Bracketology in Story Plotting

What do sports brackets have to do with writing a story? Almost everything. A plot depends on conflict and contrast between its characters, and more than that it depends on building interest in them over time. A tournament’s system is exactly about matching opponents together and tracking how that changes–it’s one of the simplest, purest methods there is for managing the variety of a plot while keeping it in terms of what makes it powerful. At the same time, the bracketing concept needs only a few expansions to fit any kind of plotting into it.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Simple Brackets: Who’s after Who

So, the basics: brackets in sports are used to match up different opponents meeting and then how the winners from those matchups go on to compete in turn. And the simplest kind of story to use this pattern would involve different characters or groups that were each out to kill the others, ruin them, outdo them in a competition for a vital prize, or otherwise force them out of the plot.

For instance, the story of a cop getting free of an interfering mayor and then facing off with a serial killer might show up as

As the red markings show, each set of three lines is the elements of a scene, such as “the cop and mayor square off, and the cop wins.” (Of course for most stories, the brackets would only be tracking their most pivotal scenes, not the other events that build up between those. But we’ll get to that.)

Then again, this format shows how that the plot looks a bit incomplete compared to what classic tournaments prefer, because the killer has nothing vital to do at first. And sure enough, many stories would also give our hero a mentor, friend, or such who makes his own move on that serial killer and comes to a tragic defeat, leaving the hero to avenge him:

Just by filling out the bracket with someone for the serial killer to beat (or specifically, kill), both sides now go into that final showdown with some dramatic weight–all from just two essential scenes before that. And judging by how crowded fiction is with dead mentors, partners, and so on, it’s hard to argue that setting up a conflict with a previous conflict has fundamental power.

In fact, consider one more aspect of a sports matchup that this plot could use: instead of plotting around two good guys and two bad, what about one changing it to one hero against three villains, say our cop against a genuinely corrupt mayor, a crimelord, and a serial killer, all enemies of each other:

Each plot has its advantages. Using three villains lets you surprise everyone with how the crimelord our hero was hoping to bring in himself gets taken out by a “simple” serial killer. Still, the version that leaves the hero’s ally in the brackets (and the crosshairs) builds sympathy for the hero’s loss, though it doesn’t have the sheer unpredictability of so many competing enemies.

You can fine-tune the story in many more ways just by who goes into which bracket slot, and then playing up expectations around that. Here, since the mayor gets settled first, that probably makes him (and the whole idea of city corruption) look like lesser problems compared to the crimelord who’s probably pulling their strings… and a fun twist when that manipulator’s beaten by a more ruthless killer. Or a different version could have the crimelord outwit that killer, or swap positions so a seemingly cowardly mayor kills that killer and emerges as the greater threat; they all make different statements. (Let alone if one of the villains wins at the end, of course.)

Survivors and Allies

Of course most stories leave more than just its climactic character standing at the end. So let’s consider how (just as many tournaments allow someone more than one loss before they leave), a “story bracket” ought to allow enemies to run their testing attacks and failed schemes before they’re finally eliminated–

Or sometimes not eliminated, or not even trying to wipe someone out. For instance, suppose instead of our gangster being murdered he survives and joins forces with the cop to trap the killer:

In fact, maybe the killer has tried to attack the mayor first, and that failed attempt is what leaves him in need of the crimelord’s help, before that went bad:

By this time the killer starts to look like a wounded animal, beaten by one side and driven to try to work with another, and the blowup of that drives his ex-partner to the cop; while in contrast that cop has been able to bring down the mayor completely and now makes an alliance with the crimelord work too. Letting people interact in new ways can build up whole new kinds of interest… though allowing someone to go through more and more steps without anyone being eliminated does dilute some of the energy of a single-elimination “tournament.”

Also, let’s think again about which sides are in use, and what kind of balance they form between them. Using that mayor alongside the two out-and-out criminals gives the story a wider scope, while replacing him with a third official crook would put more focus on the underworld. Or if the mayor were replaced by a simple thief but the crimelord by a competing cop, someone just with different methods from the hero, the same pattern takes on new meaning: it’s easier to believe the second cop, after failing to nab the killer, would join up with someone who’s now only a professional rival.

Or some slots in the brackets might go to whole other issues, subplots or emotional challenges compared to the practical ones that are usually (not always) the spine of the story. If the cop’s also trying to make time for his sick sister, that’s a fine contrast with everything else–especially the times one plot interferes with (or ends up helping with) the other.

Just how different to make each point from the others is its own challenge; do you want tighter conflicts about just the things that come out in one crime, or a wider net of things coming together? But these are what open up when enemies and rivals are given enough ways to interact.

Steps on the Way

We’ve been charting the main times the major characters cross paths, and how that adds presence to those people. Between those, there will probably be smaller actions that move the story toward the next main one: working toward that goal, or failed shortcuts to it or to something else. Our cop will probably work through a series of clues and dead ends, while his enemies send throwaway thugs and attacks to get rid of him before the real move’s made. Since this is finer detail, it might be better to chart these additions with only something like:

Part of these steps might be lesser characters, or even things, that affect these only now and then. Our cop’s partners or criminal’s minions can be almost background for a number of scenes, then step out to make a difference–or just get changed by something else (killed? rescued?) to show that thing’s importance. Even someone’s car becomes important the more it’s mentioned, especially if there’s a fun scene where he first got it or he had to do without it, and the result may be that it goes off a cliff and we feel the loss.

Or some of those characters might have only a few scenes, maybe just one to establish them and another when they cross the path of something more important and make their point.

And finally there might be one-scene characters who barely count, like the shopkeeper the crimelord bullies. These don’t connect to other scenes and are barely more than tools for that one moment, except that they also cover what need the story has to get something like a bullied shopkeeper into the overall mix.

More than anything else, a story may get its basic energy from its characters and how they interact–who crosses whose path and which ends up removed, or else changed or helped, and what interactions come after that in turn. It’s all about keeping track of the momentum.

So, why not plan out a book like a bookie?

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Ten Writing Tricks from Gaming

The following are tricks I’ve learned from role-playing games, board games, and other gaming fun, that help me remember what works in writing.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

#1: the Characters’ Viewpoint lets you write

For me at least, the best tool to help me write is getting into what it’s like to be a character– from bits of their background, signature skills or tactics, and all kinds of details, plus every plot twist that helps sweep me up in how he has to do what he does next.

Gamers can use each session to practice their sense of these, and see how other people do them too. The more in touch you are with what works for you, the more you’ll get written.

#2: Conflict

No matter what a story is, gamers know the narrative should never get far from the conflict: why the hero has to do something, why someone or something else is in the way, and anything that helps or hurts his struggle.

Games show how the story is always better with a strong villain, especially when the story lets that villain impress the readers, and then tick them off. (Or if the obstacle isn’t a villain, the situation should still be a serious challenge, and sometimes seem like it’s “out to get” people.)

And, weakening the villain weakens the whole story.

#3: the Stake or Change

Role-playing games have both routine adventures and ones that changed parts of the storyline; the changes are usually the more memorable ones.

Also, role-playing games let characters gain power and equipment, for the excitement of getting stronger. Try writing to build a sense that your characters can only do so much– and then they learn to break some of those limits.

#4: Losing

Games have the thrill of actually being able to lose, instead of the jaded “the hero always wins.” But this works in games because you can still play another game, or resurrect or replace a dead character– it’s harder in stories where the hero’s life is on the line.

Some stories provide this by playing up the times the hero fails but survives to try a different plan or fight a rematch. These are less powerful than times the reader’s come to care about someone or something besides the hero’s life, and that is permanently lost (or really could have been).

#5: Choice

Games are built around players’ choices: the next move, when to attack or retreat, how to solve a problem.

Stories can be stronger by leading the reader into a sense of why the character has to take the choice he does: why he’s so driven, how many choices he has and why all the others don’t work, at least for the kind of person the reader understands he is. (Gamers choose their action based on a clear situation; readers want to see the situation so well they’d choose the character’s action too.)

(Then, be sure those choices have good pacing, variety, and sometimes lead to real losses.)

#6: Everybody’s Choices

Role-playing gamers are used to letting other people’s characters share the spotlight; this is good practice for writing a protagonist with supporting characters.

Board games also remind us: an exciting game has to be against a skilled opponent, so villains ought to be smart enough to challenge the hero.

More than that, hero and villain should be watching each other’s moves and reacting to them– especially if there’s a sense that one side makes the other escalate. Also, let the supporting characters react as if they had the freedom other players would: who tries to join up with who because of what’s happened, or who betrays them, or tries to step in at the last minute and steal the prize.

#7: Details for Choices

Games show how eager players can be to learn any amount of game rules and details, while writers worry about giving too much detail and bogging down the story.

The difference is that gamers use that information to choose their next moves. So, a writer can make the most use of any detail that’s a factor or hint about what a character chooses– what about the forest helps an ambusher hide in it? what traditions of the royal court help him win allies?

#8: Dialog

Gamers have a chance to practice dialog by listening to other players. Of course most speech patterns at a game table aren’t right for most stories, but a writer can listen for specific patterns: getting excited makes who speak faster and makes who babble? who says “Got it” vs “Okay”?

(And watch for any interesting catchphrases someone has, to inspire what you can give your characters.)

#9: Fun Now

Games are always at risk of going off on a tangent (side-discussions of what’s going on, or general chitchat), so gamers get practice in luring other players back onto course (eg with clues or immediate challenges). Develop the sense of when you’re losing the players’ interest, and apply it to writing.

As that sense improves, it can also help in planning a story or a chapter. What’s a good starting place, a fun arc, and a satisfying ending?

#10: People

Gamers get used to sitting with fellow players. A writer needs to get comfortable asking people what in a story works and what doesn’t.

Also, gamers learn different players just prefer different parts of the game; writers should keep in mind not all writing will appeal to everyone. But at the same time, the other people are still there because they want the story to be good, just as the writer does.

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Order of a Sentence – with Maralys Wills

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

If a story moves forward one step at a time, each of those steps is the sentence. It’s the basic unit we read in, covering one small handful of points, and urging us on to read the next one. To explain that last part–about the sentence’s last part, and the sense of urgency it should give–I’ve asked multitalented author Maralys Wills to comment:

After years of teaching and doing line-by-line editing on some 50,000 manuscript pages, I’ve discovered one of the most effective, and yes, simplest, ways of improving your writing. Always save the strongest word for the END OF THE SENTENCE. For instance, if you have the sentence, “Death is the one thing I’ve always feared,” you’d re-write it to say, “The one thing I’ve always feared is death.” To the extent that you do this on all your sentences, you’ll find your work has a new feeling of energy, of power. You’ll discover that your words ring in the reader’s ears. As you write, you’re always building to strength. Good writers do this instinctively. But it’s something that even a beginner can learn.

I’d have to agree, a sentence lives and dies by its momentum. Except, maximizing that last word may not be as simple as it sounds, especially in fiction.

Consider the basic sentence shape,

subject verb object

such as:

John chased the outlaw.

The challenge is that fiction mainly needs the picture to evolve, one step at a time out of what it had been before. Nonfiction can casually drop a comparison of something to “a sheriff chasing down some desperado” into a paragraph to jazz up its point with its flashiest word as its object, right at the sentence finale. But in fiction the outlaw’s probably already on the scene, and we’re more interested in the shifting relationship between him and the other pieces there — not how many other names he can be called by, but who “chases” or “yells” or “shoots” at who. Or better yet, if that chase also lets John on his horse “thunder” after the outlaw.

That is, there’s more room for variety in the sentence’s verb, not its object… even though most natural-sounding sentences put their verb in the middle, not the end. Trouble.

One answer is not to ask the object to compete with the verb.<!> Moment-to-moment fiction just gives verbs too much advantage, and often it’s better to only look for an object that’s a worthy wrapup for the verb’s power.

(And, the main choices are just the verb in the middle and the object at the end. Plenty of sentences use or even end with other parts of speech, but those pieces are trimmings compared to the Big Three; trying to power-finish with “John chased the outlaw desperately” is more likely to crush the adverb under the sentence’s weight than it is to empower either.)

Still, there are a few options to get the most power out of objects:

pick specific urgent parts of a thing that will grab attention, like our outlaw raising “his gun.”
- or, picking out an attached part just to paint a wider picture of that object, before swinging back to the central thing again, such as John noticing the outlaw’s gun hand’s “tremble” rather than always the man himself.
- mixing in other subjects and their chance to pick a new object that , such as townspeople sweating in the temperature’s “inferno.”
  - or of course, when the plot swings around to new and important things that first appear as an object, like the outlaw grabbing “a hostage.”

(And of course, these can mix up the subject too.)

Maralys Wills has her website at http://maralys.com/

For my own larger collection of thoughts on sentences and wording, take a look at The Toolbox — what goes Around the words.

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Plot and the Power of OR

“Depth” is a word people have used different ways about fiction, sometimes not being that clear what they mean–just some sense that a character winds up with more layers, a situation more reality, and so on. Personally, I think the metaphor might be incomplete– because one of the best ways to give a story realism, or complicate a moment or a plot, or just loosen up the writing mind to let more in, is something I think of more as “width.” That is, ask the question “Or what else?”

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Yes, that’s partly what all writers do: work out a plot or moment by thinking, “what if something different happened here?” To rethink a choice that isn’t working, or to keep the next thing varied from what’s gone before, sure. Such as:

OR it’s someone else making a move (or even an object breaking or changing)
OR they focus on something else (a different plan)
OR it gets a different result.

Mixing up who takes the initiative can add a lot: a hero working through his plans while the villain never strikes back makes the story seem lazy, and a hero always defending is passive, but a sense of each retaliating against the other makes the whole story more organic and exciting. And other characters can’t be labeled so “secondary” that they never demand a scene when she tries to bargain for her husband’s life, or he needs protection after being the only crimelord to survive the villain’s purge, or they’re sure they’re the ones a troubled young man will listen to. For the second option, changing the target of that someone’s action covers going to deal with different people (or eliminate them, or whichever), gaining some other tool or pausing to develop it–using the whole world as a source of possible different tactics.

But changing up a plan’s result gets tricky–“let the villain win” can sound fun, but it’s bad news when the story’s only half over, and not much better to have the hero winning too much too soon. Worse, half the time the person and plan that fit best seem too sure to wipe out big parts of the story; what if the villain just had too good an opening to fail at? Asking that kind of “or” can put a whole story at risk.

But “or” can be more than a way to shake things up, it can be a whole perspective to work in. People often talk of stories as having “depth” when its elements have layers to reveal–a person with attitudes like masks over other masks, or a setting the story can explore within rather than acting like a 2-dimensional backdrop. But I like the idea that besides static layers, a story can reveal itself by how a character acts by asking “what else he tries,” or what his reaction is to someone else’s attempts; they “move forward but zigzag” to deal with each of those options to follow their goal. By this model, “depth” comes from those layers of zigzagging, how many different choices (of their own or others) that they deal with. All from considering “Or.”

That is, how many choices does a character really get to try out? At least half of making a story believable is in looking at those; couldn’t he just “leave the haunted house,” or Google a problem to get its basics, and doesn’t every problem have some expert or authority who’s already trying to deal with it? A story that covers more of its situations’ and people’s options comes off as more real–simple as that.

(The other half of plausibility is “what wouldn’t work” and the sad business of finding out if the hero’s glorious strategy is liable to get shut down because cars just don’t explode.)

“Or” is the viewpoint that can work all of this out, just by asking which options there are, and how far each goes:

What choices get blocked right away? Look at any situation from the view of a character trying to get through to a goal there, and it becomes a set of barriers and lost opportunities. An isolated house has distance to stop help from coming, and a fortress that’s lost its commander may have no leader strong enough to help; that’s what makes them ominous from the start.

What choices do characters realize won’t work? A fast way to explore more options is to just talk out, think out, or make quick tests to show some things as dead ends. How many scenes do we know where an Expert was called in, that began with “Did you try–“/ “Well of course!” Even a few lines of this builds realism, and suspense, in both how many choices it checks and the process of how people would go through them.

What choices do people try but fail, and which tempt them? These two might be half the structure of a scene or plot, and they may be the more important half.

After all, even though what actually happens or works is the spine of the story, so often what brings it to life is its contrast with the failed schemes, red herrings, and roads-not-taken set up next to them. A murder with one suspect, or a duel with no choice between safe and desperate maneuvers, don’t compare to stories that do make full use of these, and what they mean that a character chooses one over the other. After all, making that duelist choose between finesse and letting himself be hit creates a whole different scene–and character–from using skill vs. driving his opponent into a rage. Better still, when the story paces these to crush certain hopes at the right moment, or spring a new option just when someone’s resolved to go one way… now that’s momentum.

(Finally, what if there’s a plan or force that really does work–and something else comes down and overwhelms even that? “The cavalry comes over the hill” is annoying, unless it’s been hinted at first without ruining suspense… or it’s enemy cavalry…)

So often, “or” is the story. It sorts out the basics and then adds what else can justify them; it can take anything and define what it is by capturing what it isn’t; and then deciding how often to zigzag between choices can be the meat of designing any plot, scene, or even sentence.

Just a theory. Or…

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A Few Words More–or Less?

Does the line need a little more, does a description need an adjective, or maybe a little about a thing’s sound or motion as well as its shape? It all comes down to words.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

After all, if the writer doesn’t mention something, the reader may never suspect that part of his grand vision was there, or that quirk of dialog that shows how unique the character is… but at the same time, that word might be a misstep or simply a distraction from what’s more important.

One great perspective on finding that balance is the Five Principles of the Puppeteer. –Yes, puppets, an interesting way to look out of the rut writers may be in. Mary Robinette Kowal thinks of words the way she moves her puppets, taking responsibility to choose which motion to emphasize (and what other motions to give the puppet the illusion of how real muscles would react) and what would be a distracting “head-bobbing.”

Another model I like is a certain mobster’s girlfriend’s advice about the right clothes–that they “should call attention to you, not themselves,” that it’s all about the total effect. Or think of a film camera: what objects, what balance of light and shapes, what symbols does the director want to get in the frame and what would clutter it up? (A more exact image might be storyboarding: you choose which things are worth sketching in and which to just leave out, to be implied by the rest.)

Every line written has an opportunity to add another small touch or two to bring to life just what’s there and why. The person or object in the moment’s center might be obvious, but do you fill in what’s behind that, or what’s lying in the corner? you probably work in some sounds with all the sights, but do you mention how the floor feels, or any smells? And do you mention them when setting the scene or later, or drop a mention early and then remind the reader?

And in dialog this applies twice over. On the one hand you have all the things a character might say on the way to his point, and just the pauses and halts that give another glimpse at his personality, and on the other you still decide how many expressions, gestures, and full “walk and talk” descriptions to mix in to keep the moment from becoming pure Talking Heads.

But, keeping the balance… we all know what happens if writing tries to cover everything in a room, or every wasted word that real conversation has.

One trick is, sometime, to not wedge more things into view but color the thing there with an extra word or so. Instead of spelling out how loud and powerful a motorcycle is as it moves in, is it enough to make it a “black motorcycle” or “Harley” and just let that give a sense of vividness to everything around it? A world made up of Harleys and the asphalt is more colorful than bikes on the road–unless it reflexively uses the fancier words every time, not caring when a thing’s less important or already established.

The classic form of that choice is adverb vs verb, and adjective vs noun. If a sentence comes out “John ran down the road,” an easy way to amplify it might be to make it “ran desperately”… but that draws the reader’s eye a little to that second word, a slight distraction compared to some more direct “dashed down” or “panted down.” Also, we all know adverbs and adjectives are the easier way to think of an image’s flavor, so they make the writing look a little more ordinary.

Still, again, not everything deserves the stronger verb or noun–and if they’re still just important enough to not leave out, a throwaway adverb or adjective can do the job. Then of course come the moments when the modifers are the only natural ways to show something (how much do you want to zigzag just to avoid calling the bike “black”?), or when the occasional explosive modifier could liven things up without making the phrasings seem modifier-heavy. For that matter, a style that uses too few adverbs and adjectives can start the reader thinking something’s odd about it, another distraction.

Dialog tags might be the most intense form of this, because the structure of dialog makes tags so conspicuous. Each adjective and adverb there gets framed by quote marks, in what may be pages of short-ish paragraphs to show any patterns of overuse… but the same spotlight makes flashier verbs like he snarled conspicuous too, and at least as easy to overuse. And even though “said” is called an “invisible” tag in comparison to all those, too many of those get noticed too, when many of them might not be needed at all or could be replaced with a separate “He gulped his drink” sentence.

Like the puppets or clothes, it all comes back to priorities. What’s most likely to change the story (of course the big villain doesn’t arrive on just “a motorcycle”), especially if it’s still new? Setting a part of the scene is good, but if those shadows just might have someone setting an ambush or the walls make it harder to run, the view starts falling into place.

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Everything I know about evil I learned from Thunderbolt Ross

What does a villain want, or what drives character conflict of different kinds? Actually, with so many ways human beings can make trouble, we writers aren’t struggling to come up with a motive as much as choosing the better of many evils. So here’s one basic question I like to ask myself, as a first step to my Sides of the Dark Side questions: Who started it?

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Yes, we all know one thing that question leads to: how many people bully or attack someone because they think he did something to deserve it first. The trick is, that still has a useful difference from all the other characters who go after people for their own selfish reasons but think it’s the best response to an unfair world–many professional thieves, fanatics with their causes, or for that matter hotheads who make everyone suffer for their tempers.

Which brings us to Thunderbolt Ross.

Thaddeus Ross, in case you don’t remember the comic books and the movies, is the general who’s always led troops in pursuit of the Incredible Hulk, providing a constant supply of tank-smashing action for fans of all ages. He’s also become my favorite example of this point, when I discovered the character’s motives had changed a bit over sixty years:

Recently (such as, in the Avengers-era movies), Ross has been chasing the Hulk in hopes of dissecting him and creating his own kind of Army-green troops. But before that his goal was different: simply that the Hulk looked like a dangerous monster that needed to be destroyed. So that’s the question for writers to ask:

How much does a character see people as worth hurting to get what he wants, and how much is it that he thinks they have or might hurt him?

The one is the simpler motive, and can be as straightforward as “gimme your wallet” or expanded to a character whose goals ought to be harmless but can’t realize he’s putting others at risk. (Ross never seems to understand that Hulk-like creatures really can’t be controlled… but then, Bruce Banner took a few risks himself that led to creating the Hulk.) Or he might regret what he “has to do” and tragically do it anyway.

Those might be the keys to creating tension with these characters:

How aware is he of the damage he’s liable to do?
How much is at stake, both the trouble he’s causing and how close the good he’s trying to do (if there’s any) might come to balancing it? (A straight competition or rivalry might give both sides an equal right to win, though one side might be more deserving or just less nasty.)
For irony’s sake, how connected is the victim to the hero, and to the villain?

(From the last point: the simplest plot is someone who has to protect himself, while it’s more of a stretch to have to protect others, even more so if they’re close to the person at fault. The best mad scientists endanger their own sweethearts, or need to be saved from themselves.)

The other type allows for its own kinds of ironic unfairness: someone accused of what they didn’t do, or who has actual sins but is being chased well out of proportion for them–or even deserves his punishment but he’s been trying to atone on his own, or someone else needs his help first. It might be a combination of these, like the man who has to cover up a murder he didn’t commit for fear it would reveal the lesser crimes he has been part of. Or it might involve shadings of how unfairly other people see him: seeming dangerous, being any kind of unpopular misfit or shaking up society, or just being successful enough to stir up envy. (Strict jealousy, overprotectiveness, is even more obviously part of this than envy.)

Like those “I have to hurt them” enemies, the “You’re hurting us” foes can lead to plots of almost balancing the harm they’ll cause with the good they’re trying to do (in this case, the harm it might prevent or punish). And both have their own ways of escalating beyond the scale they started at: someone who’s willing to do damage can get more determined the further he goes, to be sure it wasn’t all a waste, while of course everything a “troublemaker” does except take his punishment only adds to the trouble he’s in.

So that may be the question, when you’re looking for a villain or other shades of antagonism: How much has the hero or victim done, or seems to be doing, to start the problem? As opposed to, how much could the villain want something himself?

Does he want to break the Hulk’s power, or take it?

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Plotting – Divide the Plan by Two

For some of us, writing is a constant study in planning, in looking far down the road of a half-formed story arc or into a set of possibilities and defining what it’s going to be. For others, we work through the journey one step at a time… but we may still want to sneak a glimpse ahead or get a little help making a decision. And I’ve found there’s a way to plan any part of a story in simple terms, taking the organizing just as far as I want: dividing the plan by two, or more.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

It may be the simplest kind of plotting that there is, just taking whatever you’re working on and adding one wrinkle to it–though it could as easily be more if that’s what comes to you–then moving on to add other layers below that for as long as you want to keep going. It’s using “one thing at a time” to dodge the crazy-making of juggling too many issues, applied to defining the larger picture that going step by step can lose.

What does “dividing” mean? Well:

What do you divide? Anything you want.

You can divide the story into stages, whether it’s books of a trilogy or one moment’s description into several sensations.
You can divide the concept of a story into types–goals and obstacles, heroes and villains, triumphs and tragedies–and then decide how many of each you need.
You can break down a need for particular plot elements–again and again we find places where we need several examples of a thing to make a point, from naming the last few galactic wars to which bits of decor in a room to mention.

How many do you divide by? That’s the fun part: just see if “two” works. Turning one need into two contrasting types or stages or whatever is as simple as planning gets, but as often as not we come up with three or four right there.

Either way works. So many small things only need to be taken past a single point to reach a whole new level of life (“a tall man” is a rough image, but “a tall man with a loud voice” gains a lot more completeness from that second thought, even without making that thought much different from the first), or a more complex plan might start with picking two parts and then splitting each of them another time or two. And there will be plenty of times the mind goes straight to three or four or more examples that are more or less equal, or that all need to be there to interact… though if goes past five or six, it’s probably a sign that you’re already seeing some of the sub-parts that these should be split into next.

Just picking combinations like this can teach a lot about writing. Sometimes a thing just has two main sides that matter, and the rest are subparts within those. Or it might call for three steps, one thing that changes what went before and then how it’s resolved afterward (the famous “thesis, antithesis, synthesis,” or situation, problem, solution)–of course the mind loves thinking in threes just to appreciate that it’s more than just two things, and we writers certainly learn to think that way. Or some kind of reaction or buildup might be just as important, and “he said, she said, they agreed” doesn’t work as well as “he said, she said, he said, she said” or maybe “chitchat, he said…” Then again, it may not be the interactions that matter as much as nature of the thing; you might just know the hero’s going to deal with Doubt that he’ll win, Greed of the people in his way, and Guilt over what he does to do it.

A couple examples:

In planning my contemporary fantasy The High Road, I realized:

its first part would be my heroes Mark and Angie facing their most immediate challenge (a street gang with a vendetta tends to get your attention),
so that the second part would be a deeper understanding of the problem and how many other secrets the family magic is tied into.

That first part then had two main stages:

their first discovery of the magic and their enemies,
and then trying to deal with them.

And that beginning stage would be

the Blades’ threat,
then clashing against them with the magic,
then what else breaks loose during the immediate aftermath

–and I have my first three chapters.

Or, if I’m looking for possible images for someone leaving a building, it’s natural to think of the basic Sight Plus Hearing division. But if I’m looking for more detail I know there are five senses to consider.

Sights are easy to split up by direction:

above everything, the moon, but there’s little other light out,
in front, the empty parking lot and the pathway beyond it,
on the side, the streets heading off that he won’t take,
and behind him the town hall he’s left

–then I might further break down those directions by adding clouds against that moon, trees alongside the path, and so on.

To think of sounds I might run through the same directional check, or I might consider classes of things that make sounds:

people (back in that town hall, driving on the streets, etc.),
objects (does he pass the building’s whirring air conditioner?),
animals (birdcalls, rustlings in the brush),
and maybe the weather and so on.

Touch can also be a few position types: anything about the ground he walks on or the things he brushes past, and if the wind or cold or anything touches him, and anything about his clothes or any injuries or such he’s carrying with him. And suddenly I’ve got a sceneful of possible descriptions, just waiting to be put in place.

In fact, dividing by two-plus can lay out a whole book:

maybe four plot stages (or two halves with two to three substages each), each with
four-ish chapters (maybe two events of two chapters each), that might contain
two to four (or more) scenes.

Or a scene itself could have a certain number of points: steps people take in what they’re doing, places they move past, or subjects of a dialog. And dialog subjects can be made up of just how many lines people say, and so on.

Planning–or just glimpsing ahead–can be as simple as you want, just by taking it a step at a time and deciding how far to go before you have enough to move on.

Simple as one-two.

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What I learned from a Sex Scene – Beyond Any Story’s Details

The most useful writing insight that I ever picked up from the old “Should you write a sex scene?” question has little to do with steaminess. (Yes, that’s still a complex question that depends on the story and the writer.) Instead, this was a whole way of looking at fiction’s place in our lives–literally, as it’s about how to relate to what we’ve lived and what we haven’t.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

It started with a bit of advice that sidestepped all the usual questions about bedroom scenes; this “expert” didn’t talk about genre and audience differences, style, authenticity or character revelation versus the dread “gratuitous” scene. He just said that sexual descriptions were meaningless to readers that hadn’t had similar experiences–and unsatisfying reading to anyone who actually had.

In other words, if the scene isn’t crippled by “sorry, you had to be there,” it’s “been there, done that, bored now”?

That advice is just plain wrong, but not only because of how its two halves together would block off anything that could be written. It’s easy to seem profound by making a glib statement about writing having opposite perils… the real question is why a story does value both what’s “familiar” to the reader and what’s “new,” and how do they actually come together.

Looking at one side, could it be that what readers most want is that sense of newness? That writing should take them out of themselves and show them something else, if it can lead them through it right and make it entertaining? Possibly. Of course every story is different from the reader’s life, and that defines what it has to offer. (For that matter, listen to how any fan can get into how well they “know” their favorite characters, or the “mythology” of a modern story’s background.) So what if it’s only that each reader has different tastes for how far from home to go, whether it’s just “exploring” a bit deeper into ordinary family and work, or finding wild ways to save the world?

But we all know that’s only one side of it.

Familiar story elements aren’t just about the reader’s comfort zone, they always have their own appeal. We’re all fascinated by a character that has the same job or background we do, at least if we don’t hate how that’s handled. Or if there’s a particular thing we know, it’s easy to say “Yeah, I’ve got an embarrassment in the family too. Mine’s just an uncle I don’t see too often, not an in-my-face brother, but I’ve used some of the same coping tricks…”

So, does the familiar help to anchor what’s new in a story? It’s certainly helped some. Or is it that newness spices up a story with a familiar heart? I’ve seen both… but I think there’s more than either balancing the other.

I think the key is that writing should bring some familiarity into what it explores. In fact, it should not only help the reader understand that new territory but use that new perspective to make the everyday things clearer. –Yes, that’s a known moment in the Hero’s Journey, when the hero comes home with a new awareness of where he’s always been, even if it’s simply Dorothy’s “there’s no place like home.”

The key might be extending “familiar” plot elements into universal points and show how they apply to more than the story. A well-developed story should not only explain why those exact things happened, but let part of every reader realize how it’s similar to their own lives and what it has to say about them.

Of course that’s no more than what critics love to say about their favorite stories anyway, but there are ways to build that bridge right. A scene may be as specific as an embarrassing relative, and it could be

just a nod to those readers with the right background to think “No, don’t try to shut the guy up, I’ve seen it only makes him worse.”

but it’s better if it really makes a case for the reader thinking

“Yeah, maybe that kind of diplomacy (like my cousin always uses) is worth the effort after all… wish it was that easy with my boss or the cabbie I yelled at yesterday, but maybe…”

By taking the story beyond its own moment, with a more universal sense of why whole kinds of things happen that way and what people might do about them, we’re connecting it more with every reader and every issue they may have. And it may all come down to doing justice to those details, but seeing past them:

John Grisham’s The Firm doesn’t need us to be mobsters or lawyers to follow it. It lays the situation out so well we find ourselves in Mitch’s head, feeling how hard it is to resist going along with it, from a mix of ambition and because he’s already dug himself in deep. We may learn a lot about legal billing systems along the way, but it’s all bringing us to moments we’ve all had a taste of at any good job or temptation, or just any time we make a mistake.

Even Lord of the Rings carries its simple hobbits through Ultimate Evil by capturing the sheer grinding strain of the journey, and how their homey memories and loyalties sustain them through it all. It may be a cliché to think “If they dare to save the world, I can push myself through school” but that doesn’t make it less true.

Of course, we writers probably don’t need to convince our readers to defend the whole planet (though Tolkien partly was, as a World War I veteran writing in the midst of World War II), and most of us aren’t advocating any specific choice in someone’s life. But still, it’s something to keep in mind: the more distinctive the situation is, the more carefully we ought to build those bridges into to understanding it–and the more familiar it is, the more we should try to lead out into exploring further.

Exploring. Not just into something new, but into something more universal, more human.

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More than a Scene

It’s easy to think of a story’s scene as being about the next struggle or problem, or else touching a different base that hasn’t been mentioned in a while. That sense of “what’s next” may be vital, for the logic that ties the scene to what’s just happened and what’s needed up ahead. But it can also be a trap, to think only of the immediate needs and miss our chance to build larger resonances with the whole story.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Classic example: we all know what a story’s first couple of scenes (or first minutes in one running scene) will probably cover, as far as the hero goes. They’ll include

something to give a sense of the character’s regular life, and
the “establishing incident,” the “call to adventure” that takes it in a different direction.

–Yes there are a lot of variations, like putting the change right in line one and then catching up with “Why shoot at me, I’m just a…”, or someone with a “regular” life that’s already thrilling but still complicated by this new twist. But these are the classic building blocks of a start.

But, how many more layers could you build with them? Everything has a past; there may still be one event that puts things on the story’s course, but how carefully could you set up the road they’d been on until then, so we really feel how sharp (or subtle) the change is?

Consider the start of the manga and anime Monster, by Naoki Urasawa. The story’s tagline is “What if the life you saved became a monster?”–but, the first scenes aren’t simply the good Dr. Tenma performing ordinary surgeries before they wheel in the dying serial killer. Instead, he realizes he’s let his boss keep him away from desperate but poor patients, and so Tenma is actually defying his hospital when he insists on saving that particular fateful life.

Now think about it: how many writers do you know that don’t consider a start or other key moment complete without that kind of ironic spin? Other authors may dislike overt twists like that, but they’ll look around for quieter hints that can make the effect they want. This is hard-hitting, ambitious writing that we can’t do if we think only of the likeliest way to get from A to B. What’s the best way to get there?

And besides the big plot twist itself, when Urasawa chooses an obstacle of human schemes (rather than, say, Tenma being in bad health, or about to go on vacation), he also shows how corrupt the story’s world can be and how Tenma will have to struggle with his naiveté and ideals. Again, it can be too easy to fill a scene with the most obvious form of problem (or solution to it) rather than find the one that adds to the bigger picture.

Think of what could be called the “penultimate, penultimate Harry Potter action scene.” That is, the second-last book’s second-last struggle–a position that of course could make it a key moment for suspense buildup. And even though it’s a movie-trailer favorite as “That Half-Blood Prince moment where a lakeful of zombies get torched,” the real center of the scene is much more specific. Namely, it’s Harry under orders to help his mentor Dumbledore put himself through ultimate agony to complete their mission.

The “fire”fight afterward is a much-appreciated release from that tension, but it only goes so far to relieve our sense of guilt, all amplified by how this is the first time in six books that Dumbledore has openly asked Harry to go into danger. Of all the things J. K. Rawling could have keyed that struggle around (and we know she can think of quite a few), she chose the one that leaves Harry with a deep need to make it up to Dumbledore… and what happens then reminds us the Potter books are so much more than Quidditch chases or good-crushes-evil.

That’s the principle, things resonating from their past or on to the future, and it shows up in many of the more powerful stories and some mediocre ones too. We all know scenes of some hero busy doing one thing while a supporting character shows off his dissent or incompetence; what makes so many of them comic relief is that those conflicts doesn’t go anywhere further, while the other stories actually are laying groundwork for future changes or showing consequences for what’s just happened.

It works for obstacles, and characters, and it works for methods or resources. (In a sense, most of the story is either a method or an obstacle, plus the lessons learned from them; characters are simply the most important things to fit onto those sides.) If the hero has one way of solving a problem, it should be only a matter of time before the story explores how many ways that can go wrong, and how which ways he’s tried build a sense of what he still needs to explore or what he needs to keep his faith in.

One caution: it’s also easy to plan scenes completely from this viewpoint, placing certain things purely as a clue or an echo. This may add a lot to the larger picture, but scenes that also feel like they’re really connected to the story right now come off a lot better than those that whisper “Hold on and take this in, it’ll matter more later.”

All of these are the building blocks of a story. And building anything means being sure one brick fits with the next, but real architecture keeps the whole shape in mind. A scene can be the next thing, but are you choosing it to mesh with what came just before or some larger point?

Why stop at one?

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Facing the Blank Screen – the Scary Bicycle

No stalling today–let’s talk about the hard part of writing, the thing that separates ideals from reality and keeps lying in the way of every new plan we make. That is, the sheer effort it takes to keep doing all the work to get a thing written. Focus, perseverance, facing down everything from life’s distractions to our own doubts that that crazy idea is worth finishing… come on, is there any of us that doesn’t see ourselves here?

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

The most interesting thing I’ve ever heard about writing came from an article (and ohh, I wish I remember whose!), where a longtime author confessed that the best writing insight he’d learned in all his years was that:

“All writers hate to write.”

The more he actually talked to his fellow pros, the more they all admitted they hated the process of writing a thing out, and what they loved was looking back at a thing and know they “had it written.” –Go on, take five seconds for a Google search to see how many bloggers are confessing and debating that same problem.

Except, I think that author was overstating his point, or showing the glass half-empty to steel his readers for the challenge. We all know getting a thing written is hard and that our biggest enemy there can be ourselves. But from what I’ve lived and what other writers tell me, I’d put it as:

“Writers hate to start writing, and love it each time they get rolling.”

It might seem like our own daily Hero’s Journeys of challenge and reward, but I call it the Scary Bicycle: like with the proverbial bike, the skills we’ve gained in the past come back quickly enough each time we sit down, although writing seems more difficult until we actually settle in, maybe every single time. The results may be better some days than others, but honed skills are still honed skills, and the enthusiasm itself is generally right there waiting for us.

That may be what defines a writer more than anything else: just the love of what we do, even if it may take twenty or sixty minutes of awkwardness each time to get to that place. We recognize each other when we hear about that same crazy fascination with the process itself. So that just leaves: what can we do to get into The Zone?

Stephen King, of course, says you have to write every single day… and I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Both our skills and the discipline itself gain hugely when we keep them that fresh, and let’s face it, “every day” is simply the proverb for what rhythm makes something a part of life.

(Plus: just writing a page a day gives you a 365-page novel every single year. Doesn’t look so bad, does it?)

–Yeah, like I have time to breathe on a weekday, I hear a lot of us saying. True, life is life… more or less. But still:

Priorities. If writing matters to you–never mind whether you’re dying to have a New York Times Bestseller, just whether some real in-the-zone creating time compares well to ordinary TV or making a fancier dinner–it’s worth pushing at least some things down to make room. It’s just “life,” but you’re trying to keep it your life, right?
Rhythm. Some of us do great things with hours of intense writing on a weekend (after all, you only have to Start Up once) or a whole week of vacation; others follow King and make it a part of each day. There’s no simple answer to which to use, except: why not try some of both, and see how each gets you closer to who you want to be?
Finesse. No, our bosses just don’t care that we haven’t written our daily pages yet. But we don’t have to manage writing, or even life, in big blocks. Try setting aside one question about the next scene, or printing out a few notes or a page to edit, and pulling that out at the five-minute lull between things.

Most of all, the writing itself doesn’t have to slog along each word in the same sequence. Maybe the most interesting twist on the Scary Bicycle model I’ve heard was the friend who said it was harder to start writing when he created new pages, but easier to start and harder to continue when he was revising. So maybe the smoothest way to start a session is to review the things you’ve already written, to get you back in the groove.

(Two alternate approaches to that: As many people advise, try ending a session in mid-scene, maybe mid-sentence, so that’s where you can hit the page running next time. Or, one researcher says that the mind is best at creative and social functions in the morning, and just tired enough in the afternoon to be better at critical thought (or just resting)–after all, how many radio stations save their talk for the morning and settle into all music after lunch?)

That only scratches the surface, naturally. The more we each learn about our own writing processes, the more we can try things like writing an outside-the-tale debate between characters to get involved in a certain scene, or saving certain easy or hard scenes to write later. (Just never forget that gut check of “Wait, what does it mean that this scene’s boring me so much?”)

In the end it comes back to the numbers, pushing ourselves to get it all written. And maybe like other pushes, the key may be seeing past how hard it is to get started each time, and how we seem to pick up speed from there. “Hard work? Well, the first thirty minutes don’t count.”

Or to bring up what may be the best line I’ve heard on life (or at least on the limits of advice), take Ms. Buffy Summers’

“It’s hard, and it’s painful, and it’s every day.”

Literally every day? maybe. Or just, whenever you want to get to the fun parts.

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Viewpoint – In Praise of a One-Lane Street

A good viewpoint character just may be the best friend a writer has. And like most lifelong friends, we may have to warm up to a few inconveniences and quirks, before we start to appreciate how many ways a really compatible point of view character can smooth our writing along. Besides how it brings the chosen character or characters to life—and in the end, doesn’t all writing work through that?—using it can also animate all the supporting characters too, organize the world to keep it plausible and again to guide the whole description process, and even trim bulky pages.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

But somehow I keep seeing writers who are uncomfortable with it, who neglect it or even resent how it complicates some of their exposition. Yes, a strong viewpoint can make a few things awkward—but every limit there is also more than one opportunity, while almost nothing looks as amateurish as not sticking with whatever VP choice we make.

Just to line up the basic options, we have:

3rd Person Limited: Bill thought __ so he did __. Then the other guy did __. Bill thought __ and…
1st Person: I thought __ so I did __. Then the other guy did __. I thought __ and…
3rd Person Omniscient: Bill thought __ so he did __. But Joe thought __ and did __. Bill thought __ and…

(Plus, there’s the question of whether one of the first two methods will change viewpoint characters when a new scene starts.)

Let’s just get the Omniscient option out of the way—because, frankly, that’s where I hope most writers keep it. Being able to show any thought in the scene may make it a lot easier to reveal things… but that’s one of the main styles it’s used for, just trying to make the story easy. True, some of its other uses are to back away from individual characters to make their gestalt impression (the town, the human condition, whatever) seem more important than any one person, or to make direct contrasts between one thought and another, but pulling those off is a lot trickier than it looks. It also can’t be done without at least understanding each character’s view first.

So that leaves 3rd Person Limited and 1st Person, simply “he/she” vs “I.” Compared to the other option, these two are pretty much the same thing in terms of what viewpoint does. Their difference is really in tone: it’s just more intense to get through a whole tale of “I”s with none of a character’s passions and blind spots pushed back to “John hated to…” Some writers (or stories) work better with that bit of distance, while on the other hand I’d hate to read any of Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter books that didn’t throw me right into Dubious Dexter’s mocking little lines of thought. But extreme or subtle, any character can be done well in 1st Person—still, most writers have found the 3rd is more than powerful enough for them.

Either way, the good stuff involves knowing one of those two specific viewpoints. Which makes sense: stories aren’t read by gestalts, or by readers whose answer to “Will he give me that raise?” is to read the boss’s mind. (Much as we love to read about people like that.) 1st Person is simply how we live, and 3rd Limited is its more polite twin.

The basic value of a good VP, of course, is that this becomes the set of thoughts we can and should just show. Simple as that; as a writer, “you get one” mind to follow in a scene, so we make the most of it.

—Which is not to say we show every thought the character has, of course; that still depends on good pacing and the style we want, same as anything else. Then again, it works both ways, so choosing the right viewpoint character himself—or is it herself? choices, choices—ought to have a huge hand in defining how much of what to dwell on. Laconic, all-business VP characters are great for many stories, and a big effect of that choice should be limiting how detailed they bother to make their thoughts. Someone else might muse about everything he saw… or breeze past most things but slow down to wax lyrical about how to hack a computer, because that’s who they are.

(Special warning: if something would be on the character’s mind, don’t hide it from the reader just to play tricks. “They never knew I was the killer” may be the most infuriating last line you can ever write, if it blasts the readers with how dependent they’ve always been on your character telling the whole story. Yes, the plot may be all about why the character doesn’t know a thing, or there may be big memories that honestly haven’t come up yet, or the character can hint there’s something but flinch away from thinking it in detail at first. But don’t just cheat if we should know it’s there.)

Beyond what someone thinks, how does what he does and notices filter into that view? There may hundreds of things in a room, but by really following the character through it you get both a strong guide for describing it all and many more chances to characterize him. Does he just settle into the chair and wait to be told what’s up, or do his eyes pick out the rifle on the wall—and is it because he’s an appreciative hunter, a paranoid spy, or an author who remembers Chekov’s saying about guns?

Writers and readers often say characters are more important than plot. (I think their relationship is more complicated than that.) But there’s no question that anything we learn about that person’s mindset might affect any number of things to come, and beyond all that her attitudes are likely to connect with the reader more than the raw details of how a US President goes on the run from assassins. And every thought, action, and perception that crosses her viewpoint (or misses it!), plus what order she takes them in and how she perceives each, can be a chance to building that picture… and without slowing the story down. Because the pace of the story is how the right character is living it.

Consider: how different would a Sherlock Holmes tale be from Holmes’ own view, seeing all the possibilities at once rather than with a Watson who’s quickly led through them? Or from Inspector Lestrade’s, able to do his job but clueless enough to need a Holmes to do it right? Or from some ignorant servant’s view, or (evil chuckle) from Moriarty’s… If viewpoint doesn’t define the whole story, it certainly RE-defines every part of it.

I do like to think of it as driving in a one-lane street. A second lane to maneuver in might let me skip ahead and see more cars sooner, but staying mostly in one lane makes me so much more aware of each car, and especially how its speed matches my own. (Yes, that’s a sloppy metaphor; are viewpoint characters the cars or the lanes? But I’ll get the other reason I like the image.)

But, what about that viewpoint’s price, the key things right in a scene that a character doesn’t realize? (And those blind spots are, of course, some of the strongest ways to make a point about that person.) There, I think you have two choices:

Change viewpoint with the scenes. A whole book with exactly one viewpoint might be stronger, but we all love to split the narrative between a few characters that see different things. It might be because they wind up on different continents as the story plays out (we Game of Thrones fans know what I mean), or because using another pair of eyes in the same room shows whole other things (which is also Game of Thrones, come to think of it). But as long as the jumps between views are complete and not a new one every page, each view works in its own right, and the combination builds whole other shapes.
Or, get subtle:

Consider another “Lane,” namely Lois—a character who’s famously defined by the one thing she doesn’t know. Say you’re writing a Superman novel (or just any story where you want to state the characters as firmly), and you decide Lois needs an actual viewpoint scene of her at her best, grilling the latest Lex Luthor-wannabe about his shady dealing at a press conference. But this is also a villain that Clark Kent would be keeping an eye on, using all the resources that both his identities have… You could have Clark bumble his way through the scene and then later in his own scene mull over what he actually learned there. But you could also let Clark could get in one very good, penetrating question, and Lois could stop to think how she hates that a guy could have real reporter’s instincts sometimes but always be such a wimp…

(And of course, which one you use depends on which version of Clark Kent you’re writing, the “my God how does he keep his job” version or the “my God it’s just a pair of glasses” version. Characters fit the story.)

But there are always ways to make the reader notice something but hide it from the viewpoint character. If he doesn’t see something, what’s the reason for it: is he bored, trusting, impatient? Or even if it’s just him missing the elevator his girlfriend’s on, he can think a prominent “It can’t be that important” to make the reader suspect what it’ll really mean. It doesn’t have to be a strict characterization reason he misses something; just the viewpoint fact that he misses it gives the writer more than enough to hint with. Either way, the reason you’re hinting at is at least as entertaining as the fact itself, so all you have to do is use that, both to hint at the fact and to emphasize the larger truth.

Even when a character can’t know something, viewpoint isn’t a limit. It’s a twofer.

As to whether Lois Lane is really that limiting, the first modern “secret identity” story was Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, which is told mostly from the woman’s point of view…

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The Toolbox – what goes Around the Words

Choosing the words… picking which shapes to fit around your prose gems to really show them off, and when not to try as hard… It means juggling paragraphs, “said” tags, adjectives, punctuation, and yet still managing to be creative in the middle of it all. No wonder that, no matter how ready we are to write something, the biggest parts are probably still the actual writing and rewriting to get the words themselves into place.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

More, the devil’s in the details, so this is the final acid test to our skill: Do we come off as more wannabes that have fun ideas but whose words don’t quite “have it”? Or do we make that reader think “Not a bad line… okay… keeps moving… yeah, fun moment and… yeah… oh she needs to DIE—” until we’ve earned his trust enough to turn that page?

Honestly I think half the would-be authors who don’t pull it off are the ones who fail the Resume Test: give the reader some reasons to like you, but know it only takes one reason for him to put the paper down and go with somebody more reliable. One failed word, one aspect of weakness than runs on too long, and it can all be over.

–Bad blogger! Writers already know that, there’s no point in my reminding you all about how many things can go wrong, especially when dwelling on it can just freeze us all up. Besides, you’ve probably already learned the tools, and now you’re focusing on your sense of what makes your writing sing, with the precision slowly coming with practice, right? Good. That’s probably how it has to be.

Still, there’s no reason to let your options unsettle you. The more we all get familiar with what the structures for those words can really do, the more we can let them line the writing up in a better way, and maybe even make it come out easier.

Mind you, these will only be the highlights. For the real bible to most of this—yes, I’m going to say it—be sure you have Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style handy. (And if that sounds too nitpicky, consider that this is the same E. B. White that wrote Charlotte’s Web. They get it.)

Now: let’s say you have enough ideas in your head to start a scene. Whether it’s from planning or from trusting that your mind is open, you think you can give the scene a direction of suspense or fun or whichever it is. (In fact, I think “suspense” is a good model for working with any kind of scene; you can use the same kinds of hints and buildup even about whether a great pleasure or an ordinary thing is going to turn out a little better or worse. Anticipation is good for anything.) You have your characters, and the kind of things that might happen, and you’re ready to describe it all. So…

Pace

How fast should the scene be going? Is this the time to dwell on how your hero’s fingers notice the feel of the design in the coffee cup… or is the only important thing that you touch base by saying he “got to work eager and freshly caffeinated”?

Think of both what pace to start the scene at, and whether it’s best for the story to change speeds in midscene; maybe starting at a quick summary and slowing down when something important shows up.

And when things start slowing down you could end the scene right then, or you can linger a while over the consequences, maybe not ending at all but just keep on going with a few lines or even a few pages of thoughts and lesser events to lead to the next event. (Classic example: When the hero leaves one place, do you then say “When he arrived–” or follow him on the road?)

Note: if you do officially end the scene, you can make it the chapter’s end too, but if not you should skip a line and put in a mark such as * * *. I’ve seen writers who left that mark out really confuse the story when the line break wound up at the page top/bottom and readers didn’t know the scene had changed.

Also, how much does your style depend on you mostly staying at one pace or another? Hopefully if you love details, that means you also know how to reach the next thing before you bog down, or your fast-paced style includes enough twists that you don’t end the fun too soon.

Actually, there are “pacing” questions about every level of writing, from chapters to syllables. For every kind of point we just might add in to amplify or clarify something, there are options of trimming more away if you think that bit of detail or oomph is starting to distract the reader from the key part story of the story, whether it’s starting the scene before the good stuff or one word fancier than it needs to be. Any seasoned writer knows much of the work is streamlining the writing from how it first came out—sometimes even taking a whole scene they slaved over and replacing it all with one mention in another scene that the thing happened.

“Stories fly like birds. Their wings have strong muscles where they need them, but their bones are hollow wherever they can save weight. Build your bird right.”

Paragraph

The next level of choice depends on pace too. Paragraphs are a marvelous extra chance we writers get, to show which ideas the reader needs to understand as a set before moving on—what one room looks like, or that one set of actions is about one thing and different from the next few that are about something else. I always think of the reader as holding his breath when he starts reading a paragraph, and taking a new breath as he comes out of it and pauses an instant to take in what it means.

You can use that idea of a set to make the most of each paragraph. Start it with a sense of what unit it’s covering—as in, do you need a paragraph to capture the sound of a woman’s voice before going on to her face, or is the paragraph a five-line way to say he spent a year waiting to see her again? Either way that choice makes what might be a clearer statement than the words themselves do, about what’s important enough to make which things into just its building blocks. And the reader will notice that you keep making that structure clear for them.

They can’t miss it.

One caution about paragraph sizes: It’s always best to have some mix of sizes, so the reader can sense that the longer paragraphs are for the more complex or stacked-together subjects, with the shorter ones for what’s simple or emphasized.
–Especially, larger paragraphs are harder to follow, and worse, they stop demonstrating to our readers that we’re still pointing out what’s about one thing and what might really be better as several. Look at a paperback page; you’ll see maybe nine lines might be as long as they get before they start looking bulky, depending on the style. If I see a paragraph over that, I really hope it’s a “long morning on the road” that’s supposed to drag on, or else a Powerful Instant of frozen time.
“The axe-heads lesson” is the other way to look at paragraph sizes: like a double-bitted axe, a paragraph’s middle might add some weight to it, but its real impact comes from those two sharp lines at the top and bottom. A lot of picturing the paragraph you’ll write is knowing where it starts and then what to climax it with.

In fact, if you put a specific fact anywhere but the start or end of a paragraph, you’re taking some risk that the reader won’t notice it. Well, unless it’s standing out with quotes or italics.

Dialog or no?

Yes, it would take dozens of posts to explore what makes dialog work. But what I’m thinking about here as that, as we narrow our sense of options from the scene down to the word, we come to how putting any kind of quotation marks near characters changes the flow of things.

Dialog can be some of the most efficient writing there is. It’s almost always the fastest way to cover several different things, especially about someone’s attitude–or better yet, several someones’ in conflict. In fact, it’s so handy at this, writers have to resist the urge to invent silly conversations as the obvious way to explain things or proclaim people’s emotions. Medieval plays always opened with gossiping servants filling us in—it’s so obvious, we should all know better than to overuse it.

Just look at how conspicuous a bit of talk is on the page—how it draws whole sections into rhythms of what’s probably shorter, faster-alternating paragraphs, and those themselves are structured by tags and other signposts. That’s how much of a pattern it adds to that writing, how easily it clarifies what part is a different person and most likely a different attitude on things, each one played off the previous ones. Too many pages without this can start to look like all the same thing; pure description may be the best way to pull the reader into a mood or set of actions, but it can still help to let someone grumble a moment or overhear a few words, just to make one bit stand out in dialog. Or if you have trouble keeping a longer stretch of description together, you might be one of those writers who do better with some dialog to structure it all.

And of course, the longer the dialog runs without a few breaks, the more its cramming together of points can look crowded or feel tiring. Again, balance matters, and just how to balance depends on your style and story.

(There’ll be more about dialog later, as we get deeper into the bits and pieces of things.)

Transitions

So we’ve gone from scene to paragraph to whether a sentence should start with quotes, and we’re down to the sentences themselves. —But first, about “But.”

Yes, sentences are a key building block of writing. And often each sentence simply adds to the one before it; more facts or reasons to think the situation is the same, same mood, same balance that it seems better for people to do X than do Y. But, sometimes the next thing contradicts that or sends things off in a whole new direction (you know, the fun parts). So as we write we want to keep a sense of what the direction is just now, and consider starting any sentence that breaks too sharply with the last with a But.

—”Consider” it, I said; be sure not to use it every time you could. It’s most needed when there’s a definite change from one sentence to the next, but it’s just enough shift that the reader might think you didn’t realize it. The more obvious changes are often the ones that don’t need the marker, and might look overdone if they had it.

Or, if you aren’t really contradicting a thing but showing some variations on the theme, you could start it with Or.
Still, if something is a re-but-al that counters a But, its marker is usually Still or Then Again.
And if points keep moving in the same direction, and seem like not quite the next thing in line but a variation of the one before, starting that with something like an And or Also smooths that along nicely.
Then you have other mild but helpful transitions like Then, Because, Therefore…

You get the point. And again, since writing is always balancing between paces, you want to point out some of these shifts to the reader, but not mark out every last step.

Note: these transitions may be most needed in starting a sentence, but they may be needed in mid-sentence too.

Sentences

In the end, writing always comes down to the sentence. That’s where the real magic happens, where words do or don’t line up with that shape and first start to become something real. And, knowing the sentence is our best chance to get into the flow of picking the words.

I think each sentence amounts to a change. It might be one piece of the story acting on another piece (“Alice slapped Zoey”), or it could be you changing something the reader didn’t know into something he now does (“She wore battered leather gloves”).

And I think that’s the question to ask as you write: what is changing next? Especially, at this moment, what is the pace of that change? And specifically:

How “far” is the subject up “ahead” or “to the side” of the last sentence? And then, how far apart are the subject and object, and how much happens within their interaction?

I don’t mean how many words are between two nouns. I mean, looking at the direction the scene is going in: should the new sentence be focused on an action by or a revelation about a thing (that is, the subject) that’s the same as in the sentence before, or else on one that’s similar to it, or should it be taking up something very different? And then how does the thing’s action/revelation about which other thing move it further in the scene’s direction?

I think that’s the process, even though we use it different ways at different times. A cautious writer might range around a lot, using a lot of different sentences with different subjects trying to discover what’s in a scene and what’s going to happen next. A hurried or inspired writer might rush straight toward what’s most promising, and hopefully go back to add in some scene-setting and might-get-involved factors later.

Either way, if you think Alice (as a subject) should soon be slapping Zoey (object), should a sentence you write first have a subject of:

general background of what’s nearby, just clarifying the scene?
specific background, any facts that might affect what’s coming—are there other people there that won’t approve of the slap? does Alice still need a reason to slap Zoey, or else is it worth a sentence to remind us of the reason?
the object you’re aiming toward, Zoey herself—have you already taken a sentence to establish that she’s there? do you need another about her right now (such as, does she or doesn’t she look like she deserves what’s coming)?
things related to the subject you want, Alice—maybe a group of friends she’s with, the door opening to let her in, or some aspect of her such as her expression or those gloves she wears?
the real subject herself, Alice, taking action?

For a slower pace, you can work through more of these options as sentences in their own right, covering more bases and trying to build more momentum at the price of losing speed and bulking up the word count. For a faster pace, the sentence is simply Alice—

—and whatever she’s acting on. As with the subject, Alice’s object could be Zoey, or it could be taking time for her to “take a deep breath” or “shove past Betty” on her way, or any of the other options as things to interact with or be revealed in relation to Alice’s sentence.

—And of course, even if it is Zoey as the object, Alice might still “look at” her before she slaps her. The action within the sentence is still a chance to pause and say something else before the payoff, and that may be a cue for a few more sentences going back and forth with different subjects.

Naturally, half of deciding all these is picking what things to use in a sentence after this one. If Zoey does have a friend right between her and Alice (“Megan,” maybe) and you know you want to involve her before the slap is delivered, is this sentence of Alice’s a glance at Megan, or do you want that glance (or something with Megan as the subject) to be somewhere after this sentence but before the slap?

The best news may be that, when you’re especially in tune with your writing, you may start to get a sense of how to balance these options for several sentences ahead. Whenever you can see the scene’s pacing needs as “maybe it’s two Alice-sentences mixed with one Zoey, and that means one or two background things’ sentences between them,” you’ve gone from a vague sense of how to write what’s next to a real picture of the next paragraph or two, one that lets you cover all the things there and keep the right speed. Suddenly all that’s left is to pick the words themselves.

As I see it, this is the mental balancing act we go through that defines each sentence we write. Whether we’re searching for what might happen next, exploring what else is connected to it (“is there a Megan in the mix? yes there is!”), or fleshing out the things we know a scene needs, we:

look at where we’re headed, whether it’s a clear event or an impression we have,
decide how to balance quick pace versus working in other things, and
put the sentence in terms of how quickly it moves the subject, object, and connecting verb toward that goal or off to those tangents we want.

(You know, if Mrs. Davis in 5th grade had taught parts of speech using the Alice/Zoey smackdown…)

Speaking of picking the subject, two warnings here:

don’t, don’t, DON’T lose track of which thing is more active than which and should be the subject, and find yourself writing the dreaded passive voice. “Zoey was slapped by Alice” just might be the most conspicuously amateurish way there is to write. Although, you might get away with “Zoey reeled back as Alice slapped” if the reeling is more important for the moment than the slap itself.
don’t start too many sentences in a row with the same subject, even when most of what’s going on is one person doing different things. A rut of “Alice… She… She… She…” is just too easy to fall into; better to let other things take their turn as subject, or at least mix in a new term for Alice (“the bounty hunter”—we knew she was a tough lady, didn’t we?) if that term isn’t overused. But since the main problem is the same word appearing at the start:

Of course there are other wrinkles beyond picking a subject, object, and action.

“As the crowd stared, Alice marched forward toward…”

The crowd could have been its own sentence there, and maybe it deserved one. But if it doesn’t, tucking it in at some part of Alice’s sentence speeds up the pace specifically by making that one thing seem less important. In fact, by pairing the crowd’s staring to Alice’s movement, we’ve implied that one is affecting the other—or in this case, that Alice isn’t making them do more than stare, and none of those witnesses is slowing Alice down at all. It’s one of the surest, yet quickest, ways to add an extra spin on things.

It works at least as well when saying two things about the same subject, tucking background or parameters right into someone’s action without breaking stride. “Pushing past Betty, Alice…”

(Remember to learn the proper rules for different tools here. Sometimes you can just And or But or Or a few more words in, or adding things with commas is usually close enough to appropriate—but other punctuation can make some parts of the sentence stand out more. So you can have dashes (as shown in the previous sentence), or a semicolon (;), and sometimes the more finicky elipse (…) or colon (:). But keep in mind that all of them are a little conspicuous on the page… using a lot of them or of one favorite looks repetitive… even if you call it just your own style… or if you scatter a lot of them through different places. As with anything, it’s its own kind of balance against overuse to work out.)

There’s one extra reason to use compound sentences like this. You don’t want to have too many simple sentences in a row. These things are great for a simple fact. And they can add special emphasis to a single point. But they don’t do either of those well unless they contrast with other sentences that have more than just a single subject, verb, and object; they need to be part of a variety. Worse, any time there’s more than a couple of those in a row, it starts to look like that’s the only way you know how to write.

A related point: a good sentence may want a strong word right at its end… but that can be trickier than it looks. I have a few thoughts on that combined with a guest post, at Order of a Sentence – with Maralys Wills.

Words (or, a few of them)

No, there’s no easy way to pick exact words, even as you get into the flow of picking what to make a sentence about. But there is one easy tip, that just might be the most useful ultraspecific lesson in writing:

Get comfortable with verbs.

The verb, the action (or revelation) word, is the real reason the sentence exists. Except for some handy fragments like “No!”, every sentence is centered more on its verbs than on the subject and object nouns (or pronouns) at their ends.

What this means is that if you’re looking to add oomph to a sentence, consider your options:

The cat ran silently across the road.
The tabby ran across the road.
The cat padded across the road.

The first is an adverb, a whole extra word grafted onto the sentence to clarify something—worth using sometimes, but mainly when there’s no easy other way to get it in. The second is jazzing up one of the nouns, more natural but certainly something that could be used too often. The third, refining the verb, does a lot more to bring the whole sentence to life without becoming awkward.

Having a wide range of verbs ready is doubly useful if it lets you do an active description. A bridge may not be “doing” anything when you put it in view, but any bland “There was a bridge” can be outdone by saying “a bridge loomed” or “spanned” or (for those ominous rope bridges) “swayed” in its place. You might think of every use of the words “was” or “were” as a placeholder, for reconsidering later for a verb upgrade. Just by getting practice with your different verbs, you can cover almost anything well, without much risk of overdoing it unless you’re actually trying to. –Well, one exception: the verbs in dialog tags can be handy, but they’re easier to overdo.

To say again, nouns are certainly worth giving some attention to as well. If you need to get a detail in, clarifying the word for the thing itself may be the smoothest way, and in any case it’s a good place to add some color. But it’s also easier to write yourself into a style where every line is littered with full “Alice”s or “the bounty hunter”s and all shoes are “the Nikes.” Just “she” and “shoe” can do the job at least every other time, if it isn’t those halves that you need more clarity.

On the other hand, adjectives and adverbs (as Mr. Stephen King says) are not our friends. In fact, I think of those words as hired hands, subcontracted in if they’re the best way to cover a point but hopefully not my first choice. Almost every word we put down is a temptation to think it out as “the cat RAN… well, I already said ran, but ran SILENTLY” instead of strengthening that word into “padded.” Adjectives and adverbs don’t make us lazy writers in themselves, but we should be always working toward that balance of a decent modifier versus an improved noun or verb–and the times we just don’t need either. (If we aren’t working on setting a mood, do we need to mention that cats are quiet?)

Of course, if one adjective is bulky, two look awkward. But do we really need to mention the clumsy, ungainly, overblown effect of letting three adjectives pile up in one place? Critical mass.

And, not that I especially hate adverbs, but I’ll take one more cheap shot at them: I think every writer should consider how easy any kind of modifier is to overuse, by dabbling once and a while in the old “Tom Swifties” word game. Just come up with an absurd use of a dialog-tag adverb, such as

“Voldemort split his soul into pieces,” Tom said half-heartedly.

Which brings us to:

Dialog Tags and such

Of course dialog doesn’t just change the tone of how the narrative’s going, or plug it deeper into the characters’ heads. Part of its effect also comes from how it visibly lines up different people’s words separate from each other’s, and also separates talk from what’s being done or thought. That’s the opportunity we writers can make the most of, as we make our choices about things like tags and extra actions.

“Of course the best way to tag dialog is with ‘said,'” said Mr. Said.

“But it doesn’t tell you anything!” yelled the Shouter. “There are more exciting tags than that!”

Mr. Said said “Isn’t the dialog itself supposed to do that? Besides, ‘said’ never tries to upstage anything, when the other tags are a lot easier to overuse. After all, the whole shape of dialog paragraphs draws the eye to how many times overdone tags are in there.”

“But—” the Shouter spluttered.

“That ‘said’ is so boring…” he moaned sadly.

“How could real tags ever be too much…” he whined. And at last: “Okay, I guess after using a couple you could look like you’re putting more work into the tags than the dialog. After all, we want to Show, Not Tell.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Said.

“Unless… unless the speech isn’t giving the whole picture of how it’s said. Got you!” whispered the Shouter.

“Oh,” said Mr. Said.

Just then Visitor spoke up. “But how long do you keep using tags at all? Each time a couple of people settle in to talking, everyone assumes just those two will keep going for a while. If nobody else speaks up to break that pattern, all tags start looking redundant—whether they’re ‘said’ or not.”

The others looked at the floor, embarrassed.

“But remember, Visitor: a paragraph with no dialog breaks patterns too. After that, you have to start tagging again or nobody will know who’s speaking.”

“Why use tags at all?” And Active grinned from ear to ear. “People don’t stop doing things when they talk; besides, those Walk-And-Talk combinations are half the fun. Putting in an ‘extra action’ is more natural than making the tag do the work, and a lot more powerful too, without having to keep using the same Said all day.” He looked at each of the others, waiting to see who blinked.

“But writing all that would be WORK!” the Shouter burst out.

“And sometimes it’s too much emphasis,” said Mr. Said. “Not every statement needs it.”

Active sighed, and was silent.

“Oh, one more thing. No matter how interesting a paragraph is, or especially if it’s a really exciting thing, take a look at how the paragraphs are alternating. And unless it’s obvious from the start who’s saying what, don’t let that paragraph go over a line or two without a tag or an Extra Action. You want to keep the reader enjoying each word as they come to it, not going crazy waiting to see who’s actually saying it,” put in the armadillo.

Of course, the real point of dialog is to give each person a speech style that has such a different kind of fun, the readers could keep them straight with no help at all… as long as you don’t actually skip those signposts, naturally.

One particular warning: watch out for those odd rules about punctuating some dialog sentences’ ends:

“Like this,” he said. “You’ve seen those periods that turn into commas, right?

“Or like that missing quote there, if the same person says another paragraph.”

You’ve seen it in writing, and you’ve probably seen (or been) one of the writers who got it wrong once and a while. If you have any doubts, pull out Strunk & White, or at least dig around Wikipedia.

Since we’re at the end of the sentence, I’ll also finish this “Toolbox” with one note about final punctuation. If it isn’t dialog (or thoughts that are supposed to sound like someone’s inner dialog), you end most sentences with a simple period (.), or maybe a dash (—) or elipse (…) or sometimes a question mark (?) if you’re closer to that internal dialog. But no exclamation points; they look like the writer is stopping to hype up his own work!

“Then again, all of these are okay for dialog. Just keep an eye on the tone it’s taking, so that—” and suddenly he shouted at the top of his lungs— “you don’t use a mark that doesn’t fit.”

But maybe that’s all we can ever do in writing: see what we want, and try to find what fits.