We make up stories in our minds about events in our lives. Are the stories real? Only real to us and only as far as our perception is capable of seeing at the time. The stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world around us have a direct impact on how we react to new events in our lives.
That is the only explanation I have for why one writer is slain by the antagonists that pop up in the middle of her writing journey. While, another writer faced with the exact same problems is able to effortlessly make her way forward.
Or, perhaps, the answer lies in the understanding one has of the task itself.
The writer who is slain may have heard rumors about the meddlesome, messy, sagging middle but when confronted with the reality of writing her way through the middle, takes the challenge personally, surrenders all her power and gives up (either for the day or for months or even years).
Another writer has researched not only the setting and authentic details needed for her story but also the craft of writing itself enough to understand that the antagonists that arise in the middle are not to be feared or felled by but part of the process itself.
I'm not explaining myself well here and the reason could be because this more informed writer is an anomaly to me. She has only been writing for two years and is well beyond the halfway point to creating a compelling novel. Though slowed down by the antagonists in the middle, rather than create resistance by judging herself as the problem and throwing herself against the wall or curling up in a ball for years before seeking help, she reaches out almost immediately and is now off and flying again.
Replace the story you tell yourself about writing the middle of your novel, memoir, screenplay from one of threat and opposition to a story of strength and determination. Antagonists are self-created and have power over you only so long as you give away your own personal power first.
If you are just joining us, welcome! Begin at Day One and work your way here.
Today, make a list in order of all the major scenes or events you remember writing (don't go back into the manuscript to locate the scenes and/or events. Remember: no reading yet).
That's it for today. We are complying the materials we need for the rest of the month.
For more on scenes development versus summary, go to:
I wrote today's Twitter (1/2 pt. = commits to journey. Things seem to get a bit better. They're about to get way worse = Crisis 3/4 pt.) based on something I heard Andre Agassi say in an interview about his memoir. I missed the part about why he despises tennis from the start but at around the Middle of his journey to wholeness, he quits drugs and alcohol and commits to tennis for the very first time.
Agassi's Halfway turning point does what all good Halfway turning points do: signals a move from ambivalence to commitment. At that point, as Agassi quickly finds out, rather than get better, the Halfway point signals that things are about to get way worse.
The writer / protagonist (today's on-going plot consultation illustrates how closely the two are tied) leaves the ordinary world when she signs up for a series of on-going plot consultations with the goal of finishing a writing project she has started and stopped for years.
She slips into the writers life with ease. Fortunate to have a lifestyle that supports writing and reading and fully sinking into the writers life, she sets up a dream writing schedule. Every morning, write with coffee. Write and walk. Write and errands. Write and eat. Write and read. Write and sleep. Sounds heavenly. Only distractions are those she allows.
Yesterday she hits the wall. Comes up with two new writing projects in quick succession. Retires to bed sick. Rejects vision of literary genius.
She hits the exact same point in her writer's journey that the protagonist is about to encounter on the hero's journey. Up until now, the writer and the protagonist have gone through the motions. Now, with full commitment, the writer and protagonist step forward thinking that by making the commitment, the hard work is behind them. They step forward into thin air without a clue that the worst is yet to come...
Crank up the energy. Next is the Crisis...
WRITERS TO WATCH (books with a Fall 2009 release date by authors who have credited my plot support as helpful to their publishing success):
The Lodge by David Brandin (iU -- Editor's Choice Award)
(If I neglected to mention your book, please let me know and I'll add you to the list.)
In my Twitter today I chose the wrong words.
To be sure there is absolutely no confusion = when I say "Keep going back to the key scenes", I do NOT mean go back to rewrite the key scenes. NEVER GO BACK AND REWRITE YOUR FIRST DRAFT UNTIL YOU WRITE ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO THE END. (I apologize for the caps -- my zeal to make my point sort of looks like I'm yelling. Not my intention. I apologize.)
What I meant to Twitter (or is it Tweet??), is that as you make your way through your first draft keep referring to the key scenes. Create a pre-plot visual with the loose ideas you have for the end of the Beginning scene (1/4 mark), the halfway point scene (1/2 mark), the Crisis scene (3/4 mark), the Climax scene (chapter or scene before the last one).
A pre-plotted visual aid like a Plot Planner can serve as your beacon. Put the visual up on your computer so you see it at all times.
Things will get choppy. If not before, then for sure somewhere in the middle of the Middle (1/2). Listen for the fog horn when overtaken by gloom and doom. Hug the coast and keep your eye on the light when the storms hit. You can survive this, I promise.
First draft is the generative draft. There is something truly magical about watching the words fill a page, a scene, a chapter, the book = watching something come out of nothing but a hit of inspiration.
We muck it up by trying to control the uncontrollable.
The first draft is often filled with angst and uncertainty, loneliness and insecurity. It doesn't have to be. Keep your head down and keep faith in yourself and the creative process, and keep writing.
When doubts send you sprialing off track, keep coming back to the key scenes. Write your way toward them one by one. Your job now is to get the inspiration down on paper. There will be plenty of time for fear and doubt later. Wait until you read the first draft for the first time. Moments of brilliance drown in the "vomit". Uncertainty and angst are sure to strike again.
About the loneliness, heck, a writer's life is lonely, but only so long as we look outside ourselves and beyond the inspiration for validation.
One thing I can promise you if you sign up for this writers life for real... Your life will be fraught with uncertainty and angst so long as you attach yourself to the process. Separate yourself / your ego from your task and you'll be fine. Trust the process. Magic happens.
Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what (in the past) made the characters who they are today (in story time).
Writers want to cram everything right up front.
"I know all their history, why would I want to withhold it from the reader?"
"I wrote it that way."
"It's the good part."
Writers spend lots of time imagining and writing every little detail about a character's past, be it for a child or an adult. So, of course, writers would want to tell everything right away. Perhaps, in the process, even show off a bit how clever they are. Until, one understands how curiosity works.
Not telling everything makes the reader curious. Curiosity draws the reader deeper into the story world. The reader wants to fill in the "who," "what," "how" (the "where" and "when" have already been clearly established right up front to ground the reader). They keep reading. This is good.
Tell the reader only what they need to know to inform that particular scene. This is especially true in the Beginning (1/4 mark). During the first quarter of the project, the character can have a memory. But, for a full-blown flashback, where you take the reader back in time in scene, wait until the Middle.
(PLOT TIP: If you're absolutely sure you absolutely have to include the flashback, try using one when you're bogged down in the middle of the middle.)
Same writer as in the previous post has finished her outline, synopsis, and bio, and her entire book has been edited and is now ready to go out to interested agents.
In making sure her attachments can be opened -- some problems arose earlier because instead of word doc files, she had gif files and docx files I could not open -- this time I could open. When I did, I caught a couple of issues which I addressed in an email, a portion of which I include here:
Comments on formatting (these are no biggies, but I believe industry standards???):
1) Appears you've justified both margins, meaning the words begin and end on each line at the same place. It's best if the right margin is more ragged-looking and you only justify the left.
2) You've place the page numbers on the bottom right. "Should" be at the top right.
In sending these comments to you, I can hear a short story friend rant about picky rules when submitting to literary contests. She's highly creative, bigger-than-life writer, as I imagine you to be. She rails against such "left-brain" sort of rules as I imagine you do. I do, too. Most of us do except those lucky ones who like organization and order and rules...
These submission guidelines are yet another challenge -- antagonist -- writers must overcome. Yes, there are those writers who are picked up who break all the rules. They are the exception. Yes, you, too, can be an exception, but if you can, why not format your submission in such a way that all the agent notices is the writing.......
P.S. -- Yes, I am quite aware that this is not a "plot" issue. Yet, I am confident that most of you reading this blog will, if you haven't already, one day hit this phase in your writing life -- the submission process -- and may benefit. That's my hope anyway...
An agent flings a promising work against the wall. When asked why, she rants about all the times she has read entire manuscripts only to be disappointed in the end. She softens as she explains how, by the time she reaches the final quarter of the story, she longs for the work to succeed. If it fails, disappointment stings all the more.
Agents, editors, directors, audiences, and readers alike expect the scenes of a story to add up to something meaningful in the end.
The End is the Beginning
T.S. Eliot said, "The end is in the beginning."
The beginning of any entertaining and well-crafted story tells as much about where we are headed as to where we will be at the end. This means that until you write the end you will not truly know the beginning.
Which comes first? Does a writer labor over the first three quarters of a project where the groundwork is laid for the end? Or, does one write the climax itself first?
Before a writer can lay the groundwork about the character and the situation to build to a climax in a way that makes the highest point of the story seem both inevitable and surprising, doesn't the writer first need to know the climax? At what point do we surrender our idea of the story and our will, and let the story have its head?
Whichever which way you get there, the choices you make for the end of your story deserve attention.
Connecting the Dots
A finished draft allows the writer to stand back from the story and think both forward from the beginning and middle, and backwards from the climax. In other words, the beginning defines the end and the end defines the beginning.
As Apple co-founder Steve Jobs says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." Of course he was referring to students at their commencement, but it applies to plot as well. For the end to be meaningful and convincing, first specific character emotional development must be established through the use of dramatic action.
What is your story really saying? What do all those words you wrote add up to? Your story is a reflection of a truth. Not necessarily true for all time, but true for the story itself, and likely for yourself, too. What is the deeper meaning? The truth beyond the physical? The protagonist has undergone a transformation. What does that mean? Jot down the ideas that come to you.
The Climax
The protagonist introduced in the beginning 1/4 of a story spends twice that time in the caldron of dramatic action of the middle. In both the beginning one quarter of the story and up to the next three quarter mark toward the end of the middle, the character's emotional make-up is revealed through successively challenging events that are linked by cause and effect.
The dramatic action and the details and interpretations of the story hold the reader's interest and at the same time show the reader what they need to know to follow the story to its climax.
The climax hits close to the very end of the story. It is the point at which the story turns from being an interrelated deliberately arranged set of scenes to gold. "Any event that seems to the given writer startling, curious, or interest-laden can form the climax of a possible story,” writes John Gardner in The Art of Fiction.
The Climax serves as the light at the end of the tunnel. In the final quarter of the work, the protagonist moves toward the light -- one step forward toward the ultimate transformation, three steps back, a fight for a couple of steps, being beat backwards.
The Climax spotlights the character as she comes into full transformation and demonstrates full mastery of the necessary new skill or personality, gift or action.
The protagonist "shows" herself in scene acting in a transformed way -- in a way she could not have acted in any other part of the story because she first needed to experience everything she does to get to the final stage.
When the dramatic action of a story changes a character at depth over time, the story becomes thematically significant. Ask yourself which scene most dramatically shows your protagonist demonstrating her transformed self?
When you know the answer to that question, you have your climax.
The Climax, in turn, informs all the other scenes in the entire project.
Hollywood Endings
The happily-ever-after endings of the 1950s were replaced in the ‘60s and ‘70s by darker works like A Clockwork Orange, Coming Home, and Midnight Cowboy. The next decade brought in the era of Wall Street.
By the late ‘90s and early 2000s, we could afford to produce books and movies that depicted great loss and enduring hardship. As in the The Horse Whisperer and Cold Mountain, the reward in the end often came in the form of a new life.
Today, the shadow side of survival in these later films is fast becoming the reality in more and more book buyers’ and moviegoers’ lives.
Darkness or Hope
Of the two kinds of people who go to film festivals, view popular movies, and read books, one kind believes the universe is orderly and expects us to act morally responsible. These people usually find stories that end on a hopeful note enjoyable and inspire enthusiasm.
Then there are those people who accept a more random view of things. These people are often more at peace with stories that end by reinforcing a grudging acceptance that life is hard.
Both sorts of people are affected by the increasing connectedness of scenes and emotion in a story. In both cases, if unable to find enjoyment in a story or grasp a deeper acceptance for life, people will ultimately stop reading or opt to leave to the movie early.
Thematic Significance
While writing and rewriting the final quarter of the story and the climax itself, a writer looks hard at the meaning of things. An exploration of deep-rooted ideas for the fundamental meaning of events reveals thematic significance, which in turn dictates the final layer in the selection and organization, nuances, and details of the story.
Filmmaker Halidan Hussy, co-founder and executive director of Santa Cruz Cinequest Film Festival, says, “You go to find films that get you thinking, that open you up.”
Stories that get you thinking resonate with meaning. Stories that open you up create opportunities for a shared experience with others. A promising story with a thematically rich climax leaves the reader to ponder the deeper meaning and, in that way, is sure to deliver success.
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Join me in my first ever teleseminar plot talk. It's for a memoir group of writers, but any writer is welcome and will benefit. Below is the press release blurb.
Looking forward to tomorrow.......
October 16-2008 11 AM PST
Plot for Memoir Writers
We are pleased to have Martha Alderson, an expert on plot and structure and author of Blockbuster Plots, present a special topic that challenges all memoir writers: how to create plot and structure in a memoir. As an international plot consultant for writers, Martha Alderson employs helpful strategies to help writers develop plot for writers of all genres.
Memoir writers struggle with what parts of their life to put into the memoir and what parts to leave out. The challenge is to choose what is most important.
A memoir needs to focus on a specific time period that illuminates and develops the thematic significance to the writer's life, often with the hope that these themes and the lessons learned might benefit others. But being so close to the story of “what really happened “challenges the memoir writer to think in terms of plot.
1. What is plot and why is it important?
2. How to construct a plot plan for the overall memoir
3. The art of writing plot in scenes
4. The importance of the main character -- You!
Martha’s Bio
Martha Alderson, author of Blockbuster Plots has created a unique line of plot tools for writers, including the upcoming Plot for Memoirists eBook. She teaches scene development and plot workshops privately and at conferences. For plot tips, visit: Blockbuster Plots for Writers
Best-selling authors, screenwriters, memoirists, writing teachers and fiction editors turn to Martha Alderson, M.A. for help with creating plot. She has won attention in several literary writing contests, including the William Faulkner Writing Contest and the Heekin Foundation Prize.
Martha takes readers and writers alike beyond the words into the very heart of a story.
As the founder of Blockbuster Plots for Writers, she manages a popular blog: Plot Whisperer
If you are interested, email Linda Joy Myers, President and Founder of NAMW ASAP
I ran into a couple of writer friends yesterday, one of whom usually comments on the blog. They each said they had read the last post, but hadn't left a message.
Too chaotic to ask why not, but I wonder -- did the subject of breaking through emotional walls put them off???
I find the quest in the question posed in last week's post a worthy one. The closer we get to ourselves emotionally, the closer we can get our characters. I found a list of emotions I'll share below. Try exploring these emotions with your protagonist.
The key is not to ask yourself what you would do in the situation, but ask yourself what you would do if you were the character in the situation. Always bring the emotion through the character herself.
Identification with the protagonist is paramount to creating a compelling read, whether a novel, screenplay, memoir, or a blog. Readers identify with characters, through the character's emotion.
Exhausted
Confused
Ecstatic
Guilty
Suspicious
Angry
Hysterical
Frustrated
Sad
Confident
Embarrassed
Happy
Mischievous
Disgusted
Frightened
Enraged
Ashamed
Cautious
Smug
Depressed
Overwhelmed
Hopeful
Lonely
Lovestruck
Jealous
Bored
Surprised
Anxious
Shocked
Shy
Did I miss any???
We make up stories in our minds about events in our lives. Are the stories real? Only real to us and only as far as our perception is capable of seeing at the time. The stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world around us have a direct impact on how we react to new events in our lives.
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This post speeks to me! I sat in that saggy middle for a year. I have fought my way out and am close to finishing my first novel. Thank you for this. It is so comforting to know I am not alone in the struggle to write.
Oh, how your words inspire. I'm ready to grab hold of the wings of some dragonflies today. Thank you!