On Writing

In the last post, we introduced what Section 1 of your Novel needs to accomplish – including that somewhere in the early pages of Section 1,  you need to introduce the “What Starts It All” (also known as The Catalyst, or The Inciting Incident).

Here’s a handy chart that outlines key events in each of the four Sections of your novel:

(Click on the image for the full size version.)

In the Opening Scene(s), you’ve introduced the Hero in his Ordinary World (what’s normal for him).

The “What Starts It All” changes things for the hero. It introduces something new and unexpected. It sparks a turning point for the Hero. It turns story in a new direction.

Examples of “What Starts It Alls”:

• Heroine accidentally crashes into someone’s car.
• Heroine is fired from her job.
• Hero receives a Dear John letter.
• Hero finds a baby on his doorstep.

Cause and effect need to be in play here. Each of the incidents above needs to draw the Hero/Heroine into the world of the Story you wish to tell. So the baby on the Hero’s doorstep may lead him to look up an old lover. The heroine fired from her job may finally open that Sandwich Shop she’s dreamed about. The car into which the Heroine crashes might belong to Mr. Right, or to a crazed serial killer who then begins to stalk her mercilessly (depending on what kind of Story you want to write).

Next post: What you need to know about the Hero/Heroine’s “Okay, I’m In” Moment (also known as Plot Point 1, or the First Turning Point).

In the meantime, Happy Writing!

Bodacious!

Bodacious: “The word is a portmanteau of ‘bold’ and ‘audacious’ that means: remarkable, courageous, audacious, spirited.” – Wikipedia

Elizabeth Taylor marketed her brand expertly. While garnering an audience for books is a little different from garnering audiences for movies, and eager consumers for perfume sales, one lesson is clear: a bit of bodaciousness can take you far!

So how do we build bodacious-ness into our Novel’s opening chapters?

First, let’s look at the overview:

While it is common to think of a Novel as made up of a Beginning, Middle, and End ( or three Acts), it’s actually more helpful for authors to think of Novels as comprised of four Sections: (1 )Beginning, 2) First Half of the Middle, 3) Second Half of the Middle, and 4) Conclusion).

The reason it’s useful for authors to think of the Middle as made up of two distinct parts is because of something called the “Midpoint Shake-up,” (a crucial Milestone in your Novel). I’ll talk about the Midpoint Shake-up in a later post.

For now, let’s talk about Section 1 of your Novel, the Chapters that launch the Beginning of your Story.

We’ve already noted that your Novel should start with a Hook, and should be comprised of Scenes that draw your reader into your Story World.

Section 1 of your novel also should accomplish the following:

• It should be Bodacious. See definition above. Apply.
• Somewhere in the early pages of Section 1,  you need to introduce the What Starts It All (also known as The Catalyst, or The Inciting Incident).
• Somewhere, as you near the conclusion of Section 1, you need to introduce the Hero/Heroine’s “Okay, I’m In” Moment (also known as Plot Point 1, or the First Turning Point).

Make your early pages Bodacious,” is just another way of saying: make your novel as readable as your writerly gifts allow. Imbue it with mesmerizing Characters (more about Characterization later), intriguing Action, language “fire-new from the mint,” compelling Story, pitch perfect Tone, so-right Settings, and whatever else you can draw from your wordsmithy Wit to make your Novel a smashing good read.

Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

A grasp of Technique will speed you on your goal to crafting a Novel that makes for a hugely satisfying reading experience. But it’s your creativity as you exercise your mastery of Technique that will truly make your work stand out. And it’s the possibilities of that same creativity – exercised to a fare thee well – that levels the playing field for all writers; no matter how many established bestselling authors are out there, readers have always, and will always, eagerly seek out and respond to fantastic new authors.

Happy Writing!

In previous posts, we addressed how to craft Action Scenes and Reaction Scenes and noted some guidelines regarding length.

How long should a Scene be? The simple answer is, long enough to advance the Story effectively.

It is tempting, insofar as Scenes go, to say, “There really are no rules.” But it’s more accurate to say, “There is tremendous flexibility.”

Currently I am working on a Middle Grade Novel. It will be between 25,000 and 45,000 words long. As an average Scene is 1,000 words long (4 manuscript pages), I probably will write between 25 and 45 Scenes to get my Story told.

The average novel for general audiences (grown-up), as noted previously, contains 60 Scenes. Today, shorter Scenes are considered desirable in novels as they more readily push forward the narrative flow and the energy of the Story. So Scenes today run from four to ten pages in length, and trend to shorter rather than longer. (You would not, of course, want to create a novel in which every Scene is identical in length. It would feel stiff and forced. Keep in mind how florists arrange flowers – some are taller in the vase, some shorter; a bouquet in which all the flowers were cut to the exact same height would seem unnatural and lose considerable charm.*)

Here are the guidelines for when to end a Scene that will help you determine how long your Scenes will be.

A Scene ends:

• When the time frame changes. (It was morning. Now it’s night. It was July. Now it’s August.)
• When the location changes. (We were in the heroine’s workplace. Now we are in her apartment. We were on the beach with the hero. Now we are flying to Dallas with him.)
• When something changes in a way that moves the plot forward. (Heroine discovers a body. Hero is fired from a job. Villain hires a hit man. Serial killer hides on a jogging path.)

* That said, some genre publishing houses have worked out guidelines that are quite specific about chapter length. (Remember there are three Scenes, on average, in a chapter.) One romantic suspense publisher asks authors to write 20 chapters, each 3,000 words in length. However, the publisher leaves Scene length up to the authors.

Spoiler warning: If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, you may want to do so before reading further.

Your novel will be built with around 60 Scenes – fewer for a shorter novel, more for a longer novel. As noted in previous posts on Scene structure, each of these Scenes should contain a rhythm that both intrigues and satisfies the reader on a standalone basis – whether it is an Action Scene, or a Reaction Scene.

Each Scene also should propel the Story forward – and “propel” is the right word here. You should aim to imbue your Scenes with a magnetic energy that draws readers into the Story, and that glues those baby blues, gemstone greens, or brilliant browns to the page.  Construct your Scenes right, and the reader won’t be able to stop turning pages!

This is where Setting Up your Scenes becomes important.

Your novel is comprised of four Sections.

• Section One: Describes your hero’s normal world; shows how the hero is drawn into the action of the Story.
• Section Two:  Describes how your hero resourcefully struggles against the antagonistic force that is keeping him from what he is trying to achieve.
• Section Three:  Something happens that points the hero in the direction of resolving the conflict. Hero – now smarter and tougher because of all he’s learned on his journey so far – goes after the antagonist more ably and forcefully – but only to meet with Defeat yet again – in fact, with a Black Moment when all seems lost and the hero has, apparently, run out of options.
• Section  Four: Things get even worse for the hero. Then, the hero brings together all he has learned, all his growth, all his capacity to act resourcefully; he arrives at a way to make one last ditch effort;, he has a Showdown with the antagonist – the Climactic Battle – and he loses or (hopefully) wins!

The Scenes in your novel’s first three Sections should maintain the Story Tension – and ratchet it up higher and higher as the Story progresses. The Scenes in those first three Sections also should contain Setups for the key concluding Scenes in Section Four.

Neil Gaiman used Setup very well in his novel, The Graveyard Book. Spoiler warning: If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, you may want to do so before reading further.

In Section Four of The Graveyard Book, the hero, 15-year-old Bod Owens – a teen who has grown up in a cemetery, protected by its ghostly inhabitants – has a showdown with one of the men who is part of an organization that murdered his family when he was an infant, and which has been stalking him with murderous intent ever since. The organization, the Jacks of All Trades, finally learns where Bod lives and four of its members go to the cemetery to murder him. Bod defeats them all. He defeats the second from last Antagonist by setting a trap. Bod knows that one of the graves in the cemetery is a ghoul gate – that it opens up to a hell-like nether world. Bod positions himself on the ghoul gate grave. When the Antagonist finds him and tries to kill him, Bod utters an incantation that opens the ghoul gate which pulls his adversary into the nether world.

Now, described as it is above, the Scene is mildly interesting. But, read as one of the concluding Scenes in The Graveyard Book, the Scene is truly compelling. That is because Neil Gaiman Set Up this Scene to maximize the tension in the cat and mouse game that has been transpiring between Bod Owns and the murderous Jacks throughout the first three Sections of the novel.

Here’s how Gaiman uses some of those earlier Section Scenes to Set Up this Section Four Scene:

• Gaiman plays fair with readers. In other words, the “weapon” Bod uses to finally defeat one of the Jacks – his knowledge of the incantations that open and close the ghoul gate – are prefigured. Gaiman achieves this prefiguring by showing us how Bod gets lessons from the graveyard’s ghostly and otherworldly denizens – not only his ABC’s, but also lessons in how to call for help in French and Morse code, and how to call for help from Night Gaunts. But Gaiman doesn’t hit readers over the head with, “Oh, this arcane bit of knowledge is what will help Bod win the day when he’s up against it with the Antagonist.” He just plants with the reader the idea that Bod is learning some things that might come in handy when fending off dark forces.
• In a Scene in Section One, Gaiman shows Bod actually falling into the ghouls’ ghastly world – and using the call to the Night Gaunts to help him escape. It’s an interesting story in and of itself, but also provides a wonderful Setup for the concluding Scene where Bod springs his ghoul gate trap.
• In the opening Scene of the book, Gaiman ratchets up the tension by showing us that the Jacks are formidable foes. One of the Jacks kills Bod’s family. In several Scenes throughout Sections One through Three, Gaiman shows how the Jacks prevent Bod from living a normal life: each time Bod ventures outside the graveyard refuge, the Jacks sense his presence and try to kill him.
• Gaiman also shows us that Bod is massively courageous, most clearly in a Mid-section Scene in which Bod faces off against an ancient Druidic monstrosity fearlessly.

Because of the above Setup Scenes, when the Section Four Battle Scenes finally occur, the reader:

• Knows the Jacks are formidable foes. Knows Bod is equally formidable and hugely motivated to defeat the Jacks.
• Is rooting for Bod, but is in no way certain Bod will win.
• Feels the author plays fair when Bod resourcefully sets and springs the ghoul gate trap that defeats one of the Jacks.

And the Section Four ghoul gate Scene beautifully sets up the Final Confrontation: the Battle between Jack Frost, the Jack who killed Bod’s family, and Bod. The Final Confrontation Scene opens with the Antagonist holding the upper hand: he holds a friend Bod loves dearly hostage.  But – in a manner that is very satisfying to the reader – Bod resourcefully applies several threads of knowledge he’s gained in previous Scenes to free Jack’s hostage and to finally defeat his adversary.

Note: Do not despair if you feel you are not setting up your final scenes as effectively as you would like. That’s what the second and third drafts of your novel are for. The lovely thing about novel writing is you can always “go back under the hood” and “rewire” your novel’s engine (Story) to ensure its maximum power!