The Three-Part Writing System

Photography by Alex Mazurov

In returning to my blog, after a six-month limbo, I'd like to introduce The Three Part Writing System, something I've been perfecting during hiatus.

It is simply this. There are three parts to writing: Plot, Story, and Craft.

What's the difference between Plot and Story? The Plot is composed of the events, by themselves, with no added decoration. The Story is made up of the color and emotion of things. If you took out a piece of the Story, it might not affect the events, but it might damage the atmosphere you're trying to create.

Let's see if I can make it simpler.

Let's say your protagonist is a young soldier in the trenches of WWI. He has crucial information that he must deliver to his commanding officer, but to do that he must cross enemy lines. He decides to bribe an enemy soldier into stealing him an extra uniform.
Those are the events. That's your plot.  That is the logical sequence of events.

But let's add a little flair. Your protag has been wrestling with his conscience throughout his enlistment. He believes the war is futile, and even considers that by not delivering the information, the war would be shortened. As he walks through the trenches, he sees the men around him, singing songs half-heartedly and clutching letters from home, photographs of wives and children.
There. That's your story. It doesn't affect the fact he has crucial information to deliver. It doesn't affect the Plot. But it does add some delightful drama and conflict.

And, finally, Craft. These are the words that you, as an artist, choose to weave together. It's all good and fine if your plot and story are amazing, but if you write in a jerky "See Spot run. Spot runs fast" prose, the book will fail. Craft is how you write it. Don't we all love those writers who write cleanly, whose words flow along, who make us not want to put the book down?

Take Frances Hardinge; "By day the villagers fought a losing battle against the damp. By night they slept and dreamed sodden, unimaginative dreams. On this particular night their dreams were a little ruffled by the unusual excitement of the day, but already the water that seeped into every soul was smoothing their minds back to placidity, like a duck's bill glossing its plumage." Mmmm. She has a way with words.

And there it is, ladies and gents. The three things that make up a book. The three things to focus on, to improve, to hone to perfection. Learning how to write won't be instantaneous. But nothing that ever came easily was ever worth it.

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Finding Time to Write Part II

Photo by Rick Bowden

I was skimming through Marc Shapiro's J. K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter when something caught my eye. Despite the pressure of being a single mother, working to stay alive, and all that "rubbish", she manage to find the time to write and completed The Sorcerer's Stone in one year. It's not as if she had unlimited time on her hands. But she prioritized her writing.

She wrote during train rides, at cafes, on scraps of papers. She rushed to finish her secretarial work so that she could use the corporate computer to write. She prayed constantly that no one would have a birthday or a meeting that she'd be obliged to attend.

Every spare moment she had, she wrote.

I know we have busy lives. I know that we rush to take care of families, work, and the occasional curve balls life throws at us. I know that writing can seem like just another thing on an already full plate.

But maybe we're just forgetting why we write. We write because we want to. No one's forcing you to do anything. So just remember your first writing sessions when writing was pulling characters from thin air and watching them walk around the page.

We need to stop dreading the blank page. If you've lost the love of writing, try free-writing every day before you write your novel. It gets your creative juices flowing before you have to tackle the novel.

In all honesty, this post title is a lie. We don't Find time to write; we Make time.

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Creating Characters: Motive

Every character, minor or major, needs a motive. It’s the driving force behind everything they do.
In other words, their reasons. That’s all good and fine, but what it really boils down to is that there are consequences to their actions.
I cannot stress how important motive is. If there’s no reason your character should be doing something, then why are they doing it? Unless there’s a motive, your book will end up as pointless as a kid’s menu maze.

Courtesy of Applebee's

Self Interest
Face it. The human race can be selfish. But there’s a fine line between selfish and smart.
One of the most overpowering motives for a character is death. Most characters desperately don’t want to die. Death is the reason they do things they know are wrong, because self-preservation kicks in.
It doesn't have to be that extreme. Lying and cheating are things we do because we're afraid of the consequences.
This includes personal goals.
Other People
If humans were entirely logical we’d never risk our lives for someone we love, get angry, or set off on quests with only faith to guide us. If Spock needed to find the Holy Grail, he’d make sure of its location and existence before he went after it.
For the sake of a good story, humans don’t think in pure logic. We think about others. We do so many crazy things, good and bad, because of other people.
Your main character might risk his life for the woman he loves. That’s good.
He might get angry at a minor bad guy and accidentally spill the beans. That’s bad.
But either way, his actions are affected by other characters. The reason he acts is because of someone else.
Even the villain can be affected by others. Take Voldemort. He is so intent on killing Harry Potter himse that he spends far too much energy preparing a secluded trap for Harry and not enough time protecting all his lovely horcruxes.

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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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Showing not Telling: Infodumps

At one point or another, you have to explain some aspects of your book. Even if the character knows exactly what’s going on, the reader might not. Put simply, an infodump is a large chunk of necessary information that bores the reader to death. I don’t know about you, but when I come across blocky paragraphs describing the scenery, my eyes tend to skim.
So how do we present crucial information by showing instead of telling?

Dialogue
One of the best ways to present facts is through characters talking to each other. But even this can be botched if the dialogue if nothing more than an infodump with quotations. Let’s compare;

Infodump
The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with mercury. Mercury is a silver metal with a high density. It’s a liquid at room temperature, but exists in the solid cinnabar. Cinnabar is a powdery, red mineral that’s extremely poisonous when inhaled. Mercury was once thought to cause longevity. It is toxic and has been known to cause insanity. It was this material that the alchemist chose to work with.

Infodump with Quotations
The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with mercury. He turned to his apprentice and explained, “This is mercury. Mercury is a silver metal with a high density. It’s a liquid at room temperature, but exists in the solid cinnabar. Cinnabar is a powdery, red mineral that’s extremely poisonous when inhaled. It is toxic and has been known to cause insanity.”

Face it; the second’s not much better. If you choose to do dialogue, make it a conversation;

Conversation
The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with a silvery liquid. The apprentice craned his neck to see. “What’s that?”
The alchemist grunted and held the jar out for the apprentice’s inspection. “This, boy, is mercury.”
“And, uh, what exactly is it for?”
“Some believe it has the power to make you immortal.”
The apprentice’s eyes widened.
“Of course,” snapped the alchemist. “That’s utter rubbish. Far too many emperors have died because of that supposition. Everlasting life indeed. Mercury will kill you, boy. If it doesn’t drive you insane first.”
The apprentice looked warily as the sloshing metal. “Right. Well then, is there anything else we can use for the recipe…a substitute maybe?”
The alchemist laughed. “Closest thing you’ll get is cinnabar. But that’s got mercury in it anyway. Highly toxic. Take a whiff of that stuff and you’re a goner."

Thoughts
This only works if you’re using first person or third person omniscience POV. A character’s thoughts can be a powerful tool.

Before:
The day was bitterly cold. A crisp wind blew garbage across the street. Everyone was inside, enjoying the warmth of a fire. The entire sky was coated in white snow-clouds and it was only a matter of time before a blizzard hit. Even the queen’s palace was suffering from the icy weather, with servants scraping away at the frost-coated windows so the queen could enjoy looking outside.

After:
I marched down the slushy street, my woolen cloak wrapped tightly against the crisp winter wind. I was the only one outside. Every other sane person was indoors, tucked in a quilt by a blazing fire. But not me, I had a job to do. I groaned inwardly and kicked at a pile of frozen garbage. Blast this weather. I glanced up at the leaden sky blanketed with snow clouds. We’d have a blizzard before the month was out, for sure.
Another gust of wind sent me hurrying down the road again. I passed the queen’s palace and snickered at the poor, frozen guard on duty. The Queen didn’t much care about other people’s discomfort, evident by the army of servants scraping frost off the palace’s two-hundred-and-ten windows. Poor suckers. What was even the point of it? So that the queen could look outside and see the empty street?

Actions
The way characters behave can strengthen both Dialogue and Thoughts, and make a strong support on its own.

The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with a silvery liquid. The apprentice craned his neck to see. [This reveals that the apprentice is curious and new to the alchemy experience] “What’s that?”
The alchemist grunted [Not the friendliest guy] and held the jar out for the apprentice’s inspection. “This, boy, is mercury.”
“And, uh, what exactly is it for?”
“Some believe it has the power to make you immortal.”
The apprentice’s eyes widened. [He’s naïve to believe such a myth]
“Of course,” snapped the alchemist. “That’s utter rubbish. Far too many emperors have died because of that supposition. Everlasting life indeed. Mercury will kill you, boy. If it doesn’t drive you insane first.”
The apprentice looked warily as the sloshing metal. [Now he’s nervous] “Right. Well then, is there anything else we can use for the recipe…a substitute maybe?”
The alchemist laughed. [He’s got a strange sense of humor] “Closest thing you’ll get is cinnabar. But that’s got mercury in it anyway. Highly toxic. Take a whiff of that stuff and you’re a goner.”

The apprentice’s reactions give us a clear definition of who he is without having to say, “The new apprentice didn’t know anything about alchemy and was incredibly gullible.”

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Guest Post: Janice Hardy on "Trail Blazing"

We’ve all read stories where clues were so seamlessly dropped in along the way that until the big secret was revealed, we never even realized they were there. But when we finally did, all the pieces of the story fell into place and we were awed by the skill in which that bread trail had been left. Those writers made it look easy, as if they knew from page one what clue went where and how it would all come together in the end.
I’m sure there are bound to be a few writers out that who really can write that way, but for most of us, those clues are either planned ahead of time, inserted after the fact, or happy accidents. Sometimes, (heck, probably most times) a combination of all three.

Planning the Trail
Some clues we know about in the planning stage of the novel. Those details that came to us as we were brainstorming and writing our outlines or making our notes. Important clues we work hard to build a scene around. Often these are the things our protag’s will discover down the line in some fashion and a critical plot twist may even hinge on them. They’re important, which is why we know about them from the start.

Stumbling Upon the Trail
Then there are those details that just kinda happen, and it isn’t until after that we realize that throwaway detail could be so much more. A bit of backstory or internalization that suddenly has greater meaning, an off-hand setting element that becomes the perfect hiding place for a long lost secret. The types of details that lurk in our brains and leak onto the page, and somehow, always seems to be better than the stuff we actively think up.

Marking the Trail
Last, there are those details that we go back and add in once we’ve figure out how the story unfolds. The purposeful red herrings, the hidden clues, the telling off-hand remark. Each detail is inserted at just the right spot so the reader can follow that trail, even if they don’t realize they’re following it.

Keeping the Trail Clean
No matter what type of writer you are (outliner or pantser), odds are you’re going to go back at some point and edit. Doing an edit pass for clues, hints, and foreshadowing isn’t a bad idea, especially if you’re not one of those mystery writers who think of these things naturally. (I think mystery writers are born with this skill) If you’re not sure where to leave those bread crumbs, try asking…

When do I want the reader to start suspecting things?
Sometimes you’ll want a surprise, other times you’ll want the tension of trying to figure it out to help pull your story along.

When does my protagonist start to figure it out?
Readers often spot things long before characters, but if it’s too obvious, then your character might look dumb if they haven’t figured it out yet. Make sure you have a good balance between reader hints and character hints. If your protag needs to know something by page 45, leave enough clues before then so the realization feels plausible.

Are there any slow/weak spots that could use some freshening up?
Weak spots in need of help could be opportunities to create a scene that links back or foreshadows another. Would adding in a layer of mystery help?

Do the characters encounter anything thematically or metaphorically linked to the thing?
You know how someone can say something and make you think of something different? Your brain picks up on it because there’s some link between the two things. You can do the same thing with your characters. Something they’ve heard or experienced might be the perfect trigger for a memory or realization in a later scene. Or, you can go back and add something that can make this happen.

Trails are made by folks wandering back and forth over them, so it makes sense that a good plot trail might take looking at from both ends of your novel. Knowing where a plot or subplot ends up makes it a lot easier to figure out where it starts. The more you wander that trail, the more you learn about it and the more you can share with those starting down it for the first time.


About Blue Fire

Part fugitive, part hero, fifteen-year-old Nya is barely staying ahead of the Duke of Baseer’s trackers. Wanted for a crime she didn’t mean to commit, she risks capture to protect every Taker she can find, determined to prevent the Duke from using them in his fiendish experiments. But resolve isn’t enough to protect any of them, and Nya soon realizes that the only way to keep them all out of the Duke’s clutches is to flee Geveg. Unfortunately, the Duke’s best tracker has other ideas.
Nya finds herself trapped in the last place she ever wanted to be, forced to trust the last people she ever thought she could. More is at stake than just the people of Geveg, and the closer she gets to uncovering the Duke’s plan, the more she discovers how critical she is to his victory. To save Geveg, she just might have to save Baseer—if she doesn’t destroy it first.

Buy it here.

About Janice Hardy
A long-time fantasy reader, Janice Hardy always wondered about the darker side of healing. For her fantasy trilogy THE HEALING WARS, she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices.
Her books include THE SHIFTER, and BLUE FIRE from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She lives in Georgia with her husband, three cats and one very nervous freshwater eel.

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The One Rule to Writing

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

~W. Somerset Maugham

By now, we’ve probably heard plenty of writing rules. Show don’t tell, start with action, the main character must develop, pace yourself, ect.

And then, of course, there’s everyone’s personal rules. According to George Orwell, the six rules are
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print,
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do,
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out,
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active,
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent,
6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Or maybe you’ll prefer John Rechy’s three rules; Show don’t tell, write about what you know, and always have a sympathetic character for the reader to relate to.

If that’s not enough, there’s always Elmore Leonard’s ten rules, Kurt Vonnegut’s ten, Norman Holland’s three, or Steven Goldsberry’s one hundred and one.

I believe that there’s only one rule: Write.

Sure, learn the craft of writing. Study what makes a reader tick and publishers squeal with joy. By all means, follow writing blogs, google images of random people who resemble your characters, and make playlists for your story. But nothing will ever replace the movement of pen on paper. Less talk, more action.

Now, I know this sounds obvious, but a lot of writers (like me) catch ourselves spending more time worrying that we’re not writing instead of actually doing it.

If your butt isn’t in the chair, you will not write a word.

So, Step 1, pull out a notebook and a pencil. Sit down. Comfortable? Good, because you’re not allowed leave. Chain your ankle to the desk if you have to.
Now….write.

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How to Write an Essay: The Conclusion

A conclusion is all commentary; no facts. You should have already made your point in your body paragraph. Unless the essay is really long, never use your conclusion to summarize. The conclusion is there to make your reader think. Clarify your theme, evaluate alternate ideas, or explain how the theme applies to the world.

Example:
It is human nature to judge. But a person's heart is impossible to discern. It doesn't matter who they were or what we think they might become, but who they are now. We must judge, but we must do so righteously. As it says in the book, "...what is said about men often has as must influence upon their lives...as what they do." Be cautious of how you label others; the label could become a brand.

The Essay:
Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables, spent the majority of his life as an exile during the time period that immediately followed the reign of terror. Les Miserables pinpoints the problems in society and the rift between good and evil. Hugo’s masterpiece stands as a reminder to us all that, no matter the consequences, good must prevail.
Jean Valjean, despite being a convict, is essentially noble. After changing his name, Valjean settles down in a small town, always fearful that he will be discovered. When the police arrest another man in his name, Valjean must decide whether to turn himself in, or to keep silent in order to retain his liberty. In the end, Valjean reveals himself to save the innocent man from life imprisonment. Jean Valjean would rather die, abased and despised, then allow someone to suffer on his behalf. Jean Valjean would rather “re-enter into hell and there become an angel” than "remain in paradise and there become a demon!"
It is human nature to judge. But a person's heart is impossible to discern. It doesn't matter who they were or what we think they might become, but who they are now. We must judge, but we must do so righteously. As it says in the book, "...what is said about men often has as must influence upon their lives...as what they do." Be cautious of how you label others; the label could become a brand.

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How to Write an Essay: Body Paragraphs

A body paragraph needs three things; a topic sentence, facts/examples, and commentary.

Topic Sentence
The topic sentence always comes first and is always an opinion.
My old LA teacher drilled this into my head; "Facts can't be supported. Facts are the supports."
(Jean Valjean, despite being a convict, is essentially noble.)

Facts/examples
Cut and dry; use evidence to support your topic sentence.
(After changing his name, Valjean settles down in a small town, always fearful that he will be discovered. When the police arrest another man in his name, Valjean must decide whether to turn himself in, or to keep silent in order to retain his liberty. In the end, Valjean reveals himself to save the innocent man from life imprisonment.)

Commentary
This is where you have free rein. Write your opinions, clarify statements you've made or make connections between statements.
(Jean Valjean would rather die, abased and despised, then allow someone to suffer on his behalf. Jean Valjean would rather “re-enter into hell and there become a demon” than "remain in paradise and there become a demon!")

Example:
(Les Misérables)
Jean Valjean, despite being a convict, is essentially noble. [Topic Sentence] After changing his name, Valjean settles down in a small town, always fearful that he will be discovered. When the police arrest another man in his name, Valjean must decide whether to turn himself in, or to keep silent in order to retain his liberty. In the end, Valjean reveals himself to save the innocent man from life imprisonment. [Example] Jean Valjean would rather die, abased and despised, then allow someone to suffer on his behalf. Jean Valjean would rather “re-enter into hell and there become a demon” than "remain in paradise and there become a demon!" [Commentary]

Part 1: The Introduction
Part 2: Body Paragraphs (You are Here)
Part 3: The Conclusion (Coming Soon)

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How to Write an Essay: The Introduction

At one point or another, we’ve all had to write an essay. For most, they’re dull to write and even duller to read. Luckily, a formula exists that will produce a professional thesis.

The intro must include five things; Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, and Subject. The order doesn’t matter, as long as you include them. We call this a SOAPS intro.

Speaker
The Speaker is the figure you are focusing on.
For example, if you were writing about a book, the speaker would be the author and the title of the work. (Les Miserables, Victor Hugo).
If you were writing an analysis of Einstein’s works, the speaker would be Einstein.

Occasion
The events surrounding your speaker.
If you were writing about a book, this would include the events in the writer’s life that inspired them to write said book. (Victor Hugo spent the majority of his life as an exile during the time period that immediately followed the reign of terror. He undoubtedly hated society and spoke against it in Les Miserables.)
If you were writing about a person, Occasion would pertain to the time period in which they lived. (Einstein was hated by Nazis and became an American citizen. His works aided the allies in constructing the atomic bomb and ending World War II.)

Audience
Who did the artist direct their work towards?
(Victor Hugo’s works were directed at society.)
Audience doesn’t always apply. (Einstein’s works were not directed toward anyone.)

Purpose
What is the purpose of their works?
(Why did Victor Hugo write Les Miserables? To pinpoint the problems with society and demonstrate the difference between good and evil.)
(Einstein developed his theories for the sake of knowledge and for the end of the war.)

Subject
This is your thesis statement. This usually appears at the end of the intro and details what your essay is about.
(Hugo’s masterpiece stands as a reminder to us all that, no matter the consequences, good must prevail.)
(Einstein’s genius served as a launching pad for the twenty-first century, providing us with a greater understanding of the universe around us.)

Example:

Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables, [speaker] spent the majority of his life as an exile during the time period that immediately followed the reign of terror [occasion]. Les Miserables pinpoints the problems in society and the rift between good and evil [purpose]. Hugo’s masterpiece stands as a reminder to us all [audience] that, no matter the consequences, good must prevail [subject].

Part 1: The Introduction (You are here)
Part 2: Body Paragraphs
Part 3: The Conclusion (Coming Soon)

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How to Write an Epic

At one point or another, we've all wanted to write something epic. One that encompasses the struggle between light and darkness, tells of a hero who saves the world, and makes people read them over and over again.
Luckily, there's a template for that. All epics (Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, Les Miserables) share key elements.

The Hero
Most heroes fall into the same archetype. He/She;

• Performs feats (Frodo gets the ring to Mordor.)
• Is essentially noble (Frodo's unselfish.)
• Leaves behind temptations (He leaves behind the Shire and the enticings of the ring.)
• Is committed to heroic role (He volunteers to take the ring to Mordor.)
• Has a difficult goal; They suffer dangers and agonies (Frodo must destroy the ring in the center of the villain's territory. He is slowly being poisoned by the ring.)
• Acts alone/with very few people (Frodo tries to do it himself but is joined by Sam. These two hobbits are a small force in comparison to the other seven members of the fellowship.)
• Has something in common with ordinary people (Frodo is a simple hobbit with no training.)
• Functions as a role model (What we learn from Frodo; grit your teeth and do it.)
• Reassures the audience of potential ("Even the smallest person can change the course of the future".)

The Hero's Journey

• They are of obscure origin, free to move, or are detached from petty concerns (No mortgage, bills, or family)
• They are called upon to make a journey (The calling doesn't have to be subtle. The villain holding them at gunpoint is calling enough.)
• They realize that they are not invincible (The hero must stand to lose something.)
• They have a goal (Epic or not, a goal should be present in the story.)
• Their way is uncertain and unclear.
• They meet guides (servants, friends, or oracles provide them with information or assistance.)
• They are tempted.
• They leave their familar world.
• They descend into darkness.

Descent into Darkness
This is the ultimate test. This is the point when Frodo gives in to the ring, Oddyseus journeys to the underworld, and Jean Valjean must decide whether to let Marius die.
It can be either literal or figurative. In a literal sense, the character must journey somewhere hellish. Figuratively, they become evil or have inward turmoil. (Kudos to Frodo for doing both.)
Their suffering renews the vigor of society and cleanses them of their own sins.

After Descent
They change as a result. They discover something better than their original goal. In other words, they grow up.
But the hero must not escape unscathed. They sufffer a wound, such as Frodo's bitten-off finger or Jean Valjean's loss of Cosette.

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Archetypes: Images and Motifs

To recap: archetypes are universal symbols used in literature, whether they were put there intentionally or no.
Imagery both foreshadows and represents.

Water: purification, boundaries
(You'll notice that when water is murky or dark, it is the exact opposite of purification; it is evil.)
Sun: Life, deity
(Polytheistic cultures usually had a sun god such as the Egyptians Horus, the Greek's Apollo, and the Aztec's Huitzilopochtli.)
Wind: change
(Every time the wind carries something from the character's grasp or a windstorm shakes the town, there will be change.)
Earth/soil: source of life
Garden: rebirth, cycles of life
Circle: unity, infinity
Desert: death, infertility

Dog: loyalty
Cat: craftiness
Fox: trickster
Pig: unclean, greed
Donkey: stupidity
Snake: evil
Swan: grace, good luck
Ant: industriousness

Zero: eternity
One: unity, individuality
Two: duality, conflict, separation
(Good against evil)
Three: cycle, balance
(The three fates, birth/life/death)
Four: organization, symmetry
(Four elements,four quarters of the moon, square)
Five: man
(Five fingers,toes, senses.)
Six: balance, love
Seven: otherworldly, supernatural
Eight: conscious
Nine: harmony
Ten: spiritual achievement
Eleven: creativity
Twelve: the universe
Thirteen: death, evil

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Archetypes: Color

An archetype is a universal symbol. Whether on accident or on purpose, every story holds traces of archetypes. Colors are especially potent. They can represent emotion and ideas.

Clear/Transparent: Open, nothing hidden, no secrets, no privacy, pure. (For example, Snow White's casket.)

Pink: Spring, gratitude, femininity, innocence. (Valentine's Day)

Blue: confidence, stability, harmony, cleanliness, wisdom, trust, nobility, eternity.

Gray: Lifelessness, humidity, boredom, decay, neutral, dullness.

Red: Violence, passion, excitement, danger.

Green: Life, growth, intelligence, youth, nature, wealth.

Black: Mystery, death, evil. (Black riders/Ring Wraiths, dementors, Voldemort, ect.)

White: Purity, rebirth, wholesome. (Unicorns)

Yellow: Enlightenment. (Certain sects of Buddhist monks wear only yellow)

Purple: Royalty, personal growth. (In ancient Egypt, only royalty could wear the color purple.)

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Boring Book Syndrome: Tough Love

This post is an expansion of tuesday's Tough Love section.

This seems to be a major issue for people; what to do when you love part of your story but hate the rest. 

One of my earliest stories suffered from this love/hate controversy. I loved the world I created and spent hours working out its mechanics. The events played out like actual history, and the villain was one of the most chilling antagonists I’d ever created.

One problem though; I absolutely hated the main character. The solution seemed simple. If you don’t like your main character, change him.
He went from slave, to thief, to soldier, to mythical creature. He became a She and flip-flopped back into a He. I hated every single one.
I figured I’d change it from character-driven to event-driven. But I couldn’t find the proper opening. All the doors that led into my richly imagined world seemed like they could only be opened through a character.
I gave up. I sadly stuck all related writings and drawings in the back of my file cabinet and forgot them for years.
A few months ago I stumbled across my old rough draft. I noticed that one character appeared in almost every scene and lit up the otherwise bland novel; the antagonist.
That couldn’t be right. The antagonist couldn’t be the main character!
But I noticed something. The antagonist had goals, the antagonist had enemies. True, he wasn’t a very nice main character, but he fit the description. The key to the story was right under my very nose.


So what do you do when you struggle to write something you love?

Step 1: Identify what you hate.
What’s holding you back? Is it your setting, your characters, your idea, or your writing technique?

Step 2: Change what you hate.

Setting: is there a way to write the same story somewhere else? Does it have to be a magical world? If it’s set in your basic medieval forest, is it possible to tell your story in a lush ancient jungle or vice-versa. Don’t let setting get in the way. The place you feel the most enthusiasm for is where you should be.

Characters: What character do you hate? Can you erase him? Can you change him? If it’s the main character, can you write the story without him? Can you put someone you love in his place?

Idea: Why do you hate it? Is it because it’s unoriginal and based off a movie you love? Don’t worry about being original. Half my books start out sounding exactly like the movie/book that inspired them. With each new draft you veer away from that plotline until someday it’s entirely yours.

Writing Technique: Don’t worry about what your rough draft sounds like. Every rough draft sucks. However, if you’re so frustrated with the way it sounds that you can’t go on, try experimenting with the style. Should it be more serious? More whimsical? Should you change the point of view? Let’s say you’re writing a horror story. You’ll probably not want to sound like Junie B. Jones or Spock. It’d be hard to raise suspense through the perspective of a kindergartener or an alien who can’t feel fear.

Step 3: Replace
If Step 2 doesn’t work out for you, try replacing what you hate with what you love. Go through your draft and pinpoint things that you felt excited to write. Give the things you love center stage.

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How to Write a Short Story

The term "short" is relative. Some short stories are 3 pages, others are 100. But no matter the length or genre, short stories share a few key elements.

Step One: Problem
Notice that the word 'problem' is singular. That's right; there's only one conflict.
Define your problem. For those who write by the seat of their pants, just keep one problem in mind as you go.

Secondary Problems
It's okay to add a smaller, second problem.
Let's say the main conflict is a teacher who attacks a particular college student's beliefs. If, as a side note, the student is poor, that's fine. But their poverty shouldn't be focused on too much.
You can even use the side conflict to strengthen the main one.
This poor college student might have to move because she can't afford the rent. She gets an apartment farther from campus and must ride the city bus every day to get to school. But, horror of horrors, the teacher she hates rides the same bus every morning. She must endure his rants before she even gets to class.

Step Two: Action or Event
Characters either act to fix their problem, or an event occurs.
In Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, the narrator is driven crazy by an old man and his "vulture eye". He takes action by killing the old man.
In Poe's The Cask of Amontillado the narrator is given the opportunity to lead an enemy into a trap.
Does your character take action? If so, how?
Does an event occur? How does it affect the character's life?

Step Three: Wrap it up
Every story, short or not, has a different way of drawing to a close. In most short stories, there is no ending. Questions remain unanswered, life goes on long after the last sentence.

A few questions to get your creative juices flowing;
How is the problem resolved? Is it resolved?
What happens to Main character? To their family? To their ideals?
What does the character learn?
Does it end without really ending? If so, is it a frustrating or a mysterious ending? (Frustrating a reader is always bad, no matter what the reading material.)

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Made to Stick for Writers: Epilogue

So if being sticky is so easy, how come people aren't just automatically programmed to think and act in those terms? What's in our way?

The Brothers Heath refer to this obstruction as the Curse of Knowledge.
An excerpt from the book:

"In 1990, Elizabeth Newton earned a Ph.D. in psychology...by studying a simple game in which she assigned people to one o two roles: 'tappers' or 'listeners'. Tappers receive a list of twenty-five well-known songs such as 'Happy Birthday' and 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. Each tapper was asked to pick a song and tap out the rhythm to a listener (by knocking on the table). The listener's job was to guess the song, based on the rhythm being tapped...
"The listener's job in this game is difficult...The tappers got their message across 1 time in 40, but they thought they were getting their message across 1 time in 2. Why?
"When a tapper taps, she is hearing the song in her head...Meanwhile the listeners can't hear the tune-all they can hear is a bunch of disconnected taps...
"It's hard to be a tapper. The problem is that tappers have been given knowledge (the song title) that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it's like to lack that knowledge. When they're tapping they can't imagine what it's like for the listeners to hear isolated taps rather than a song. This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has 'cursed' us."

Writers are the tappers in this equation. We hear the story in our head. We know the characters by heart. We see every detail, even the unwritten ones. The key is to getting that story across the gap to the reader. Write the book you most want to read, because you are the only one can tell it.

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue (You are here)

These posts are nothing more or less then the principles I've learned and applied after reading Made to Stick. I encourage you to read the book yourself. It might come in handy on the road to being published.

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Made to Stick for Writers: Emotional

We've found our core message, we've hooked the reader, dragged them in with a few concrete details, and kept the tone with credibility. Now one of the most important questions; How do we make them care?
Why should the reader care about the main character? Sure they're going through difficulties, but so is everyone else in the world.
We think we can present a huge, insurmountable tragedy and the reader will care. But people don't care about problems, they care about other people. It's so much easier to feel for someone instead of something.
So before you dish out the blows, introduce your character.

By introducing, I don't mean a flat-out description. So she has brown hair and brown eyes, huh? So what?
To get someone to care about the character, show what the character cares about. What are their personal goals? What keeps them awake at night?
If you plan on killing a character right off the bat, first spend a little time humanizing them. It will be so much more painful if a character you've grown to love dies, rather than a character you don't even know.

This is where Showing Not Telling comes in. Show whatever it is they care about.
If it's another character they care about, show them becoming more gentle, more gruff, or more shy around that character (depending on their personality).
If it's revenge or justice, something abstract, show them taking steps to reach that.
If it's something material, show why they want it so bad and what they're willing to do to get it.
And if all they're trying to accomplish is surviving from day to day, then you should probably throw another motive in the mix.

Your main character's desires should drive the book, rather than plot goals.

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional (You are here)
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Made to Stick for Writers: Credible

For a fiction writer, trying to make your book believable can sound stupid. Of course fantasy books aren’t credible. Who’s going to believe that there’s a magical school called Hogwarts, or that people fly on broomsticks, and people talk to snakes?
Well, my sister did. When she was little, she waited patiently by the mailbox for her Hogwarts acceptance letter and asked Santa Claus for a “Harry Potter” broomstick.
But most readers aren’t five-years-olds who will soak up every tooth-fairy lie you tell them.

To write a credible book, you don’t have to utterly convince the readers that the story is true. You just have to make it believable enough that they will pause and remember that, “Oh yeah, these characters don’t exist.”

The book has to make sense. I cannot stress that point enough. You have to fill in plot holes and, above all, your character needs to act realistically. They should weep for the death of loved ones, they should have weaknesses and fears, and they shouldn’t escape their problems totally unscathed.

Use convincing details to add credibility. If I can visualize it, I can believe it. (You’ll note that this ties in with Concrete.)

If you lose your credibility, you can’t get it back. The minute the reader spots a mistake like, “Hang on…wasn’t that character severely injured the day before?” or “How did the poor village boy suddenly learn to fight?” or “I thought she left her sweater at home, how is she wearing it now?” the believability of the book goes down the drain.

For more on this subject, see Believable Part 1 and Believable Part 2

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible (You are here)
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Made to Stick for Writers: Unexpected

To make something unexpected you must break a pattern. Doing so captures the audience’s attention. “Once upon a time…” is so common that the sentence fails to surprise.

In Patricia Kindl’s book Goose Chase she began with, “The King killed my canary today.”
Already we have several questions: Why did the king kill her canary? What does he have against birds or the narrator? Who is this king? How did he kill it? Was it an accident?

First of all, it’s surprising. It’s not the usual way for a fairytale to begin. Secondly, it’s interesting. We realize that we’re missing a lot of vital information and so we want to keep reading to find answers.

To be unexpected you must grab the audience’s interest and, more importantly, hold it.

Surprise
We become surprised because what we expect to happen doesn’t. In other words, our “guessing machines” fail us.
If that’s the case, then it should be easy to create a “hook” at the beginning of our stories, right? All we should need to do is write a surprising sentence. Wrong.

While our hooks need to be somewhat surprising, it can be difficult to craft one that avoids planting a red herring.
For example, if the first sentence was “Sitting in the shade of the tree early that morning, I could never have imagined that by sundown my whole family would be dead.”
What! We inwardly gasp. How did the whole family die?
We’d be curious to discover the cause and to read the, no doubt, thrilling adventure that led to their demise.

But what if the book suddenly begins describing every aspect of the narrator’s staircase. She then explains to us that her “whole family” consists of an old greyhound named Maddock who trips on said staircase and dies. Thus, by sundown, the narrator’s “whole family” is dead. It’s only after that episode that we get to the actual story, which is much less thrilling than we imagined.

You’d probably feel tricked and frustrated. The hook sentence turned out to be a red herring that did nothing but attempt to lure you into a dull story.

To write a successful hook it must both surprise and reflect the main idea, or the core, of the story. The stupid dog dying was NOT the story’s main idea and so it failed. Miserably.

Interest

Now that we’ve got the reader’s attention, how do we keep it?
Let’s talk Velcro; Velcro connects because one side is made of hooks and the other is made of loops. The hooks snag the loops and Voila! It sticks together.

We have the “hooks’, so to speak. We have the answers to the reader’s questions. But before we can answer their questions, we have to make them want the answer. We have to make them realize that they’re missing crucial information.

To do so, ask yourself, “What questions do I want my audience to ask?”

Once we know the questions ourselves, we can gently point out what the reader doesn't know by creating mystery.

“The man was killed by the king because he distributed treasonous flyers” leaves very little to become curious about.
By withholding information we can create mystery.
Instead, we could show the man being arrested by the king’s guard. We could show the guard proclaiming that, as a traitor, he will be tried.
Now we’ve got the reader asking questions; What did the man do that was so treasonous? What will happen at his trial? Will he end up dying?

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected (You are here)
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Made to Stick for Writers: Simple

Let's get this straight; "simple" does not mean "dumbing down". It means "core".
For writers, who thrive on details, simple can seem like a misnomer. From what I can tell, the simple principle is very seldom used in the actual writing process. But it can help while planning and publishing.

Planning
Even if you don't believe in outlines, finding your core message beforehand creates focus. The story unfolds smoother.
Try to figure out the core, or main idea, by asking yourself;

In one sentence, what is the main idea of this story?

Twilight: A seventeen-year-old girl falls in love with a vampire who has a hard time not eating her.
Harry Potter: A neglected boy discovers that he's a wizard and goes to a school of magic.
The Hunger Games: A girl takes her sister's place in a cruel arena where only one person is allowed to survive.

These one sentence descriptions can later be used when you're attempting to publish your work.

Publishing
One of the biggest challenges in writing is convincing a publisher that your book will sell itself. Quoting from the book:

In Hollywood, people use core ideas called "high-concept pitches." You've probably heard some of them. Speed was "Die Hard on a bus." 13 going on 30 was "Big for girls." Alien was "Jaws on a spaceship."

So why do analogies work? Basically, it presents a new concept by tapping into a concept you already know. Take, for example, these book reviews;

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"A delightful...debut from an author who dances in the footsteps of P.L. Travers and Roald Dahl."
-Publishers Weekly, starred review

The Dark Stairs
"Move over Nancy Drew, Herculeah Jones has arrived!"
-School Library Journal

Stormbreaker
"What if James Bond started spying as a teenager?"
-Kirkus Review

Wolf Queen
"A diverting escapade for fans of Karen Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy and Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted."
-Kirkus Review

Piratica
"There's a taste of Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones."
-Kirkus Review, starred Review


Intro
Part 1: Simple (You are here)
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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