So, I’m sitting at the hosptial, waiting for my husband to follow in Harry Smith’s footsteps and get the Couric Procedure (screening colonoscopy). Every wall has a sign asking, “Are you in pain?
Physical pain may or may not be present in a story. But it’s the emotional pain that creates strong stories.
The pain scale is a subjective scale, asking a patient how much s/he hurts. My husband has a higher pain threshold than I do, for sure. And my number 10 is about his number 5. Likewise, there are stories with severe pain scales and some with mild pain scales. A pain scale for a children’s picture book is very different from a pain scale for a horror story.
It’s also helpful to consider the pain scale when thinking about which character is the main character. In general, the character who hurts the most should be the main character. Ask each of your characters to rate their pain at key points throughout the story. Which one has the most pain? Could the story be stronger with a different main character? If there characters with no pain or only mild pain, could you either delete that character or find a way to add emotional pain?
If you do not have a draft of a story written, follow the steps outlined this month to generate ideas for one now. (You'll have to use your imagination and fill in the missing blanks, but you're good at that, right? After all, you're a writer.....
I appreciate how we each desire to be heard and at the same time fear that what we have to say has no meaning. Desire and fear drown out the muse. Do what you must to silence your ego. Listen to your story instead.
Every story has its own unique energy. At the same time, everything around us follows a similar path. We are born, challenged, come to fullness, and die to who we were. Within the greater pattern, a similar version repeats itself innumerable times throughout our lives.
Today, using the scenes/events you generated on
Day Three, let the energy of your story alight on the pattern itself with the help of the
Universal Story Form (below is the template. On the site is further info)
Plot:
Try for all 7 of the following
or
3 scenes/events At the Least (*)
(Do NOT refer to your manuscript. Use the scenes you generated yesterday. No more than 7.)
- Scene, moment, conflict, dilemma, loss, fear, etc. that forces protagonist to take immediate action -- Inciting Incident
- Scene or event that symbolizes the end of what was. The protagonist's goal shifts or takes on greater meaning and turns the story in a new direction, launching the character into the actual story world itself -- End of the Beginning (*)
- The moment the protagonist consciously make
All seems about money! Projects shelved, people laid off, children pulled out of schools. People flying away overnight back home with no money, no jobs. It’s a laugh.
What a handful of greedy people of this world can shake it up. Why only 10% of this world are billionaires and trillionaires. People we thought we could look up; to respect and perhaps some had become role models for a lot of us both the young and not so young adults.
Today, these 10% of whom I would call greedy bees could break open and tear the world into shreds.
Families been torn apart, left separated. Children forced to stay away from fathers who have decided to move to avenues to fund the basics. Lovers who were to meet, and start life remain as they were.
Life has become reckless and left ruined. Peace which seems like a marathon, love that seems like a huge 900mts tall like the Burj Fantasy. What a laugh!
Let’s all laugh and really laugh loud. Shed all the hurt and let the tears drain away the negatives. Let’s take the stride and move again. Like the French emperor who lost several times and had to regain strength for the cause of freedom.
Today, each one of us is the French emperor. Time to wake up and desire freedom.
Freedom from hurt, freedom from being ruled by others, freedom from living on sheer means.
Time that we said, we are tired. Tired of being dependent.
Let’s start finding financial freedom! Perhaps the only way we can reunite the lost souls, the lost families, the lost lovers.
Let’s empower ourselves and stop being lazy anymore. Let’s make ourselves so strong that no bunch of these greedy Bee’s can desire to turn the scales of life of the entire world.
What greed can do? Perhaps somewhere we have been responsible too.
Always thought, we are going to keep that job forever. Never bothered to do our jobs well, increase our productivity or add value beyond expectations.
We all lived in our comfort zone. Outrageously made excuses on delays. Wasted energies, wasted wealth. When is it that we are going to realize that somewhere each one of us has been responsible
Group-ism, Mafia’s at work, racism. Trying to pull each other down. Disrespected nationalities. Never worked together as a team and helped each other do our jobs better.
Die hard desire to succeed and yet kept kicking others who asked for help. Never thought that we need help too. All those ambitious people who knew the shortest way to succeed was to get others out of the way and make big salaries. Today they stand at a loss.
It’s time we all thought together, realized a few basics of living together in a society, whether it’s a society at home, work, a country or world at large. Time that we realized that united we stand.
Corporate governance is well asked for but what about personal governance. Who is going to tell us that other than our self realization?
How many of us realize that both knowledge and wealth only grows with sharing? And how many of us do that?
What about gratitude and love and all the goodness that only will attract bigger faith?
Who is going to teach us that?
We call ourselves self reliant as we are not beast but human beings who can think and desire. Guess Time had to play its strongest strike. A slap on the face and being stumped on the nose. Amnesia!
Are we going to awaken, realize and change after all?
By:
Helen Waters,
on 12/21/2008
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Announcing my first greeting card, for the New Year! In the spirit of finding as much humor as possible in the current situation, I offer the above visual interpretation, now available in a convenient greeting card form for easy distribution amongst those you might want to hand a laugh to! These are actual physical greeting cards, that you put stamps on and everything - remember those?? I am offering them for $1.20 each.
If you are interested in ordering some cards for your personal use, please contact me at [email protected]. And a wonderful, happy 2009 to everyone!
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Stammered, stoppered, stunned by the news. By headlines four inches high. By images of strangers—panicked. By the realities of a country that has lived far too long on borrowed time, in the haze of inflated ambitions, under the scourge of obfuscating mechanisms and tools.
What happens next isn't up to most of us, but I think this much is true: Responsibility, in the midst of this crisis, means living on. It means going about our days as we would have elsewise gone about our days—a little kinder, maybe, a little more clear with ourselves that every moment of abundance is a gift, every gesture of goodness is a salve. Anxiety can't help us now. Obsessively watching the news won't change the news.
Outside our windows, the world goes on. The rain comes, the flocks descend, the sun rises, a neighbor brings a puppy home, inexplicably, the sweet William once more blooms. Life's incidentals, but right now, this is what we have.
I suspended this blog before John McCain suspended his campaign to work on the economy, so please vote for me on election day. My running mate is an androgynous simulacrum of Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman who spends most of its time arguing with itself about the role and value of government in effecting meaningful change.
I will be de-suspending the blog soon, though, because today I am going out into my backyard to talk with the squirrels about my plan for the economy, a plan that rests its many tentacles on a single bodily proposal: to release all non-violent offenders from prison to make room for various denizens of Wall Street. And to provide free feather boas to everybody who wants one.
Oh no! One of my cats just ate the Squirrel Majority Leader! The squirrels are in an uproar! The whole economic plan is now in jeopardy! Bad kitty! BAD!
My friends, I'm afraid I'm going to have to suspend the blog for a few more days while this crisis is resolved.
Two recent plot consultations revealed the same dilemma -- both writers were faltering as they made the approach to the Crisis, which occurs about 3/4, give or take, through the entire project.
The Problem
Characters, setting, set-up, premise, and action move from the superficial, introductory mode of the Beginning to the gritty, challenging world of the Middle, the heart of the story world itself.
In the middle, masks fall away and the characters reveal themselves for who they truly are, warts, flaws, fears, prejudices, and all. At this point in the relationship, just like in life, the story tends to get messy. Fights can ensue. Feelings can get hurt. Because of that, writers often back away, afraid of what the characters will reveal about themselves, doubting their ability to manage the dark side of the characters.
Writers tend to want to back off when they approach the Crisis. And why not? We shy away from disaster, drastic upheaval, or deep loss in our own lives. Why would we want to do any differently for our characters? Yet, that is exactly what the Crisis is -- the suffering that occurs when the protagonist's whole world shatters and doesn't make sense anymore. Because only out of the ashes of the old self can a new self come into being -- the beginning of the character's ultimate transformation.
When things get messy, writers often long for the good old days at the Beginning of the relationship when things were smooth and happy, and superficial. Don’t give into the urge to go back and start over again. The truth of the relationship and the characters emerge in the Middle.
Plot Tips and Tricks
1) Use of Antagonists
Writers who make friends with as many antagonists as they can create seem to slog their way through the Middle without as much mishap as those who have not fostered such relationships.
The six basic antagonists are: other people, nature, God, machines, society and the characters themselves.
If you are trying to deepen your skill at showing character development, of the six antagonists, the inner workings of the characters themselves offer the richest form of support. In terms of plot, three basic character traits have the potential to create scenes with the most conflict, tension and suspense or curiosity: the character’s flaw, fear, and hatred.
For example, in the Beginning of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee introduces Scout, the protagonist, with the flaw, among others, of being insensitive to other people’s feelings. In the Middle, Lee turns the tables on Scout. Now, rather than continue to see all the ways Scout demonstrates her insensitivity to others, the reader sees how Scout suffers the effects of others’ insensitivity, from her cousin acts of cruelty towards her to how a white townsperson married to a black woman deals with the insensitivity of the community around him.
Scout’s flaw is not the only antagonist that creates more conflict, tension and suspense in very scene. The Middle is fraught with antagonists of every sort. Her father serves as an antagonist when he asks Scout to control her temper and her fists. Because of scenes in the Beginning showing Scout’s impulsive fits of anger, the reader knows as well as Scout and her father just how hard it will be for the eight-year-old to control these two shadow aspects of herself.
Lee employs other antagonists in the Middle: an old mad dog down yonder; Mrs. Dubose, a neighbor who symbolizes the collective consciousness of the town folk or society at large; Aunt Alexandra; grown men of the community; etc.
2) Unusual world
The Plot Planner mimics the universal story form with a line that moves steadily upward to denote the necessity of giving each scene more significance to the character and more conflict, tension and suspense in the dramatic action than the scene that came before it.
A trick that can help you over the roughest territory of all: the middle of the Middle is to create an unusual world. So long as you keep a measure of conflict, tension and suspense alive, the actual dramatic action can flatten out a bit in the middle of the Middle. Here, the writer can take time to deepen the readers’ appreciation of an unusual job, setting, lifestyle, custom, ritual, sport, belief or whatever your imagination dreams up.
This world, whether real or imagined, comes alive with authentic details most relevant to the unusual world, specific details the average reader does not yet know or appreciate.
For example, in the Middle of Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden shows the world of the geisha as the protagonist herself learns about the expectations, dance steps, joke making, dress and hair.
In the Middle of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak shows us through six pages of illustrations the unusual world of wild things making rumpus.
In the Middle of My Half of the Sky, Jana McBurney Lin shows the everyday life of a tea seller in China.
The next time you find yourself bogged down in the Middle, don’t resort to going back and starting again. You will only end up finding yourself in a seemingly never-ending cycle. Instead, make a list of all the antagonists you can think of that are relevant to the overall plot or thematic significance. Add the development of an unusual world, and see if you don’t find yourself jumping from one scene to the next, and bypassing the quicksand of the Middle all together.
Do you have any tips to help writers slog their way through the middle??? Any tips about writing the build-up to and the actual Crisis??? Please do share.......
Read the rest of this post
Livvy asks:
On your Blog, under the Plot Consultation page, you have an image of your plot planner which shows The Beginning section of the planner to be disconnected from The Middle section. However, in your book, the plot planner is different and is shown as one fluid line.
I know that in one of your DVDs (not in your book), you mentioned that the reason for this is that the end of the Beginning Section is to be considered as the "Point of No Return".
Martha answers:
I usually talk about the end of the Beginning Section as The End of the Beginning. Pretty simplistic, I know. The beginning accomplishes unique goals -- all introductory (I've written more specifically about those goal in other posts. Check below). The End of the Beginning symbolizes that the beginning is over. It's a moment that launches the character into the story world itself.
It's an energetic thing. If a relationship lingers too long in the introductory mode boredom sets in. Same with a story.
Since writing Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple, I've changed where the line for The Middle begins. Now, I put it at a lower level than the End of the Beginning. In most of the books and movies I've analyzed, The Middle begins energetically lower than the End of the Beginning. If there is to be a time jump in the piece, the beginning of the Middle is generally where that jump occurs. It a spot of least disruption to the reader and moviegoer.
Livvy asks: I'm a little confused. I thought that the "Point of No Return" is considered to be the Crisis, which is the Turning Point right before the ending of The Middle Section of the plot planner.
Isn't it in the Crisis, where you mentioned on page 158:
"you want your protagonist to be confronted with her basic character flaw...that she can no longer remain unconscious of her innerself". Thus, "This creates the key quesiton: in knowing her flaw, will the protagonist remain the same or be changed at her core?"
So wouldn't after that revelation, the protoganist cannot turn back to who she or he was, because she is changed?
Martha answers:
Yes, once she becomes conscious at any level, the protagonist can never go back to being unconscious. The question after the Crisis becomes: Will she change her behavior, or not? The answer is determined in the Climax -- the final 1/4 of the project.
Livvy asks:
I was wondering then, how do you figure that the end of The Beginning Section which is considered to be the inciting incident, the "Point of No Return"?
I believe at this point of juncture (the inciting incident), the protagonist still has options to either accept or refuse the "call of action" because he/she is still being ruled by his/her character flaw. But with the crisis, now there is moment of enlightenment which cannot be ignored. Thus the protagonist must proceed forward.
Martha answers:
I couldn't put it any better. Excellent analysis! I would only add that where the movement forward takes the protagonist has not yet been determined. This destination is revealed in the Climax.
Livvy asks:
Playing devil's advocate here, I suppose it would make more sense to make the Point of No Return as early as possible in the story, because if you don't make it compelling enough for the Main character to HAVE to move forward from the onset of the story, then that means the story goal question is weak.
Or I could possibly look at it under this light instead: The inciting incident is the point of no return for the "dramatic plot line" and the "crisis" is the point of no return for the "Character Emotional Development plot line".
Martha answers:
I love this!! Very well put. Writing is fluid. These are just pointers. Art is difficult to pin down. The Beginning, The Middle, and The End are containers. An understanding of each of these three parts and how they rise to a high point with an expected energetic shift eases a writer's life. Such is my fervent wish.
By: Rebecca,
on 1/22/2008
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Donald Ritchie, author of Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, Our Constitution, and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion, has been Associate Historian of the United States Senate for more than three decades. In the article below, inspired by the memory of Fran Lewine, Ritchie looks at how women fought to write the news.
So much attention has gone to the news of a woman frontrunner for her party’s presidential nomination that it has obscured the parallel story about how much of that news is being reported by women. Not long ago, women were struggling to gain their place in both politics and journalism. One the pioneers in that effort, Fran Lewine, covered six administrations at the White House as an Associated Press correspondent, and spent the rest of her career as an editor and producer at CNN, where she was still working at the time of her death, on January 19, at age 86. (more…)
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By: Rebecca,
on 1/22/2008
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On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in the famous abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade. To help us look at this important and controversial decision we turned to Kermit Hall’s The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions which offers lively and insightful accounts of over four hundred of the most important cases ever argued before the Court.
Roe. v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), argued 13 Dec. 1971, reargued 11 Oct. 1972, decided 22 Jan. 1973 by vote of 7 to 2; Blackmun for the Court, Douglas, Stewart, and Burger concurring, White and Rehnquist in dissent.
After the middle of the nineteenth century most states, under the prodding of physicians wishing to establish the scientific stature of their activities, adopted laws severely restricting the availability of abortion. The so-called sexual revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, which fostered increased access to contraceptives and the development of contraceptive drugs, also resulted in an increasing number of situations in which women desired abortions. (more…)
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By: Rebecca,
on 1/21/2008
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Unfortunately for many, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is simply a day off. This day off though, celebrates one of the most important men in American history, and we thought we would take a moment on the OUPblog to recognize his achievements. In the post below we have excerpted President Lyndon B. Johnson speech which announced the death of MLK Jr. to the American public, from our online resource the African American Studies Center.
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, my fellow Americans:
Once again, the heart of America is heavy—the spirit of America weeps—for a tragedy that denies the very meaning of our land.
The life of a man who symbolized the freedom and faith of America has been taken. But it is the fiber and the fabric of the Republic that is being tested. (more…)
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Think of the CRISIS, which generally occurs around 3/4 into the entire project, as the ANTAGONIST'S CLIMAX, or where the antagonists prevail.
OR
The CRISIS is the PROTAGONIST'S moment of truth, where afterwards nothing is ever the same.
OR
In the CRISIS, the PROTAGONIST has a breakdown that leads to a break through.
By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 10/11/2007
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PLOT Q & A
Q: How do you specifically track emotional development within the plot planner?
A: Using the Plot Planner template, plot the scenes in the Beginning ¼ of your project either above or below the line, depending on if the character is in control (above the line) or an antagonist of some sort holds the power (below the line). Note the aspects of the Character Emotional Development (CED) introduced as is now ~~ flaws, fears, secrets and all. Use a different color from the notes you write for the Dramatic Action (DA) plot line.
For example, in Folly by Laurie R. King, the protagonist is introduced as fragile, doubtful, exhausted, and fearful upon her arrival at the island. In one color, write “arrival” to note DA. In another color, write “fragile and fearful” to indicate the CED at this point.
Feeling fragile and fearful and on the edge is not a temporary emotional state (the temporary emotions belong under the “Change” column of the Scene Tracker). Feeling fragile and fearful and on the edge is where she is in her overall lifetime emotional development due to what has come before (the backstory).
The Middle section shows scenes above or below the Plot Planner line that show how the character's current emotional development affects her life on a deeper level. In the Middle, the shorthand for her emotional development usually shows how her internal antagonists ~~ her fears, flaws and secrets ~~ sabotage her from reaching her goals.
In Folly, the Crisis ~~ the scene of most intensity in the story so far ~~ the protagonist is on the brink of a full-blown breakdown. This serves as a wake-up call, a moment of no return. She now understands the extent of her fragility, but she is also given a glimpse into who she could be with focused and conscious effort.
The End shows her CED in terms of the degree to which she keeps control as she works her way to mastery. The moment of true mastery is shown in the Climax.
In essence, each set of notes in the color for CED should show a visual pattern of the CED arc.
Q: On page 156 under the PLOT PLANNER section, you mention on finding a scene where the character emotional development is at its peak. Using your scene tracker tool, how would I go about finding one?
A: Divide all the scenes on your Scene Tracker and divide by ¾. Around that mark, look for the scene where the emotional stakes are at their highest.
Q: Within the PLOT PLANNER section of your book, you have a chapter on plotting the Thematic significance. I see how it is being done through scene tracker, but how is it being plotted on the plot line so that a visual representation of the theme is seen on the plot line? I take it that was your purpose for this section and not to revert back to scene tracker? I’m a little confused as I am taking it for granted that Plot Planner and Scene Tracker should be two separate tools.
A: Yes, the Plot Planner allows you to see the different plot threads as they interplay together throughout the project. By plotting the scenes above or below the line and indicating the three plot line elements, each in a different color, a writer is able to see the ebb and flow of their scenes at the overall story level.
The Scene Tracker is meant as a way to see how the different plot threads work together within each scene.
Q:I'm confused about the definition of "scene" in the first and second halves of the book. In the first half, I was instructed not to include summaries as scenes, but in the second half (the plot planner), it says that scenes that go "below the line" include summaries. I'd already weeded out the summaries from my scene list, and now I'm confused.
A: Some of the information you may want to keep track of on your Plot Planner sometimes comes in the form of summary. Scene, however, is where the story unfolds.
By: Kirsty,
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By Kirsty OUP-UK
In the latest of my monthly Very Short Introductions columns, I have been speaking to Andrew Clapham, author of Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction. Andrew is Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. He has also been a Representative of Amnesty International to the UN in New York, and has written several books on human rights for OUP.
OUP: What has caused the recent backlash in Britain against ‘human rights culture’ and the Human Rights Act? (more…)
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By: Rebecca,
on 9/18/2007
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Yesterday, Mark V. Tushnet author of Out Of Range: Why the Constitution Can’t End the Battle Over Guns, introduced us to the gun-rights argument. Today Tushnet takes a closer look at the gun-control position. Be sure to check back tomorrow for part three in this series.
Gun-control proponents support their position with several arguments. First, the text: The Second Amendment does refer to the militia, and the gun-rights position deprives the Amendment’s preamble of any operative significance, which is unusual in constitutional interpretation. But there’s more to the textual argument. The Constitution refers to the Militia in two additional places. It gives Congress the right to laws providing for the calling forth of the Militia, and it reserves to states the right to appoint the officers of the Militia. These references clearly deal with the state-organized Militia, and we ought to interpret the Second Amendment to use the term in the same way. The Second Amendment would then prohibit Congress from disarming the state-organized militia – and would thereby preserve the ability of those militias to resist an oppressive national government. (more…)
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By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 8/14/2007
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We as writers may start out writing just for ourselves, but even for those who are the most resistant to admit it, we each long for a readership to enjoy our projects.
Once a writer embraces that truth, our relationship to our writing changes.
One way to consider your readers or audience is to get closer to yourself. What kinds of writing do you like? How does your favorite author begin their stories? In scene or in summary? How do your scenes compare to theirs in terms of complexity, interest, excitement, character development, and truth?
What constitutes the Beginning, the Middle and the End of their projects? Can you detect what launches the character(s) into the heart of the story world towards the end of the Beginning? Does the Crisis reveal anything about the character to the his or herself or does the highest point in the story so far function only on the Dramatic Action level alone? How does the Climax show the character doing something they could not have done at the beginning of the story? Is there Thematic Significance to their writing? Is there to yours?
One of the greatest personal benefits of writing is the opportunity to dig deep for our own individual truth. The first draft for many writers skims the surface as we look for meaning and conflict shown in scene and how the characters will show their transformatio over time. Often, what we write in these first drafts is what we've heard before or learned from our family and friends, in school, and through our own reading and the news.
But once we read what we have written, we immediately sense when something does not ring true. There is no better way to learn what is true for us and what is not, than to read our words ourselves first.
As I stated in my plot book for writers, Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple, my hope for you and for me is that our search for the truth through our writing remains active and honored. We dig for the truth not only for ourselves, but for our future audience as well.
We each share the need to be heard.
We each have something vital to offer.
By: Rebecca,
on 7/24/2007
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Michael J. Klarman, won the Bancroft Prize in 2005 for From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement, is an abridged, paperback edition of his original masterpiece, which focuses around one major case, Brown v. Board of Education. In the original essay below Klarman, who is the James Monroe Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, explores political backlash.
While we ordinarily think of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as contributing to the creation of the modern civil rights movement, Brown’s more immediate effect was to crystallize the resistance of southern whites to progressive racial change, radicalize southern politics, and create a climate ripe for violence. Indeed, prominent Court decisions interpreting the U.S. Constitution have often produced political backlashes that undermine the causes that the rulings seem to promote. (more…)
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Readers turn the pages based on their interest in the characters or the excitement caused by the dramatic action or both. The Middle goes on for quite awhile (1/2 of the entire project), and sure, there is lots of conflict, tension, suspense to keep the reader reading, but all those scenes are building to something and that something is the payoff ~~ the Crisis (about 3/4 of the way through the entire book).
It's like climbing a hill. We keep hiking for lots of different reasons, but in the end we're hoping to get to the top = the payoff. In the case of a story, the Crisis is getting to the top. Except, the reader and the character reaches the top only to realize they're only part way there, that another peak awaits them ~~ the Climax ~~ the ulimate payoff for the reader, the crowning glory of the entire project.
Analyzing other books similar to your genre helps writers begin to "feel" the energetic flow of the story and better helps you apply the principles to your own work. Plus, you'll find lots of great hints and tips and ideas when you are reading as a writer, not just a reader.
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Great card.
I’m sending lots.
Please make lots more for next year’s holidays.
Great Card! Love it!
Can’t wait to see more!
Sprice
It’s very cute (for lack of a better word)- keep it coming!
Christina