showing versus telling in an interesting way (i.e. not writing 101), including that was is not always bad and is not the same thing as passive voice, and the role of telling in exposition.
The second is how to avoid that obnoxious “As you know, Bob” (or Alphonse) dialogue by slipping in backstory, characterization and other information through subtle cues. I LOVE working on this, and Alicia gives great examples!
Although I’m now with a traditional, regional publisher, I still find self-publishing very interesting. So for two different perspectives on that this month, Daniel J. Friedman takes a hard look at the numbers behind self publishing: what they make, what they’re worth, and what they’re selling. On the other hand, Joanna Penn interviewed Adam Croft on How To Sell 130,000 Books Without A Publisher. And for some perspective on both sides, Future Book looks at Why Amanda Hocking Switched, with some interesting notes on how her publishers are working for her.
And to close, here are a few of my favorite posts on this blog from Januaries past:
- A perennial favorite of mine, how to spot and avoid the most common (empty) gestures in writing
- Another one I still use extensively, creating and editing with a scene chart
- And a few from the series on tension, suspense and surprise:
- Choosing whether plot elements should be set up strongly to create suspense, or should remain a surprise
- One I should probably study a little more: creating suspense in Act I
- What creates tension and suspense?
What’s the best writing/marketing/publishing advice you‘ve read lately?
Photo by Karola Riegler
Misadventures in character names
We’ve all met people with funny names. I have a friend whose mother-in-law’s name is Lynn Lynne. I played a prank on a friend once, claiming I was going to marry someone with the last name Gordon (and my first name is Jordan, remember?). And of course, my father shares a name with a very famous early US statesman.
In real life, these humorous names often happen by accident (especially if you’re a woman). My dad’s mother, for example, had already picked out Dad’s name before she met my grandfather and thus learned what last name her children would have. (It was the name of her favorite mule…)
In fictional worlds, we get to pick all our characters’ names—so hopefully, we get to avoid these embarrassing “nom” pas . . . but only if we’re really thinking.
Sometimes we choose funny or odd names on purpose. I chose the last name of Saint for one of my characters because it set up a number of jokes. I named another character Molly Malone for the same reason. (Poor characters…) Of course, for Molly, I had to explain how she came to have that unfortunate name. Same went for the tongue-twistery Cora Warren.
And sometimes . . . well, we’re just not smart enough to realize what we’ve done at first. For example, I once had a character with the first name Kent. I needed a nice strong surname for the guy, so in the next scene, he became Mr. Clark. It was a little while before I put the names together.
Kent . . . Clark.
Uh. Yeah. (His last name became Thornton soon thereafter. Borrowed from someone I knew IRL.)
And my most recent character naming accidents came in my Nano novel. Just before another book was accepted, by coincidence I wrote one of my villains sharing a surname with my editor. (It was not a coincidence that another villain shared the same editor’s first name. I changed that.) But the biggie was the hero—and you know how hard it is to change the hero’s name!
Most of the time, it wasn’t a problem. He went by Jack, a nickname from his last name, Jackson. (Which set up some jokes, too, of course. This trend is becoming disturbing.) It was a great name for him.
And I thought his first name was perfect, too. Kerr. (It was a drug store and a lake where I grew up, and my dad had a friend named Kerr when he was a kid. Not that I ever knew him, but I knew it could be a given name.)
If you haven’t seen the problem yet, let me tell you: when his real first name came up, this character often had specify either the spelling or the pronunciation. Let me treat you to a now-defunct conversation from the novel: in this scene, their car has been reported stolen and is about to be towed.
They hurried across the street, Jack trying to compose his thoughts so he could pull this off. The stunned disbelief and confusion wouldn’t be too tough, but the innocence would be a stretch. [They have something stolen in the trunk. Which, sadly, will also end up on the cutting room floor.]
“Whoa whoa whoa,” he said, jogging up to the officer. “Is there a problem here?”
“Is this your vehicle, sir?”
“Yeah. Did I park illegally? The sign says no parking Monday to Friday.” Jack pointed to the sign. [It's Sunday.]
“No, sir. This car has been reported as stolen.”
“No, no—no. This is my car. It has been for seven years.” Unless his brother had changed the registration into his name when Jack left home—but still, it should all check out.
The cop raised an eyebrow and read something off the clipboard in front of him. “License plate 267 VAP?”
He nodded. “All me.”
“Registered to Kerr Halsey Jackson.”
“It’s pronounced ‘car.’ As in, ‘This is my car.’”
The cop folded his arms. “I’m going to need to see some ID.”
So what’s the problem?
His name is Kerr Jackson. Pronounced Car Jackson. Let me try that again: pronounced CAR JACKson.
I realized this two days before I finished the novel. He got a new first name—but I’m definitely going to reuse Kerr. Maybe with the last name . . . Hop?
All right, top my stories: what are the craziest, funniest or silliest things you’ve named characters, on purpose or by accident? Did you change them?
Photo credits: Superman by Greenog; car jack by Cameron Flanders
