How to Write Better Stories

What really drives your story?

I'm going to share with you a secret that will knock your socks off. This tip will make your plot richer and deeper and... more meaningful. Okay, when I say secret, it may be that I'm the only one that didn't know about it before. But I'm still excited, it's made a world of difference for my writing. Alison Goodman, author of the well known series Eon, revealed this writing technique in her course on narrative structure. Goodman passes on this golden advice from Robert McKee, who outlined the method in his book on writing screenplays, Story. 

The importance of character motivation in fiction is obvious. Characters must want something real bad, this is their goal. Your character might even have more than one goal. They should have an existing goal before we meet them, you know - they want to travel the world but they've been stuck in a small town since they were born, they want to meet their prince charming but only meet pigs in the strip club they work in, or they want to be a rock star but their parents expect them to become a priest. This goal drives a lot of the protagonist's decisions. In Warracknabeal Kids, Harry Conner's existing goal is find his mother, or at least uncover what happened to her. But then something happens...

We have the sneaky old inciting incident. The moment that things change for the protagonist and their everyday life is shaken up in some way. The inciting incident may provide a new goal for your character. My inciting incident involved a fire and the discovery of a body. Now Harry has a whole new mystery to solve. 

I always thought the protagonist's goal drove the narrative. But that's a limited view. There's something missing here. If you want to have a character with realistic depth then they need more than motive. They must posses an underlying need.

This need is something your protagonist won't be aware of. And here's the kicker, it's this need that will drive your story, everything in your novel should in some way address the character's need. 

I was floored by this news. I always thought Harry NEEDED to find out what happened to his mother. She disappeared and left him alone with a father who can't connect with Harry. But when I explored the fact that Harry can't know what he really needs, I realised... Harry NEEDS to connect with his father. These two people need to find a way to be together, because Harry's mum is gone, but his dad is here.

Suddenly my narrative developed a new thread and theme. A stranger comes to town, and he was important to the story before, but now he is important to Harry as well. The charismatic stranger encompasses all the traits Harry wishes for in a father. 

Your character's underlying need should contradict or conflict with their goal or desire. The character who wants to travel the world, might really need to recognise the value in belonging in a small town and the satisfaction of living up to your responsibilities. They might NEED to stay.

When your story reaches its climax, your character should be facing a serious dilemma. It is at this time they need to make a difficult choice. Go for the goal or the need? This dilemma is resolved when your character manages to acknowledge their need and unify the goal and need. That is, either they will find a way to have both, or they will release their grip on one and be satisfied with the other.

Knowing about my character's need to connect with his father has added a theme of fatherhood to my mystery novel. Other characters in the novel either compliment or contradict this theme. The theme touches everyone in this town in some way. 

I've fallen even more in love with my novel and my very flawed characters. So here's what I want you to do right now, start brainstorming your character's need. You might not hit it straight away, keep going, you'll feel it like a punch in the stomach when you get the right one.

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Creating Multiple Plot Lines

So many characters and each believe they are the true hero.

Via: Screen Rant

Most stories follow a protagonist, or hero, through their journey to overcome adversity, evil, boredom, loneliness, or whatever it is they are up against. However, some stories need more characters and story lines to cover the epic plot.
Multiple plot lines are common in fantasy. Anyone who's read George R R Martin's Game of Thrones (or seen the tv series) will know there are many key characters in this novel and each of them has their own story arc or plot line. If your story has many occupants, here's some tips:

• Each character has their own story. Don't just throw in characters to enhance your protagonist's story. These characters have had their own paths leading up to this point. Remember, every character, even the busty barmaid serving mead to your luckless young hero, thinks this is THEIR story.
• Consider POV. Most novels with multiple characters use third person point of view (POV) (this is where you use 'he, she, they, it...' to explain what characters are doing). This is because if you speak from many character's POV, you can easily confuse your reader. There is a trend in YA fiction to use first person POV (using 'I, we...'), this is to give the reader a feeling of closeness to the protagonist. You can still achieve this closeness by using third person omniscient POV, this is where we can hear the thoughts of characters and therefore understand their motivations. Most complicated plots, such as multiple story arcs, will use third person POV varying between limited (watching the characters, we're not in their head) and omniscient POV. For more on POV, this site explains it well: The Three Points of View in Writing.
• Epic antagonist. If there are many different characters interweaving, you'll want to separate them into teams of light and dark, good and evil or blue and red (if you don't want to suggest one team has more justification than another). Your characters that lead these teams must be epic. If we have many characters telling stories in this novel, you want the antagonist to stand out amongst them all. I believe his story arc is even more important than the hero's, because it is the antagonist who drives the narrative. The best advice I've heard is to remember, a good antagonist believes HE is the protagonist.
• Voices must be LOUD. I don't mean every character shouts, but each character must have a very distinct voice, to stand out and be heard amongst the crowd of characters. Great writers make every character distinct by their voice, even if they all look exactly the same (simply changing hair colour, gender or size is not a good way of making your character an individual). You can achieve this by making sure you know each character and their motivations well. Do up extensive character profiles, meet their family, live in their skin. For more on the importance of individuality of characters, you can see this post: James Baldwin and Character Who-ness.
• Each story has its own time-frame. If you have multiple story arcs in your epic novel, don't start them all at the beginning of the novel and end them all at the close of the book. Each character's story will begin when they have their own inciting incident, and they may end much sooner than the overall story (especially if they die), or they may continue their own quest into book two. By giving each story arc its own point of rising climax, you give the reader more places to feel the rising tension and more small lulls where they can relax (momentarily).

It's a big job keeping track of many plot lines at once, especially if you're writing the epic novel as a collaboration with other writers. In my next post, I'll show you various techniques for keeping track of multiple plot lines and story arcs.

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Using Episodic Plots

One of the writers workshops I'm taking is Toolkit for Writers from QWC. We will cover different devices writers can use to... write (it's starting to sink in that's the key to getting stuff written). This week our homework was to look at Episodic Plot Structure and create our own episodic plot based on our own lives over the past year.

Most of us think about story structure as a rising conflict to a point where it seems hopeless for our protagonist (come to think of it, now it seems like the story line should fall rather than rise, as the character struggles more and more...). Here's how that would look:

Picture found at 37Stars

But then there's also the old Hero's Journey, which is more circular. You can read more about this quest-style plot in:

Q is for Quest

So what's episodic? Simply put, it's a story told in episodes, very much the way television shows are presented. Each episode will somehow link to the others, but it might be a completely unrelated series of events. Episodes can be tied together by characters, setting or theme. Think of movies like Crash, each character is involved in a scene that revolves around the theme of racism, and each character links us to another character. This ties the movie scenes together into one story. The plot line can increasingly climb to an overarching conflict, but often it will look like this:

Picture found at Children's Literature

I struggled with this homework - I'm someone that invests a lot of time and energy into AVOIDING conflict, so I couldn't see how to present my past year as episodic. I also don't tend to read or write memoir, so I haven't honed those skills. But then I realised, there is conflict in writing, everyday (although procrastination doesn't work too well in fiction unless you're a master and make 'not doing stuff' dramatic, like in Hamlet). Here is my result, overall I think I'm a rising conflict or quest circle plotter, but hey, you have to try stuff:

Dog Show Detective novel finished! - Oh, needs edits.

Dog Show Detective novel finished! - Oh, needs edits.

Dog Show Detective… bugger it, start new project.

My Zombie Dog begins! Will finish in no time! Distracted by new plot idea.

Will write new plot idea for NaNoWriMo! 50,000 words in 1 month? Easy, I’ve done it 3yrs running… failed NaNoWriMo.

My Zombie Dog is finished! Beta readers suggest changes.

Now My Zombie Dog is finished! Oh, needs more edits.

My Zombie Dog, definitely finished! No, more edits.

My Zombie Dog perfectly formatted into an ebook! No, ebook needs more formatting, take it down and replace it.

Moved from Country Yass to Brisbane suburbs. Gave up work to focus on writing.

Joined the Queensland Writers Centre - signed up for just about every course they offer! Might need to work to pay for writing.

My Zombie Dog makes it to No. 2 in Children’s Horror on Amazon! My Zombie Dog quickly returns to its space at well over No. 100,000 in all books.

My Zombie Dog ready to become paperback! Changes needed to publisher’s digital proofs for paperback.

My Zombie Dog ready to become paperback! Changes needed to publisher’s digital proofs for paperback.

My Zombie Dog arrives at my house in paperback! Changes needed to physical proof copy of paperback. 

And so it goes…

Feel like having a go at this? Make sure you come back and share your link if you do, I'd love to see what you get!

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P is for Plot

I came across this brilliant resource (which admittedly I found it linked on someone else's blog but can't remember which one to credit) for writing novels. There are many different methods writers use, and mine has usually been, get an idea and just start writing, once I can see some direction, I then plot the whole thing out.

Some writers claim novels don't need plot, but realistically that makes the story hard to follow and most readers won't want to continue the meandering journey. I love plot. This video from The Plot Whisperer will help anyone just starting out that can't find the direction they need to write a novel, and experienced writers who'd like some motivation and increase productivity in their writing time.

So enjoy, and remember, these tools are only useful if you USE them. As soon as you're done watching, make some notes on that next novel!

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Save The Cat - Screenwriting for Novelists

Save the Cat is a book for screenwriters that gets a lot of airtime on blogs. I don't do screenwriting, but I did find Writing Screenplays that Sell contained valuable advice for novelists. You can see my post along with a free PDF download on that book here:

Writing Novels: Formulas and Structures

Save the Cat contained a lot of personal experiences in the movie business and Snyder does go through some of the necessities like creating the perfect logline. In fiction this is usually called the elevator pitch. It's that one or two sentences that sum up your whole story.

So what do you need for a good logline?

• Irony. Think commitment phobic reporter must pretend to be marrying his working partner to get the story of a lifetime from a mobsters wife who happens to be a wedding coordinator. Irony is great for stories, you can see a post here if you need help: Get a Little Irony in your Diet.
• Imagery. You need to be able to see the whole movie in that one sentence. Conceited prince gets turned into an ugly beast is not enough, you need to add 'and must convince someone to love him as the beast to break the spell'. Now we have the whole story.
• Market. The logline should acknowledge who it's aimed at. It should be clear if it is a children's story or a romantic comedy. This will help sell your manuscript.
• Include the title. I'm not sure if this works if you have a working title that will probably change once published. But once the title is set in stone it will help promote your novel.

Snyder also explains the need for a catalyst moment in the first ten pages. That's not the main conflict, it can be as small as a phone call telling Miss Jones she has inherited a fortune, but only if she spends one whole night at terror castle, it can be a kid truanting school only to find that will be the reason they later stumble on a dead body. Or, in the case of a lot of murder mysteries, it can be the discovery of the first victim.

Overall this was a good book for screenwriters with some helpful advice for novelists, but I think Michael Hauge's book is still my favourite.

Now I'm reading:

I hope to find out if I've been doing everything wrong online :)

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10 Best Links for Novel Writing Structure

Hyperbole - important part of any good storytelling formula

Some writers use formulas to outline their plots before writing, others just get pen to paper and write wherever their mind takes them. I'm a plotter. There are endless tried and true formulas that can help writers needing a little more structure. Here are the best links I've found to help you.

1. The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
2. Structure by Screenplay Mastery
3. Get a Little Conflict in Your Scene
4. Writing Novels - Formulas and Structures
5. How to Write Your Novel Using a Formula
6. Story Structure and Plot - Novel Writing Tips
7. Plot and Pacing Part One, Plot and Pacing Part Two and Plot and Pacing Part Three
8. Story Elements Checklist for Brainstorming Index Cards
9. Writing Lessons by Richard Setlowe
10. Novel Endings 

Plus, two educational links on plot and structure for teachers:

http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/2nd/more/graphic_organizers.htm

Teaching Plot and Structure through Short Stories

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