The Plot - Things that Happen

Plot: You need one!

The plot is without a doubt the most important part of your story. If you've got great characters and a cool setting, but nothing happens, you don't actually have a story. Whether you are a planner or a pantser there are some basic things you need to know about your story before you start writing. So let's go over the key elements of plot for those of you who are new to writing, and for those of you who are experts, at least check out my cool diagram. I made it myself!

In chronological order we have:

1. Exposition
2. Inciting Incident
3. Rising Action
4. Climax
5. Falling Action
6. Resolution

Simple enough right? Lets learn what these do.

1. Exposition
• The exposition is the set up. This gives us an idea of what things are like before the story starts. This usually comes before the inciting incident, but not always.
2. Inciting Incident
• This is the incident or event that starts things in motion. After the inciting incident things can never be the same for the characters. a popular example happens in The Hunger Games when Prim is chosen things can never again be the same for Katniss and she is forced into action.
3. Rising Action
• These are the events that increase the stakes for the characters. This can be done in several ways. 
• One way is the Good News, Bad News Method. For example: Girl meets the guy of her dreams (good news), but he's married (bad news), but he and his wife have been estranged for then years (good news), but he can't find her to sign the divorce papers (bad news). This does not have to be a strict back and forth like a tennis match. You can have multiple bad (or good) things happen in a row.
• Another method is the Power Shift Method. This technique shifts power into and out of the characters hands. A really great example of this is Cinderella. She hears about a ball but is told she wont be invited. Then we learn that all women in the kingdom are invited (Cinderella has the power). The stepmother tells her she has to clean the house first (Stepmother has the power). Cinderella cleans the house but doesn't have time to make a dress, POOF!, Fair Godmother shows up (Cinderella has the power). You know the rest of the story and I'm sure you can figure out the rest.
• Another method is the Up a Tree Rock throwing Method. I first heard of this from NAME. You (metaphorically) put your character up a tree and every time they make progress on getting down you throw rocks at them.
4. Climax
• This is moment of crisis. At the climax things have reached their absolute worst and we have a turning point. The hero either pulls it all together and saves the day or the hero fails spectacularly.
5. Falling Action
• This is where you tie up any loose ends or explain the fall out that resulted from the climax.
6. Resolution
• The resolution is the end of the story and we either have a comedy or a tragedy. Either things work out for the hero and the world (or the hero's life) is better off than where they started (comedy), or everything goes to hell, sometimes literally, and the world is worse off than when things began (tragedy). The most important part of the resolution is that things are different from where they were. Remember, after the inciting incident things can never go back.

And that's plot in a nut shell. If you have any questions or need things clarified drop me a line.

Theme - The Main Idea or Central Belief

So you've got a story with a character, who wants things and struggles to get them, but what is your story really about?

Theme is a tricky thing, because it's usually something abstract and it's not something you want to beat your reader over the head with. So we are going to talk about why you need a discernible theme and how to execute it.

1. Why you need a theme. Having a theme helps make your story more than just another [insert your genre here] story. I helps your book stand and be noticed. This is crucial when it comes to marketing your book. If your are writing an epic fantasy, you've got a pretty small audience, but if it also contains a coming of age story about learning to love yourself you've just opened up and entirely new market.

Aside from the marketing possibilities having a distinct theme gives you as a writer a change to stretch your wings and try something a little more difficult. Interweaving your theme while still telling your story can be challenging, but worthwhile. It can also be a chance to let your audience know about what you think or believe about a certain topic. Just don't get preachy. *coughAnthemcough*

2. How do you do it? Usually the theme is something that comes through the characters and plot. How your characters respond to the events in the story give the readers clues to what the overall message. However, characters and plot are not the only ways to do this. Think about how setting effects your theme. Setting your story in Alabama in 1963 is going to let the audience know that racism is going to be a theme in your story.

Often times you as the author may not even be aware of the theme until after the first, second, or even final draft. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Most of the time (at least in my experience) you've got a theme all nestles in to your story, but you are just too close to see it. This makes "What is the message/theme?" a great question for beta readers.

Again, this is a tricky element because you have to be subtle or your readers are going to feel like you are on a soapbox beating them over the head with your opinion. Just remember to keep balancing all of these things without focusing or overemphasizing one or the other.

Conflict - The Struggle

Lets face it, without a conflict you don't have much of a story. Does that mean that your story has to be about an epic battle to death, or that your character has to face some seemingly insurmountable obstacle on every page? No. Conflict is actually much easier than that.

But, before I blow your mind with the simplicity of conflict, let's talk about the different types of conflict. Don't worry, there are only two: internal and external. As their titles imply, internal conflict happens within the character, and external conflict happens outside of, or to, the character.

Example: Sally knows that her friend Amy's boyfriend is cheating, but doesn't know how to tell her friend, or even if she should.
Sally's struggle is an internal emotional one that takes place in her own head.

Example: Steve is on his way to his wedding when his car breaks down.
Steve's struggle is an external event that happens to him that he cannot control.

Pro Tip: Just because Steve's conflict is external doesn't mean he can't have an internal conflict to go with it.

Now that we've got the basics covered lets talk about what makes good conflict. There are only four components, but if you want your reader to care, you've got to have them all.

You need:
1. A character
2. Who desires something
3. But there is an obstacle
4. And something is at stake.

Lets elaborate our two examples.

Sally (character)
wants to tell her friend Amy that her boyfriend is a cheater (desire)
but doesn't know how (obstacle)
and if she doesn't her friend will get hurt (stakes)
OR her friend might find out that she knew all along and hate her for not telling her
OR cheating boyfriend finds out that Sally knows and threatens her

Steve (character)
want to get married today (desire)
but his car breaks down (obstacle)
and if he doesn't fond a way to the chapel he'll miss the wedding (stakes)
OR his fiancee was left at the alter before and is going to think he changed his mind
 ^ This could be a set up for an internal conflict that Steve may or may not be having.

And that's all there is to it. Just remember the four ingredients, and keep in mind that the higher stakes are the more the reader will care. CAUTION: Does that mean your character should be fighting off alligators to save the girl next door in every scene? No. Absolutely not. Please don't do that. Just have something to be lost or gained for your character. This gives them a reason to act.

Homework: Set up some conflict in whatever you are working on. Good Luck!

P.S. Happy St. Patrick;s Day! I've got Irish roots so I have always loved this holiday. It helps that my son is a red head and looks great in green!

Characters - The Beings!

The people (or animals or taking toasters) that populate your world is one aspect of a story that no one overlooks; that doesn't mean it is always done well.

Think about a character that has stuck with you, and one that made you want to put down the book. What was the difference? Often times it is a lack of "personality" within the character. I put this word in quotes because while you characters must have a personality it can't be yours or your cousin Bob's. We'll get into that more later.

There are a lot of different ways to make sure your character has depth, and I will only be addressing a few of them because I feel like this topic has been covered pretty extensively. My focus is to give you a few principles and set you loos on your search engine.

1. Your character must be larger than life.

By larger than life I mean you cannot simply take someone you think is interesting or funny and drop them into your novel. First of all if they find out they can sue you for liable. Second, it turns out that cousin Bob isn't as interesting as you thought.

A character is completely different than a person (otherwise we wouldn't call them characters we would call them people), they have to stand out more than an average Joe who sits on his couch watching TV every night.

You can take certain aspects of Average Joe or Cousin Bob and start with that, but in the end your characters have to be more than a person.

2. Your character must have a desire and an obstacle.

This is one of the things that helps make your character larger than life. We all have desires, whether it be to write a novel or eat a cookie. We all have obstacles that we must overcome to achieve our goals (time, kids, money, lack of cookies, etc.) and this is a source of action within the story and sometimes conflict within the characters.

3. Your characters must be dynamically different.

My good friend Jae and I ran into a problem when we first began revising an old project of hers. She took three of her friends and made them characters. (This was before she knew any better) As she re-wrote, changed, and revised she just couldn't seem to pin down Carolyn. What was her motivation? Her weakness? What was she contributing to the conversation? To the story? The answer was not a lot. She was too similar to the other three characters. This works great in a real world friendship, but not in a story. Within the story she had nothing to contribute that the other three didn't also have. So she got voted out of the novel.

The bottom line is that each character must contribute something different and unique to the story, their strengths must balance out someone else's weaknesses and their weaknesses should be countered by another's strengths.

4. You've got to get to know them!

This is the key to making those beings truly larger than life. You have to get to know them. What are their secrets, fears, hobbies, short comings, strengths, family situation, race, etc.

Sit down as the character and answer the questions or sit down with them and interview them. The key is to keep them in character as you do it. You may be surprised and hopefully their motivations, hesitations and secrets will help you understand why they will or will not do something.

Doing this before you start writing is a great way to prevent getting stuck in your plotting and keeps you from wondering why your character can't/wont do something in your novel.

There are about half a billion character interviews and questionnaires that you can find. I am going to link you to my favorite to get you started. This questionnaire was designed as a character sheet for an RPG, so it works best for fantasy stories, but there are a hundred questions and most of them are applicable to any character.

Homework: Find a questionare and fill it out for at least one of your characters.

P.S. If you don't like the one I provided search engines are you friends!

Setting: The When and The Where

I said it before and I'll say it again all elements of story telling are equally important, this means you've got to think about your setting!

This is an easy one for you fantasy and science fiction writers, but if you are doing YA, Romance, or contemporary fiction it can be really easy to overlook. You may think to yourself  Oh my story takes place in a generic high school is some undisclosed location so I don't really need to worry about it.

Where and when your story takes place can make all the difference. 

Here are a few things to think about when you are figuring out your setting.

1. Why do my characters live/work here?

There has to be a reason. My parents moved to Utah from Montana because my mother got a higher paying job offer and my father was unemployed at the time.

My in-laws moved because my Father-in-law was a police officer and he was tired of getting shot at. They moved to a place with a lower violent crime rate and better schools. Bonus they lived with his parents while they built their house.

Think about the things that brought your characters to their current location. Some examples: climate, schooling, weather, jobs, migration, fleeing the country, kidnapping, aliens, etc.

It may also be important to consider why they stay, especially if they live in a less than ideal situation. What is preventing them from leaving?

2. When do they live?

Think about his for a minute. I went to high school ten years ago. My parents bought me a cell phone at sixteen and my friends thought it was the coolest thing ever! No texting of course (too expensive), and it was only to call my parents and tell then where I was. A year later two more of my friend's parents got cells for them, but the other two members of my posse didn't get phones until they were out of the house and paying for one on their own.

If I am going to write a YA story that takes place in a high school now I had better make sure all of those kids have a phone or give a specific reason they don't (oldest kid of five with a single working mom who is struggling to keep the lights on) 

And if you think you can get away with not specifying a time you are wrong again. There will always be little things that give away your time period. Toys, clothing, hairstyles, cars, slang, etc. You will save yourself a lot of hassle if you declare a time and stick with it.

3. How does this place/time period effect or inform your characters?

I've got a story (that will probably never see the light of day) where a girl meets a vampire and falls in love. Done to death I know, but indulge me. How do these characters meet? In a community class where they are learning how to use a computer. Why are they there? Well it's the early 90's and they've both finally conceded that computers are not just a passing fad. So as you can see the time period is crucial to the character and the plot. It would be ridiculous for a 20 something woman to have no idea how to operate a computer now, so I've got to specify when this class is happening.

As to the where of the story they live in Alaska. Our heroine is attending college there. She used to spend her summer with her grandmother and the beautiful sunny memories of her childhood, paired with free housing made her college choice easy. She didn't realize the winters were so long and dark.  As for our vampire, what better place to hang out during the winter than Alaska? The days are short and the nights are long, and when thing start to change he heads for a different hemisphere. Do you see how the setting impacts the characters?

Some things to think about: How might characters behave differently if they are in a big city vs. a small town? A well off community vs. the slums? What personality traits, mannerisms, speech patterns might your characters develop in their setting?

4. Research, research, research! I cannot stress this enough! If you are going to have your story take place in a real place you had better know what you are talking about. Don't have it take place in a town you heard of once and let your imagination go wild because any reader from there is going to be annoyed and likely frustrated by your book.

If you are making up some modern day place you still need to know what sort of stores they will have (Wal-mart or a small Mom and Pop?) how close the houses are (suburbia or farm town) and what state the buildings are in. Do not leave this up to the reader. You are the creator so create.

This also goes for Fantasy and Science Fiction writers.If you are making up an entire world you need to pay even more attention to these kinds of details.

Your homework: Take a look at your setting. Is it lacking, ambiguous, or confusing? (Mine is) Now is the time to fix it!  I'll see you next week for Characters!

The Elements of a Story

A story, like everything that is built or created, is constructed of small but important parts. In a story (novel, short story, flash fiction) there are five crucial parts.

Check out this awesome Venn diagram I made for you!

As you can see we have Characters, Plot, Setting, Theme, and Conflict. These five parts overlap and combine to create your story. The venn diagram is a great visual because it shows how small the story as a whole is. You need to spend an equal amount of time figuring out and understanding each element of your story in order for the entire thing to come together. 

Another example would be a stool with five legs. I know that’s weird but bare with me here. If one of the legs is too thin (underdeveloped) or missing your stool is going to wobble or break and no one is going to want use it. 

Each of the elements of a story are equally important and deserve the same amount of attention and planning. Because each element is vital to the success of your story I am going to write a small post for each of them which I will link to from this post. Check back next Monday for Setting!

Setting - The When and The Where

Character - The Beings

Plot - The Things that Happen

Conflict - The Struggle

Theme - The Main Idea or Central Belief

So you want to write a story but,

So you want to write a story, but [insert your excuse here]? Well I've got news for you, if you want to write a story you have to get rid of the negative thoughts and behaviors that are holding you back. Over the years I have heard (and given) a lot of reasons not to write, so today I'm going to list a few of my favorites and tell you how to come to terms with them.

“I don’t have time to write.”

Really? You are currently browsing a writing blog of your own volition. Just how long have you been cruising around the web? I don't believe that you don't have time. And if you are reading this while on the phone, eating lunch, and rushing from one class (or meeting, or child related crisis) to another I've got some harsh news for you: you've got to make time.

No one is going to do it for you, and if you've got a family they will monopolize your time and energy if you allow them to. Here is the bottom line. Do you want to write? Yes? Then if you really want it you will find, or make, time.

“I suck at writing.”

Oh psssssh. I don't believe that. Well maybe a little. But talent is just a matter of time and practice. We would live in a sad, sad world if every musician who picked up an instrument for the first time had that attitude. The skills and talent will come with practice. And I’ve got lots of practice coming up in the following blogs, so just keep trucking!

“I don’t have any good ideas.”

That's okay. We've all got to start somewhere. There are a lot of fun ways to generate ideas. One way is to start with the question What if? Take something ordinary in you life, like crossing the street for example and start asking yourself What if?

What if that car didn't stop? What if I somehow managed to leap over it? What if aliens abducted me seconds before the collision?

I will have an entire blog post dedicated to generating Ideas, but for now, just start looking around and asking: what if?

“I've got writer's block.”

Writer's Block means one of two things. You've run out of ideas (see previous excuse) or you are waiting to be inspired. Trust me on this one, don't wait to be inspired! You will never get anything done.

If you are serious about writing you are going to have to come to terms with putting absolute crap down on a page and accepting that you can revise it later. It hurts, I know, but no one ever said writing was easy. If they did they were lying.

If you are feeling stuck because you don't know where to take your story next, make something up. You are a writer, that's what you do.

Don't worry too much about this one, I'll have a post dedicated to my favorite block busters (yes that is a pun) coming soon.

“No one is going to want to read my story.”

I've been pretty snarky and sarcastic up until now, but I'm about to get really serious and harsh here. Are you ready? Okay. Why do you want to write? That is a serious question that I am seriously asking you to consider.

Are you writing so that you can be the next [inset famous author of your choice here] and make tons of money? Sorry, you are in the wrong line of work. Chances are it's not going to happen.

Are you writing because you have a story inside of you that you have to get out before it drives you mad? Then why do you care if no one wants to read it? Write for you, a little indulgence and self love never killed anyone.

Are you writing because you have a story that you think will touch someone? Then write it. If only one person ever reads your story and laughs or cries, for a second, then you've made the world a better place.

If you aren't sure why you're writing, take some time to ponder it. It's something you should definitely know.

“I just don’t think I could handle being rejected.”

I get that, I really do. I used to be afraid of rejection too, until I learned to look at it differently. Rejection either means your story was not what “they” were looking for, or your story wasn't good enough. Ouch right? Here's the thing. You are not the little black marks on a page. No one is saying that they don't want you, they are telling you that the little black marks on the page aren't good enough.

You can handle this in one of two ways. You can curl up in a ball and cry, vowing never to write again, or you can look at your story and ask: “What can I do to make this better?”

“I'm afraid to try because I might fail.”

I hear you on this one too. I used to be one of those people who would never even start something unless I was sure I would succeed. Terrible right? Here is how I dealt with it. One day I asked myself what failure meant to me. I decided that failure is simply proof that I tried, didn't succeed, and needed to try harder next time. That's not so bad right?

“Why bother? There is no such thing as a new idea.”

Well you are sort of right and sort of wrong. Writers are always stealing/borrowing ideas from each other, but then they do something that blows this argument out of the water: they put their own spin on it.

Here's an example for you. The same draft of a story could be given to me and my good friend Jae Randall. I guarantee one of those drafts would come back with weird Fantasy/SciFi elements and the other would come back dripping with Unresolved Sexual Tension. Jae and I are different writers so we can never write the same story.

The same goes for you dear reader. No one but you can write a story your way, and as my good friends at NaNoWriMo say "The world needs your story." So stop making excuses and start writing!

P.S. Have any other excuses? Post them in the comments and let me at 'em!