I will watch the world every day with the eyes of a fly.
I’m assuming you know what flies’ eyes look like. But in case you don’t, think of disco balls with independent locomotion. You, personally, are walking through this incredibly vivid, visual, aural, tactile universe all day long every day with all the receptors you will ever need for brilliant fiction.
Use them.
I will record the world like an ADD stenographer, whether I think I can use what I’m recording or not.
Writers are the last people to know if they’re ever going to need any particular bit of real life. Just because your head’s in the clouds doesn’t mean you never come back to earth. You have to. That’s where you catch your breath so you can bounce into the clouds again. And while you’re here, you need to stock up on random stuff, or else your stories are going to be made of very thin, very cliche, very boring material.
Don’t do that!
You don’t even have to listen to yourself record. Just be the stenographer. The sheer act of writing lodges it all in your head.
I will write like Gertrude Stein on quaaludes and cut it like Edward Scissorhands on speed.
Stein wrote everything about thirteen times in thirteen infintisimally-altered ways and then insisted Alice B. Toklas read it back to her to see if it made sense.
It did not.
But it was the one way to discover that writing is about words—the arrangement and order of words—and if you’re not a meticulous enough craftsperson to care about the arrangement of your words, then you’re not yet a publishable writer.
Of course, Stein’s work is virtually unreadable the way it stands, so once you’ve given your system that gamma globulin shot of reality, you have to go back through and cull out every single thing that interferes between your vision and the reader’s imagination.
That means 99% of it. Or 100%. Depending upon how meticulous you were.
I will mentally plot a brief action scene every time I see anyone do anything.
Everything anybody ever does is a miniature plot: it has a point at which it starts, development of detail, and a final purpose. You know why you always find what you’re looking for in the last place you look? Climax!
Practice this on the most boring actions you see. Practice it on the most fascinating. Boring ones are simpler and more obvious, aren’t they? Ask yourself at which point you stop picking your nose.
I will only write one line of dialog for everything three five I think I need.
Actually, you can go ahead and write all five. But cut four of them. The rest are padding. And page-turning fiction has no room for padding.
You think literary fiction gets a free pass? Read some Austen. Bronte. Balzac. Graham Greene. Proust. Dostoyevsky.
Great literary artists never pad.
I will explore my characters like a wrecking ball in an aquarium.
Everyone sees the shimmery, shiny reflection off their beloved characters’ faces first and foremost. That’s what you fall in love with. But there’s a tsunami inside every single individual roaming this planet, and you must find that in your characters in order to hold your reader’s attention.
I will delve into the hidden links between giraffes and ice floes, seashells and cell phones, shoelaces and aircraft carriers, vistas and thumbnails, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera every day before breakfast.
Because this is what art is: finding the hidden links that hold the bizillions of disparate elements of our physical world together. . .and illuminating them. And the best time to see those things are while you’re still groggy, with one foot in the dream world where those links make total, bizarre, self-explanatory sense.
Those are the knots we’re all so hungry to understand in this cosmic web of light in which we’re caught. You can’t describe the cosmic web. All you can describe are how the individual knots are tied.
I will not write exposition for a year.
Mostly white noise. Interference. Practice leaving it out.
I will not write internal dialog for a year.
Seriously, guys. Exposition and internal dialog are just you getting between your story and your reader.
I will make a habit of contradicting myself.
Because life is paradox, and the depths of paradox are the layers that make up real, three-dimensional, fictional worlds.
I will never, ever, ever be perfect.
You think you’re going to squeak by this one, slip a little perfection in when nobody’s looking because, gosh darn it, sometimes you’re just that good? Sadness! You’re really not. So stop tying your thumbs together and let the infinity of possibilities teach you how to write.
“Wonderfully useful, bracing and humorous. . .demystifies essential aspects of craft while paying homage to the art.”—Millicent Dillon, five time O. Henry Award winner and PEN/Faulkner nominee
“Teeming with gold. . .makes you love being a writer because you belong to the special club that gets to read this book.”—KM Weiland, author of Outlining Your Novel
“This book changed my life.”—Stu Wakefield, Kindle #1 best-selling author of Body of Water and Memory of Water
“Opinionated, rumbunctious, sharp and always entertaining. . .lessons of a writing lifetime.”—Roz Morris, best selling ghostwriter and author of Nail Your Novel
“As much a gift to writers as an indispensible resource. . .in a never-done-before manner that inspires while it teaches. Highly recommended.”—Larry Brooks, author of four bestselling thrillers and Story Engineering
“I wish I’d had The Art & Craft of Story when I began work on my first novel.”—Lucia Orth, author of the critically-acclaimed Baby Jesus Pawn Shop
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I know as well as you do how exhausted you are by this time of year. I’m exhausted too. All that writing, all that thinking about our characters and our stories and our language and our readers. All that working, all that struggling.
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This was huge for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that Joanna and I had ‘known’ each other out here in the virtual world for a long time by then—almost two years, ever since we were both voted 10 Best Blogs for Writers in 2010/11—and we had a fabulous time talking about storytelling and reader addiction and genre vs. literary fiction, as well as how many times I wave my hands when I talk (a lot) and where the point of all writing lies (apparently directly under my camera).
We even did an impromptu Developmental Edit from her single sentence synopsis of her current Work-in-Progress. Great fun!
I said, “Doot, doot, doot,” a whole bunch of times.
And If you watch very, very closely, you’ll see the ghost in the rocking chair:
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We’re talking about tackling first drafts this month, for the sake of all you NaNoWriMoers scampering around out there. We’ve looked at Running into the Jaws of NaNoWriMo (doing what into the what?), 3 Essential Guidelines for starting a novel in general (doing it how?), and 3 Vital Steps to creating your protagonist (doing it why?).
And today we’re going to look at writing individual scenes. Because that’s really the nuts and bolts of what’s going on in your squirrely little head right now.
Or anyway it had better be!
What you need to accomplish
We’ve been talking over on Jami Gold’s blog about the Story Climax, which is—it turns out—the Whole Point.
And this is true of every single scene you write, as well.
What’s the whole point of this scene? Why are you writing it? Why can your story simply not exist without it? Not because it’s:
characterization
That has to happen as texturing in other scenes, the ones that move the story inevitably forward toward its Climax.
atmosphere
See above.
info dump
See above.
The only thing that’s fair game for a scene is a simply inescapable step in the progress of your characters’ trajectory from the first moment they jump out of the pan until the instant the land in the fire.
Whatever that step is—that’s this scene’s climax.
How you need to accomplish it
This part is fun! This is the part about pitting your characters against themselves and each other and watching the fur fly.
Since all fiction is about cause-&-effect, it’s a given that your characters’ movement through a scene is all about their desperate grappling with their fates. This grappling is what causes whatever you’ve already decided needs to happen in this scene’s climax. And this grappling is enormously entertaining to readers.
This is why you’ll hear that every scene must have an aim. That simply means that every scene must have something that makes your characters fight. Nobody wants to see them lying around picking lint out of their navels. We want them to do something! And in order for that something to matter, they must have deep, fundamental motivation to do it, motivation rooted—you saw this coming—in their conflicting internal needs.
So they spend the grand bulk of this scene wrestling with something with everything they’ve got (sometimes in solitude, sometimes in dialog, sometimes in action, even, um, wrestling).
“I have to have it!”
“But you can’t!”
“Nooooooooo!”
That’s this scene’s development. It’s the bulk of the scene. And it’s a blast.
Why you can’t avoid accomplishing it
Because, naturally, if your characters could avoid going through all this hell they certainly would.
But they can’t. Because of the climax of the previous scene.
They did something in that last scene, made a decision and sealed their doom, and whatever it was acted as the effect that caused this scene. How does the opening of this scene show that, the immediate and dastardly consequences of those actions they thought—they thought!—in the last scene were the only actions humanly possible?
That’s this scene’s hook.
Now, most scenes average 1,000-2,000 words, which is four to eight manuscript pages. Use this information as you write. You can go ahead and write the climax first and park it there at the end where it belongs and then go back and fill in with lots of madhouse antics. I do this a lot. And it’s generally not too hard to figure out what to use as the hook that’s going to demonstrate the soup your characters are in now, because you’ve got the climax to that previous scene sitting there staring you in the face. That’s where they were giving their all trying to avoid this exact situation.
Just be aware as you write this first draft of how many pages you’re looking to fill.
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You know, I’ve always wondered where Writer’s Digest gets their nominations for the 101 Best Websites for Writers. However, I never actually did any research—you guys know how I am about research, always both preaching and shrieking about it in fairly equal measure.
So today my alter-ego blog, Writer Unboxed, finally unveiled the mystery for me.
And, as you are also all probably aware, it is the only other website with which I am affiliated as a contributor. Because, as much as I love so many of the websites of my friends and colleagues out there in the online writing community, I am always way too busy to contribute regularly to them.
Busy doing what?
Busy editing you.
So I confine myself to appearing once a month in the Writer Unboxed newsletter with my editorial advice column, Ask Victoria, opposite Chuck Sambuchino’s agent advice column, Ask Chuck.
But now, if you’d like to see A. Victoria Mixon, Editor, appear alongside Writer Unboxed in next year’s Writer’s Digest 101 Best Blogs for Writers. . .
We’re talking about how to approach the first draft of your novel this month, in honor of NaNoWriMo, Last week we talked about the 3 Essential Guidelines for your overall novel, and the week before that we talked about Running into the Jaws of NaNoWriMo. And today we’re going to be talking about the protagonist’s character, because that’s the core of all storytelling. (I tackled this topic last November in a post so bizarre that it famously prompted Roz Morris of Nail Your Novel to ask, “My dear, what are on you on?” 4 Post-Its to Stick Up Over Your Writing Desk. And I outlined the basic elements—which I’m going to talk about in greater depth below—back last summer in one of a series I did on how to write fiction all wrong: How to Characterize Wrong in 3 Easy Steps.)
But, honestly, you don’t have to be doing NaNo to be starting a novel. If you’ve got holidays coming up in December, you might very well be getting yourself in gear to take advantage of them in the most luxurious way a writer can imagine: by writing!
Your protagonist believes they cannot survive without this
It’s a need so core to them that if you changed it you wouldn’t be writing about a human being anymore. What is it? Writers have been using the canonical primary needs for hundreds of years without wearing them out:
survival
love
justice
Truly, these three needs have powered most of the fiction ever written. And there are still more aspects to explore in them. They’re that enormous. They’re that complex.
Some of the other things characters need are:
to protect a child
to heal a wound
to learn the truth
to have an adventure
These needs also have powered incredible numbers of stories. Remember Don Quixote? Out there scampering around the countryside on that mangy old nag with his reluctant sidekick at his stirrup? What was he up to?
He certainly wasn’t defending his life. And I don’t think he ever really had a chance with Dulcinea.
Justice. Adventure.
He needed them really badly.
Your protagonist can’t survive without this either
Because that’s what makes a story: two needs. Otherwise, it’s a bildungsroman, the story of a protagonist grappling with a whole series of internal conflicts, and modern readers don’t have the attention span to survive a bildunsroman anymore. They need explicit signposts on why they should care. (I’m sorry, Moll Flanders.)
But here’s the magic wand—you’ve already done this step. Yes, you have! Look above. How many stories are about two of those top three in conflict with each other? What if you mixed and matched two out of the seven? One of the seven with some equally-powerful but more subtle need?
to prove a point
to accomplish a lifelong goal
to protect someone elderly (or otherwise physically or intellectually vulnerable)
to escape evil
to come to grips with their own dark side
You’ll notice that, no matter how subtle a secondary need you give your protagonist, it can pretty much always be traced back to one of those three canonical primary needs. And when you choose not to root your protagonist’s character in a secondary need quite that canonical, for whatever reason, you must add motivation to that subtle need through one of the canonical ones.
Also, although experts once swore mysteries were too ‘intellectual’ to accommodate romance, pretty much any story gets better when you add thwarted love to the mix.
Your protagonist has absolutely no intention of choosing between the two
Which means any situation in which they are forced to do just that serves as a rip-roaring, roof-raising, mind-bending catastrophe for your Climax. As country singers are so fond of reminding us, “My baby left me, I lost my home, and then my dog died.”
Say you have a protagonist who needs:
survival
love
Whomever they love, it puts them in danger. In danger of losing their job? In danger of losing their home? In danger of losing their sanity?
When Jane Eyre had to choose, she lost all three. Well, she wasn’t totally plugged in to begin with, but I really don’t think that night on the moor could have helped much.
Pit your protagonist against themself by giving them the two most fundamental needs in the human animal. It doesn’t have to be romantic love, either. It could be love of a friend, love of a place, love of a cause.
Romantic love has the added attraction of sex, of course, which always gets the attention of the hormonally-bullied. (You know who you are.) Just keep in mind—and this is really important—you must address sexual issues through their grip on the personality rather than through simple textbook instructions. Your reader doesn’t need to learn how to do it. They need to learn how to handle the consequences when they indulge in something they know how to do all too well.
Or say your protagonist needs:
justice
survival
Their pursuit of justice does nothing but put their life in danger. You know what that is?
Every thriller ever written.
This is why thriller works so well as series genre. Because you can pit your protagonist against themself through their need for justice—and the evil perpetrators’ efforts to kill them—over and over and over again until Doomesday and never run out of excitement.
Be aware that thrillers get their layering through complicated technical subjects, so the authors of thrillers do a great deal of research into specific industries: law, politics, banking, history, international espionage, high-tech weaponry, et cetera, plus very often exotic locales. That all needs to be professionally-researched and very adroitly handled. For advice on how to use your research properly, read Roz Morris’ Nail Your Novel, in which she explains exactly how she used her research for eleven ghostwritten books, eight of which were best sellers.
Or maybe your protagonist needs:
love
justice
What would force a person to choose between what they want and what they know is right? Well, almost everything. Anne of Green Gables tells us all about it as she works her way through her daily life—the endless, excruciating decision-making process that never leaves us alone. It’s when she has to choose between the things she loves and the things she knows are right that she becomes important to the reader, someone they will carry with them internally for the rest of their life.
Because such stories don’t have death hanging over anybody’s head, they tend to be more mild-mannered. That allows them to go deeply and profoundly into the human experience. Remember that your reader is reading not only to be reassured that life is worth living, but to learn something they don’t already know. If you choose to pit your protagonist against themself through these two very human (but not dastardly) needs, you’ll have to know something about those needs that the reader can’t figure out for themself. Just reiterating an experience identical to the reader’s own without adding anything original won’t hold their attention.
You can see how this simple pyramidal design gives you a protagonist your reader passionately wants to see succeed, even as you back that protagonist into worse and worse corners until you’ve backed them right against a wall.
Then your protagonist must always, in the Climax, choose. That choice is the secret ingredient that makes your story work.
This, my friends, is what we call sympathetic character.
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MILLLICENT G. DILLON, the world's expert on authors Jane and Paul Bowles, has won five O. Henry Awards and been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner. I worked with Dillon on her memoir, The Absolute Elsewhere, in which she describes in luminous prose her private meeting with Albert Einstein to discuss the ethics of the atomic bomb.
BHAICHAND PATEL, retired after an illustrious career with the United Nations, is now a journalist based out of New Dehli and Bombay, an expert on Bollywood, and author of three non-fiction books published by Penguin. I edited Patel’s debut novel, Mothers, Lovers, and Other Strangers.
LUCIA ORTH is the author of the debut novel, Baby Jesus Pawn Shop, which received critical acclaim from Publisher’s Weekly, NPR, Booklist, Library Journal and Small Press Reviews. I have edited a number of essays and articles for Orth.
SCOTT WARRENDER is a professional musician and Annie Award-nominated lyricist specializing in musical theater. I work with Scott regularly on his short stories and debut novel, Putaway.
STUART WAKEFIELD is the #1 Kindle Best Selling author of Body of Water, the first novel in his Orcadian Trilogy. Body of Water was 1 of 10 books long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. I edited his second novel, Memory of Water and look forward to editing the final novel of his Orcadian Trilogy, Spirit of Water.
ANIA VESENNY is a recipient of the Evelyn Sullivan Gilbertson Award for Emerging Artist in Literature and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I edited Vesenny's debut novel, Swearing in Russian at the Northern Lights.
TERISA GREEN is widely considered the foremost American authority on tattooing through her tattoo books published by Simon & Schuster, which have sold over 45,000 copies. Under the name M. TERRY GREEN, she writes her techno-shaman sci-fi/fantasy series. I am working with her to develop a new speculative fiction series.
CHRIS RYAN drew acclaim from the New Yorker for the hook to his novel Heliophobia. He is the author of poetry collection The Bible of Animal Feet from Farfalla Press. I edited Ryan’s debut novel The Ishmael Blade and worked with him to develop Heliophobia and his WIP Pogue.
JUDY LEE DUNN is an award-winning marketing blogger. I am working with her to develop and edit her memoir of reconciling her liberal activism with her emotional difficulty accepting the lesbianism of her beloved daughter, Tonight Show comedienne Kellye Rowland.
In addition, I work with dozens of aspiring writers in their apprenticeship to this literary art and craft.
