How to use this Page

PB&J: Picture Books and All That Jazz: A Highlights Foundation Workshop

• "This conference was great! A perfect mix of learning and practicing our craft."�Peggy Campbell-Rush, 2014 attendee, Washington, NJ
• "Darcy and Leslie were extremely accessible for advice, critique and casual conversation."�Perri Hogan, 2014 attendee, Syracuse,NY

Today, I worked on a difficult scene. It wasn’t a big action-packed scene; those are easy. Instead, it was a transition scene that moved the story along a week and had the potential to lose the reader with it’s lack of tension.

Donald Maass, in his Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, repeats this signature mantra, “Tension on every page.”
He points out three types of scenes that can be a trap for the lazy writer: Tea time or any time people eat together; transporting characters from one spot to another; and dialogue. Maass recommends that you cut these scenes:

The most controversial part of my Writing the Blockbuster Novel workshop pis this exercise, in which I direct authors to cut scenes set in kitchens or living rooms or cars driving from one place to another, or that involve drinking tea or coffee or taking showers or baths, particularly in a novel’s first fifty pages. Participants look dismayed when they hear this directive, and in writer’s chat rooms on the Web it is debated in tones of alarm. No one wants to cut such material.

Unless you give these scenes careful attention, they can wind up as BORING!

Strategies for Dealing with Low Tension Scenes

In working through my scene, I focused on a couple strategies for approaching such Bore-Traps.

The moment before. What happened right before this scene? Characters don’t go into a scene neutral. Sometimes, just thinking about the moment before will help you get a handle on what tensions or conflicts could be built into the scene. For example, if Jillian and Dad step out of the car at a used-car dealership and talk to a salesman about the 2012 Toyota Camry, it could be boring: How much is it? Do you finance? Want to take a test drive?

If, however, you take a moment to explore the moment before, you might find some interesting points of tension:
Our salesman, William, has just learned that his brother was in a motorcycle wreck and while he lived, William is now obsessing about car safety. Jillian has been trying to convince her Dad to get her a new car and is angry that he’s stopping at the used car shop, while Dad is worried because Mom just told him she’s filing for divorce and Dad doesn’t know how he can afford to buy Jillian any kind of car, what with the upcoming lawyer bills. Try writing that scene again, after all of THAT!

Character’s attitudes going into a scene. Similar, but slightly different is an emphasis on character attitudes going into a discussion. For William, we could choose from several attitudes: obsessing over safety, anxious to get done and get to the hospital so he speeds through everything, angry with brother because William just convince his wife to get a motorcycle and his blockhead brother just messed up that deal. Jillian could be pleading, sarcastic, grateful, or even indifferent. Dad could be generous, angry, stingy, resentful and more. Decide on the character’s attitudes, making sure that they are coming into the discussion at tangents.

Small moments of tension. This may seem obvious, but what I mean by this is to look for things or situations within the scene that could go wrong. For example, in my current story, the kids are in a cafeteria, and when the boy opens his coke, the carbonation explodes all over. It’s a small thing, a common thing. But it’s conflict. What is present in your situation/scene that could spill over with some small conflict?

Foreshadow something that is coming – look forward. Another reason the coke explosion worked for me is that the story involves volcanoes! It’s a minor foreshadowing of what’s coming. Look ahead in your story to see if you can provide even a minor foreshadowing.

Refer back to something – look backward. Don’t just look forward. Also look back to previous chapters and try to echo something. Can you echo it with some kind of progression? Make it faster, higher, bigger, etc? And plan another time to use that element and make it the fastest, biggest, highest, etc.?

My scene, which started as a bore, is much tighter and has more tension. It’s a collection of small moments of tension that adds up to an important transition scene that keeps the reader turning the pages.

Photo by Vicky Lorencen

Soon I will be leaving my preparing place to bounce into a new phase in my publishing pursuits– querying agents and editors. Up to this point, I’ve been writing/revising/researching/daydreaming in a liminal space that exists between the time I decided to become serious about writing and the stage to come when others will see my work and choose to love it or leave it. This long season of liminality has been challenging (to put it politely), but I believe say I am a better person for it (and sheesh, let’s hope a better writer!)

Photo by Vicky Lorencen

Thanks to my stint in the Land of Liminality, these words mean much more than mere words to me:
Patience
Encouragement
Empathy
Resourcefulness
Bravery
Boldness
Kinship
Stubbornness
Optimism
Humor
Priorities
Focus
Generosity
Humility
Sacrifice
Persistence
Opportunity
Chocolate

Oh, sure. I know the minute I hit “send” on the first query I submit, I will slip into a new level of liminality, but now I feel more prepared for the transition. And between you and me, I believe the outcome will be worth the wait.

The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms. ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh

Not long after I’d signed the contract to write Johnny Mackintosh, I came across Iain Banks in a London pub. I remember telling him I had a publishing deal and that he was my biggest influence, to which he replied, “I shall bask in your reflected glory”. It was a very lovely and typically self-effacing thing to say, especially given the great man had consumed several whiskies by this point.

Banks’ Culture novels are the most compelling modern fiction I know of. They present a utopian future of enlightened humanoids at pretty much the highest level of galactic civilization without “subliming” – the act of moving on to the next plane of existence.

Some of Banks’ books are under the moniker Iain Banks while others are written as Iain M. Banks (his middle name is the uber cool “Menzies”). I believe Banks regrets the distinction that was foist upon him in the early days of his writing. Publishers (I should know because I am one) are always trying to classify books and identify the correct market. I suspect his didn’t want people not buying future novels “from the critically acclaimed fiction of the author of The Wasp Factory” because they might turn out to be science fiction (heaven forbid).  What are known as “genre” books can often get a very raw deal from publishers and critics. I’m sure Banks believes his Culture novels would be a good read for anyone, just as I’ve always said the Johnny Mackintosh books are aimed squarely at a general audience and not hard-core sci-fi fans. In fact, the Culture books are the only science fiction I’ve read since I was a kid. I remember one reviewer saying of Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London that it was reminiscent of “Asimov, Clarke, Moorcock and Dick” which I thought great only for the review to continue that these authors were “totally out of vogue now”. I’ve lost count of the times people have said to me, “I don’t normally read/enjoy science fiction, but I love your books” while sci-fi fans appear nowadays to be looking for something else.

Back to the Culture. Banks’ novels take place at the boundary of the Culture’s influence – the society itself is so stable that any story rooted in it would most likely be pretty dull. Everything’s good and there’s no conflict of note. Instead we tend to read about their equivalent of the Foreign Office, a body called Contact, and their division that performs dubious activities of questionable legality to ensure society and the wider galactic civilization function as they should: Special Circumstances.

This society has developed an incredibly high level of artificial intelligence and the machines work in harmony with the humans. Overall the society is run by these “minds” whether in charge of a spaceship or an artificial planetary-scale habitat known as an “orbital”. Now Sol is, I suppose, the mind of the Spirit of London, but she doesn’t come from Iain Banks – equally well she could originate from Zen in Blake’s 7 or Rommie in Andromeda (pictured), or just from my own head

Tweet

By Mark E. Courtney

For most young people, the transition to adulthood is a gradual process. Many continue to receive financial and emotional support from their parents or other family members well past age 18.  This is in stark contrast to the situation confronting youth who must navigate the transition to adulthood from the U.S. foster care system. Too old for the child welfare system but often not yet prepared to live as independent young adults, the approximately 29,000 foster youth who “age out” of foster care each year are expected to make it on their own long before the vast majority of their peers.

The federal government has long recognized the challenges facing foster youth, providing states with funds to help prepare them for independence since the late 1980s. Federal support for foster youth making the transition to adulthood was enhanced in 1999 with the creation of the John Chafee Foster Care Independence Program. This legislation doubled available funding to $140 million per year, expanded the age range deemed eligible for services, allowed states to use funds for a broader range of purposes (e.g., room and board), and granted states the option of extending Medicaid coverage for youth who age out of foster care until age 21. Vouchers for post-secondary education and training were also added to the range of federally-funded services and supports potentially available to current and former foster youth making the transition to adulthood. While the services provided through the Chafee Program were a step in the right direction, the fact remains that in all but a few states youth are still summarily discharged from foster care on or around their 18^th birthday, rendering them “independent” of foster care, but seldom self sufficient.

That may finally be changing for the better. Recently, there was a fundamental shift toward greater federal responsibility for supporting foster youth during the transition to adulthood. The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 extended the age of eligibility for federal reimbursement of foster care from 18 to 21. Beginning this year, states will be able to claim federal reimbursement for the costs of providing foster care until foster youth are 21 years old. To qualify for reimbursement, foster youth age 18 and older must be either completing high school or an equivalent program; enrolled in postsecondary or vocational school; participating in a program or activity designed to promote or remove barriers to employment; employed for at least 80 hours per month; or incapable of doing any of these activities due to a medical condition. They can be living independently in a supervised setting as well as placed in a foster home or group care setting.

This change in federal policy was informed by findings from the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth (“Midwest Study”), the largest longitudinal study of young people aging out of foster care in the U.S. The Midwest Study paints a sobering picture of the outcomes experienced by foster youth making the transition to adulthood; foster youth fare much worse than their peers

Does your Scene Pass this Checklist?

1. Where/When. (Setting) Did you orient the reader at the beginning of the scene? Does the reader know where this takes place: room in house, city, state, country, etc? Does the reader know when this takes place: time of day, season of year, place within chronology of story? If the answer to where or when is no, do you have a firm reason for leaving the reader disoriented?


Do NOT Pass Go Until You've Passed this Check List

2. Stakes. Are the stakes of the scene goal clear? If the protagonist fails, do we understand the consequences? Are the consequences substantial? Can you put more at stake, or make it matter in some way?
3. Structure. Is the structure clear, with a beginning, middle, pivot point and ending? Is the chronology of the scene clear (did you use transitions such as then, later, before, after, etc.)?
4. Actions. Are the actions of the scene interesting, and told with active verbs and great clarity?
5. Emotions. Are the emotions clearly stated or implied? Can the reader empathize with the characters? Does the reader weep or laugh, even when the character can’t or won’t?
6. Dialogue. Does the dialogue move the scene forward or is it empty chit-chat? Are there minor conflicts embedded in the conversations?
7. Language. Are you telling or showing? Does your storytelling have clarity and coherence?
8. Voice. Does the language create the proper mood, tone, voice?
9. Transition. Does the scene make a smooth transition to the next scene? If you use a scene cut, does the reader have enough information to follow the cut without getting confused?
10. Cohesive. Do all the elements work together to create a gestalt, a scene that is better than the sum of its parts?

Where does your scene fall down? Revise. You know the drill.

Transitions: Filling in the Time Line

I’m at a tricky place in my revision where I need a good transition. There’s a time gap. Certain events need to take place in late October and November, but I’m at about the 4th of July on the story’s time line. I need to get on with the story quickly, but it’s difficult. As it’s set up, my MC is starting middle school this fall, and that should be a big event in his life. But it’s NOT a major event, necessarily, in the story as currently told.

Yes, this is about a character, so he can be distracted for a while by this new school, but I don’t want to lose track of the events in October/November.

Create a mini-subplot that spans a couple chapters. I could think of July-October as a couple chapters of a mini-subplot. Adventure novels often do when there’s a chase sequence that spans several chapters. When the chase ends (someone is caught or someone gets away), the story returns to the main story.

Bridging events. I could think of this as needing bridging conflict, events that cause my character trouble that relates more or less to the main conflict. In this case, the events wouldn’t necessarily be a complete subplot. It could include scenes from several subplots, or it could be a small digression that shows backstory,or puts my character in a new light.

I don’t want filler material here, though. Either way, everything needs to be necessary to the story. That’s the trick! Finding bridging conflict or a mini-subplot to fill the time, but making sure it’s necessary to the story. Again, it won’t do, just to have a summary paragraph getting him to October. Going into middle school is simply too big a life event to summarize away.

Any other ways you handle major transitions or fill in gaps in your timelines?

Post from: Revision Notes Revise Your Novel! Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Choosing subplots
2. Powerful Endings
3. Big Scenes

Charles O. Jones is Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution and the author of many books including Passages to the Presidency and Preparing to be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt. In his most recent book, The American Presidency: A Very Short Introduction, Jones has written a marvelously concise survey that is packed with information about the presidency, some of it quite surprising. We learn, for example, that the Founders adopted the word “president” over “governor” and other alternatives because it suggested a light hand, as in one who presides, rather than rules.  In the original article below Jones analyzes Obama’s term as President-Elect.

Following his victory, President-Elect Barack Obama conducted a model transition, one suited to the standards set by successful transitions in the post-World War II era, most notably those of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Ronald W. Reagan in 1980. Obama played it by the book, revealing that “change you can believe in” is to be achieved by governing methods he can trust.

During the 1960 campaign Kennedy reportedly said: “If I am elected, I don’t want to wake up on November 9 [the morning after the election] and ask myself ‘What in the world do I do now?’” The answer to that question was then, and remains, fairly simple. You prepare to be president. Arrangements begin with clear notions of who you have become, what the job entails, and who can be of help.

Obama became a presidential candidate in the 2008 campaign. That assertion is less trite than it appears. John McCain remained a maverick senator running for president, Hillary Clinton was an heir apparent First Lady, John Kerry a backbench senator in 2004, Al Gore an heir apparent Vice President in 2000. No one of these aspirants fully adopted the role of presidential candidate. Obama did.

Not having become an in-house senator in his brief service or been in a position to imagine himself an heir apparent, Obama was free to acquaint himself with the style and demands of a national campaign. He learned the role well enough to hire a compatible supporting cast and to script a message absent allusions to the past. “Change: That’s what you want? That’s what I will give you.”

The October surprise on Wall Street illustrated his differences with McCain. Obama remained the presidential candidate he had become. McCain suspended his campaign to resume his familiar role as the maverick senator. Yet the complex financial issues involved required neither a campaigner nor a nonconformist. Obama understood and stayed out of it; McCain rushed in where he was not needed or welcome.

On November 5, Obama became president-elect. That role too requires an understanding of how to behave. The most important guideline: There is a president, you’re not him. Corollaries: Remind the staff not to jump the gun—their time as big shots will come. Follow the book in making appointments and organizing White House staff. Don’t promise more in the first 100 days than can be delivered. Stay out of the way, preferably away from Washington, but be accessible and nice to the press. Find out how the White House works—inside the building itself and outside in the government. Accept the help offered by the incumbent administration in learning about departments, agencies, and budgets. Visit, but don’t invade, the workaday government. Be nice to Congressional leaders but wary of their advice. Find friends in the opposition party—you will need them. Can the arrogance of a victor—that goes even more for staff.

These rules are in accord with the Law of Commonsense. Yet President Elect Bill Clinton and his staff ignored most, if not all, these advisories. Obama and his aides paid heed to all, thereby winning praise and favorable comparisons to the Kennedy and Reagan transitions.

Knowing who you have become should aid immeasurably in learning what the job entails. The rules cited here provide orientation for the most important role—President of he United States. It all starts with understanding the separation of powers. The three branches, plus the bureaucracy, share and compete for powers permitting them to get into each other’s business. For example, Congress spent the last two years curbing executive powers the new president may wish he had.

Two facts are relevant to understanding the new job: 1. The president is not the government. 2. A new president joins a government already at work. The new Congress is mostly populated by members from the last Congress; judges serve life terms; and the bureaucracy is forever. What is new is a President Obama, his staff, and appointees, all charged to make what is already there work effectively under new leadership. One other fact: The choices presidents make today have an effect on persuasive power in the future. One need only review President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, relying on bad intelligence, for a contemporary illustration. Support for his leadership never recovered.

It is too early to know the depth of Obama’s savvy in serving as chief executive. He has no record and it is impossible to “game” the presidential experience. But there are positive clues from the campaign and the transition that the president-elect recognizes what is coming. The campaign showed he knows how to hire and keep good help. He understands the need, recognizes talent, communicates purposes, and commands loyalty. Furthermore, lacking experience himself, he has demonstrated strength of character and resolve in hiring those who do have the knowledge and skills he requires as president.

The process of selecting staff and cabinet positions was impressive. He assigned the major White House staff positions early, thus reducing job anxiety among his campaign operatives and allowing them to settle in during the transition to aid him and connect with establishment figures. The cabinet and ancillary selections were announced in policy clusters, thus showcasing “teams” rather than drawing attention to a single appointment. Further, the sequence revealed policy priorities, as with the early selections of the economic and national security teams. The president-elect himself made the announcements, his physical presence leaving little doubt as to who was in charge. And whereas diversity was the result, emphasis in each case was on the capability and experience of those chosen. One notable effect of this orderly process was to project an aura of leadership.

There was a casualty. Bill Richardson withdrew prior to a confirmation hearing. One case is par for the course and can have the effect of increased scrutiny of the rest.

Does this positive start ensure a successful Obama presidency? Hardly. Unscheduled events occur and unwelcome change happens, as with Israel’s assault in Gaza. Expect more agenda-bending events to interfere with the new president’s plans, hopefully not as dramatic as 9/11 for his predecessor.
The record as I read it, however, indicates that as a candidate and president-elect Barack Obama has verified an aptitude for leadership and for knowing who can best help him lead. Less clear is whether he understands that neither he nor Congress can quickly fix much of what is wrong in the nation and the world. In a separated powers government, confidence in knowing what to do is only part of getting it done.

Ganesh Baba once wrote,

"�Survival of the weakest’ is the basic trend of evolution in the human phase. It requires a unique synthesis of production and distribution in the four phases of our being, namely, physical, biological, psychological and spiritual. Synthetic evolution, survival, survival in all phases, is total survival, and not a partial process, as in the biological Darwinian phase. Now we are passing the Jungian, and preparing for the advanced analogue of the Buddha phase.”

He's saying that in order to survive, humanity must grow out of "survival of the strongest" into the "survival of the weakest", a shift to the heart.

The shift must happen in all four phases of our existence, the physical, biological, psychological and spiritual, in the way they interact, a unique coming together of nature and spirit.

Darwinian evolution is only a small arc in the great cycle of creation/evolution. Synthetic evolution goes beyond the Darwinian phase, through the Jungian, or psychological phase, and into a new spiritual phase.

Each age has its avatar or figure who embodies the age. Baba speaks of the avatar (or avatars) of the next age as being more like the Buddha than like the Christ, avatar of the passing age, more receptive than active.

And, indeed, the presence that is growing in so many of us now is more receptive than active.

The Tolle teachings are transmitting the wisdom of the new consciousness to anyone receptive.

And Ganesh Baba's teachings prepare the receptacle: posture, prana, practice, presence.

while listening to Ganesh Baba on my iPod...

Some notes and thoughts

“We must become more familiar with the essence and structure of consciousness, because it is out of consciousness we come and to consciousness we return.” Ganesh Baba, “The Rochester Raps,” recorded by Ira Landgarten, 1981.

The cosmos is created out of consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, visible to our limited senses as a fractal world created from rainbows and scales:




"The eight broad categories all operate within the human psyche, but the physical body operates only in the first three dimensions: matter, energy and space. The fourth dimension, time, we can barely conceive; it is like a baby moving around in the womb trying to understand the outside world."

Errors in understanding the subtle worlds come when the mind claims greater wisdom than it has, and sees exactly the opposite of what is. Because as soon as the individual mind, the ego, enters into consciousness, consciousness flips and becomes its opposite: Mercury, in flight between worlds.

The möbius twist.

Thoughts take on a life of their own whenever they get the chance. Potential archetypes arise with every word we say, with every intention, with every mood, with every thought we have (conceive, give birth to, create), whether conscious or unconscious. Some are conceived in the unconscious and take on the dark aspect of things not understood, and others are born in the light of consciousness and bring wisdom and understanding.

We fear what we don't understand and project our fear outward onto others and into the future.

"Jung knew. The darkness is coming into the light now, willy-nilly."

The quality of the consciousness, receptive or resistant, high or low, subtle or dense, with which each of us receives and responds to the darkness coming to light now will determine our experience. Yet the only way to get to the next level is through synthesis.

These are times of highest synthesis, of enormous potential —

of the possibility of coming together without baggage,

of receiving and giving without judgment,

of being present, instead of just in time.

Baba says the darkness will rise in all four fields of our existence, the physical, biological, psychological and spiritual. There is no stopping it.

It will manifest differently in each of our lives, though some groups will share their experiences.

But once we recognize the light in disguise in what appears to be darkness, we will be through the twist.

Clearly we are coming closer to the möbius twist in perception that the coming weeks, months, and years must bring.

I'm so interested in how others imagine the transition unfolding.

I think it's up to all of us to try to understand what's happening and to respond to it in the best possible frame of mind, body and soul — to be, as Ganesh Baba said, in 03, Optimal Operating Order— because, like many of us now, I believe we simultaneously create and are created by our experience. Crippled minds and souls can create chaos.

I think about this: one's response determines one's experience. Group responses determine group experiences.

Attention is the key, isn't it? What you pay attention to generates. Attention creates an opening but consciousness only pours through when mind steps aside. When mind is too dense, too set, consciousness must either seek another channel or flow through limited and narrow, set pathways. With aware, alert, unfocused attention - the relaxed attention meditation aspires to - consciousness rushes in and we see that this world is a complex, many-aspected reflection of the Self. The sacred is apparent everywhere; the re-enchantment of the world occurs. What hubris to think that man's mind had a monopoly on consciousness!

It is a mass awakening to the cosmic intelligence underlying the ordinary world. The rise of the Mother - and there is already a great opening. It's as if we are in the transition stage of the birth of awakening.

And, thank godness, more and more people are practicing presence. More and more people understand that they are the stage as well as the actors, and more, that they create both the stage and the play in their minds. The more we open to possibility, the more easily the birth of the new consciousness will go. Oprah Winfrey was midwife to the birth of consciousness in tens, perhaps hundreds now, of thousands of people. Class, culture and education have nothing to do with it. That hierarchy is crumbling.

The new consciousness coming in now, in particular since 10/8/08, is insisting that we step back from our ordinary lives - some people are getting a nasty wake-up call now - and become observers of our own minds, both our projections (active) and our responses (receptive).

I think we are controlled by our minds via water and earth, and control with our minds via air and fire. Water and earth encompass the physical and biological fields, and air and fire, the psychological and spiritual fields in which we all function.

For the transition to go easily, open-mindedness, flexibility and balance are necessary. It would seem that those who are ready to give up all expectation, to be open to absolutely anything, who don't resist, will have the easiest time.

The cocoon is breaking down; humanity is coming into its butterflyhood. The imaginal discs are linking up!

In the UK. I was in the car on the way from Gatwick to the hotel when the phone call came in asking if I could stop off in Soho to listen to the Stardust dub, being a fresh pair of ears, so we changed course and I soon found myself in a large room in DeLane Lea, sitting on a sofa while the film rolled and the music played (on the same sofa where, oddly enough, I'd been sitting about a month ago, while David Yates played clips with amazing whooshy sounds on the next Harry Potter film). I ate some sushi, not sure if it was a very early breakfast or just some lunch, had a cup of tea, and then, very impressed, nipped out to check in to the hotel and to meet Holly-who-is-in-the-Uk-too-right-now. Where I am now.

I watched the clips I'll be introducing tomorrow at the Hay festival. Got an email from Paramount telling me that Stardust now has a myspace account at http://www.myspace.com/stardustmovie and they want lots of friends. Discovered that some sort of error meant that last night's blog entry hasn't gone out as a feed. (Oh well.)

Right. Now back to the dub for a bit, then down to Hay. (Waves cheerfully.)