Tag Archives: writing

February 17, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing

Last week’s post, Idea to story, part 2: thinking out loud #writing, discussed how plots evolve as I design the main characters for a story. Our two main characters are Val (Valentine), a lady knight, and the enemy, Kai Voss, court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king.

The plot as it stood last week: Kai Voss has tired of being merely a co-regent. Twelve-year-old Edward has been steadily declining in health since the deaths of his parents. His bodyguards, led by Val, believe the sorcerer is the cause. This idea of the plot will evolve as we get to know our bad boy better.

At this point in our ruminations, we think we’re writing a novel, but we won’t know the final length until we’re much further along in this process.

Today, we’re going to design the plot for Val and Kai Voss’s story.

You’ll note that I say it is also the antagonist’s story. I say this because his story is why Val has a quest. So, today, we’re going to do a little more thinking out loud. Let’s take the notebook and the pencil out to the balcony and let Val’s story ferment a bit.

We had a good look at Val last week, so now we’ll meet and get to know Kai Voss. I know it seems backwards, but this is how I work. Good villains are the fertile soil from which a great plot can grow. Once we know who he is and how he thinks, we can help him make plans to stop Val and her soldiers.

First, I assign nouns that tell us how he sees himself at the story’s outset. I also look at sub-nouns and synonyms, which means I must put my thesaurus to work. The sorcerer’s nouns are bravado (boldness, brashness), daring, and courtliness. 

Our lad is definitely a charmer.

Kai also has verbs that show us his gut reactions: defend, fight, desire, preserve.

You will note the word defend is the lead verb in Kai’s description. What must he defend, and how does Valentine threaten him? At the age of sixteen, Val ran away from an arranged marriage, abandoning a woman’s traditional role. As such, Kai believes she is a bad influence on all the women she comes into contact with.

As we flesh out his character, we realize that he fears what Val’s very existence represents—a woman who escaped being forced into marriage and who successfully makes her own way in the world. Now thirty-five, she is captain of the royal guard and is a co-regent of the young, sickly king. Most importantly, her advice has a substantial impact on the young king, who sees her as a mother figure.

Kai is also thirty-five and while he has never found the right time for marriage, he feels compelled to defend the traditional roles of male supremacy. He must preserve what he believes is best for the young king and, through him, the country.

As you can see, the plot idea has already changed, veering away from a simple good vs. evil hero’s journey. I am finally realizing what kind of story is really trying to emerge.

  • By golly, I think we have fodder for an enemies-to-lovers romance here.

A character’s preconceptions color their experience of events. We see the story through their eyes, which colors how we see the incidents.

  • Val is a commoner who came up through the ranks of the royal guard and found favor with the young king’s parents. She has a great deal of disdain for the feckless nobility that inhabits the court and Kai can sense it. Her goal is to keep young King Edward alive and raise him to have compassion even for the least of his subjects.
  • Kai is a privileged noble with no idea of how the ordinary people really live. He also has one more noun, one that overrides all the others and informs his subsequent actions: fear. Kai’s goal is the same as Val’s, which is to keep young Edward alive, and failing that, to make sure the traditional ways continue.

However, Kai sees a dark future and must teach Edward the values of his ancestors, to ensure that the nobility retains their rights of absolute power.

He believes that the peasantry must be guided by their betters and will be cared for by the nobility. After all, his family treats their serfs well, so he is under the impression that the other lords also act fairly. Fear of what the future holds for the country means he must also position himself to step into the role of king if Edward dies of his wasting illness.

Our characters are unreliable witnesses. The way they tell us the story will always gloss over their own failings. The story moves ahead each time they are forced to rise above their weaknesses and face what they fear.

What are their voids? What words describe the primary weaknesses of your characters, the thing that could be their ultimate ruin?

Val – Arrogance, pigheadedness, and fear of being tied to a brute.

Kai Voss – Arrogance, obsession, and a misplaced sense of honor.

Now that we know our two characters share some of the same flaws, we can set them both up for some hard lessons in reality. What those lessons are will emerge as we progress.

But now I know that, in the end, they will find common ground, as the true enemy has been hiding in plain sight all along, pulling their strings.

In the next installment of this series, we’ll look at plotting the side characters. We’ll discuss the ways they can be used, not only to deliver needed information and provide moments of humor, but in other, more nefarious ways as well.

I know we haven’t delved into designing how Kai’s sorcerous skills work or explored Val’s ability in the martial arts. Trust me, we will get there before we wind up this series.

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February 10, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing

Over the years, I have learned many tricks to help people get their ideas out of their heads and onto paper.

Nearly everyone says they have an idea for a good story. What separates writers out from the crowd is this: as time passes and they think about it, they write those ideas down. Ninety five percent never get beyond this stage but for a few, thinking about it on paper ends and they dive straight into writing it.

Most will begin without an outline. They are flying blind, or in author speak, “pantsing it.” I am a planner, but I’m also a pantser. I begin with a document that details what I think the story is, a loose outline. I sit somewhere noisy, like a coffee shop or my apartment balcony, and let my mind wander, taking notes as the story comes to me.

When I first began writing, I didn’t know how to construct a story. As time went on and I attended writing classes and seminars, I learned how arcs shape every story, plot arcs, and character arcs. My loose outlines became more detailed. Eventually I began making an Excel workbook as a permanent storyboard/stylesheet for each series.

ANY document or spreadsheet program will work. I think of outlining as pantsing it in advance—a visual aid for when the writing gets real. If I have an idea of how the story should go, I won’t run out of words before the first draft is done.

Once I have the bare bones of the story down on paper, I begin fleshing out each scene. The outline becomes my first draft, and I save it with a new name.

Once that first draft is finished and in revisions, some scenes will make more sense when placed in a different order than originally planned. So, I update the outline with each change. This allows me to view the arc of the story from a distance, so I can see where it might be flatlining.

Sometimes, an event no longer makes sense and no matter how much I love it, I have to cut it. (I always save my outtakes in a separate file for later use.)

In last week’s post, I went over the questions I ask of each writing project before the words hit the paper. Two important questions are what genre do I think I’m writing in, and what is the underlying theme?

I love reading character-driven fantasy so that is what I write. A world emerges from my imagination along with the characters, and I make notes as bits and pieces of that environment occur to me.

Humor is crucial when you write fantasy that has some dark moments. I have a deep streak of gallows humor that often emerges inappropriately to my family’s regret. Humor in the face of disaster will be a theme. This theme comes out in most of my work.

Next, I create a brief personnel description, less than 100 words for each prominent character. I note the verbs, adjectives, and nouns that describe the character, as those give me all the necessary information. This is just a paragraph, but it contains the essential information.

Sometimes it takes a while to know what a character’s void is (a deep emotional wound), but it will emerge by the time the first draft is done.

The protagonist in the following example doesn’t have a story as she is just an illustration of what I do. But it would be easy to write one for her if I had a few other people figured out.

How I get a story out of my head and onto paper:

What is the core conflict? Is it the Quest for the Magic MacGuffin? Is it a coup followed by a struggle for power? It’s a fantasy, so a wide range of options are open to us.

Who are the players?

Excalibur London_Film_Museum_ via Wikipedia

Valentine (Protagonist) Hates her name and goes by Val. (Arms master, 36. Black hair, brown eyes, suntanned.) VOID: Deep sense of failure. A convergence of bad choices led to a stint in a dungeon. VERBS: Act, fight, build, protect. ADJECTIVES: wary, sarcastic, hopeful, dedicated, considerate. NOUNS: sorrow, guilt, purpose, compassion, wit.

Does Val have close friends? If not, will she gather companions? This question is important. If she doesn’t have friends at first, I will leave space on that page to add them when they emerge from my imagination. As I contemplate Val’s story, perhaps a love interest will show up later, or maybe not.

What happens to take Val out of her comfort zone? Sometimes I don’t have the answer to this for quite a while. Other times, it’s the spark that starts the story.

The entire arc of the story rests on how I answer the following question. What is Val’s goal, her deepest desire? Currently, it looks like she’s hoping to regain her self-respect. That will become a secondary quest when a more immediate problem presents itself.

What stands in her way? Who or what is the Enemy?

Let’s name the enemy Kai Voss. What is his deepest desire? How does Kai Voss control the situation at the outset? Once I know who the protagonist is and what they want, I give them the same personnel file I give all the other characters—I identify a void, verbs, adjectives, and nouns for him.

Once I have Kai Voss described in a paragraph, I can determine the quest. Kai Voss is the key to what Val must achieve. A believable villain is why Val’s story will be fun to write.

Later, after I have the characters figured out, I will work on the plot outline and try to shape the story’s arc. This is where roadblocks and obstacles do the heavy lifting, and my outline will contain ideas I can riff on. Val will have to work hard to achieve her goal, but so will Kai Voss.

Information and the lack of it drive the plot. Val can’t have all the information. Kai Voss must have more answers than Val and be ruthless in using that knowledge to achieve his goal. My outline will tell me when it’s time to dole out information. What complications arise from Val’s lack of information?

With each chapter, Val and her companions acquire the necessary information, but each answer leads to more questions. Conflicts occur when Kai Voss sets traps, and by surviving those encounters, Val gains more information about Kai Voss’s capabilities. She must persevere and use that knowledge to win the final battle.

Having my characters in place and an outline helps keep me on track when I am pantsing it through the first draft of a manuscript. New flashes of brilliance will occur as I am writing and will make the struggle real. But two fundamental things will remain constant:

Val’s determination to block Kai Voss and wreck the enemy’s plans is the plot.

Val’s growth as a character as she works her way through the plot is the story.

Next week in part three of this series, we will take a closer look at Val and Kai Voss and see how their strengths and weaknesses drive and help create the overall arc of the plot.

Credits and Attributions:

Excalibur, London Film Museum via Wikipedia

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February 3, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing

Stories are universes that begin with the spark of an idea and burst into existence.  When an author has this fledgling thought, it grows, expands, and won’t stop nagging at her. New authors often don’t know how to make that idea into the kind of story they have always wanted to write.

The basic premise of any story in any genre can be answered in eight questions. I have listed them before, but here they are again:

  1. Who are the players?
  2. Who is the POV character?
  3. Where does the story open?
  4. What does the protagonist have to say about their story?
  5. How did they arrive at the point of no return?
  6. What do they want, and what will they do to get it?
  7. What hinders them?
  8. How does the story end? Is there more than one way this could go?

Question number two is where, once the first rush of creativity passes, many would-be writers give up. They experience a momentary lull in creativity and don’t have the tools to visualize what to write next.

When we have a lull in creativity, we wonder how to free the words and get the story back on track.

It helps to consider what kind of story those ideas want to be.

Sometimes stories want to be novels.

Has the story decided what genre it is? Mine always come into existence with a setting, and that determines the genre. If your story wants to be a novel, ask yourself what the central theme is.

  • Theme is a core thread, such as love lost and regained, or coming of age, etc.

If you have a theme to write to, the plot will emerge more easily.

Will you “pants it” through the plot or create a plot outline? Outlines are just me thinking out loud on paper.

There are times when my stories want to be poems, because poetry is emotional and emotion powers my words. My poetry details the fantasy that is the memory of my childhood home.

It describes the way I felt about lake where I grew up, the forest surrounding our property and the swamp that bordered our driveway. A river emerged from the south end of my lake, and I write about the memories of fishing with my father.  To the west of the lake, the high hills rise above, dominating the western sky from every view in the county. When I see those hills, I know I am home.

When poetic words have a grip on your imagination, write them down. If you want to learn more about the different genres of poems and how to write them, here is a short list:

Free verse  is a modern construct that may not rhyme but the cadence and pacing of the syllables have rhythm.

Traditionally structured poetry includes Odes, Haikus, Elegies, Sonnets, Dramatic Poetry, or Narrative Poetry.

In my misspent youth, I was a musician and wrote lyrics for a heavy metal band, so I tend to write lyric poetry. I have a friend who writes sci-fi poetry.

Much of my work is in the form of short stories. In the beginning of your writing life, you work might be short forms too. Will you “pants it” or write little outlines? I work both ways when it comes to short stories.

I’ve written more than a hundred short stories in the past few years, enough that I can put together several collections. I am working on editing one as we speak.

If I have learned anything over the last decade or so, it’s that a collection of stories can’t be a bunch of random tales shoved into a book. To make a coherent collection of stories in one volume, I must consider several things.

What genre? Or will it be a mix of genres? This is a risky choice but could succeed if a specific theme binds the stories together.

Another thing to consider is whether or not I have enough stories featuring a recurring character or location to bind the collection together. I do for one series but will have to rely on a theme for the other collection.

You’ve noticed that I’m repeating myself—but trust me, a fiction project is easier to create if you know what genre you are writing for and can see the central theme that will bind it together.

Sometimes new authors say their project is a memoir. If a new writer tells me this, I always wonder if they have read any. If they haven’t read any memoirs, there may be a problem. Reading the memoirs written by successful authors is the best way to learn how the plots of outstanding memoirs are constructed.

Memoirists should ask two questions of their work. Will you detail actual memories or write a fictionalized account? Do you dare to name names or not?

  • Naming names could be opening a can of worms, so think long and hard before you do that.

Some new authors have no intention of publishing a memoir. They just want to write a family history, a fun project. Here are some considerations if you fall into that category.

Are you just curious, or are you searching for an identity, trying to discover who you are and where your family comes from? Research from a site such as ancestry.com or gleaned from family bibles, letters, and other collected papers will greatly help you.

Will you include photographs or interviews with older family members who may remember something about your family’s history?

This is a project I’ve thought about embarking on, but I know I would never finish it. I don’t need another unfinished project laying around.

When we have the spark of a story, an idea that won’t let us go, we can spend years trying to get that vision out of our heads and ready for publication. It takes an incredible amount of work and a continuing habit of self-education to grow as a writer.

Getting your book to the publishing stage can be expensive. When we think we have our novel, memoir, or short story collection finished, we must consider hiring a freelance editor—even if we plan to find an agent and go the traditional route. We never submit anything that isn’t our best work.

But if you are in the “just starting out” phase, please know that you are not alone. When you hold the finished product in your hand, you will know the struggle was worth it.

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January 27, 2025 · 6:00 am

Action and consequences #writing

The word of the day is consequence.

It’s a large word with many meanings and usages, but the one we’re concerned with today is its synonym, repercussion. Frankly, a story of actions without consequences is not much of a story.

Every choice our characters make should have repercussions, changing their lives for good or bad.

Once again, we will go to J.R.R. Tolkien and look at Bilbo’s choices and his path to becoming the eccentric eleventy-one-year-old hobbit who vanishes, literally, leaving everything he owned to his cousin, Frodo.

At the outset, Gandalf does the unforgivable. He scratches symbols into Bilbo’s pristine front door. To ruin a beautiful door like that? The fiend!

Worse, those symbols invite himself and twelve rough-looking strangers to be overnight guests in Bilbo’s home—and Bilbo is unaware of all this until the first guests appear at his door, expecting to be fed.

I don’t know about you, but I would be hard-pressed to scrape together the food to feed thirteen guests without a little advance notice.

In the morning, after the unexpected (and unwanted) guests leave him to his empty larder, he has two choices, to stay in the safety of Bag End, or hare off on a journey into the unknown. Bilbo chooses to run after the dwarves, and this is where the real story begins.

The Hobbit or There and Back Again is the story of how an honest and respectable middle-aged hobbit became a burglar. In the process, he became a hero who was forever changed by his experiences.

The consequences of his decision will alter his view of life forever afterward. Where he was once a staid country squire, having inherited a comfortable income and existence, Bilbo is now expected to steal an important treasure from a dragon.

At the outset, the role of burglar doesn’t seem real. He is beset by problems, one of which is his general unfitness for the task. He’s always been well-fed, never had to exert himself much, and no one cares about his opinions. For someone who is used to being an important voice in the community, that disregard is painful.

Bilbo’s hidden sense of adventure emerges early when the company encounters a group of trolls. He is posing as a thief, so he is ordered to investigate a strange fire in the forest. Reluctantly, he agrees. Upon reaching the blaze, he observes that it is a cookfire for a group of trolls.

Bilbo has reached a fork in the path of life and must make a choice. He’s not stupid, and the smart thing would be to turn around at that point and warn the dwarves.

However, his ego feels the need to do something to prove his worth. “He was very much alarmed as well as disgusted; he wished himself a hundred miles away—yet somehow he could not go straight back to Thorin and Company empty-handed.” [1] Bilbo feels the need to impress the Dwarves, which drives him to make decisions he comes to regret.

In the process of nearly getting everyone eaten and having to be rescued by Gandalf, he discovers several historically important weapons. One of them is Sting, a blade that fits Bilbo perfectly as a sword. Gandalf and the dwarf Thorin also find their respective swords, Glamdring and Orcrist.

Bilbo’s blade does not acquire its name until later in the adventure, when Bilbo becomes lost in the forest of Mirkwood. He uses it to kill a giant spider, rescuing the Dwarves. These actions gain him some esteem from a few of the dwarves, the ones who aren’t as arrogant as Thorin.

Although Bilbo’s weapon is only a dagger for a human or dwarf, it is the perfect sword for a warrior the size of our hobbit. It turns out that, like the swords of Gandalf and Thorin, this dagger was forged by the elves of Gondolin in the First Age and possesses a magical property—it shines with a blue glow when orcs are close.

As the journey progresses, Bilbo develops a clearer perspective of his companions, caring about them despite their flaws. With each event, he becomes more introspective and aware, and his courageous side begins to emerge.

All along the way, every decision forces an action, which has consequences that force his character arc to grow. His experiences reshape him physically and emotionally. Bilbo no longer thinks like the naïve, slightly prejudiced member of the sedentary gentry that he was at the outset.

As the Dwarves continue to get into trouble, Bilbo makes plans for their rescue, and does so successfully, receiving only grudging gratitude from Thorin.

Bilbo is now a warrior, strong and capable of defending his friends from whatever they have dropped themselves into. However, if you asked him, he would say he was just an ordinary person.

Action and its consequences force our characters to grow emotionally. It changes their worldview. Sometimes the decisions our characters make as we are writing them surprise us. But if those decisions make the story too easy, they should be discarded.

We, as their creator, must take over, cut or rewrite those scenes, and force the story back on track.

After all, consequences make the story interesting.

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Quote from The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, by J.R.R. Tolkien, published 1937 by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

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January 20, 2025 · 6:00 am

Making Effective Revisions part 2: crutch words, style, and voice #writing

Our stories are an unconscious reflection of what we wish our favorite authors would write. But what is it that attracts us to their writing?

We love their style, their voice.

Some authors are forceful in their style and throw you into the action. They have an in-your-face, hard-hitting approach that comes on strong and doesn’t let up until the end.

Others are more leisurely, casually inserting small hooks that keep you reading.

What are voice and style?

  1. The habitual choice of words shapes the tone of our writing.
  2. The chronic use and misuse of grammar and punctuation shapes the pacing of our sentences.
  3. Our deeply held beliefs and attitudes emerge and shape character arcs and plot arcs.

We develop our own voice and style when we write every day or at least as often as possible. We subconsciously incorporate our speech patterns, values, and fears into our work, and those elements of our personality form the voice that is ours and no one else’s.

The words we habitually choose are a part of our fingerprint. First drafts are rife with crutch words. This is because, in the rush of laying down the story, we tend to fall back on certain words and ignore their synonyms. A good online thesaurus is a necessary resource.

I prefer to keep my research in hardcopy form, rather than digital. I have mentioned this before, but The Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms is a handy tool when I am stuck for alternate ways to say something.

And it makes the perfect place to rest my teacup.

We all have words that we choose above others because they say precisely what we mean. I think of my fallback words as a code. At this point in my career, I know what those words are and when I am making revisions, I make a global search for them and insert alternatives that show my idea more vividly.

Looking at each example of a code word and their synonyms gives me a different understanding of what I am trying to say. It gives me the opportunity to change them to a more powerful form, which conveys a stronger image and improves the narrative. (I hope.)

Saying more with fewer words forces us to think on an abstract level. In poetry we have to choose our words based on the emotions they evoke, and the way they portray the environment around us. This is why I gravitate to narratives written by authors who are also poets—the creative use of words elevates what could be mundane to a higher level of expression, and when it’s done well, the reader doesn’t consciously notice the prose, but they are moved by it.

What are some words that convey powerful imagery, some that heighten tension when included in the prose?

  • Lunatic
  • Lurking
  • Massacre
  • Meltdown
  • Menacing
  • Mired
  • Mistake
  • Murder
  • Nightmare
  • Painful
  • Pale
  • Panic
  • Peril
  • Slaughter
  • Slave
  • Strangle
  • Stupid
  • Suicide
  • Tailspin
  • Tank
  • Targeted
  • Teetering

And those are just the beginning.

Our word choices are a good indication of how advanced we are in the craft of writing. For instance, in online writing forums, we are told to limit the number of modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) we might habitually use.

We are like everyone else. Our work is as dear to us as a child, and we can be just as touchy as a proud parent when it is criticized. We should respect the opinions of others, but we have the choice to ignore those suggestions if they don’t work for us.

Our voice comes across when we write from the heart. We gain knowledge and skill when we study self-help books, but we must write what we are passionate about. So, the rule should be to use modifiers, descriptors, or quantifiers when they’re needed.

How we use them is part of our style. Modifiers change, clarify, qualify, or sometimes limit a particular word in a sentence to add emphasis, explanation, or detail. We also use them as conjunctions to connect thoughts: “otherwise,” “then,” and “besides.”

Descriptors are adverbs and adjectives that often end in “ly.” They are helper nouns or verbs, words that help describe other words. Some descriptors are necessary but they are easy to overuse.

Do a global search for the letters “ly.” A list will pop up in the left margin and the manuscript will become a mass of yellow highlighted words.

I admit it takes time and patience to look at each instance to see how they fit into that context. If, after looking at the thesaurus, I discover that the problem descriptor is the only word that works, I will have to make a choice: rewrite the passage, delete it, or leave it.

Quantifiers are abstract nouns or noun phrases that can weaken prose. They convey a vague impression or a nebulous quantity, such as: very, a great deal of, a good deal of, a lot, many, much, and rather. Quantifiers have a bad reputation because they can quickly become habitual, such as the word very.

We don’t want our narrative to feel vague, nebulous, or abstract.

  • In some instances, we might want to move the reader’s view of a scene or situation out, a “zoom out” so to speak. The brief use of passive phrasing will do that. I saw the gazelles leaping and running ahead of the grassfire, hoping to outrun it. They failed.

I saw is a telling phrase, slightly removing the speaker from the trauma.

Limiting descriptors and quantifiers to conversations makes a stronger narrative. We use these phrases and words in real life, so our characters’ conversations will sound natural. The fact we use them in our conversation is why they fall into our first drafts.

Our narrative voice comes across in our choice of hard or soft words and where we habitually position verbs in a sentence. It is a recognizable fingerprint.

Many times, I read something, and despite how well it is constructed and written, it doesn’t ring my bells. This is because I’m not attracted to the author’s style or voice.

That doesn’t mean the work is awful. It only means I wasn’t the reader it was written for.

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January 13, 2025 · 6:00 am

Making Effective Revisions: Power Words part one #writing

The events we imagine as we begin to write a story have the power to move us because we see each scene fully formed in our minds. We are under the illusion that what we have written conveys to a reader the same power that moved us. Once we’ve written “the end” it requires no further effort, right?

I don’t know about your work, but usually, at that stage my manuscript reads like it was written by one-hundred monkeys at a writers’ workshop.  

The trick is to understand that, while the first draft has passages that shine, most of what we have written is still in the proto-stage. It contains the seeds of what we believe we have written.

Like Michaelangelo sculpting David, we must work to shave away the detritus and reveal the truth of the narrative.

One way we do this is by injecting subtly descriptive prose into our narrative. Properly deployed, power words can serve as modifiers and descriptors, yet don’t tell the reader what to feel.

Think of these commonly reviled words like falling leaves in autumn. A sentence made of a noun and a verb weighs nothing, feels like nothing: She runs.

Put those leaves in a pile, add a day or two of October rain, and they have weight. She runs through the leaves.

Our words gain weight when we incorporate descriptors into the narrative. If we are careful, our modifiers and descriptors add to the prose, coming together to convey a sense of depth.

And yes, modifiers and descriptors are also known as adjectives and adverbs.

Modifiers are like any other medicine: a small dose can cure illnesses. A large dose will kill the patient. The best use of them is to find words that convey the most information with the most force.

Let’s consider a story where we want to convey a sense of danger, without saying “it was dangerous.” What we must do is find words that shade the atmosphere toward fear.

Power words can be found beginning with every letter of the alphabet, but words that begin with consonants convey strength. What are some “B” words that convey a hint of danger, but aren’t “telling” words?

  • Backlash
  • Blinded
  • Blood
  • Blunder

When you incorporate any of the above “B” words into your prose, you are posting a road sign for the reader, a notice that “ahead lies danger.” Mingle them with other power words, and you have an air of danger.

As authors, it is our job to convey a picture of events.

But words sometimes fail us. I look at each instance of a modifier and see how it fits into that context. If a word or phrase weakens the narrative, I rewrite the sentence. I either change it to a more straightforward form or remove it. For example, bare is an adjective, as is its sibling, barely. Both can be used to form a strong image depending on context.

Revising your manuscript seems like an overwhelming task, but it isn’t. The best resource you can have in your personal library is a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms. Your word processing program may offer you some synonyms when you right-click on a word to open the thesaurus.

For most genre work, I suggest you don’t use “highfalutin” words or use acronyms and technical jargon.

But don’t dumb it down. Readers like it when you assume they are intelligent and aren’t afraid to use a variety of words. Yes, sometimes one must use technical terms, but I appreciate authors who assume the reader is new to the terminology and offer us a meaning.

The book of synonyms and antonyms is full of words we’re familiar with and which we often forget are available for our use when we want to convey an overall mood.

Let’s look at the emotion of discontent and how we can shape the overall mood of a scene and reinforce a character’s growing dissatisfaction without saying “they were discontented.”. The following words can serve as descriptors. If you are sparing about adding suffixes [ly or ing], they’re not fluffy. But you must work harder to compose showing sentences when you avoid mushy suffixes.

  • Aggression [noun] aggressive [adjective]
  • Awkward [adjective]
  • Disgust [verb or noun, depending on context]
  • Denigrate [verb}
  • Disparage [verb]

How we incorporate words into our prose is up to each of us. We all sound different when we speak aloud even when we speak the same language and the same dialect. The same is true for our writing voice.

We can tell the story using any mode or narrative tense we choose but the opening lines on page one must hook the reader, must hint at what they are in for if they stick with the story.

I meant to run away today.

If that were the opening line of a short story or novel, I would continue reading. Two words, run away, hit hard in this context, feel a little surprising as an opener. The protagonist is the narrator and is speaking directly to us, which is a bold choice. Right away, you hope you are in for something out of the ordinary.

That single sentence comprised of five words indicates intention, implies a situation that is unbearable, and offers us a hint of the personality of the narrator.

Some lines from a different type of story, one told from a third person point of view:

The battered chair creaked as Angus sat back. “So, what’s your plan then? Are we going to walk up to his front door and say, ‘Hello. We’re here to kill you’?”

This is a conversation, but it shows intention, environment, and personality in thirty-one words. Battered is a power word and so is creaked.

And here is one final scene, one told from a close third person point of view and uses a form of free indirect speech. This is a style of third-person narration which uses some of the characteristics of third-person along with the essence of first-person direct speech; it is also referred to as free indirect discourse, or free indirect style. The paragraph ends a scene, showing yet another way to incorporate world building along with subtle power words into the prose:

Sara saw the vine-covered ruins of Marlow as an allegory of herself. The core of her, the essence of her that was Josh had been burned away. She’d been destroyed but was coming back to life in ways she’d never foreseen.

The power words are ruins, burned away, destroyed.

When we are consumed with just getting the story down, we often lean too heavily on one word that says what we mean. This is hard for us to spot in our own work, but a friend of mine uses word clouds to show her crutch words.

When we turn a document into a word cloud, the words we use most frequently show up as the largest. Word clouds are a great way to discover where we need to consult the thesaurus and expand our word choices. Free Word Cloud Generator.

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January 6, 2025 · 6:00 am

Motivating our Heroes and Villains #writing

 

WritingCraftSeries_character-arc

In any narrative, the shadow provides opportunities for the plot. Whether it is a person, a creature, or a natural disaster, the antagonist represents darkness (evil), against which light (good) is shown more clearly.

Best of all, the shadow, whether a person, place, or thing, provides the roadblocks, the cause to hang a plot on.

When the antagonist is a person, I ask myself, what drives them to create the roadblocks they do? Why do they feel justified in doing so?

If you are writing a memoir, who or what is the antagonist? Memoirs are written to shed light on the difficulties the author has overcome, so who or what frustrated your efforts? (Hint: for some autobiographies, it is a parent or guardian. Other times it is society, the standards and values we impose on those who don’t fit into the slots designated for them.)

In a character-driven novel, there may be two enemies, one of which is the protagonist’s inhibitions and self-doubt.

 

Many times, two main characters have a sharply defined good versus evil chemistry—like Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty. (Trust me, the antagonist is a main character, or the hero has nothing to struggle against.)

The characters on both sides of the battle must recognize and confront the darkness within themselves. They must choose their own path—will they fight to uphold the light? Or will they turn toward the shadow?

When the protagonist must face and overcome the shadow on a profoundly personal level, they are placed in true danger. The reader knows that if the hero strays from the light, they will become the enemy’s tool.

The best shadow characters have many layers, and not all of them are bad. They are charismatic because we can relate to their struggle. We might hope events will change them for the better but know in our hearts they won’t.

Antagonists must be fleshed out. Characters portrayed as evil for the sake of drama can be cartoonish. Their actions must be rational, or the reader won’t be able to suspend their disbelief.

The most fearsome villains have deep stories. Yes, they may have begun life as unpleasant children and may even be sociopaths. Something started them down that path, reinforcing their logic and reasoning.

When the plot centers around the pursuit of a desired object, authors will spend enormous amounts of time working on the hero’s reasons for the quest. They know there must be a serious need driving their struggle to acquire the Golden McGuffin.

Where we sometimes fail is in how we depict the enemy. The villain’s actions must also be plausible. There must be a kind of logic, twisted though it may be, for going to the lengths they do to thwart our heroes.

A mere desire for power is NOT a good or logical reason unless it has roots in the enemy’s past. Why does Voldemort desire that power? What fundamental void drives them to demand absolute control over every aspect of their life and to exert control over the lives of their minions?

The characters in our stories don’t go through their events and trials alone. Authors drag the reader along for the ride the moment they begin writing the story. So, readers want to know why they’ve been put in that handbasket, and they want to know where the enemy believes they’re going. Otherwise, the narrative makes no sense and we lose the reader.

Most of us know what motivates our protagonist. But our antagonist is frequently a mystery, and the place where the two characters’ desires converge is a muddle. We know the what, but the why eludes us.

This can make the antagonist less important to the plot than the protagonist. When we lose track of the antagonist, we are on the road to the dreaded “mushy middle,” the place where the characters wander around aimlessly until an event happens out of nowhere.

The reader must grasp the reasoning behind the enemy’s actions, or they won’t be able to suspend their disbelief.

Ask yourself a few questions:

  • What is their void? What made our antagonist turn to the darkness?
  • What events gave our antagonist the strength and courage to rise above the past, twisted though they are?
  • What desire drives our antagonist’s agenda?
  • What does our antagonist hope to achieve?
  • Why does our antagonist believe achieving their goal will resolve the wrongs they’ve suffered?

None of this backstory needs to be dumped into the narrative. It should be written out and saved as a separate document and brought out when it is needed. The past must emerge in tantalizing bits and hints as the plot progresses and conversations happen.

The hero’s ultimate victory must evoke emotion in the reader. We want them to think about the dilemmas and roadblocks that all the characters have faced, and we want them to wish the story hadn’t ended.

The villains we write into our stories represent humanity’s darker side, whether they are a person, a dangerous animal, or a natural disaster. They bring ethical and moral quandaries to the story, offering food for thought long after the story has ended.

Ideas slip away unless I get them on paper first, so I create a separate document that is for my use only, and I label it appropriately:

BookTitle_Plot_CoreConflict.docx

CharacterVoidVerbNoun01052025LIRF

It’s a synopsis of the conflict boiled down to a few paragraphs. Whenever I find myself wondering what the hell we’re supposed to be doing, I refer back to it.

In my current unfinished work-in-progress, Character A, my protagonist, represents teamwork succeeding over great odds. Character B, my villain, represents the quest for supremacy at all costs.

  • Each must see themselves as the hero.
  • Each must risk everything to succeed.
  • Each must believe or hope that they will ultimately win.

When I create a personnel file for my characters, I assign them verbs, nouns, and adjectives that best show the traits they embody. Verbs are action words that show a character’s gut reactions. Nouns describe personalities best when they are combined with strong verbs.

They must also have a void – an emotional emptiness, a wound of some sort. In my current WIP, Character B fell victim to a mage-trap. He knows he has lost something important, something that was central to him. But he refuses to believe he is under a spell of compelling, a pawn in the Gods’ Great Game. He must believe he has agency—this is his void.

This void is vital because characters must overcome fear to face it. As a reader, one characteristic I’ve noticed in my favorite characters is they each have a hint of self-deception. All the characters – the antagonists and the protagonists – deceive themselves in some way about their own motives.

My task is to ensure that the stories of Characters A and B intersect seamlessly. Motivations must be clearly defined so the reader knows what their moral boundaries are. I like to know their limits because even cartoon supervillains draw the line somewhere.

For me, plots tend to evolve once I begin picturing the characters’ growth arcs. How do I see them at the beginning? How do I see them at the end?

As I write the narrative, they will evolve and change the course of what I thought the original plot was. Sometimes it will change radically. But at some point, the plot must settle into its final form.

I love a novel with a plot arc that explores the protagonist’s struggle against a fully developed, believable adversary, one we almost regret having to defeat.

If you are currently working on a manuscript that feels stuck, I hope this discussion helps you in some way. Good luck and happy writing!

Plot-exists-to-reveal-character

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December 30, 2024 · 6:00 am

The business side of the business: a secondlook at budgeting for in-person sales events #writing

January is approaching, and this is a good time to consider the business side of writing. Looking forward in the year ahead, some things must be budgeted and planned ahead for. This post, which first appeared here in June, covers some but not all of them. If you are doing in-person sales events, it’s a good idea to go to your city and state licensing agencies to be sure you are operating within the law.

If you have already seen this post, feel free to move on, and I sincerely thank you for stopping by! Otherwise, without further ado, here is the Business Side of the Business.

Regardless of your publishing path, indie or traditional, you must budget for certain things. You can’t expect your royalties to pay for them early in your career. And just so you know, many award-winning authors must still work their day jobs to pay their bills long after becoming bestsellers.

Its a BusinessNowadays, I am rarely able to do in-person events due to family constraints, but I used to do four events a year. However, I have some tips to help ease the path for you.

At first, getting your books in front of readers is a challenge. The in-person sales event is one way to get eyes on your books. This could be at a venue as small as a local bookstore allowing you to set up a table on their premises.

Or it could be as large as a table at a regional conference or convention. Regardless, if you are traditionally published, your publisher won’t provide you with free copies of your book to sell at the signing event. You will pay for them at a reduced cost. If not up front, then you will pay out of any future royalties. You will also have to be your own publicist and getting the word out about your event will be your responsibility. On the good side, you will keep the monies earned by your in-person sales.

Signings at writers’ conferences are usually a bit pricy for the number of books you might sell, but they are great ways to network.

What are the minimum costs for working a table at a signing event? The bare minimum expenses are as follows:

  1. You must have a stock of books on hand. You can’t sell books that you haven’t ordered. I order well in advance, as it can take three weeks for an order to arrive via the least expensive shipping method. Paying for overnight shipping of fifteen to twenty books is well out of my price range.
  2. We must consider the table fee. A bookstore might not charge you anything for the table, but they may take a small cut if they run your sales through their cash registers.

However, large conferences and conventions will charge table fees ranging from $70.00 to as high as $300.00 or more. This varies with the size and type of conference, the venue where the convention is being held, and the vendors you will be competing with.

Sci-fi and Fantasy fan conventions can be quite pricy. You will be in an immense, crowded room, competing with big-name RPG game franchises and movie franchises, plus all the vendors of memorabilia and collectibles that are available in the vendors’ alley.

  1. If you are able to get a table at a major fan convention, you must pay for transportation, food, and lodging. These costs could be gas, parking, airfare, hotel, etc., if you don’t have friends or family in that area. If you are planning to stay in a hotel, take simple foods that can be prepared without a stove. Being vegan, I tend to be an accomplished hotel-room chef, as most coffee bars don’t offer many plant-based options. While that bias is changing, I still go prepared.
  2. Bring at least one pen for signing your books. I bring four or five because sometimes the pens don’t work as advertised.
  3. cashbox 3The final thing you will need is a way of accepting money. I have a metal cash box, but you only need something to hold cash and some bills to make change with. A way to accept credit cards, something like Square, is a good option. You will find a lot of vendors use Square, but there are other options out there.

These things are the bare minimum you will need to provide. At many shows, you’ll be given a table with skirting and a sign attached to the front with your name in block letters. You can get by with this if you’re on a tight budget. New vendors manage with this minimal setup all the time. This option lets you squeak by on little more than the cost of your books. Your setup and teardown time will be short, and you’ll have little to transport—always a positive, in my opinion.

My good friend, Lee French, is a best-selling YA author and a pro at successfully working conventions. She co-wrote the book Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions with the late Jeffrey Cook. She tells us that to really succeed, you’ll need to invest a bit more.

It helps to have some kind of promotional handout. I find bookmarks and business cards are the most affordable option. I know a few authors who order all sorts of little buttons and promotional trinkets advertising their books. They give them out to everyone who passes their table, buyers or not.

Trinkets are nice, but if you are cash-strapped, business cards and bookmarks offer the best return on your cost outlay for promotional material. They are less expensive when purchased in bulk, so I get as many as my budget allows.

You will need a business license to sell books at most conventions. Each state in the US has different requirements for getting these, so do the research and get whatever business license your local government requires. This allows you to get a reseller’s permit, enabling you to buy copies of your own books without paying sales tax. If your state doesn’t assess sales tax, you don’t need this, but you’ll still need the business license.

If you live in a state like Washington State, be smart and set aside the money collected as sales tax. It is not yours and shouldn’t be considered part of your income.

the _book_signing_eventInvesting in some large promotional graphics, such as a retractable banner, is a good idea. A large banner is a great visual to put behind your chair. A second banner for the front of the table looks professional but requires some fiddling with pins.

Lee French suggests getting a custom-printed tablecloth that drops over the front of the table, acting as a banner. It looks more professional, and the books will hold it down, so you don’t have to mess with pins. You can find a wide variety of sizes and shapes of banners and graphic promotional props on the internet.

I have an inexpensive black tablecloth for under my books, but you can get one in the color of your choice. Venues will often provide a white tablecloth, so buying one isn’t necessary, but it makes your display look more professional. Many shows offer a 6’x3′ table, but, as with the tablecloth, check first to be sure you don’t need to bring your own.

I suggest buying book stands of some sort. Recipe stands work, and so do plate and picture stands. Whether they’re fancy or cheap, be sure you know how to set them up so they don’t fall over when someone bumps the table. I use folding plate stands as they store well in the rolling suitcase I use for my supplies.

This brings us to storage and shifting goods. We must move our gear between the table and our vehicle, and sometimes, we’re forced to park in inconvenient places. Many people use wheeled bins or fold-up handcarts. Folding luggage carts are a great, lightweight option when you only have a few bins and boxes. I use a large, wheeled suitcase for my books, as I travel pretty light.

I also use a plastic container with a good lid for storing pens, bookmarks/cards, book stands, and other whatnot.

HTB Bookmark side A copyMake your display attractive, but I suggest you keep it simple. People will be able to see what you are selling, and the more fiddly things you add to your display, the longer setup and teardown will take. The shows and conferences I have attended offered plenty of time for this, but I’ve heard that some of the big-name conventions require you to be in or out in two hours or less.

Aside from the table fee and transportation, Lee French says it will cost about $400 for your initial stock of books, banners, bookmarks, and odds & ends. The way inflation is going, it may take more than that, but you can make it less painful by purchasing one thing at a time in advance as your budget allows.

Shop the internet for sales on banners and similar items. You will need to replace bookmarks, business cards, and book stock after each event, but most larger promotional items won’t need to be repurchased or updated for a year or two.

If you plan to get a table at a large conference this year, I highly recommend Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions. This book has all the information you will need to successfully navigate the wild seas of selling your books at conventions.

And if you choose to embark on the in-person event circuit, I wish you good luck and many happy sales.

working_the_table_French_and_Cook

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December 23, 2024 · 6:00 am

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a master class in structure and my favorite audiobook as read by Aaron Volner

Our post today explores my favorite Christmas story of all time, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

My dear friend (and one of my favorite indie authors) Aaron Volner is an amazing narrator. Last year, he posted his incredible reading of the original manuscript of A Christmas Carol on YouTube. It is read exactly as written by Charles Dickens.

My Sister's Ornament, cjjaspAaron’s interpretation of this classic is spot on. He has gotten all the voices just right, from kindly Fred down to Tiny Tim.

I think this is by far my favorite version of A Christmas Carol as it is the original manuscript and is one I will be listening to every year. The original version, as it fell out of Dicken’s pen and onto the paper, is far scarier than most modern versions, and Volner’s interpretation expresses that eeriness perfectly.

Scrooge’s horror is visceral, and his redemption is profound.

Charles Dickens would have greatly approved of this reading. I give Volner’s performance five stars—something I rarely do. You can find this wonderful reading via this link: “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens – YouTube.

It is divided into staves (chapters) so that you can listen to one a day or binge them the way I do.

Last year, Aaron’s rendition of this wonderful story prompted me to revisit a post on what modern writers can learn from Dickens, one posted several years ago.

Each time I read this tale or listen to Aaron’s narration, I learn something new about story and structure. The opening act of this tale hooks the reader and keeps them hooked. It is a masterclass in how to structure a story.

Let’s have a look at the first lines of this tale:

Christmascarol1843_--_040“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.”

In that first paragraph, Dickens offers us the bait. He sinks the hook and reels in the fish (the reader) by foreshadowing the story’s first plot point–the visitation by Marley’s ghost. We want to know why Marley’s unquestionable state of decay was so crucial that the conversation between us, the readers, and Dickens, the author, was launched with that topic.

Dickens doesn’t talk down to his readers. He uses the common phrasing of his time as if he were speaking to us over tea — “dead as a doornail,” a phrase that is repeated for emphasis. This places him on our level, a friend we feel comfortable gossiping with.

He returns to the thread of Marley several pages later, with the little scene involving the doorknocker. This is where Scrooge sees the face of his late business partner superimposed over the knocker and believes he is hallucinating. This is more foreshadowing, more bait to keep us reading.

At this point, we’ve followed Scrooge through several scenes, each introducing the subplots. We have met the man who, as yet, is named only as ‘the clerk’ in the original manuscript but whom we will later know to be Bob Cratchit. We’ve also met Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, who is a pleasant, likeable man.

These subplots are critical, as Scrooge’s redemption revolves around the ultimate resolution of those two separate mini stories. He must witness the joy and love in Cratchit’s family, who are suffering but happy despite living in grinding poverty (for which Scrooge bears a responsibility).

We see that his nephew, Fred, though orphaned, has his own business to run and is well off in his own right. Fred craves a relationship with his uncle and doesn’t care what he might gain from it financially.

By the end of the first act, all the characters are in place, and the setting is solidly in the reader’s mind. We’ve seen the city, cold and dark, with danger lurking in the shadows. We’ve observed how Scrooge interacts with everyone around him, strangers and acquaintances alike.

Now we come to the first plot point in Dickens’ story arc–Marley’s visitation. This moment in a story is also called “the inciting incident,” as this is the point of no return. Here is where the set-up ends, and the story takes off.

Dickens understood how to keep a reader enthralled. No words are wasted. Every scene is important, every scene leads to the ultimate redemption of the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge.

This is a short tale, a novella rather than a novel. But it is a profoundly moving allegory, a parable of redemption that remains pertinent in modern society.

In this tale, Dickens asks you to recognize the plight of those whom the Industrial Revolution has displaced and driven into poverty and the obligation of society to provide for them humanely.

This is a concept our society continues to struggle with and perhaps will for a long time to come. Cities everywhere struggle with the problem of homelessness and a lack of empathy for those unable to afford decent housing. Everyone is aware of this problem, but we can’t come to an agreement for resolving it.

A Christmas Carol remains relevant even in today’s hyper-connected world. It resonates with us because of that deep, underlying call for compassion that resounds through the centuries and is, unfortunately, timeless.

Ghost_of_Christmas_Present_John_Leech_1843As I mentioned before, this book is only a novella. It was comprised of 66 handwritten pages. Some people think they aren’t “a real author” if they don’t write a 900-page doorstop, but Dickens proves them wrong.

One doesn’t have to write a novel to be an author. Whether you write blog posts, poems, short stories, novellas, or 700-page epic fantasies, you are an author. Diarists are authors. Playwrights are authors. Authors write—the act of creative writing makes one an author.

And that brings us to the featured images. The two illustrations are by John Leech from the first edition of the novella published in book form in 1843.  We’re fortunate that the original art of John Leech, which Dickens himself chose to include in the book, has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Thanks to the good people at Wikimedia, these prints are available for us all to enjoy.

From Wikipedia: John Leech (August 29, 1817 – October 29, 1864, in London) was a British caricaturist and illustrator. He is best known for his work for Punch, a humorous magazine for a broad middle-class audience, combining verbal and graphic political satire with light social comedy. Leech catered to contemporary prejudices, such as anti-Americanism and antisemitism, and supported acceptable social reforms. Leech’s critical yet humorous cartoons on the Crimean War help shape public attitudes toward heroism, warfare, and Britain’s role in the world. [1]

I love stories of redemption–and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens remains one of the most beloved tales of redemption in the Western canon. Written in 1843 as a serialized novella, A Christmas Carol has inspired a landslide of adaptations in both movies and books.

Dickens was an indie, as all writers were at that time. He struggled to support his family with his writing. But we remember his works today. His great talent for storytelling gives us permission to write what we are inspired to.

May the holiday season and New Year find you and your loved ones happy and healthy, and may you have many opportunities to tell your stories.

CREDITS AND ATTRIBUTIONS:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “John Leech (caricaturist),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Leech_(caricaturist)&oldid=871947694 (accessed December 25, 2022).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Christmascarol1843 — 040.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Christmascarol1843_–_040.jpg&oldid=329166198 (accessed December 25, 2022)

A colourised edit of an engraving of Charles Dickens’ “Ghost of Christmas Present” character, by John Leech in 1843. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Ghost of Christmas Present John Leech 1843.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ghost_of_Christmas_Present_John_Leech_1843.jpg&oldid=329172654 (accessed December 25, 2022).

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December 16, 2024 · 7:13 am

#DecemberWriter – Scene Composition and Transitions #writing

When I sit down to write a scene, my mind sees it as if through a camera, as if my narrative were a movie. The character and their actions are framed by the setting and environment. In so many ways, a writer’s imagination is like a camera, and as they write that first draft, the narrative unfolds like a movie.

writing craft functions of the sceneDirectors will tell you they focus the scenery (set dressing) so it frames the action. The composition of props in that scene is finely focused world-building, and it draws the viewer’s attention to the subtext the director wants to convey.

Subtext is what lies below the surface. It is the hidden story, the secret reasoning that shapes the narrative. It’s conveyed by the composition of the images we place in the environment and how they affect our perception of the mood and atmosphere.

Book- onstruction-sign copyAs I work my way through revisions, I struggle to find the right set dressing to underscore the drama. Each item mentioned in the scene must emphasize the characters’ moods and the overall atmosphere of that part of the story.

Subtext supports the dialogue and gives purpose to the personal events. What furnishings, sounds, and odors are the visual necessities to support that scene? How can I best frame the interactions so that the most information is conveyed with the fewest words? And how do we chain our scenes together to create a smooth flow to our narrative?

We all struggle with transitions, and one helpful tool is this: we can bookend our scenes. But how does bookending work?

Last week, we talked about transitions and how they affect pacing, but we didn’t have time to expand on the mechanics. We want the events to unfold naturally so the plot flows logically.

Perhaps we have the plot all laid out in the right order. We know what must happen in this event so that the next event makes sense. But how do we move from this event to the next in such a way that the reader doesn’t notice the transitions?

bookendWe can bookend the event with “doorway” scenes. These scenes determine the narrative’s pacing, which is created by the rise and fall of action.

Pacing consists of doing and showing linked together with a little telling. An example of an opening paragraph (from a short story) that conveys visual information is this:

Olin Erikson gazed at the remains of his barn. He turned back to Aeril, his nine-year-old son. “I know you didn’t shake our barn down intentionally, but it happened. I sense that you have a strong earth-gift, and you’ve been trying to hide it.”

In that particular short story, the opening paragraph consists of 44 words. It introduces the characters and tells you they have the ability to use magic. It also introduces the inciting incident. But bookends come in pairs, so what does a final paragraph do?

Another example is one I have used before. This next scene is the last paragraph of an opening chapter. Page one of the narrative opens with a short paragraph introducing the character—the hook. This is followed by a confrontation scene that introduces the inciting incident. Finally, we need to keep the reader hooked. The paragraph that follows here is the final paragraph of that introductory chapter:

I picked up my kit and looked around. No wife to kiss goodbye, no real home to leave behind, nothing of value to pack. Only the need to bid Aeoven and my failures goodbye. The quiet snick of the door closing behind me sounded like deliverance. I’d hit bottom, so things could only get better. Right?

While that particular narrative is told from the first-person point of view, any POV would work.

Orange_Door_with_Hydrangeas_©_Connie_Jasperson_2019The opening paragraph of a chapter and the ending paragraph are miniature scenes that bookend the central action scene. They are doors that lead us into the event and guide us on to the next hurdle the character must overcome.

The objects my protagonists observe in each mini-scene allow the reader to infer a great deal of information about them and their actions. This is world-building and is crucial to how the reader visualizes the events.

Transition scenes are your opportunity to convey a lot of information with only a few words.

The character in the above transition scene performs an action and moves on to the next event. It reveals his mood and some of his history in 56 words of free indirect speech and propels him into the next chapter.

He does something: I picked up my kit and looked around. He performs an action in only 8 words, and that action gives us a great deal of information. It tells us that he is preparing to leave on an extended journey.

He shows us something: No wife to kiss goodbye, no real home to leave behind, nothing of value to pack. Only the need to bid Aeoven and my failures goodbye. In 26 words, he shows us a barren existence and offers us his self-evaluation as a failure.

He tells us something: The quiet snick of the door closing behind me sounded like deliverance. I’d hit bottom, so things could only get better. Right?  22 words show us his state of mind. The door has closed on an episode in his life, and he has no intention of going back.

This paragraph ends the chapter.

APPROACHING HELLWhen the next chapter opens, he steps into an opening paragraph that leads into the next action sequence. We find out who and what new misery is waiting for him on the other side of that door.

Small bookend scenes should reveal something and push us toward something unknown. They don’t take up a lot of space, and they lay the groundwork for what comes next, subtly moving us forward.

One way to ensure the events of your story occur in a plausible way is to open a new document and list the sequence of events in the order in which they have to happen. That way, you can view the story as a whole and move events forward or back along the timeline to ensure a logical sequence.

The brief transition scene does the heavy lifting when it comes to conveying information. It is the best opportunity for clues about the characters and their history to emerge without an info dump.

A “thinking scene” opens a window for the reader to see how the characters see themselves.

The road to hell Phillip Roth QuoteWhen you begin making revisions, take a look at the opening paragraph of each chapter. Ask yourself how it could be rewritten to convey information and lead the reader into the action. Then, look at the final paragraph and ask yourself the same question.

Finding the right words to hook a reader, land them, and keep them hooked is a lot of work, but it will be worth it.

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