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In the beginning, the page is blank--just blue lines and
white spaces.
It’s like looking into a mirror.
The page serves as the release mechanism, the trigger, the catalyst
for thought.
But thought itself doesn’t take place on the page.
You may look at the lines and the spaces between the lines,
but what you see is the image in your head, the image that is not yet on the
page.
A
0 Comments on Go, Write! as of 1/11/2015 8:00:00 AM
Universal is characteristic of the whole, covering the entire collective, everyone and everything.
Story is an account of events in the evolution of something.
The Universal Story embodies both these parts. An account of events in the evolution of something characteristic of the whole.
With no true beginning and no end -- though we often believe we can pinpoint the moment a new life is born, the true end of life -- when you begin writing a story, you jump right into the middle of the universal flow of things and fly in the current. Coming into existence, bound up and separated from all you know a struggle ensues. Finally free, transformation happens.
The Universal Story flows endlessly. Within the collective, each moment, each scene, every life begins, struggles and grows, transforms and dies off. Beginnings, middles and ends, each part of the whole. The Universal Story sends all our stories, all our lives spiraling upward, evolving, transforming and dying off.
I teach writers about the Universal Story with Plot Planners to better see the whole of of their stories and how each scene fits into the collective of the Universal Story.
Each of us benefits from considering our own personal stories and lives against the backdrop of a broader reality and the Universal Story
0 Comments on The Universal Story: As Your Story Evolves, You Evolve Too as of 12/13/2014 6:04:00 PM
Here is the path that we’ll take to the sea.
It’s the beginning of our journey.
We don’t know where the path will lead us.
(We have no maps, no clues.)
All we can do is walk toward the clouds ahead and hope we’ll find the sea.
The clouds offer a glimmer of hope, a way to go.
And we head toward them
It’s a hunch, an intuitive feeling.
And we follow that feeling
0 Comments on The Path to the Sea as of 7/27/2014 8:40:00 AM
Opening lines are difficult to craft well. That’s why they should usually be left until the revision layers. Why, you ask? Because you could spend a year of Sundays trying to craft the perfect sentence instead of writing the rest of the manuscript.
Opening sentences are crucial in Chapter One. They give your reader a taste of what is to come. They are worthwhile in the rest of your chapters if you are willing to invest the time. A good opening sentence raises a question or poses a challenge the reader can’t walk away from.
Closing sentences are equally important. They are what keep your readers turning the page to read one more chapter, then another and another until they reach the end. The final chapter’s final line should stick with your reader, offering them one last finger lick of deliciousness to polish off the fiction plate.
Let’s take a look at a few examples from books on my To Be Read pile. Which would you read first?
The Devil’s Bones, Larry D. Sweazy
Opening Line: “Tito Cordova sat on the porch steps, staring at the barren tomato field and empty migrant shacks across the road. Everyone had left for Florida, or Mexico, to spend the winter. He hugged his knees to his chest, trying to keep warm.”
Closing line: “Welcome home, Tito. Welcome home.”
We start with Tito; we end with Tito. The story comes full circle.
Never Tell, Alafair Burke
Opening Line: “It has been twenty years, but at three-fourteen this morning I screamed in my sleep. I probably would not have known I had screamed were it not for the nudge from my husband — my patient, sleep-starved husband, who suspects but can never really know the reasons for his wife’s night terrors, because his wife has never truly explained them.”
Closing Line: “George had said not all questions needed to be answered, but maybe some questions didn’t need to be asked. Maybe she was still getting to know herself after all.”
We begin with an unanswered question and end with the thematic statement that not all questions should be asked.
Dark Places, Gillian Flynn
Opening Line: I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.
Closing Line: I didn’t want to meet him, and I didn’t want to introduce myself. I just wanted to be some woman, heading back home to Over There That Way.
We begin with a ghoulish description. The ending sentence probably makes sense once you've read the book. It would have worked better for me if it had also been suitably ghoulish. However, both lines are in the main character's unique voice.
The Sounds of Broken Glass, Deborah Crombie
Opening Line: He sat on the steps of the house in Woodland Road, counting the bank notes he’d stored in the biscuit tin, all that was left of his mum’s wages. Frowning, he counted again. Ten pounds short. Oh, bloody hell. She’d found the new stash and pilfered it again.
Closing Line: He felt as if he were sleepwalking. Slowly he picked up the envelope, lifted the unsealed flap, and eased out a single sheet of paper. It was a letter of transfer. And his chief superintendent had signed it.
This book begins with backstory and ends with a line offering a view into the main character's future. The last line works better for me than the first, though the first line hints at a problem.
The Other Woman, Hank Phillippi Ryan
Opening Line: “Get that light out of my face! And get behind the tape. All of you. Now.'"Detective Jake Brogan pointed his own flashlight at the pack of reporters, its cold glow highlighting one news-greedy face after another in the October darkness.
Closing Line: Jane smiled as she picked up her tote bag. I have a story to cover. “They obviously made a mistake.”
The opening and closing lines are uttered by different characters but reference the eagerness of reporters.
Read through your completed manuscript. Write down the first and last lines of each chapter. Are they intriguing? Can you make them stronger?
0 Comments on Opening and Closing Lines as of 4/26/2013 10:29:00 AM
Endings or beginnings? Which are more important? Neither. They are both crucial.
Connection between the Beginning and the Ending
The first thing to notice is that these two points in a narrative must be intimately connected. The story problem you set up must be the same story problem that you solve. When you’re revising a novel, you must check these two point to decide if you went off track somewhere.
If the main story problem is peace in a family that is fighting, the ending can’t be that the family goes off on vacation together. The reader doesn’t know if the family will fight during that vacation or not. They might indeed go off on vacation, as the denouement or the aftermath of the climax, but this isn’t the climax. The climax or high point of the plot must be a family confrontation that solves some basic problems and restores a semblance of peace.
When you’re faced with a disconnect, it doesn’t matter which you change, the beginning or the end; but you must change one of them, these must match up.
Importance of Beginning Well
It is important to begin well, to draw the reader into your fictional world. The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman rightly argues that you only have five pages–at the most–to capture an agent, an editor or a reader. Often, you only have one page. So, beginnings are crucial. They set the stage, introduce character and setting, and most important, Hook the Reader. Lukeman’s book is an excellent guide to getting those pages right.
Importance of Ending Well
On the other hand, it is also important to end well. The end of a sentence, paragraph, chapter and novel are places of emphasis or stress. Consider the difference between these sentences:
The circus featured elephants and a great trapeze act, all presented in the center ring.
Featured in the center ring of the circus was a trapeze act performed above an elephant act.
In the first sentence the elephant/trapeze acts were buried in the middle of the sentence. Pulling them to the end, emphasizes their importance. Likewise, look at the ends of your chapters. Do you dribble off into nothing, or do these make memorable statements that pull readers to the next chapter? And what are the last lines of your stories? Memorable?
He loved Big Brother. –George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
When do you accept the invitation to step into the water, to begin the process of swimming that will take you into the unknown territory of a new story?
The invitation can come at any time or place. You might be standing in the shower rinsing your hair or getting into bed or folding laundry after dinner and, as you reach into the laundry basket for another napkin to fold, the invitation strikes
0 Comments on Accepting the Invitation as of 1/1/1900
I'm posting some of my older comics here as I catalog and tag them in prep for a print book compilation. You can also find my comics for writers on Tumblr and Pinterest.
If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, you’ll be starting at midnight tonight or first thing in the morning. You’ll be opening your story with a great scene, right?
Here are resources for those first lines, opening chapters of your novel.
Yesterday, we talked about what you’d find if you dissected a good scene. Today, we’ll apply this information by studying a scene from the classic movie, Good Will Hunting. (Warning: Adult language) Then, you can apply it to your own scenes.
Watch this four minute scene and identify the following:
What happens in the beginning phase?
What happens in the middle phase?
What is the turning point or focal point of the story?
How does the scene end? In a disaster (tragedy), in success, or somewhere in between? At the end, what has changed for each character?
What is the setting for this scene? Why is this an appropriate scene for the action that happens?
What is the underlying emotions of this scene, the pulse, as Sandra Scofield calls it?
List at least 3 reasons why this is a necessary scene for this story.
What else do you notice about scenes by studying this film clip?
Repeat this analysis for each of the scenes in your novel.
If you want confirmation of your answers, or want to discuss the analysis, please leave a comment.
If you dissect a scene, what do you find? Sandra Scofield, in The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer lays out a simple, yet insightful discussion of this concept and it’s usefulness to a novelist.
Here are the basics of a scene:
Event and Emotion: Something happens and it makes the reader feel something. We’ll say it again: novels are made up of external events, not interior thoughts and feelings. Yes, novels are distinguished by their ability to take a reader inside a character’s head and show us their thoughts and feelings. Yet, paradoxically, the scene is the solid framework of events to which the character reacts.
Function: Hey, why did you write this scene and include it in your novel exactly here? For example:
Character: character entrance, develop character’s qualities, build relationship, complicate relationship, argument, making up, romance, etc.
Plot: conflict, twist, surprise
Technical stuff: foreshadowing
The question is always, do you need this scene, or could you skip it or just summarize it?
Structure: There should be a beginning, middle (including a turning point, or as Scofield describes it, a focal point), and end.
Pulse: This is the emotional content of the scene, the underlying emotions, whether expressed explicitly or implied.
I could spend pages explaining each of these, but a demo will work better. Tomorrow, we’ll look at a film clip and see if you can identify each of these in the clip.
Meanwhile, read Scofield. Her explanations are so good, you should get it directly from the master.
Revision update: Still slogging through the first eight chapters, this time with a fine tooth comb looking for word choices, etc.
I’m also keeping an eye on Anita Nolan’s series on beginnings on her blog. Yesterday she had tips to hook the reader, and the first was keeping them curious. This is a good tactic for every part of the book, but especially for the beginning. If a reader is curious about what’s going on, he or she will most likely read more, and that’s exactly what we want. To keep the readers reading, keep them guessing.
Knowing what to put in a first chapter and what to leave out can be difficult. I think it’s a tool a writer learns over time. It’s one I’m learning right now.
As I mentioned, I’ve been reading first chapters from the bestsellers in my genre on my shelves to see how they do it, and I’ve come up with three main goals for the first chapter:
Introduce the character, setting, situation,
Make the audience care about the character,
Make the audience curious about the character and, thus, the story.
So, I’m looking at my first chapter with those things in mind, and anything that isn’t necessary at this point to those three goals, I’m leaving it out. Hopefully, it’s working.
How do you decide what goes in your first chapter?
Write On!
0 Comments on Keeping readers guessing as of 1/1/1900
dargre » this is just to say…. said, on 12/16/2007 9:38:00 AM
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptthis is just to say…. December 16th, 2007 | Posted in books | 1 Comment » Tags: aynrand, books, craigslist, humor, librarymofo “Ayn Rand man, I would like to apologize for a few things. To begin with, I am sorry that I did not state in simpler words, when you asked why Ayn Rand was shelved in the fiction section instead of the philosophy section, that the Fountainhead is a novel.” from best of craigslist, via library_mofo. […]
SovietBear said, on 12/21/2007 11:14:00 AM
I was working the reference desk once, when some doughy wanna-be biker kept going on and on about how Anarchy was the answer, and that he felt discriminated against that we didn’t have a large collection of pro-anarchy literature.
I told him we used to have a large collection of anarchy literature, but people stole it all. He then stated that we should have better procedures in place to prevent that from happening. Viva Anarchy.
One of the largest challenges with serving “the public” is that you’re answerable to the public for your decisions. So when a conservative think tank issues a report that says your libraries are full of extremist literature and you reply that you’re trying to achieve a balanced collection, how do you think people are going to respond? This news story reminds me of this post to the library_mofo group on LiveJournal (sorry, if you’re not a member of the group you won’t be able to read it, but membership is free) where a newly minted MLIS grad starts a job in a Catholic school library and has to figure out what to do with the well-meaning but seemingly inappropriate donations (hate speech, graphic anti-abortion flyers) she receives from library patrons. If you’re seeing that the connection is having a good collection development policy and effective communication with the media and your library administration, you’re most of the way there. In the work I do over at MetaFilter, our last resort to people unhappy with policies is to tell them “well perhaps this isn’t the right community for you, you are welcome to leave at any time” but this is a much stickier issue in a public library, even though we do see libraries doing this from time to time. [thanks eoin]
tagless!
4 Comments on radical books in libraries - problem or solution?, last added: 9/13/2007
Oops, I was interrupted by patrons in my first try at a response so here is a corrected version. (A weak excuse for my mistakes)
I noticed that you said “and you reply that you’re trying to achieve a balanced collection.” I have been saying as loud as I can for many years that using the word balanced in describing what we are trying to do with our library collections is not a good idea. We will never achieve “balance.” What we are really trying to do, I believe, is have diverse library collections that reflect the many view points out in the world on issues.
I find that balance often implies, though not always, that there are just two points of view. Yes, I know that one can achieve balance with more than two points of view but I just don’t think that is the usual perception. To achieve balance a collection would need an equal number of items repesenting each view. Of course, even when people view things in a similar way they don’t usually have exactly the same ideas on a subject. So, I am promoting the use of the term “diverse” to allow for the many differences over the word “balance.”
jessamyn said, on 9/8/2007 4:41:00 PM
I think that’s a good point Dee. I have a tendency to use balance when what I mean is diversity. I think the American model of “balance” is one of the things that makes our news shows so terrible. They do that two sides thing and make it seem like every issue has two valid (and equally weighted) sides to it when it’s often not the case at all.
Nancy said, on 9/9/2007 10:50:00 AM
I am a librarian, but equally consider myself to be an avid USER of libraries. The study of religions and religious history is a passion of mine, and I couldn’t pursue it without libraries. So I say libraries MUST have material such as this; how can I truly understand the religious viewpoints of others if I cannot actually read them first-hand?
thorn said, on 9/13/2007 2:46:00 PM
i really wish we could just say:
“if you don’t like it, don’t read it. you do not get to decide access policy for the following groups:
1. people who are not you or your minor children.
regarding access control for the minor children of people who are not you, see #1.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptthis is just to say…. December 16th, 2007 | Posted in books | 1 Comment » Tags: aynrand, books, craigslist, humor, librarymofo “Ayn Rand man, I would like to apologize for a few things. To begin with, I am sorry that I did not state in simpler words, when you asked why Ayn Rand was shelved in the fiction section instead of the philosophy section, that the Fountainhead is a novel.” from best of craigslist, via library_mofo. […]
I was working the reference desk once, when some doughy wanna-be biker kept going on and on about how Anarchy was the answer, and that he felt discriminated against that we didn’t have a large collection of pro-anarchy literature.
I told him we used to have a large collection of anarchy literature, but people stole it all. He then stated that we should have better procedures in place to prevent that from happening. Viva Anarchy.
Awesome.