Fiction in the Garden

First, champagne glasses up! We have passed 400,000 page views at Novel Matters. Thanks to all for your support and friendship.

On to the matter at hand. I applaud all of the authors of our serial story, "Out of the Garden." Such inventive minds! The characters are fully realized and the potential for conflict with Peta is very real. And there have been lots of fun surprises. You are talented writers!!! (Sorry for shouting.) Not bad at all for thirteen different writers, who never discussed the story.

There was an important element missing--no one's fault but an excellent chance to learn--we'll be talking about today.

Bonnie introduced me to John Truby's book, The Anatomy of Story, a few years ago. I've studied it like a sacred document and mentioned it here many times. I know, here I go again.

He does an amazing job of dissecting what makes a story work. He deserves a careful listen. I've tested his ideas against the best and the worst of the books I've written in the last few years, and he's so right.

In the "story world," Truby describes a dramatic code, which is a template we all have embedded in our brains that expects a person/character to change over time. Our characters don't change in a vacuum. "Change is fueled by desire."

We aren't necessarily talking sex here, but keep reading anyway.

The DESIRE is what the character wants in the story, not in her lifetime, just within the context of the story, a goal. At the beginning of our story, it seems that Maeve's desire is to move on from grief to life, a laudable goal but not easily measured for success.

And so, while our story has become rich with interesting characters and revelations, not much has happened. Maeve isn't moving toward her desire, and desire is the driving force of a story. We hadn't decided what that was for Maeve, and we probably would have stumbled upon her desire eventually, as pantsers do in their multiple drafts.

And so, we could have continued on, but if we didn't know her desire, how would we have known when she achieved it and resolved the story for the reader's satisfaction?

We average over 1,000 readers each week for the story! They're expecting action toward desire (even though they may not exactly know that beyond their subconscious) and a satisfying resolution.

That doesn't mean Maeve must accomplish her goal. She may decide that her goal was misguided, switch goals, and pursue the new goal. That's fine. She may discover that what she pursued was always withing reach too.

Here's something else about desire, according to Truby: "Desire is intimately connected to NEED. In most stories, when the hero accomplishes his goal, he also fulfills his need."

Let's say, then, that Maeve's need is to move from grief to life. She still requires a desire that can be accomplished within the scope of the story that will help her fulfill her need.

Just to clarify: NEED has to do with overcoming a weakness within the character. Maeve can't get her feet under her to live without Don. DESIRE is a goal outside the character. And that's what gives the story legs. The hero is overcoming obstacles, trying and failing, and pushing hard to achieve his desire.

I gave Maeve a desire in last Friday's installment here: Return Princess Orlagh to Donegal. I also threw in that Peta was not only an obstacle to her achieving this desire, but she could destroy the whole fairy culture. The stakes are definitely raised.

The story now has its legs, its desire. We would have come up with something, but we feared we'd be writing this lovely little story beyond anyone's attention span. Writers definitely don't want to run into that problem.

While the desire is declared, there are still many questions to answer. How will Peta try to stop Maeve and the princess? Will Maeve get the princess back to Donegal through magic or United Airlines? Will TSA be a problem? Who else, already in the story, will provide resistance to Maeve's desire? And how will we know that Maeve has had her need met and achieved her desire? And what about some of these memories I didn't explain, like her grandmother?

The only thing tougher than writing a strong beginning to a story is writing a strong ending that satisfies the reader. We're well on our way of doing just that.

Any questions?

Prepping for a Writers Conference: Story Structure

I'm teaching at the same writers conference as Latayne (we'll be roomies!)--the Breathe Conference in Grand Rapids, MI--but they aren't trusting me with the keynote (wise people). I'll be teaching two workshops. One on dialogue and the other on hooking your reader.

Dialogue is one of a gazillion subset skills a novelist needs in her trick bag to write stellar fiction. Dialogue that lacks tension or purpose is flat and boring. My dearest hope is that I can gather my wits about me to help the attendees at the Breathe Conference power up their dialogue.

As for hooking the reading, this is so much more than a snappy first line and explosive action, although a snappy first line and action are part of the picture. Hooking a reader is about story structure.

The essence of good fiction is tension, and an inflated balloon depends on tension (air pushing at the skin, trying to escape, trying to explode) for its shape and personality. The more air you put into it, the tighter the tension, and the more inevitable the forthcoming explosion.--Larry Brooks, Story Engineering

He's talking the first 50-100, although I lean more toward 50, pages of your manuscript that leads up to the first plot point.

I don't intend to explain the fine points of story structure here. That's a big job, too big for one blog post, but I am going to encourage you to prepare yourself for your next writers conference in a very specific way.

Most writers conferences focus on the subset skills of writing fiction and nonfiction. That's not a bad thing. Building suspense. Scene development. Finding your voice. Creating characters. These are all important.

If these are the subset skills, what brings it all together and makes your story work? Story structure. The only way to satisfy your reader is to know story structure inside and out. Basically, story structure is the integration of premise, character development, and the building of your story in an order that resonates with with your reader.

For me, learning about the hero's journey was revolutionary. Humans have a story template embossed on their souls that satisfies like a meatloaf dinner on the first cold night of the year. The hero's journey is a starting point, I'm learning. I've become a story structure explorer for the last couple of years. Screenwriters are especially adept at this, so I've read mostly their books. Writing a novel allows for a bit more freedom, but there are still expectations of the subconscious in the reader that must be satisfied.

I invite you to prepare for your next writers conference by going with a foundational understanding of story structure. As you're learning the subset skills, you'll see how they strengthen the structure. Here's a list of books I've read on the topic:

Story Engineering, Larry Brooks (novels)
Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell (novels)
Writing Screenplays that Sell, Michael Hauge (screenplays)
"The Hero's 2 Journeys" (DVD), Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler (screenplays)
The Anatomy of Story, John Truby (screenplays)
The Moral Premise, Stanley D. Williams (screenplays and novels)

Story structure may sound like putting yourself in a creativity straight jacket, but far from it. Structure is quite freeing as it keeps you on the main trail to a great story, which means fewer drafts. I like that. Very freeing. Plus, no story can stand on great voice, good characters, or snappy dialogue alone. There has to be a story that works.

Are you attending a writers conference soon? If you're a seasoned attendee, how do you prepare beyond pressing your jeans? Have you read a book on story structure you can recommend? One of these listed?

PS--Ages ago, Lori Benton won our Audience-with-an-Agent contest. The agent signed her, and her debut novel is out. Besides pairing her up with an agent, we can't take any credit for the beautiful story she had published, Burning Sky. Congrats to Lori for a job very well done.

The Theme is Out There

I smiled when I read Katy’s Monday post about truth. My husband and I are currently watching through the X-Files TV series on Netflix. Mulder and Scully’s search for truth is fraught with lies which, when taken together, lead to truth. How is that possible?

Someone once said that truth is the version of events the majority agree upon.  Especially when it comes to murky events like history (Churchill famously said, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”)

Fiction is about telling the truth via the valley of the shadow of lies.

So what sort of truth are we talking about here?

My dad loves to tell me that Louis L’Amour stories are accurate. “If, in one of his stories, he says there’s a rock in such and such a place, if you go to that place that rock will be there.”

Dad tells me this often, using the voice and posture of one truly impressed with L’Amour’s precision. It is, my dad seems to think, important not to mess up a good story by throwing rocks around willy-nilly.

Look around any bookstore and you’ll see heaps of fiction based on “actual events,” or “real history,” or “inspired by the author’s experience.” There’s something enticing about the story being real.

Real is true, but that doesn’t make it Truth.

When we talk about truth in fiction, what we mean is how affecting is the story’s ability to examine strings of small truths that lead up to the unveiling of a singular large truth?

This is theme at work.

As a story swims upstream to its end, the writer endeavors to explore as many facets and versions of the singular truth as possible within the limits of character and story.

Doesn’t that sound lovely?

So, if theme is the exploration of deep truth, why do writers struggle with theme? (And we all do)

In my journey from fly-by-my-pants to full-fledged planner, the one aspect of outlining I’ve resisted hardest has been writing a theme line. A single sentence that encapsulates the life-essence of the story I am creating.

It’s taken me years to surrender to the theme line. Why? At first, I thought it was because theme is supposed to be organic, something that springs out of my characters and their interactions.

Wrong.

Then, I was convinced that theme was too multifaceted to truly be captured in a sentence. After all, why write a whole novel about it if a single string of words does the trick?

Wrong again.

Recently, I discovered the true root of my resistance: theme lines read like clichés.

To quote a famous saying, writers are to avoid clichés like the plague.

Flee from them! Curse them. Expunge them from the sacred carvings.

So, when I sit my writer self in the chair and hammer up the scaffolding for my precious, profound story, writing a pithy theme line feels close to treason.

Insert Valium here.

Theme line is not an end unto itself. It’s a guidepost pointing to the ultimate large truth that lingers with the reader after they have finished the last page.

It is the meeting place for the moral conflict between characters.

It is the high bar the hero must clear (or fail to clear) in order to change from who he is at the beginning of the story.

Cliché though it may sound, a theme line is important (critical?) to your story.

There’s a pile of reasons why, but mostly it’s because the theme line encapsulates the Truth you desire to tell in your story. Without a clear vision of the central truth you wish to convey, you are in danger of writing a story that contains a cluster of small truths that lead the reader nowhere.

I’m working on two novels*. One is a complex story that includes time jumping. I’ve been thinking about this story for about 2 years. The theme line: Only when we accept our true self can we find peace.

Deceptively simple. Hedging close to the cliché line (if it doesn’t just stomp all over it), and it doesn’t begin to reveal the complexity of the story. But look what it does:

1)   Tells me where to start my main character reveal: she does not accept her true self. She’s hiding something specific from herself.
2)   Points toward the protag’s weakness and need.
3)   Guides me toward the ways in which my protag will act (especially the kinds of immoral actions she will take)
4)   Reveals the first point of attack by my opponent and by allies (a good ally will attack the protag out of love and a desire to fix the problem).
5)   Helps me develop all my other characters as variations of the same theme.
6)   Informs the unique method I will use to tell the story and reveal the hidden secrets in the plot.
7)   Gives me a moral ending to the story—something to prove or, in some cases, disprove. It tells me what my hero will learn at the end (to accept herself, and to stop lying to get what she wants)

When it comes to crafting your novel, the theme is in there, and getting it down on paper will help you get the truth out there.

*For interested parties, the theme line for the second novel I’m working on is still in process, but at this point in time it reads: Sometimes a great love must be sacrificed for the sake of the greater good.

Story World Matters: Part III

To begin, I would like a show of hands: How many people would like to join me on a teaching conference call to discuss story world further? I would set up a time, you call in online, you will be able to see only me, but we would all be able to talk. I would need at least 15 people or so to make it work. If you would be interested, leave me a short comment.
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When it comes to story world you can’t escape the word organic. All the elements of our novels need to connect structurally in non-forced ways. Organic means the story is honest, and that the parts have grown naturally, one idea feeding the next until we have a cast of characters living in a believable world and acting truthfully. Whenever we try to push a concept through a cookie cutter template we end up with a generic formula story that lacks vitality and depth. It’s just like every other story. In Part two of this series, we discussed how to ensure connectivity by story world being a physical representation of the conflict between characters.

The second type of conflict that story world demonstrates is the internal conflict of your hero. When you create a character web, you examine in detail how the various characters oppose one another. The only way to do that is to fully grasp what it is the hero wants, and then how the other characters try to prevent the hero (and each other) from getting his or her desire fulfilled.

In the best stories, the hero has a strong desire at the beginning, which changes (is altered) over the course of the novel. The lessons learned through the course of the novel temper the desire in some way (strengthen it, weaken it only to reveal to the hero the stronger desire he/she was suppressing, etc.). For example, the hero of a murder mystery wants to find the killer, but by the end of the story he discovers his greatest desire was to prove to himself that he doesn’t possess the mind and instincts of a killer himself. The story world helps the reader to see the hero’s internal conflict—the war inside.

There are two things to hold in balance while you craft a story world that physically demonstrates your hero’s struggle for what he desires.

First, ensure your story world properly reflects the kind or type of journey your hero partakes of in the novel. This is a question of story structure. You can read more about this in part one of the series. Secondly, focus on building a story world that reflects the hero’s weakness, and need, as well as desire.

For the first part, we are concerned about the overall arch of the hero’s journey, the structure of the novel that takes the hero from the place he or she lives at the beginning of the novel, and moves him to a new moral, ethical, emotional, and sometimes geographic location by the end. In broadest terms, there are two states a hero can live in: freedom or slavery. Your novel is the story of how your hero moves between these two states of being.

There are pits stops along the way, places that appear to be freedom, but are actually deeper slavery, and places that appear to be defeat (or a visit to death), that lead the hero toward freedom. This journey is organically built into every aspect of your story including the story world. The places and things your character encounters are every bit the hero’s journey as are the dialogue, character interaction, backstory, and plot. John Truby says it this way, “The connection between hero and world extends from the hero’s slavery throughout his character arc. In most stories, because the hero and the world are expressions of each other, the world and the hero develop together.”

The second part requires us to consider our hero’s weakness, desire, and need. Story world demonstrates the hero’s weakness in physical ways. Need is personified inside of place. Desire for freedom is sketched out in the landscape of places, and the systems that are in place. It’s Luke Skywalkers home planet Tatoonine, a dessert place where a living must be coaxed from the sand. It’s Harry’s room under the stairs. In Gilead, it is the box on top of the bookcase that John Ames cannot manage to take down by himself. Often our stories begin with the hero living in slavery (to an idea, a system, an unloving family, a haunting mystery, an old hurt, etc.), and has specific weaknesses. The story world, then begins as a place that highlights and exploits that weakness. As the hero fights for the goal, the story world changes to reflect the small success and larger failures along the way, until, finally, the hero reaches the goal (or fails to reach it) and the story world is changed because it.

It’s a dance where the world and the hero are in step, mirroring one another. The reader understands the movement of the novel because it pulses all around.

The take home is that story world is a physical manifestation of the hero’s inner conflict, weakness, need, and desire that changes over the course of the novel.

It’s been a great week on Novel Matters. We’ve gone deep into story world, yet there is much more we could have talked about. My biggest difficulty in crafting this series was all the material I had to leave out of the discussion for the sake of articles that didn't run several thousand words long. 


If you would be interested in a live conference call, leave a comment and let me know. If the numbers work out, I’ll schedule the call and we can meet up and talk more.

Meanwhile, what has been the take away for you this week? What have you come across in your reading that touches on story world? Do you have questions? 
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Debbie Fuller Thomas is on She Reads today talking characters and writing what you know. A great article! Check it out.

The End is Where We Start From

We talked on Monday about the steps each of us undergoes in beginning a new novel. There are as many different variations on how to do this as there are authors. T.S. Eliot quotes, "What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

Some authors do begin with the ending and write backward from there. This certainly wasn't the case for the screenplay for Casablanca. I was disturbed the first time I watched our DVD and discovered that the filmmakers didn't know how the story would end until it came down to a point in filming where a decision had to be made. Would Ilsa stay behind with Rick, or choose to do the right thing and honor her duty and her husband by leaving with Victor Lazslo? I have to admit that I wasn't so surprised at their flexibility with the moral dilemma as I was with the fact that they couldn't see that the personal sacrifice and growth in the characters of Ilsa and Rick WAS the story.

How important is it to know the ending of a story before putting it on paper? Most of us have at least a vague idea of how our stories will end and structure them toward that. There are many factors to consider when choosing an ending. What do you consider the most important? Has an ending ever gotten away from you despite your bestlaid plans and forced you to change course?

The Shape of Story

A big 'thank you' to all who posted comments to Andy Meisenheimer's post on Friday, and a huge 'welcome' to folks who stopped by for the first time. Did you know that we will choose one lucky person to win a copy of Latayne Scott's Mormon Mirage? Every time you post a comment, your chances multiply.

I just finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What a great story and what a creative way to have it unfold! This story about the German occupation of the Channel Islands is told exclusively through letters exchanged between the characters after the war is over. It handles a weighty and horrific topic in an approachable style by using the distance created by the use of letters and by interjecting subplots which lightened the tone, at times cutting away to a budding romance and points of humor. If it had been written any other way, I don't think I would have finished it, but I'm a lightweight. The right- or the wrong - book can leave me with bad dreams. (Like The Historian - shiver! I stopped reading a third of the way through.)

This unusual story structure led me to consider the art involved in the shaping of stories, and how it can both enhance and hamper a reader's enjoyment. Take, for example, The Time Traveler's Wife. The main character travels through time unexpectedly and against his will. As an adult, he travels back and meets his future wife when she is only a child. Later, when she meets him as an adult, he doesn't know her. At times it was a mental workout to keep up, but it was worth it. (I offer a word of caution about the sometimes gritty content.) If I put the book aside for too long, I had trouble picking it up again, like dropping a string in Cat's Cradle. But I was invested in the story enough to see it to the end, and the structure was intriguing. The flashbacks weren't there to provide backstory - they were the story.

By contrast, Isabel Allende's Zorro is largely narrative with limited dialogue. She had an interesting and very human perception of the man behind the legend, but I kept wishing she would show me instead of telling me. Hmmm...

Story structure should take into consideration the nature of the story and should be complementary. For example, Gilead is written in the form of a long, rambling letter full of wisdom (along with regrets) from an elderly father to his young son. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is told in the first-person viewpoint of an autistic teenager, using the charts, maps and diagrams he uses to break down his world into comprehensible chunks, along with prime numbers for chapter headings. Some stories are more suitable as allegory (The Screwtape Letters) and some are best recorded as diary or journal entries (The Princess Diaries). Structure should never get in the way of or detract from story.

While having a great story is, of course, the most important part of the equation, having an interesting or unique structure can greatly enhance it. How important do you think story structure is, and what are some interesting treatments that you have read? How much of story structure is art?