When the Writing Gets in the Way

I appreciate that not everyone writes to be read. Writers who say they write for themselves may or may not mean that the writer does not care about the reader, but that the reader does not dictate the story, the writer does.

For writers who want to be read by the mainstream reading public (whoever that is), don't let words get in the way of meaning.

A writer recounts an exciting, well-thought out Dramatic Action plotline (he has entirely ignored the Character Development plotline for now and whatever deeper meaning the story has is yet untapped). I do not read the words. I listen for the structure and plot. I have no idea of the writer's writing, not even the story's true point-of-view. Today, during the story recounting, the writer's words got in the way of a truly exciting Climax.

Too florid, they clouded comprehension. Granted, he was reading summaries of scenes, but still, his "voice" seemed stilted and the words themselves demanded individual attention.

The actual Dramatic Action propels my mind to the next exciting moment. Skipping over complex details, I wait impatiently for the next scene. His tongue trips over the words. In the end, I am left wondering, huh?

I knew the writer knew; I had learned to trust him partway through The Middle. But besides rich and poetic words, he sprinkled his story with complext names. Without any Character Emotional Develpment with which to fix the characters by name, I had little to ground me. At the Climax, I found I had no idea of the villian slayed. The crowning glory of the story left in confusion.

Moral of the story with your reader in mind:
1.) Strive for meaning on the word, scene, and overall story level. Write the scenes moment-by-moment as clearly as possible as an invitation to the reader to sink deeper.
2.) Develop the character's inner world as carefully as the outer one.
3.) Help the reader remember who goes with which name.

Characters Consistency is Paramount

Partway through a two-hour plot consultation, the writer I was working with related a scene in which the protagonist does something entirely out of character. The protagonist of this young adult novel steals pot from her father's illegal pot growing shed.

"Whoa!" I cried. "Where does this come from? You've set up the story so that the protagonist does not respect her father because of his pot growing, right?"

"She's not going to smoke any. She wants to get back at her dad."

"She's going to take enough so he'll know?"

"No, just a bud or so."

"How is that getting back at her father?"

"Well, maybe it's not, but she needs to have the pot for later in the story."

"Ah, ha!"

What this writer has done is not an uncommon mistake. Writers, in their zeal for the dramatic action plot, lose sight of the character development plot.

Character is the story. Thus, character consistency is paramount. This writer knew that. But because the plot demanded that the protagonist get busted for the illegal pot, she had justified the action to herself. The process of having to jusify it to me made her realize the problem.

When the writer saw the error of her ways, she also realized the act was actually a flaw in the dramatic action plot as well and immediately found the answer that had been sitting there all along. The protagonist's sidekick was the one who takes it. As we proceeded in the consultation, the logic of this revealed itself more and more throughout the story.

Mystery Writers Need Plot, too!

Are you nuts?

Leave a fire roaring, dog snoring, husband chatting, and a pot of soup bubbling for the long walk down a cold hallway in the dark and all alone to a quiet and still room filled with expectations and uncertainty??? Lately, so goes the lament from many of the writers I work with on an on-going basis.

Everyone seems slow to jump into the writing life this year. Rather, self-doubts, and threats of going back and starting again, fear and uncertainty hold us back.

The drama keeps us engaged with our writing, or so we think. Actually, the drama of self-doubt separates us from the work. Granted writing a mystery or a romance, a screenplay or a memoir, or any other creative endeavor demands more from us than we sometimes believe we're up for. By concentrating on ourselves and our own vulnerabilities as writers, we skim the surface of the writing life and lose our focus of the work itself.

Yes, writing and finishing are about us finding time, strength, determination and persistence. Dig a bit deeper and you'll find the story waiting.

Create a writing ritual:
Light a candle and ask to be shown the way.
Play your favorite music and ask to be filled with creative energy.
Turn on a water fountain and ask to live in the flow.

It is not to be in the know... It's to be in the mystery.

Believe and Receive.

Give your fears to your characters, put your head down, and keep going.

The story awaits.

Happy New Year!

The private plot consultations resume next week. Until I have a chance to write a new plot post, please read my comments below. I'd enjoy your impressions.

Ticking Clock

The last few consultations have brought writers with well thought out scenes that draw the reader into the Beginning 1/4 of the project. Each one was able to develop the character emotional development through dramatic action in the Middle 1/2. In other words, for these three writers, three quarters of their projects work, at least on a structural plot level.

However, these same three projects had little or no real Climax to top off the entire work. In each case, the protagonist is reawakened by the Crisis. They are shown struggling to take full ownership of their newly discovered consciousness. This is all good. What starts as a twinge, in the quick build-up to the Climax, the protagonist more and more recognizes quite painfully each time her actions and speech do not align with her new understanding of herself and the world around her.

But in none of the cases was the character shown having fully healed this schism in the Climax.

The Beginning sets up the scene of highest intensity in the story so far ~ the end of the Beginning. This scene shows the shift or reversal outside the character that sends her into the heart of the story world.

The middle sets up the scene of the highest intensity in the story so far ~ the Crisis. This scene shows the character’s consciousness of the shift or reversal inside her.

The End sets up the crowning glory of the entire story ~ the Climax. This scene shows the character fully united with her new self-knowledge, new understanding of the world, new sense of responsibility through her actions and her words.

In one case, the writer mentioned that she felt the Grandmother in the story would die. The answer presented itself. In the Grandmother dying, the Climax takes on a deeper relevance as the protagonist of this young adult novel is given the opportunity to assist her grandmother's spiritual departure. That the grandmother was sick and death looming, the conflict, tension and suspense shoot higher. The clock keeps ticking. The sense of everything coalescing in the final minutes builds to a fevered pitch.

The Climax is the crowning glory of the entire book. Once you write that most important scene all else will fall into place.

T.S. Eliot said, “The end is in the beginning.” The Beginning of any comprehensive and well-crafted story tells as much about where we are going as to where we will be at the end. This means that until you write the Climax you will not truly know the Beginning. Keep writing all the way through to the Climax.

Ain't it the Way

P"Ain’t it the way?"

So ended an email from a best-selling author who had just recounted an exotic plot twist she had come up with now that she was writing the end ~ not brainstorming or plotting out or talking about, but actually writing the end of her second book.

Yesterday I spoke to a college writing class. A student asked what everyone worries ~ "Won't the universal story template lead to formulatic outcomes?"

The act of creation is an amazing thing.

The linear, organized approach of pre-plotting acts as a jumping off place to better and broader ideas, twists, complexities, and depth. Writers with a grasp of the unlying story structure save themselves from stumbling for years in the dark.

So long as writers stay more open to the characters than the Plot Planner, the characters will take the writers where the story needs to go. Writers aware of readers or viewers' expectations for delivery are better able to decipher what the characters are truly revealing.

I'm working here under the basic premise that plot is made up of three intwining threads:
Character Emotional Development
Dramatic Action
Thematic Significance

The opportunities are endless.

Ain't it the way?

Reading Conference

Yesterday ended three days at the 40th Annual California Reading Association Conference.

I presented as an author and a speaker. With a background in special education as a non-verbal dyslexia child and an adult speech pathologist and learning disability therapist, I brought my passion for plot to share with teachers. One teacher arrived; she was also an aspiring writer. The other attendees were my fellow author presenters, a testiment to comaraderie and all writers' hunger for plot.

Writers are who I serve.

The generosity of the absolutely amazing conference committe allowed me the opportunity to take another step toward integration of my past life in education with my now life as a plot consultant. I arrived as an advocate for readers. I left with a deeper vision.

As readers, we gain comprehension through the words as they appear on the page. As we mature, we come to understand, either consciously or not, that there is a basic, universal rhythm to story, to life. Many writers and readers intuitively tap into this rhythm. For the rest of us, instruction proves helpful.

The majority of my time is devoted to writers. A part of me will always advocate for readers.

I have the great good fortune to try again, this time with librarians at the upcoming California School Library Association Conference.

Cause and Effect/Beginnings

The first quarter of any writing project introduces the story's major characters, their goals, the setting, time period, themes, and issues. In the quest of accomplishing this task, many writers forget the importance of Cause and Effect. When scenes come at a reader one after another with nothing linking them together, the piece feels episodic and thus, off-putting to the reader.

Consider instead finding ways to link the scenes by Cause and Effect. Ask yourself: Because this just happened in this scene what happens next? The operative word here is: because. Because of this, then that. Not, this happens and this happens and this happpens next. But rather, because this happens, then this happens next, and because of that, this happens next. Cause and Effect is a seamless way to draw the reader deeper into the story.

Also, keep in mind the needs of the Beginning. This is not the place where you necessarily deepen the character or the plot; it is the place of introduction.

To read more on Cause and Effect and the specific parameters for each part of a novel, screenplay or memoir, visit, www.blockbusterplots.com and click on Plot Tips.

For the Scene Only

Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what, in the past, made the character 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.)

What's the Point?

Rarely do I read a writer’s work before a plot consultation, other than the Character Emotional Development Profile (on the Tips page of www.BlockBusterPlots.com) for the main character(s) and the Thematic Significance Statement for the project. So, I can't prove this impression. But, I wonder if the writers who start out really verbal and attempt to tell me everything at once, write that way, too. In other words, is the first 1/2 hour of settling down into the plot consultation process mirrored in as many pages for the writer to settle into the rhythm of their own writing? I don't know the answer; it's just something I wonder about.

Everyone is different, but it’s not unusual for these same writers to balk over my organized approach. I wait patiently as they dart back and forth, interjecting tidbits here and there. I sense their fear that structure surely constricts and will destroy the magic and mystery of the creative process itself. I listen to each of their words carefully as I steadily and gently corral their scenes and ideas into the universal story form. But, I can’t help wondering. Does this same sort of frenetic activity also show up in their writing?

Perhaps at the root of this are writers who, in surrendering completely to the whims of the muse, are uncertain as to what the project is really about. Getting to the point can be difficult, especially if you don’t know what the point is. Determining your characters’ goals and your own personal writing goals helps.