On Creative Writing, Linda A. Lavid [read ebook pdf .txt] 📗

an idea for an opening scene that reflects the story goal. So are you off and running? Almost.

2

Water the Sprout ~ Plot

Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.

— Twyla Tharp

Backstory …

I was educated by an order of St. Joseph nuns who demanded outlines - those bewildering subsets of bulleted letters and numbers - for term papers. The concept of outlining was similar in my mind to looking up a word in the dictionary I didn’t know how to spell. How could I outline when I didn’t know the topic? So after I completed the assignment, I did the outline. Of course, the outline was supposed to be done before the report. But what was the point? I still had to write the darn thing. Anyway, I didn’t come easily or willingly to the planning concept. No, that took me years of aimless writing.

My first manuscript was written after reading: See the scene as if it’s on stage, watch what happens, then write it down. Brilliant, I could do that. And I did. However, the end result was a meandering of the worst kind - backstory with no forward movement. So where did I go wrong? Metaphorically speaking, I built a house without a blueprint.

“A blueprint? For a story?” you say. “But that’s so contrived. What about the unpredictability of the characters? What about their freedom to express themselves untethered? Besides, if you know the whole story, you’ll give too much away. A story isn’t a term paper. It’s creative.”

Yes, precisely; fiction is creative. Even more, it’s boundless, it’s imaginative, it’s where pumpkins turn into carriages. And it’s exactly for these reasons that a general framework is needed. Stories do take on a life of their own. They can spiral out of control or drop like stones. Every innocent line of dialogue, narration, exposition, and description has the potential to draw the story off point. Sometimes you won’t even realize it until you’re pages ahead, pulling out your hair, wondering how events got so tangled, so lost.

I spent two years rewriting my first manuscript. Actually, I spent two years rewriting the first chapter of my first manuscript. Yes, I said first chapter, two years. That’s about as brainless as one can get. Naturally, during that time, I had some serious questions about my sanity and ability to write. For some reason, the thought of planning the story never entered my consciousness. No, that came later, much later.

Eventually, I took on another story. This second manuscript had forward movement, but ran out of steam at page 60. I had the general sense of where I was headed, but for some reason stopped cold. Ditto for two subsequent manuscripts. It wasn’t until I was asked by a member in a writer’s group to give him an idea of where the plot was going that I decided to put a brief narrative down on paper. Suddenly, the clouds cracked apart and I understood what the nuns were asking.

Writers do a lot of thinking. In fact, we do more thinking than writing. Thoughts are lightning speed, transitory, winsome. And it is from these wild synaptic pulses that writers attempt to fashion a comprehensible story. Writing fiction is also a creative process of honing, shaving, twisting and turning ideas. It’s first brainstorming, then funneling down. It’s evaluating and deciding. Fiction breathes, grows, and mutates before becoming a finished story. In the process, some sorting out needs to happen.

There is no right or wrong way to blueprint a story since it is a working document designed by you for you. Conceptualizing a story can grow from a listing of potential climatic moments to pages of chapter summaries. The format can be a narrative, in bullets, flow charts, on cards or a combination of all of the above. The important thing is to write some type of outline down, rather than leave it swimming amorphously in the head where it can be forgotten or overwritten.

So where does a writer begin? We’ll start with plot.

Plot is what happens in the story and it’s your characters who make things happen. In other words, characters drive plot. Story is also about conflict, and the purveyors of that conflict are characters. As in real life, what mostly defines us is not how we look or where we were born, but our reactions to events in our lives, our struggles, our successes. A new mother and a soldier back from war are both qualitatively changed. Likewise, place your main character in an ocean with sharks and how does he respond? What does this tell you about the man?

Robert McKee, the author of Story, defines areas of conflict in storytelling. Besides inner conflict, there are personal conflicts with family, lovers, friends, and extra-personal conflicts with the physical environment, social institutions, and other individuals. Specifically, conflict in a character’s world can be with a father, a company or a hurricane. At every stage in your story, there must be conflict, an exterior problem that relentlessly plays on your star. Seeing how your protagonist reacts makes up his character. Therefore, when considering a plot outline, think of the conflict that your protagonist is facing.

Let’s go back to Mary and her mother Adele. The story goal is about a girl named Mary who wants to be out of her mother’s home and away from her mother’s controlling ways, but she doesn’t have the means or the confidence to leave. With this in mind, how then will the conflict between these two forces play out? Answer this question by brainstorming. Write down whatever comes to mind; where anything is possible. Here’s my list:

- Adele puts Mary down. Doesn’t like the way she dresses, her cooking.

- Adele makes fun of Mary. Says she takes after Mary’s father.

- Adele embarrasses Mary by trying to set Mary up at a church social with an old widower, a plan that is doomed to fail.

- Mary doesn’t defend herself directly, but is passive aggressive.

- Mary overeats. Doesn’t eat. Avoids being with mother.

- Mary pretends to be someone else. Meets a man online.

- After incident at church Mary becomes incensed.

- Mary tries to get away by joining the army.

- Adele plans to kill Mary if she leaves.

Brainstorm is not about making sense. Just place thoughts down on paper, and when you run out of ideas, simply stop. Do this a few times and you’ll have a treasure trove of conflict … and more.

The process of brainstorming is expansive and associative. When I considered the conflict between Mary and Adele, I also thought of other things - a scenario, a line of dialogue, a place. In the list above, Mary’s father came up twice. This theme could be explored more. With the story goal in mind, I then could brainstorm another question. How does the father dynamic affect the conflict between mother and daughter?

- Adele always felt the father loved Mary more.

- Mary misses her father and stays in the home to be close to the memories.

- Mary looks like her father.

- Adele allowed the father to leave but is not going to let Mary walk out.

- Adele will never be lonely again.

Whenever you want to expand on an item in the list, consider asking Wh questions, such as Why does Mary feel this way? What is Adele’s motivation? Where is the father? If Mary does X, what will Adele do? The only restriction is to keep the story goal in mind at all times.

Evaluating the list comes next. Will you use all the ideas? No. Mark those that appeal to you. Then, with the short list, put the ideas in some order. Map out conflict or plot points (what happens) that build toward the climax or showdown scene. If Adele tries to kill Mary, this would be the showdown scene. The sooner you know the showdown scene, the easier it is to plan your story. A rough draft of conflict and potential scenes may be all that’s needed to begin writing. Congratulations! Not only do you have a blueprint, but you’ve learned a process that will serve you well. Brainstorming is fun and can be utilized at every level of storytelling.

Having spent some time with Adele and Mary, we’re now ready to tackle three other types of outlines: Demographics, Time lines, Research.

Demographics. Characters’ names, ages, occupations and what they look like are a few of the demographics that can be outlined. Putting this information in a format that is clear and easily referenced will help avoid continuity problems throughout the story. Tip: In coming up with a character’s looks, I think of a real person en toto. For example, I may see a character as a Brad Pitt type, so that whenever I refer to the character, I’ll have the same characteristics in mind - slender build, blue eyes.

Time line. What is the time frame of the story? Does the story transpire in days, years or a lifetime? When does the story begin? Time lines specify the time of day, the day of the week, the month and/or year. Another consideration could be the seasons. Once again, the sooner you get a handle on the time line of the story, the fewer continuity problems you’ll have. If not done from the outset, recreating a time line can be tedious at best. While critical to every story, not all time lines are created equally. A contemporary story may only need general references to time, but the time element in a mystery or a historical novel plays an integral role. Should you want to set up suspects/alibis or anchor the narrative in real events, the time frame must be precise.

Research. No matter what kind of story you’re telling, research is inevitable. With plot, character and time in mind, you should be reasonably aware of what needs to be researched. However, before going off on unnecessary tangents, utilize what you already know?places you’ve visited, jobs you’ve had?and incorporate this first hand knowledge into the story. Family, friends, acquaintances may provide a treasure trove of information from the lives they’ve led. Be curious and ask questions. Since I write contemporary fiction, I research as I write. Naturally, the Internet is tremendously helpful. Utilize search engines like Google and Yahoo. Besides keywords, explore images, videos, maps. Should you come across an informative article and want to learn more, consider emailing the author. It’s important to remember, however, that research is backdrop and story is a character struggling.

With outline in hand, consider the following questions:

Does the story begin with change? If you are warming up to the story - giving background, describing the sunset, documenting a dull day in the life - step back and look for an event that throws your POV character off guard. How the story begins is critical in getting a reader hooked.

Is there too little or too much story? An outline will give you the sense if you have too little or too much story. The best time to deal with either problem is during the outline phase. Once the story is underway, major adjustments to expand or condense translate into a monumental headache. Tip: The actual length of a story is always a consideration for an independent writer, since there are certain parameters for a self-published book that is Print on Demand (POD). (POD publishing is discussed at length in the second part of this book.) For a POD book to have a spine, that area of the book that is seen when placed on a bookshelf, it must have, at minimum, 110 printed pages. In addition, for an author to make a profit with a reasonable retail price, the POD book should not exceed 300 printed pages. Therefore, the general length of a self-published book should run between