character arc

Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo

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This post by Steve Shepard originally appeared on Storyist.

“What are you writing this year?”

It’s the question on everyone’s lips at the regional NaNoWriMo kickoff parties. The answer, even among seasoned NaNoWriMo veterans, is often “I don’t know.” So if you don’t know either, relax—you’re in good company. Heck, even Chris Baty, the NaNoWriMo program director and cheerleader in chief, claims he doesn’t know what he’s writing yet.

If you’re looking for ideas, there are pleny of resources available to you: The NaNoWriMo forums, and Chris’s book No Plot? No Problem! are two of the best.

As this is my fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo, I thought I’d add to the mix by writing a quick how-to on the techniques that have worked for me.

 

Play “What If?”

So what should you write?

Conventional wisdom says that you should write what you know. If you’re a teacher, write about a teacher facing one of the many struggles teachers face. If you’re an accountant, write about an accountant facing accountant stuff.

Or not.

I disagree with this “conventional” wisdom. For many writers, part of the joy of writing is in learning about something new, and in living in a world of your making. The trick is finding a story idea that captures your imagination.

One of the more effective ways to do this is to play a game of “What If?” Look around you and ask what would happen if something you cared deeply about changed in a significant way. For example:

 

Read the full, lengthy post, which includes practical tips for mapping out your NaNoWriMo plan, on Storyist.

Alfred Hitchcock's Bomb: Suspense, Surprise, and Emotion in Narrative

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This post by Peter Ginna originally appeared on his Dr. Syntax blog on 9/21/10.

Although I am a nonfiction publisher at the moment, I still love to read fiction in a variety of genres, from literary novels to thrillers. And I think for most editors it’s impossible to read a book without your editorial reflex twitching from time to time, especially when you see the author make a misstep. This week I have been reading an adventure novel that made me think yet again about the distinction between surprise and suspense–and in a broader way, what draws readers into a narrative.

Something I frequently say to nonfiction narrative authors is, “Imagine how they’re going to do this when they make your book into a movie.”

Filmmakers learn to boil a story down to its essence, and to find the most dramatic way to organize the elements of a narrative. They think about this stuff all the time. And it was Alfred Hitchcock who gave one of the most famous explanations of how suspense and surprise differ.

There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise,” and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean.

 

Read the full post on Dr. Syntax.

 

How to Write Character Reaction Patterns

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This post by David Wiseheart originally appeared on Character Secrets on 3/20/15.

Writing teachers, story coaches, and screenwriting gurus often say:

“Story comes from character.”

Or:

“Story is character.”

And that’s true.

Unfortunately, these writing teachers rarely go into detail about what that actually means.

Or how it works.

Well, I’m about to show you exactly how it works.

 

Master the Pattern, and You Master the Game

In a story, when a character is confronted with a major stress, they react.

How do they react?

Characters react to major stresses in ways that are both unique and predictable.

There are patterns.

I call them character reaction patterns.

If you know a character’s type, then you can know how they will tend to react to major stresses.

Knowing these patterns can help you to write or re-write your story.

If you’re outlining a plot, you can use these patterns to come up with new scenes. This can be a huge help in plotting your screenplay or novel.

 

Read the full post on Character Secrets.

 

Everybody Arcs! How to Use Emotional Growth to Propel the Story and Capture the Reader

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This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 4/24/14.

I’ve heard people say some books (or genres) are plot-driven and others are character-driven. My POV? This is a fallacy. All good books are character-driven and plot is what makes that possible. Characters have to make us give a hoot about the plot. If we don’t like or empathize with the characters, we don’t care about their problems.

Conversely, plot is the delivery mechanism and crucible for character (even in literary fiction). Characters can only be as strong as the opposition they face. Weak problems=weak characters. In a nutshell, character and plot can’t be easily separated.

For instance, in the Pulitzer-Winning The Road, the plot is simple. Man and Boy must make it to the ocean. Yet, since this piece is literary, the plot goal is subordinate to character goal.

It is less important that Man and Boy make it to the ocean than how they make it to the ocean. The world has been obliterated, killing every living thing other than humans. Many have returned to the animal state, resorting to cannibalism to survive. The question in The Road is less “Will they make it to the ocean?” and more “How will they make it to the ocean?” If they resort to snacking on people, they fail.

But I will say that while plot is great, characters are what (who) we remember. We have to be able to empathize. We want to love them, hate them, root for them and watch them fail, then overcome that failure. As the late Blake Snyder said, “Everybody arcs!”

Often, this is the trick with series and why early books generally are more popular. Once our main character evolves, we are left with three choices:

 

Click here to read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

The Significance of Plot Without Conflict

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This post originally appeared on the still eating oranges tumblr on 6/15/12.

In the West, plot is commonly thought to revolve around conflict: a confrontation between two or more elements, in which one ultimately dominates the other. The standard three- and five-act plot structures—which permeate Western media—have conflict written into their very foundations. A “problem” appears near the end of the first act; and, in the second act, the conflict generated by this problem takes center stage. Conflict is used to create reader involvement even by many post-modern writers, whose work otherwise defies traditional structure.

The necessity of conflict is preached as a kind of dogma by contemporary writers’ workshops and Internet “guides” to writing. A plot without conflict is considered dull; some even go so far as to call it impossible. This has influenced not only fiction, but writing in general—arguably even philosophy. Yet, is there any truth to this belief? Does plot necessarily hinge on conflict? No. Such claims are a product of the West’s insularity. For countless centuries, Chinese and Japanese writers have used a plot structure that does not have conflict “built in”, so to speak. Rather, it relies on exposition and contrast to generate interest. This structure is known as kishōtenketsu.

Kishōtenketsu contains four acts: introduction, development, twist and reconciliation. The basics of the story—characters, setting, etc.—are established in the first act and developed in the second. No major changes occur until the third act, in which a new, often surprising element is introduced. The third act is the core of the plot, and it may be thought of as a kind of structural non sequitur. The fourth act draws a conclusion from the contrast between the first two “straight” acts and the disconnected third, thereby reconciling them into a coherent whole. Kishōtenketsu is probably best known to Westerners as the structure of Japanese yonkoma (four-panel) manga; and, with this in mind, our artist has kindly provided a simple comic to illustrate the concept.

 

Click here to read the full post on the still eating oranges tumblr.

 

The Terribleminds Holy Mother Of God Lordy Lordy Hallelujah Guide To Creating Super Ultra Awesomepants Supporting Characters

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds blog on 2/17/14. Note that it contains strong language.

Oh, the poor supporting character.

The best friend. The lab assistant. The cab driver. The sex gimp.

How shitty they must feel, you know? “Hey, we’re all blocks of flesh in the storytelling pyramid, meant to uphold the protagonist. Hey, pass me another bucket of plot, willya? I’m getting dry. What’s that? The antagonist stole the bucket of plot and pissed in it? We don’t have to… wait, we have to drink it? We have to drink it. … Goddamnit.”

Somewhere in here I’m envisioning a human centipede thing, except in pyramid shape and…

No. Nope. Hunh-hunh. Not going there.

You might think, hey, that’s the ideal usage for a support character. To support the characters, the plot, and the story. Maybe to uphold theme, too, or contribute to mood. And all of that is technically reasonable and not entirely untrue, but looking at it that way runs the risk of coloring your view of all characters as being no more than mere pulleys, gears and flywheels whose only purpose is to mechanize the plot you’ve created. (You ever see the ingredient mechanically-separated meat? It’s something like that, where you envision all the characters as avatars of plot diced up and separated out.)

Characters aren’t architecture, though.

Characters are architects.

Your protagonist and antagonist tend to be grand architects — they’re the ones making the big plans. They’re building — or demolishing — whole buildings. They are the demigods of this place. Creators. Destroyers. Sometimes each a bit of both.

But supporting characters are architects, too. They’re just architects of lesser scale. They work on individual floor designs. They’re hanging art. Moving light switches. Picking paint colors.

 

Click here to read the full post on terribleminds.