More from Blake Snyder: Stasis = Death

First of all, I need to thank the wonderful people at Blake Snyder Enterprises for sending me a copy of  Save the Cat! STRIKES BACK, the third book in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat series. It probably won’t come as a shock that I dropped everything so I could start reading it, and although I’m only halfway through, my brain is already exploding. There is also a large stain on my kitchen floor but let’s ignore that for now.

The first chapter of STRIKES BACK is about loglines, but I’m not going to tell you what Snyder says on this subject. He has an AWESOME formula for creating loglines, but you need to read Save the Cat if you want to use it easily. If you don’t, you can read my previous 47 posts on the subject. Har har har.

What I want to talk about today is a new beat Snyder introduces in this book. It falls between the Setup and the Catalyst and is what he calls Stasis = Death.

Stasis=Death is the moment before the inciting incident when the reader realizes that the main character cannot continue as is. He cannot live the life he is living in the manner he is living it. If he does, he will fade into a miserable existence and will die with seventeen cats and a bird named Tom. Note that I said the reader realizes this and not the main character. Although Snyder doesn’t make this point, I think it’s important. The main character is not supposed to know he is doomed in the setup. He can be miserable. Heck, he can be REALLY miserable. But until he enters the new situation, he cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. If he does, your inciting incident will come off less like a bus hitting him and more like a bus arriving as scheduled.

In my next post, I’ll talk about Snyder’s Transformation Machine. It will BLOW YOUR MIND. Or, if your mind is already blown, it will cause it to rock in a manner similar to one caused by a train passing at a gentle pace.

Mission Statements

On her blog yesterday, Tracy Marchini included a link to a post on plots by Jennifer Crusie. Now I’ve read A LOT of posts about plotting but one thing in Jennifer’s post really struck me and that was the MC’s thoughts she put in each of her 4 sections. These are:

Section 1: “I have a plan.”
Section 2: “I wasn’t expecting this but I can handle it.”
Section 3: “I can’t go back because I’ve changed too much; I must go on.”
Section 4: “I’m defeated, but I can’t quit.”

This got me thinking about mission statements. We often concentrate on our MC’s goals, but how often do we think about their missions in each section or scene? For me, the answer is, sometimes. I know the purpose of the scene. I know what I want it to achieve. But I’ve never actually created a one-line mission statement for the scene.

For example, say your MC just found out that her boyfriend lied to her about where he was on Saturday night. You might write the scene thinking, “MC goal=find out the truth” but what you also need is “MC mission statement=I have to find out the truth or I will never trust him again.” The difference here is the motivation. The goal tells you what the character is trying to accomplish and the mission statement tells you why it matters to them.

If you don’t already do this, I’d suggest you try it. FOR EVERY CHARACTER IN THE SCENE. You’ll be amazed how much more focused your characters (and scenes) become.

On Secrets

I’ve read a lot of novels where the main character’s goal is to discover information or solve a secret. Maybe this means finding out who committed a crime or finding out why character A broke up with character B. While this is a great way to create a plot with a clear endpoint and an ongoing hook, there are three things you need to keep in mind when your character’s goal is solving  a secret:

1) The longer you keep something hidden, the bigger it becomes. I learned this one from Michael Hauge. If your secret is the identity of a murderer, you are probably safe here. But what if it is smaller? What if it is something like why did Bob get fired from McDonald’s? If so, what Hauge is saying is that, if you build your entire plot around finding out why he got fired, the reason better be MIND BLOWING. You can’t make a reader work 300 pages only to find out Bob spit in someone’s hamburger.

2) The thing that is stopping the main character from discovering the secret can’t be that they just haven’t asked the question. In this case, this means you need REAL obstacles to discovering the secret. In the case of the murderer, you are probably good because the murderer doesn’t want to get caught and will do anything in order to prevent it. But what if the secret is why did Bob break up with Anne? In this case, you can’t build an entire plot around Anne trying to find this out–not if there is no reason for Bob not to tell her. If you do, you will create a character who is annoying; a character who makes readers want to yell JUST ASK HIM DUMBASS.

3) The arc is over when the secret is revealed. A novel’s plot arc always ends when the main character reaches his outer goal. If the goal is the secret, this means the novel must start to wrap-up once it is discovered.

So what do you do if you want to use a secret in your plot but don’t want to end the novel at the discovery? This is where you use something I call a “baton toss”. Rather than making the goal simply discovering a secret, you make the goal something the character wants to do WITH the secret. For example, Doug wants to get Bob fired from his new job at Taco Bell. In order to do so, he needs to find out why Bob got fired from McDonald’s. Once Doug does this, he will use the information to obtain his REAL outer goal: getting Bob fired again. If this were your novel’s arc, Doug’s goal would be to discover the secret (why Bob got fired) up until about the midpoint and then it would change to using the secret to obtain his end goal (get Bob fired again).

A note of encouragement

A good writer tells you a story. A great writer puts you in one.

I’ve done something like 45 crits in the last week, which got me thinking about why I can relate to some main characters and not to others. I read for the experience. I want to BE the main character of the book. That’s why I love writers who make me feel like I am IN THEIR NOVEL. Not on the outside looking in. IN! I had this feeling when I read Kody Keplinger’s The Duff. I was not reading about Bianca. I WAS Bianca.

But here’s the thing: there are some experiences I don’t want to have. For example, since I’ve had children, I CANNOT read or watch anything that involves a child being hurt. Is this because these things don’t happen? No. Is it because I am in denial about them happening? Heck no. It’s because, I don’t want to be the person it happens to. Not for 500 pages. Not for 5.

The point of my post is this: when someone says they don’t like your story, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Yes, maybe you wrote a book about a hot dog and it IS bad. But maybe not. If someone doesn’t like your story, maybe it’s fantastic. Maybe your writing is SO good that it makes the reader feel like they ARE the main character. But maybe, just maybe, not everyone wants to be your main character. If so, don’t take it personally. There is someone out there who wants to read a book about your main character and you will find them one day.

*hugs*

And now, back to my book about the hot dog…

What REALLY goes in the first chapter

As a follow-up to my post on what not to put in your first chapter, I thought I’d write one about what you SHOULD put in the first chapter. In my opinion, there are three purposes to the first chapter:

1) Establish the setting: The reader needs to know where and when your story is taking place. Whether that’s a castle in 15th Century England, a planet in 2300 AD, or a ditch in Ohio this December, you must tell us this and you must do it immediately. Some detail would be nice but now is not the time to describe a blade of grass for 12 pages. Actually, it’s NEVER the time to do that!

2) Establish the before picture of the main character: Blake Snyder calls this the Six Things that Need Fixing. One of my tweeps said she was told to “establish normal equilibrium for protagonist” (thanks Jenny Martin!) However you want to put it, you need to spend this chapter showing us who your main character is BEFORE their journey. We need to see WHY they need to change and we need to CARE that they do so.

3) Establish trust: I think this is the one writers miss the most often. While it’s important to hook us with an interesting character in a unique situation, there is no point in doing any of this is you don’t establish your credibility as a story teller. I’m going to use an example to illustrate what I mean. You’re at Six Flags and one of your friends suggests you go on some roller coaster called The Grim Reaper. You’re a little freaked out but you approach the roller coaster and watch it do a couple of rounds. Then you watch the people coming off and make sure they don’t look too bad. What do you do next? You look at the guy at the controls. Is he 13? 30? 300? Is he drunk? Covered in tattoos? Dressed like an Amish minister? My point is that your decision to get on is influenced by your opinion of the person to which you are entrusting your experience (or in this case, safety!) It’s the same with writing. If you start off by throwing around inaccurate facts or by leaving out thoughts or emotions a character could NEVER fail to have, we will not trust you and we will not get on your roller coaster.

Once you have done all three of these things, you can slam your main character with the inciting incident. This may happen at the end of chapter one or it may not happen until chapter five. I don’t think it really matters as long as you don’t skip the above steps.

What goes into the first chapter

First chapters are tough. They are the ones people read first; the ones that either draw readers in or turn them away. Because of this, many writers (including myself) are tempted to start their books with a bang. But this is wrong. Very wrong.

The purpose of the first chapter is to set up the bang (aka, the inciting incident). I know, you’re thinking blah blah blah, why bother? If my character is going to end up on a boat that explodes, why not just start with the boat exploding? Here are two reasons why you shouldn’t do this:

1) We don’t care about strangers
We must care about the main character before we can care about the inciting incident. Otherwise, it’s like when you read a story in the paper about some stranger getting in a car accident. Yeah, you think that’s too bad but your heart probably doesn’t ache as much as it would if it was your neighbour in the accident. Or your friend.

2) We need to be touching the ground before we can feel it shake
The whole point of the inciting incident (and the novel really) is to rock the character’s world in a way that it hasn’t been rocked before, but if we don’t know the character when they are still, we can’t understand how they feel when they rock. For example, imagine that your inciting incident is your main character finding out she has to go to a new school. If you tell us this on page one, we’re like, so? Maybe she wants to go to a new school? Maybe it’s better? But, if you take the time to show us that the main character LOVES her old school–that she can’t live without her best friend and the members of her photography club–then, we get it. We feel her pain. We feel the BANG!

On being accurate

I will admit that I’m more anal than the average person. My closet is divided by colour, with sub-divisions by item type. The cans in my pantry have their own shelf as do the boxes and bagged items. And anyone who has seen my cork board knows I might just possibly organize my books to death.

It should come as no surprise then that I’m pretty picky about books being accurate, but I honestly think this is an important thing to do, whether your readers have colour-coordinated sock drawers or not. Here’s why: no matter what genre you write, readers are reading your book because they want to suspend their disbelief. They want to immerse themselves in the world of your characters, even if only for a few hours.

In order for readers to trust you as a storyteller, you have to talk the talk. You need to know the name of the street your main character grew up on. You need to know their favourite food. You need to know who first broke their heart. In fact, the more you know, the more likely the readers are to trust you as the creator of the world.

So why do mistakes matter? I’ll tell you using an example. Say you’re reading a book about a farmer in Illinois. It’s a wonderful book and the detail is so great that you can practically smell the manure. You believe everything the author tells you. If he says the main character is sad, you see him weeping in his oatmeal. If he says he has red hair, you see the red hair peeking out from under his John Deere cap. You’re so completely and utterly immersed that you really feel like you are the main character.

But then the author says that the main character hurt his shoulder during harvest last January and you go, Huh? Even if you aren’t a farmer, you probably know that harvest in Illinois doesn’t happen in January. At first, maybe you just note this as something that will surely be explained by a plot point later. But it isn’t. The author later says that planting started in August but then there were ripe peaches in September. Now, what you’re thinking is that the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You lose your sense of trust in the author and suddenly, you don’t believe that the main character has red hair. Heck, maybe you don’t even believe he is a farmer.

The point in this long-winded example is this: always be accurate. If you’re writing facts, use the Internet so you can check them or find someone who can verify them.  If your character is speaking, say the words he is saying and imagine you are him and that they make sense coming out of his head. If your character is doing something physical, try to do it yourself or find a video of someone else doing it.  

Or, if all else fails, go organize your sock drawer.

What is an inciting incident?

I would like to write, “Depends who you ask,” and be done with this post, but I think I owe my readers a bit more than that. But to be perfectly honest, it does depend who you ask. Lucky for me, this is my blog so I can ignore what everyone else says and tell you what I think (mwoo ha ha…the power, the power!)

Whether you want to call it an inciting incident, a turning point, an opportunity or a donkey, this is the event that kicks off the story. For example, the main character gets a new job, moves to a new city, meets a new boyfriend. Note the multiple appearances of the word “new”. The new is very important here as the inciting incident must be something that has never happened before. After all, if your main character takes the train every single day, you can hardly expect his world to be rocked if he, all of a sudden, takes the train.

In screenplays, the inciting incident occurs at exactly the 10% mark, but in novels, it tends to occur at the end of chapter one or in chapter two. Its purpose is to put the main character in a new situation where he/she will discover the outer goal. The inciting incident is NOT when the main character starts to pursue the goal. The thing that happens to make the main character start to pursue the goal is called the first plot point, second turning point, or change of plans.

Since I like examples, I will give you one.

Bob is miserable in his current job. He sees an ad for a new job at X so he applies for it and is hired on the spot. (inciting incident) When Bob goes to his first day, he finds out that the person he is replacing disappeared after a meeting with Jack.  (first plot point) Bob decides he must stop Jack. (goal).

What does this mean for loglines? Well, I’ve always said that you need to have your inciting incident and you do because that is what sets up the story. Do you need the first plot point as well? Depends. If you can show an obvious link between the inciting incident and the goal then you might be able to skip it, but if it leaves readers saying, Huh?, then you need to include it as well. For example:

When Bob takes a job at X, he discovers that he’s replacing a man who disappeared after a meeting with Jack. Bob must find out why the man disappeared, or he will end up the next target on Jack’s list.

I realize this is the worst logline ever written. My point is to show that, if you left out the first plot point here (italics) the logline wouldn’t make sense.

Loglines…one last time

Authoress Anon held her third (and final) logline crit session this week. I must start by saying that I was very impressed with all of the comments on the loglines. There were many times where I REALLY had to struggle to say something new and I didn’t always succeed. In most cases, the loglines had clearly defined characters, inciting incidents, goal, conflicts and consequences, (BRAVO!).  Having said that, there were still some instances where there were other issues. These included:

1) Focus on the main character: Your logline is about your main character and NO ONE ELSE. All we need to know is their journey. We don’t need anyone else’s names and we certainly don’t need their goals.

2) Stay in the present. I don’t just mean the tense (although loglines should always be written in present). What I mean is focus on what happens in the book. We don’t need to know the main character’s back story. Just tell us what is happening to them now, in this book.

3) Who is the antagonist?  The antagonist is the character who creates the conflict. There were instances where the conflict was identified but it wasn’t specific enough to appear like a real conflict. For example:

Bob has to battle evil forces.

This is not a clear conflict.

Bob has to defeat the King of Sweden

This is.

4) Inner goal masked as outer goal – If you identify your main character’s goal as something like, “find strength/decide/choose” then you are probably mistaking the inner goal for the outer goal. As I said before, the outer goal is the tangible thing the main character wants to achieve. Things like “finding strength” are the inner conflicts that prevent them from achieving these goals.

5) New concepts – A logline is not the place for worldbuilding. If you are introducing a concept that is not completely self-evident, use wording so it is. This is not the place to tell us that your main character has to battle Werebits, which happen to be a breed of half-werewolf, half-rabbit that was create by an evil Scientist who want an animal that was vicious but looked, well, as cute as a bunny.

6) Too many goals – I can’t say this again but I will anyway. ONE TANGIBLE OUTER GOAL. Tell us the one thing your main character wants to achieve and leave the rest out. Sure, he might also want to win a medal, get the girl and eat a cookie. That’s fabulous but it doesn’t belong in the logline.

Loglines, Part Deux

Another week, another round of loglines on Authoress Anon’s blog, and I have to say, I was pretty impressed overall. I don’t think I read a single logline without a clearly defined (and described!) main character.  I also found that almost all loglines made the main character’s goals quite clear and most even stated the conflict and the consequences. If I had to point out two things that I noticed a few times, they would be these:

1) Loglines are usually about the main character’s outer goal and the outer goal has to be tangible. Does this mean you can’t write your logline about the inner goal? Not necessarily. But outer goals are the ones that are routed in the concept and that tends to be the unique hook a novel offers. Sure, maybe you can find a way to create a character arc that is totally unique, but I’m willing to guess that it’s going to be pretty hard.

2) Consequences (or stakes) cannot be wishy washey. Take these examples:

a) If Bob doesn’t return the diamond, Gino is going to cut his throat.

b) If Bob doesn’t return the diamond, Gino might cut his throat.

c) If Bob doesn’t return the diamond, Gino might possibly do something really bad to some people.

The point of these examples is to show that A is a rock solid consequence,  B is a possible consequence and C is just something vague that may or may not happen to someone. What you want in a logline is A. Yes, it may be more complicated than that in your book. Doesn’t matter. For the purposes of your logline, you need these consequences to be crystal clear.

3) I said I only had two items but I just thought of a third. Don’t confuse your obstacles with your goal. For example:

I need to make a cake for a birthday party tomorrow.

This is a goal.

I need my husband to get home soon so I can borrow his car to go to the store so I can buy eggs that I need to make a cake for a birthday party tomorrow.

Up until the “need to make a cake” part, what I’ve listed are the obstacles that are going to make my goal more difficult. For the purposes of the logline, we don’t need these.

I’ve just read that Authoress is going to do another round next week. OY! I guess I’ll see you then!