Old School Storytelling–Gotye’s Song

 

Gotye’s song Somebody That I Used to Know has blown up. I have a theory about why.

The lyrics harken back to the origins of songs as tools of storytelling. This song gives us clear insight into the male and female characters. We learn about their relationship. How it collapsed. Their takes on what went wrong and the fallout.

I can see the events play out in my mind when I hear this song.

And therein lies the brilliance. Music as a form of storytelling. I feel like I read a short story when I read the lyrics.

Such clear character development and plot. There is a beginning, a middle and an end to their story.

What do you think? Am I on to something? Or is it something else?

Donald Maass– The 21st Century Novel Panel at WDC

The Writer’s Digest Conference had many mind stretching, craft expanding panels. I wish I could blog about each one, but I’d rather select three to share. And the awesome Emmie Mears has graciously agreed to Guest post about a panel as well.

That should satiate your conference interests without inundating you with info.

I loved Donald Maass’s panel on Writing The 21st Century Novel.

Brimming with brilliant insight.

He talked about how commercial fiction dominated the New York Times Bestsellers list in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the 1990s things began to change. Fantasy and literary fiction began to take a place on that venerable list.

He believes now in the 21st century there is another shift occurring.

Curious, he started to research these changes. He found there was a decrease in straight genre fiction and an increase in cross genre fiction.

In fact, cross genre books were selling better than straight genre fiction. These hybrids were fiction that read like literary fiction but were genre fiction.

He came to this conclusion: In the 21st century, the genre concept will slowly die and go away. It will be replaced with high impact fiction, which marries great story telling with beautiful writing.

This means that commercial and literary writers each have something to learn from each other. The story must meld the two types so that it effects the reader and reaches people in a powerful way.

Mr. Maass then led us through an exercise to help make our stories more high impact. He has a book coming out to help writers do this at home too. I’ll definitely be purchasing it.

His main point with these exercises was to engage the reader emotionally. I have to admit it worked. I made three revisions to my finished manuscript this weekend because of his workshop. And they all improved the readers emotional experience.

One prompt he posed to the audience was: Write down the hardest thing your protagonist has to do in the course of the story. Now work out why the character has sworn never to do or do it again.

He wants writers to construct powerful protagonists, 3-D secondary characters, and make the book plot driven but beautifully written.

He has several workshops this year that are worth attending.

Thanks WDC for a killer first day workshop panel!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1–Another Well Told Story

 

Lately, I watch tv and movies through the lenses of a writer. I can’t seem to stop. Unbelievable characters, confusing plots, slow pacing, and uninteresting protagonists are my biggest turn-offs.

So when I catch something I like, I think about it. Every Harry Potter book and movie has been a good experience for me.

With the movie, there were a few hiccups where they diverged from the book and the story lost something, but overall I liked it.

The movie sucked me in 95% of the time. Here’s why:

1. Great actors making the characters come to life and feel believable.
2. Strong plot with good pacing.
3. Tension throughout and more of an edge (which seemed to appear in the later Potter movies).
4. Clear POV. No head hopping or uncertainty over whose narrating.
5. Great secondary characters–most quirky, some lovable, and some despicable. But all eliciting a response from me.
6. Cause and effect follow through. Things flow from each other and the past books flow into this one seamlessly.

What were your favorite things about the Harry Potter movie? Any that might also be characteristics of a great novel?

 

 

Why Characters Matter From the Get Go

This is my dog, Emerson. I can tell you great stories with amazing plots about Emerson, but right now are you interested?

Maybe slightly but not really. I mean he’s cute but why listen to a story about him? Why care?

What if I mentioned that he is a warrior lapdog who sleeps facing the door and guards me while I shower? Kinda interesting quirks.

How about if I tell you he snores and makes noises like a little old man all night?

Or that if you miss his breakfast time, he will sit in bed groaning and staring at you until you wake up and feed him?

Okay now you’ve got a character sketch. He’s a quirky dog who clearly thinks he’s human. Do you like him or at least feel some reaction to him?

Now would you listen to a story about him? Even if I meander off course slightly–you might give me some leeway. (Although I’ll try my best not to)

Why? Because you’re interested in my main character. You’re wondering what he might do.

Emerson, realizing he was dealing with yet another flawed human, sat patiently in the middle of the kitchen–right in Dad’s way as he made himself a sandwich. Emerson glanced at Dad, then the cabinet where his food was and finally at his food bowl. He repeated this eye movement a dozen or so times until Dad got the message and opened the cabinet to find his food and feed him.

Not the most interesting story, but you listened right? Why? Is it because the character sparked your interest?

What do you think? Do you show enough of your character to intrigue the reader early on? What’s your experience with developing characters in your story?

Backspace Writer’s Conference-Part III

The second day of the Backspace Writer’s Conference kicked off with an amazing presentation by Kristin Nelson on writing the perfect query letter pitch. She had a way of distilling it right down to the heart of what a pitch should be. I walked out of there feeling so much better about crafting a pitch. She runs a very popular blog called Pub Rants. She mentioned that her agency receives approximately 150 queries a day. Then she explained how to get a query to stand out. She also mentioned that she skips to the pitch paragraph and then if she likes it she reads the rest of the letter.

Here are some query basics she mentioned:

• 1 page letter
• Think of it as a cover letter for your manuscript
• Introduce yourself to the agent, highlight what the project is about, and then have a closing
• Don’t be to casual in email queries
• Don’t query more than 1 agent in each email. No cc’ing the same email to 20 agents.
• If you are writing a trilogy or series, only talk about the book you are querying and mention series potential
• Personalize the query letter–address it to Dear Ms. Nelson not “To Whom it may concern”
• Don’t use cutesy font or backgrounds because it only makes it harder to read
• Don’t be unclear about the genre of your work
• Include the title of your work.
• Query intro paragraph should include: title, genre, if previously published author–highlight your credentials
• Logline should be part of pitch paragraph
• The query pitch paragraph  can be 1 paragraph or 2 short paragraphs
• Bio and background paragraph should be short and sweet

A lot of people talk about how hard it is to condense 300 pages into one paragraph—You don’t. Instead look at the first 30 pages of your novel and determine what is the inciting incident. That is your plot catalyst. What has to happen before the rest of the novel can unfold? What is the plot element that drives the story?

Pitch paragraph should be short–7 sentences is good.

Once you establish your catalyst, build the rest of the pitch around it. Include details to support the catalyst:

• Back story elements
• Interrelated elements
• Character insight

You can also have a hybrid of the three types of details.

Then we did a couple exercises to help find out pitch. All in all one of my favorite events of the day.

Next, I attended the Crafting the Perfect Hook Part II panel which was a “Midtown Idol” event modeled off of American Idol.

Some points I took away from that seminar were that:

• The logline should be exciting and brief
• You do not want a reactive protagonist
• Be clear on what happens
• The 2 pages have to push the story forward
• Every word in the 2 pages counts
• There should be a sense of urgency
• Scenes need levels to do more than 1 thing
• Use words to convey dialogue
• Sparingly use “she moaned” or “she purred” because this is explaining how dialogue reads and the dialogue should speak for itself
• If you have a character and its critical to the character, then this is not  back story
• But if you as an author need to tell the reader then it’s back story
• Logline=hook/climax of story
• Loglines are used in verbal pitch, agents bring to publishers

The next panel was on social media. The presenter began by advising that we set goals with use of social media by enforcing a firm time limit on it like 30 mins-1 hr a day. With millions of bloggers out there, you want to find people who care about you. Know who your target connections are–other authors, readers, PR, etc. He also stressed the importance of:

• Be a good listener
• Be well branded so someone looks at your account on Twitter and knows what you are about
• If you follow someone on twitter they know about it. Listen smart of Twitter by using keywords and setting up a listening post
• Social media presences can be on Facebook, Blog, Website homepage, Goodreads, Youtube, etc.
• Key is to drive people back to your website
• It is important to get people to give you their email so you can sent them stuff because email is #1 contact method on internet, then Facebook is #2.
• Make sure there is a button on your website that connects to Facebook
• Every 12 times mention someone else, can talk about yourself
• Never tweet over 120 characters because it can’t be retweeted
• Trying to drive readers to buy your book
• Engage people appropriately, don’t just be self promoting

The next panel I attended was about writing about sex, sin and other taboos. This panel had amazing authors whose books I cannot wait to read.

Randy Sue Meyers was the moderator and she handed out a print out of a recent blog post she made in writing sex, which btw I blogged about before the conference because it totally helped me buckle down and write my first big sex scene.  Some of the things that were discussed:

• A great reference book: The Joy of Writing Sex
• Gay regencies (I never know this existed, but I picked one up) written by M.J. Pearson
• You need tension and story and not always positive conflict
• Good sex is all the same
• Bad sex is really interesting
• There is tension in the unwanted or awkward
• Sex scenes can really bring depth to book
• Don’t write put tab A in slot B
• Trick is how to make them transition/progress there–natural balance in relationship, deepen relationship, provide strife
• Don’t be gratuitous–make sure sex scene has a purpose–there is a time and place for it
• Use the sex scene well and you’ll let the reader know something about the character they never thought they’d find out
• Keep in mind, when having sex you don’t think about partner’s broad shoulders. You don’t describe then when in the middle of the act
• STAY AWAY FROM CLINICAL WORDS–they pop the reader out of the story
• Emotional depths of character, sensations, what they feel–focus should be there
• Keep away from “glisten”
• Romance as a genre #1 rule is Happily Ever After
• Most writers have limits in what they will write in a sex  scene–no incest, nothing underage
• One hurdle the writer’s face when writing sex scenes is knowing mon/dad/daughter/son will read it
• Some use pseudonyms for short stories
• If the sex scene works it may not stand out because it worked
• Can use sex to illustrate something in a marriage
• Think about why writing the sex scene, what are you trying to access that can’t show in other ways, what emotions need to be brought out
• Just get it written –even if bad draft and then edit it
• Suzie Bright–How to Write  a Dirty Story

The next seminar was on how to plot. There are three basic stories:

• Man vs. man
• Man vs. God
• Man vs. himself

Plot is the events that happen in your story. All the machinations that cause things to happen. It weaves the pieces of events together. Story must have complications. Conflict is needed in plot. The villain cannot be a monster. Make him strong and memorable. If both hero and villain want something it creates an opportunity for plot and can set action in motion in book. Villain brings out best in hero by challenging him emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Plot is a solution to their problem.

Sad to say I missed the next speaker because I had to go home and feed my dog and grab dinner before the evening book signing and banquet. If anyone who attended wants to post a summary of it here please let me know or if you posted it on your blog I’d love to add a link to it. Luckily, as a BAckspace member, I can watch the recording later.

A Roadmap to your novel

In our first week of my online class, we learned to draft a 500-word plot summary of our novels. I’d already written my mystery novel, so this was a post drafting summary. But while researching what makes a good synopsis, I stumbled on a lot of advice about writing the synopsis before the story.

This sounded interesting and since I have a new novel I’m working on–total Kismet. That story stalled once because I didn’t know where I was going. I hate when I don’t know what the next scene is.  I froze up and worked on editing the other book instead.

Anyway, so I sat down and plotted out the story in 2 pages. Entire story. Done. Mind you OL played a huge part in story storming with me. It’s our version of brain storming where he asks questions or makes comments and bam I’ve suddenly plotted out a book in 30 minutes.

Anyway, since drafting the synopsis, I’ve been on a roll. I’ve written 5 new scenes this week alone. And it’s so much easier to know what comes next. Writing really is trial and error. I’ve learned so much from mistakes. I’d never take them back. But yeesh, it’s a tough journey sometimes.