Elements of Fiction: Tone

Photo by Nicolas Marino

Tone is the overall mood of your story. Moods can change from scene to scene, but the tone lasts through the whole book.
Take, for example, the insanely popular book Twilight. Even though there’s a spattering of action-packed scenes, the majority are romance. The tone is romantic rather than supernatural.

Picture yourself holding the published, hardbound copy of your book, with your name across the bottom.
What is the overall tone? If a prospective reader glanced at it, what would they assume?

Now flip the book over.
What do the critics say about it? Do they proclaim it as an insightful classic or a heart-pounding action ride?

Open up your book. Go to the appendix where there’s an interview with the author (you!). One of the questions you were asked was, “Why did you write this book?”
How did you respond?

Step 1: Tone
Decide what you want the tone of your story to be. It is going to be light-hearted, thought-provoking, dark, or romantic?
This will provide the basis for everything you right. If you’re attempting to write a light-hearted picture book, it most likely will not include the death of a friend.
Everything you write will orbit around this theme. Do not be afraid to change it if you need to. Nothing is set in stone.

Step 2: Direction
Make up critic reviews for your published book. They must be good. You are, after all, writing the ideal reviews of your perfected final draft.
This exercise let’s you know what you want your book to end up like. It’s easier to get somewhere if you know where you’re going.

Step 3: Purpose
Why did you write your book?
Think carefully on this one.
Did you write it to entertain? Inform? Warn?
While it’s good know where you’re going, it’s just as necessary to know the reason behind the journey.

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Procrastination

With summer at our heels, now our excuses are gone. We have more time than ever during the year and we should be writing.

So why aren't we?

Summer is shorter than it used to be. (500 Days of Summer? I wish.) Even if we write like crazy during our vacations, if we are lax on normal work-weeks we'll never get much done. We have summer for our hobbies. But we also must find time on normal days.

Don't waste one minute. Time is precious. A simple math equation will prove that:
People say that "time is money" and that "money is power", right?

TIME=MONEY
MONEY=POWER
So...

TIME=POWER

To have time is to have the power to do anything. Those who waste time will never get anything done.
Don't procrastinate. Do.

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Solving Problems and Creating Solutions

It's all good and fun to heap conflicts on our characters. That's what we want, right? The only problem with problems is that we have to solve them.

Two Birds with one Stone

One way to solve is by using one problem to solve another. You wouldn't believe how often this works.
For example, I was struggling with a Character A's lack of involvement in the plot. I was also trying to figure how Character B finds out that Character C is in trouble. The solution to both? Make Character A the messenger boy.
In these cases, the two interlocking problems aren't always obvious. Try combing through your story and making a list of plot holes and problems. Then put a couple together to see if they match up. It's sort of like a puzzle; two puzzle pieces are enigmas alone, but click them together and you're that much closer to the finish line.

The Brainstorm

This is the most logical technique; sit around and think brilliant thoughts. However, for most of us, it's not that easy.
Brilliance doesn't happen under pressure. Which is why the brainstorm shouldn't be taken seriously. If you're exerting pressure on yourself to be a genius 24/7, chances are you won't be.
Trust me. I once stressed and racked my brain for an hour, convinced that the only way to complete my book was by refusing to stop my brainstorm. In a word; failure. The only thing I accomplished was a week-long writer's block.
Successful brainstorming should be relaxed musing. No pressure, there's always another day to be amazing.

I never quite know when I'm not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, "...Thurber, stop writing." She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, "Is he sick?" "No," my wife says, "he's writing something."
~James Thurber

Change the Facts

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts
~Albert Einstein

Sometimes, we write ourselves into a corner. The scenario is too impossible, the conflict cannot be resolved, and the characters are dead meat. If that's the case, un-write and rewrite. You're the author. Give the villain a tendency to oversleep, make the dungeon walls hastily built, the fortress located in an abandoned quarry, the evening wine drugged (You can imagine for yourself what these suggestions would resolve.)
You don't have to make things easy for the characters, just possible.

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Deadlines

Deadlines seemed to be feared by everyone. They're a "threat".

I prefer to think of them differently.

Writers need goals, something to motivate them.

Paul F. Tompkins said, "I need fear to make me creative...I like to say, it takes pressure to make a diamond."

If you have no finish line, what's the point of even starting?

Set a deadline for yourself, an achievable goal like finishing a your rough draft before summer break.
And then celebrate it. You are that much closer to being published.

"Success is a finished book, a stack of pages, each filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world."
~Tom Clancy

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Writers: Born or Made?

I guess this question could be asked of any artistic profession.

Some people, after complimented, say that they were "born with it". Was I born with the ability to write? I don't know. I hadn't even considered writing for fun until 5 years ago. (So I guess that makes my profile description sort of a lie.)

It's my opinion that you can do anything if you practice and study the subject long enough.

Yet some people while being taught a new subject have "a knack" for it right off the bat.

I think it's that everyone has some things they excell at, and some things they're not-so-good at. But that's not to say they cannot do the things they suck at (sorry, that sounds harsh), but that they have to work harder than others to do it well.

What do you think?

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Writer's Worry Part 2

Yesterday I called upon my friend, another writer, to help me fix a plot. The twists are amazing, the plot is thickened, but I'm stuck.

"Are you trying to control the story?" She asked.
"Yes. But I need to write. And I don't know what happens next."
She reminded me that sometimes you can't rein in a story. Sometimes you just need to put pen to paper and let it guide you.

Let's compare it to a horse.
If you know you're destination you're going to steer your horse there. But if, like me, you don't know where you're going, then you've got to sit back in the saddle and drop the reins.

I tried to let the story take me where it wanted. I wrote eveything and anything that spilled from my mind onto the paper.

It worked.

Sometimes you've got to let the story be in charge.

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Change

To be a writer you need to be able to change easily.

Not yourself, but your habits, your character's names, your book's title.

I recently learned that if I write a book before knowing the main problem, the book dies. Yet I've stubbornly persisted in ignoring that, hoping I'd become one of those instinctive writers that "never know where the story will take them."

So I had to change my preconceived notion of what type of writer I am.

The quicker I can let
go of things (the story I set out to write, the beginning that I thought was
good, the dumb bunny metaphor that I loved) the quicker I'm able to move on and
find something better.

~Todd Mitchell

You must be able to adapt. Don't latch onto that sentence that you're so proud of.

Writers need to have a thick skin, not only for critics, but for yourself.

Letting go is hard. But a lot of times, it's necessary.

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Writing Out of Order

My preferred way to write lately has been to write out of chronological order. I’ve been jotting down whatever short scenes pop into my head.
It’s proved useful (if mildly confusing) because I tend to have blind spots when looking at how my plot will turn out. I may know what happens next, but I don't know how or why it happened. In other words, I'm missing a few stepping stones.

I’m now attempting to type up what I’ve got so far, trying to figure out how to fill the holes.
I couldn’t really gain any semblance of organization, so I filled out index cards with a short description of each scene and arranged them chronologically.
What resulted was a clear definition of what I need to type. But it also revealed that the skeletal structure of the plot is terribly frail. But that's alright, for a rough draft.

On several of them, I state the scene but then have scribbled how? underneath. I know what happens. But I can't figure HOW. For example, I know they escape from ______ but I don't know how they accomplish that.

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Resolutions: Tying up the Loose Ends

While trying to figure out a solution to my book, I remembered two "rules" about resolving conflicts.

1) The character's plan spins them deeper into trouble
2) The character's plan doesn't work out the way they expected, and is revised (usually on the spur of the moment)

I'm trying to get them OUT of trouble for good, so rule #2 is what I need to utilize.

And then BOOM. After a couple hours of brainstorming and recalling these rules, I realized what needed to be done. All that's left now is to write it.

So a tip for other writers out there: brainstorm.

A great way to find new ideas is by having a change of scenery. Seriously, moving away from that computer to a new place seems to open up your mind and let new ideas flow in.
In my case, a quick jaunt to Sonic was all I needed to get the creative juices flowing.

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Death of a story: What should really be two posts but is combined into one

It's been a little over a month since I finished a rough draft for the first time.

So I broke out the worn notebook and stared at it for a while, trying to figure out how to start the revision process.

But no matter how hard I thought, I couldn't think of a way to fix the plot.

So I started making a tree-looking map of all the possible scenarios that each plot point could lead to.

I got this far before the endless choices scared me and I quit.

I was scared that if I followed one, it'd be, I don't know, the WRONG direction.

And I really don't feel like writing out every possible scene.

I've been a scared little writer for quite some time. Sometimes I began worrying about "WHAT IF I GET IT WRONG?"

There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are.
~Somerset Maugham

Though writing rules vary from author to author, Mary Bass's three rules for writng are Be Entertaining, Be true to your story, and BE FEARLESS.
Fearlessnes, ah.
Gonna have to work on that.

But my first shot at revision revealed that the book died a while ago anyway.

I was surprised to realize that it was dead. By "dead", I mean "dead" like a dead language (latin for example.)

I don't know if he (I think of the book as a "he" since the main charcter's a guy) will make a comeback someday in the far future. Maybe someday it'll hit me how to fix the rough draft, but for now, I'm moving on to work on one of my other drafts I still need to finish.

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My Soapbox

For you new readers out there (and the older ones) I thought it about time to give you a quick welcome.

Welcome to WRITER SENSE. It's basically my little soapbox to share tips and hints I learn.

Every writer has a few puzzles pieces towards the perfect book-writing process. Not every process works for every writer, mind. I'm just trying to give others a leg-up in return for all the support I've recieved.

“If you are a dreamer,come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer.
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
for we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!”
~Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

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Writing Unconsciously

I'm one of those people who feel like every time I write, my future reader is peering over my shoulder, clucking their tongue and making remarks. I feel I have to please them in every way.

So far, the only way I've found to work around that is by writing unconsciously.
I'm not talking about yoga or getting yourself into a trance. (But if that helps you take the focus off the 'what-if-I-don't-get-it-right' syndrome then great, do it.)

What I mean is writing the words you want by letting the words carry you.
Let the words carry you like an ocean wave (that sounds so corny.) But if any of you have ever swam in the ocean, you notice how the waves rise you up and down flowing easily and with zero effort.

If you fight the waves, you quickly become exhausted. If you let them carry you, it's very easy, though they'll take you places you may not have planned to go. (Since we're comparing the ocean to your story, that's okay.)

I kind of zone out before writing, maybe do a little free-writing beforehand. I try to focus on my characters when I'm writing, not a nonexistent reader. (Which is pretty ironic since my characters don't exist either.)

LET THE WORDS CARRY YOU. You are a little boat in an ocean of words, be taken places you've never imagined.

Over-thinking can kill creativity.

DON'T THINK ABOUT IT; DIVE IN HEADFIRST

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How to Write a Gripping Beginning

Photo from iambuttonbag.com

Well, I'm off the hook. Researched a bit on how to revise and most of them say to put away the rough draft and not look at it for a month. I think I might just follow their advice...


Speaking of hooks, I've been meaning to get around to doing a post on grabbing your reader on the first page. Or 'hooks' as they're usually called.

When I'm skimming through books, I generally read the first page. If it's dull, back it goes the book on the shelf. (And honestly, the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" rule is never obeyed by readers.)
So the first page is important.
Don't get freaked out, those of you who've yet to finish your rough draft. Each time you edit your story the first page changes, so you don't really need to worry about it until the final draft. (The final draft. That seems so far away...)

A few good examples of first lines that make you want to keep reading;

The King killed my canary today.
~Goose Chase, by Patrice Kindl

When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.
~Stormbreaker, by Anthony Horowitz

The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.
~Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson

And of course;
I'd never given much thought to how I would die...
~Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer

So, what happens when you're at the stage of composing an engaging first page?
For one thing, Once Upon a time is a thing of the past. Never. I forbid it. Unless of course, you're trying to be funny.
One of the best places to begin a book is in the middle of the action. ("I ducked the flashing blade..." that sort of thing.)
Or in the middle of dialogue. ("A spy? Here?" I said doubtfully.)

Begin as close to the end as possible
~Kurt Vonnegut (What a last name)

In Elizabeth Haydon's The Floating Island the story starts with the main character in a jail cell writing out the events that happened to get him there. That made the reader want to read on to find out how he got into such a sticky mess.

Option a) start with catchy dialogue
Option b) start with action
Option c) start in the middle of the muddle

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Driving the Plot

PHOTO BY DAVID WATERS

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." -- E.L. Doctorow

A big misconception is that every book has to have a main character. Believe it or not, it’s possible to write a book without having a main character (be forewarned, this could get a trifle long.)

There are two driving forces; CHARACTER DRIVEN and EVENT DRIVEN.

Character driven just means that the focus is on your main character. They make things worse through his/her actions, they struggle, they struggle, makes it worse again, until he/she finally triumphs at the end. (Example: HARRY POTTER)

Event Driven is a about a series of events that gets worse and worse though various characters’ actions until at the end good wins over evil, or whatever they’re trying to accomplish. (Example: LORD OF THE RINGS)

I started a book once about this boy. I had the hardest time writing about him. And then I realized; I really didn’t like him! I didn’t want to write about him. I tried changing his name and personality but to no avail. Yet, in order to do the book as a character-driven one it was vital to leave him in.  So I did event driven and cut the blasted character out.  True, that story is one of the many rough drafts I never completed. But at least I want to write it. And even if it never does get finished, I learned something… by failing.

CHARACTER DRIVEN
1. Who’s the main character?
2. What does he/she do?
3. How does his/her actions get them into trouble?
4. What do they plan to do about it?
5. What forces are working against them? (It can include several smaller problems.)
6. How do they overcome these forces?
7. What happens when they’ve overcome the forces and reached their goal?
8. The End

EVENT DRIVEN
1. What’s the big problem?
2. How does it affect the majority of the world?
3. Who does it affect in particular?
4. Who wants to help stop it?
5. What happens as they try to stop it?
6. What opposing forces do all of them face?
7. What struggles does each character go through?
8. How do they succeed?
9. Do they fix the big picture, or just protect a good group of people from the problem? (For example, they could help people escape a war.)
10. What happens?
11. The End

Realize that this is not a seamless set of directions but an outline to get you started.

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The Anatomy of a Story

Last night I saw HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. I enjoyed it. However it was waaay darker than the other movies but terribly funny.
On the way home we discussed how J.K. Rowling plotted all the books before even writing the first one.
"Well," I said. "I suppose she just got the main skeletal structure of the plot and just packed the meat on as she went."
They asked me, "Where'd you read that analogy?"
A tad miffed I explained I'd come up with it myself. Their response was heartening; "Put it on you blog."

Really, when we write a rough draft, we don't need to include details. At that point, we're just trying to figure out what the heck the characters' goals are, where the story is headed, and what problems could arise.
If we're going to compare the plot to bones, then let's compare the search for the plot as a sort of archaeology dig. Each draft after draft brings us closer to what the final draft's plot will look like.

It's during these drafts that we can also build around the bones. 'Pack the meat on'. Add details and twists.

I can assure you 100% that your first draft will suck. (How's that for inspirational advice?)
BUT it will get better.

Every new 'Bone' you uncover will provide a bigger picture of what your looking for.
Every sinew and muscle you add to give details will strengthen that plot.
Wow. Am I in an anatomy mood or what?

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Un-Writing

What happens when you can't get any farther in your story? When you write yourself into a corner?

The answer is very simple; UNWRITE.

Hopefully you're familiar with the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
In it, Theseus has a ball of string to help him get through the maze. The idea is that if he comes to a dead end, he can turn around and follow the string back.

If you come to a dead end, follow your plot string to the point just before you began disliking the direction your plot was taking. Or, find the last passage you'd written with ENERGY. The last passage you'd enjoyed to write. When you find a good place, chop off everything that came afterward and start afresh.

WHY did you not like what you'd written last time?
HOW did you end up in that dead end?

After you see that, you won't make the same mistake twice.

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