A Plea to Writers

Dear Writers,

Before you finish revising your WIP, please do the following:

1) Decide the time frame for your novel including the backstory. For example, novel takes place from October 1-31, 2012 but there are many references to an incident that started in May 2011 and ended in June 2011. If you don’t have a specific time frame in mind, pick one anyway. You don’t have to actually give the dates in your novel.

2) Once you have done #1, Google the words “calendar October 2012” for each month you need. When you find the month (usually they’re posted in PDF format) click Print so you have a print copy of the calendar.

NOTE: If you don’t want to Google & print, go find an actual calendar and photocopy it.

3) Once you have all of the months you need, go through your book and write down every chapter in the box for the day/days it spans. Do the same for the important elements of the backstory.

4) With your calendar on the wall or table in front of you, read your manuscript. Every single time you refer to a date or an event with an implied date (for example, last week, last month, the last time I saw her), check the calendar to ensure the reference makes sense. This is especially important for backstory. If I have to read ONE MORE BOOK where a character has a baby 11 months after peeing on a stick, I will throw something hard at something fluffy.

*Smooshes*
Moi

Do Your Scenes Need Loglines?

This past weekend, I attended a workshop that was given by writer Roxanne St. Claire. This workshop covered scene revision and pace. First let me say that, if you have the chance to attend one of Roxanne’s workshops, GO! She’s brilliant and funny and she says things about hospital corners you’ll never forget.

I learned a thousand things at this workshop but will be covering only one today and that is this:

Every scene in your novel needs to have three things: a goal, a conflict and a change.

Sound familiar? Why yes, Ms. Bodger, that sounds a bit like a logline to me! Now Roxanne did not suggest we write loglines for each of our scenes. She suggested we make sure we have a goal, conflict and change, but because I LOVE loglines so much, I decided to try to write one for each scene of my WIP. To do that, I first had to make obvious breaks in my scenes (I usually separate them by spaces or chapter breaks but I decided it would be easier to use chapter breaks for all of them for now). Once that was done. I highlighted the scene/chapter number and added a revision note that gave the time & date (I always do this) as well as the character’s goal, conflict and change (or result).

Here’s an example of one I wrote for the second scene in my WIP:

The deal is off if Emma doesn’t get Rachel’s coffee to her before 7 am, but when Emma gets to Starbucks, she realizes that she can’t remember the order and forgot her money. Matteo, the Starbucks cashier, is sick of bratty rich kids who annoy him and so when Emma offers to pay after she brings the coffee to Rachel, Matteo refuses. In the end, Emma gets the coffee but only because the other barista gives it to her.

As far as loglines go, this isn’t great. It doesn’t cover much about the characters since we already know them by this point and it gives away the outcome which you also don’t usually do. But despite this, it does what it needs to do for my revision. It establishes Emma’s goal, her obstacles and the outcome.

Now, you’re probably looking at this and thinking this is a lot of work. You’re right. I have 42 scenes in my WIP and it took several hours (and that was just to write them, not to fix them!) However, in doing this exercise, I was able to identify all of the scenes in my WIP that were lacking a purpose (goal) or real tension (obstacles). For example, in the one above, before I did this, I still knew what I wanted the scene to do but I didn’t know how to make it do it BETTER until I’d identified the real conflict.

If you’re still not sure this will help you, try it for only a few scenes. Maybe the ones that seem too short or maybe the ones that seem to drag. Even if it doesn’t result in any changes, it’s a great way to keep track of what’s happening in your scenes.

More Advice from Michael Hauge

From Michael Hauge’s list of Writing Misdemeanors:

JOHN, DON’T DO THIS: In real life, people rarely address each other by name – particularly when they’re alone together.  So unless your character is searching for someone, shouting at someone, calling on someone in class, addressing only one person in a group, or being introduced to someone, avoid having your characters address each other by name.  And above all, avoid any temptation to add full-name dialogue to your love story, as in (gag, puke), “I think I love you, Edgar Cuddlebuns.”  I know you want your audience to learn the characters’ names, but you’ll just have to find a more natural, logical way to reveal them.”

 

 

Why You Need Beta Readers

So I read this book that had a character the same age as my 7-year-old daughter. This character vacillated between doing things that my child would have done at the age of 3 and things my child probably won’t do until she is 14. And you know what? This drove me nuts. I know I am a trees person and I get my knickers in a knot over details many people probably wouldn’t see, but this one in particular drives me crazy. If you want to write about characters of a certain age, you HAVE to have a beta reader who is or knows that age. So, if you are 40 and you’re writing about 14-year-olds, yes you need to get betas of that age (or, at the very least, betas who are parents or teachers of kids that age) and if you are 14 and you are writing about 40-year-olds, you also need to do the same thing. Don’t assume you know how a 6-year-old acts if you’ve never been around one (it does not count if you were one 20 years ago!) and don’t assume that you understand the motivation of a parent if you haven’t been one either.

I’ve said it before but I will say it again: making mistakes like this weakens the strength of your narrator and thus of you, the author and once you lose that trust, you can’t get it back.

When the goal is a secret

A lot of my posts seem to start with the words, “So I read this book…” and this one is no different. For the book in question, when I first started to read it, my initial reaction was, What the H? There was a character talking about stuff but there was no goal, no conflict, no nothing but, well, stuff. It felt like something had to happen but it took until 1/3rd of the way through the book before a goal (and plot) became apparent.

I started to think about why it took so long to get to the goal and it finally came to me: the goal was a secret. The author set up the story so that the initial hook for readers was in finding out what the goal was. The problem, of course, is that the only reason I didn’t stop at around the 10% mark was because I’d been PROMISED that this book was FABULOUS.

So what does this mean? It means that you might be able to get away with things like not having a plot or goal for 1/3 of your book if it is so fabulous that word of mouth will force people to stick it out, but in my opinion, you are going to have a much harder time getting to that point.

Inciting Incidents versus First Plot Points

I have seen a lot of confusion over the difference between the inciting incident and the first plot point. To me, it is simple:

The inciting incident is the event that changes status quo for the main character. For example, Anne finds her dog dead.

The first plot point is the point at which the main character decides to pursue his/her goal. For example, Anne decides she must find the asshole who ran over her dog with a milk truck.

These two things cannot happen at the same time. The main character needs some time to adjust to the event, question its meaning and convince herself/himself to take the journey. Without this struggle, the goal will not be perceived as difficult for the character, both outwardly and inwardly, and if it’s not difficult, the reader will have no reason to want to hop on to the journey.

Mud?

Don’t make it worse

Those of you who are familiar with Donald Maass’s books and seminars will have heard him use the words “make it worse” over and over again. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a rash of books lately where the author has taken this advice a bit too literally.

What Maass wants you to do is to add more obstacles to your main character’s journey. For example, your 19th Century heroine needs to get to the church before the love of her life marries some dolt with 20,000 a year. Rather than just making it take a while for her to get to the church, Maass would tell you to make her journey harder. Maybe a herd of cows blocks the road for ten minutes. Maybe the carriage wheel gets stuck in mud. Maybe the driver goes to the wrong church.

What Maass is (hopefully) not suggesting is that you think of random bad things to throw in. For example, your 19th Century heroine who needs to get to the church to stop the love of her life from marrying a dolt with 20,000 a year should not suddenly fall into a pit of sharks and then climb out only to be sucked into a spaceship. Yes, this does make things worse but it also makes the reader say, “What the H–?”

Final thought: Even if you do keep your obstacles appropriate for your character’s journey, be careful not to mount them too high. Yes, everyone has bad days, but if you throw 147 bad things into the same day, you will lose your readers. For good.

Oh look. A handsome squirrel…

The ratio of squirrel to non-squirrel metaphors in my posts is about to go up. Yes, I could use a chipmunk or one of those dwarf bunnies, but that would require that I find another image and I’m too busy eating soup.

UPDATE: Since starting this post, I have finished my soup. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

So here’s the thing: your protagonist has to stay invested in her goal from the moment it’s incited until the moment it’s achieved or abandoned at the end of the novel. There are NO exceptions to this rule. Yes, she can have moments where she thinks she won’t achieve the goal but she cannot give up wanting it. What you really, really, really (did I mention really?) don’t want to do is something like this:

Protag wants goal. Protag REALLY wants goal. Protag is like OBSESSED with goal. Oh look, a handsome squirrel:

Protag forgets goal while gazing longingly at squirrel’s silky fur and chocolate-coloured eyes and perfect teeth and blah blah blah. Eventually, squirrel needs to find an acorn so protag goes back to REALLY WANTING GOAL. Unfortunately, the reader has now decided that protag, a) is a vapid idiot and, b) doesn’t want goal as much as she said or she wouldn’t have forgotten about it for 34 pages.

So, if you want to add a handsome squirrel to your plot, make sure that squirrel is connected to the goal, either by being someone the protag needs assistance from in order to achieve it, or by being someone the protag needs to avoid/overcome in order to achieve it.

P.S. And by squirrel, I mean love interest. For the love of soup, please don’t write a book about a squirrel. It has already been done by the wonderful Mélanie Watt.

When the goal is reached

Your main character cannot reach their goal until the 90% mark in the story. For screenwriters, this rule is non-negotiable. For novelists, it’s a little fuzzy, but I would argue that “a little” means you have maybe 5% padding on either side of this mark. Why? If the whole point of your plot is for character A to reach goal B, once they either do so or give up on doing so, the plot is over. People will stay with you for some tears and wrap-up, but not much more.

For example, I read a book recently where the main character met her goal at the 50% mark. Yep. Halfway. You want to know what happened then? I lost interest in the book. I kept going since I’d already invested a lot of time in this character, but I had zero engagement in the story. I was no longer desperate to pick it up and when I did, all I heard was  blah blah blah. I wanted it done. Like now.

Think about this when you are revising. If your ending lacks lustre or feels too rushed, maybe your goal has been reached too early or too late.

End note: If your response to this is, “but after she meets the goal, she has to go get XYZ”, then guess what? Your goal is actually XYZ!

The Journey

Novels are stories of how one character gets from point A to point B, however, the beauty of the novel is not in the point A or the point B; it’s in what happens along the way. Boiled down to its simplest form, this is because novels are journeys that don’t go as planned.

For example, Bob is busy living his life until, all of a sudden, his coffee maker spits out watery slush and he decides he must replace it with a new fancy one. He decides to get in his car and drive to Walmart so he can buy a new one ASAP. Sounds easy right? It is until he gets to Walmart and finds himself in lockdown due to an approaching tornado. He spends his entire day with people who can’t afford fancy coffee makers and by the end of the day, he leaves the store without one because he realizes that, maybe his crappy coffee maker isn’t so bad.

In this example, there are three important elements to the story:

Bob wants a coffee maker (goal)
A tornado prevents Bob from getting his coffee maker (obstacles)
Bob learns that he doesn’t need a new coffee maker in the end (character arc) 

Think about your character’s journey the next time you try to write a logline or query.

1. Where does he start? It must be somewhere imperfect or there is no reason for #2.
2. What happens to make him choose to go somewhere else? Note the choose. This is very important. He must choose to embark on the journey. People don’t end up on journeys by accident. At some point, they need to stand up and start them.
3. What prevents him from getting there in a quick and orderly way? This is the real meat of your story. There must be obstacles and they must directly cause #4.
4. How do these bumps change the person he is (and possibly, the thing he wanted when he set out on his journey)?