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Posts Tagged ‘conflict’

Back to the Drawing Board

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

If you’re here looking for my GUTGAA Pitch Polish entry, go here.

I’m within sight of finishing the first draft of my YA alternate history, THE BARD’S GIFT, probably next week. So it’s time to look up and start thinking about what I’ll work on next, while the first draft cools a bit.

I have plenty of choices. Revisions to MAGE STORM are certainly at the top of the list. I have another story in first draft that I need to get back to, BLOOD IS THICKER, the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. And there are a couple of short stories that I need to polish up. I have a pretty good idea what to do with all of those stories. And that’s certainly enough to keep me busy until I can go back to work on THE BARD’S GIFT.

But, even though I may not start working on it yet, there’s one more story I’ll at least be thinking about as I try to figure out what to do next. This story was my first completed novel (if you don’t count the thing I wrote in college–and I don’t). In that incarnation, as THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, I thought it was a mainstream fantasy. Now, that version has so many serious flaws, I’m not even going to try to list them here, but, in spite of those flaws, I still love the characters and the whole arc of the story (which was always intended to be a series).

Therefore, last year about this time, I started a rewrite, this time as middle grade. I called it MAGIC’S FOOL and had even started the sequel, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE. The original story had to be changed, of course. Some elements had to be dropped and in order to tell a complete story in about half the length I had to choose a different central conflict. I like the results and was planning on going back for another round of revisions and then polish it up.

That was until WriteOnCon, where I found out that agents and editors don’t want stories with main characters betweeen twelve and fourteen years old. Bummer. My main character in MAGIC’S FOOL was thirteen. (He had started out as fifteen in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.)

So now, I have to go back to the drawing board and decide what to do with this story. It’s not an easy choice, like MAGE STORM, in which I can easily change or delete a couple of elements and make the protagonist younger, say around eleven. Thirteen was already pushing the limits on just how young this character can credibly be.

So, as far as I can see right now, my choices are:

  1. “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.” Just ignore this age limit or maybe delete the one or two references to the protagonists age and go ahead with it as it is. This feels a little like trying to swim upstream (even more than is normally the case).
  2. Keep the story as it is now (more or less) and just make the main character a bit older. Go back to fifteen as he was in the original. To do this credibly, the story would have to be expanded by about half again as much (from around 50,000 words to somewhere around 75,000 words). There are things I could expand. There are also a couple of subplots that could easily be added–and which would add depth to the overall plot. I’d be betting that agents and editors really mean it when they say they want boy YA stories.
  3. And the third possibility would be to go back to the original story line and central conflict. I’d still have to rewrite it, of course. That would actually be better and easier than trying to revise it. This version has what may be a more satisfying central conflict. That’s a draw, frankly. Now, I could still go two ways with this. I could still try to make it YA. There really aren’t any plot elements that are inappropriate for YA, although I might handle one of them a bit differently. Or I could just leave that alone and let it be a mainstream (adult, but not in a sexy way) story.

I’ll be giving this some thought as I work on the other revisions I’ve got stacked up.

 

 

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Inciting Incidents

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on August 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Related to my last post about middles, I’m going to share a few thoughts about inciting incidents.

Inciting incidents aren’t precisely beginnings. Even if a story starts in the middle of the action, as some do, the inciting incident may not occur until a bit later. I’m thinking here of HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON by Naomi Novik (quite a fun alternate history about the Napoleonic Wars–if both sides had an air force composed of dragons). This book opens with a sea battle, definitely in the middle of the action, but the inciting incident doesn’t occur until a bit later when the captured dragon egg hatches.

The inciting incident is the event that sets the rest of the story in motion, the thing that makes it impossible for the main character to continue on as they have been. The inciting incident also sets up what will be the central conflict for the story. For example, when Frodo discovers that the ring Bilbo left him is the One Ring of the Enemy.

Generally speaking, the inciting incident should occur within the first ten to fifteen percent of the story, or by about page thirty of a three-hundred page novel. Usually, the sooner the better–especially in young adult or middle grade fiction. My general rule is to try to have the inciting incident in the first chapter. In fact, if you were to look for the inciting incident in one of my novels, the last scene of the first chapter would be an excellent place to start the search.

Often, of course, especially with fantasy, the story needs a little set up before things start to unravel following the inciting incident. The reader needs a chance to find their feet in this new world that’s being introduced and a chance to learn to care about the main character. It’s a delicate balancing act.

There are different kinds of inciting incident, too. If a story is going to be about the internal journey of the main character, the inciting incident may not be a big external event. It might be something that other characters barely even notice. In an action-oriented story, it’s much more likely to be a big dramatic event.

This is where I’ve run into some questions from critiquers on recent stories. The later scene which I intend as the end of the first try/fail cycle may be much more dramatic. I’ve had a couple of critiquers on different stories misidentify the inciting incident.

Now, that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. What it likely means is that even though I mean the inciting incident to be something of importance only to the protagonist, at least at the start, I need to ramp up the significance to that character.

This is something I’ll need to consider when, later this year, I start the revisions to THE BARD’S GIFT. It will also be an important consideration when I figure out exactly which of several possible courses I’m going to take with the rewrite of MAGIC’S FOOL/MAGIC’S APPRENTICE (formerly THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY). Who know what the eventual title(s) of that story will be.

But titles are another subject entirely.

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Two Sides of the Craft

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on July 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

My recent reading–some good, some bad–has made me think more about this. It occurs to me that there are two separate parts of the craft of writing.

One part is unquestionably the writing itself, learning the techniques of making our stories come alive for readers. This encompasses most of the “rules” you’ll run into in books and critiques. Show vs. Tell (and both have their place), dialog tags and beats, avoiding adverbs, sticking to a single point of view at a time. There are whole books written just on these techniques. They’re the mechanics of how to get your story out, but they are not the story.

Of course, we all aspire to write eloquently. But it is possible to write competently and tell a rousing story. Some of these even become best sellers. And it is also possible to write well and not be able to tell a story. All the mastery of technique in the world is wasted without a good story.

Telling a story is also a craft. There are more things to learn, here–foreshadowing, plotting, pacing, characterization, character arcs, and weaving in subplots. And pitfalls to learn to avoid, like deus ex machina endings and withholding. Even a good story can be ruined by clumsy handling. I have, unfortunately, read a couple of those lately.

A really, really good writer has both sets of tools at their disposal–a mastery of the are of telling a story and the techniques to make the story come to life seamlessly. Sometimes that means an invisible narrator, who just keeps out of the way as the story unfolds. Sometimes it means a distinctive voice that draws the reader in. But neither one will work if the story isn’t right in the first place.

Anyway, that’s my opinion.

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Characters and Stories that Are Not for Me

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on May 1, 2012| 12 Comments »

Blogging a touch early because tomorrow morning is going to be too busy.

Over the last couple of years I’ve read several stories that just didn’t work for me. I want to be clear: this isn’t a judgment of whether these stories are good or not, just whether they’re the kind of story I like to read.

Of those that come immediately to mind–and no, I’m not going to name names or titles–two are by well-established and well-loved authors and one is a debut novel.

The thing all these books have in common and that makes them not work for me is a relatively inactive protagonist. It’s an inactive female protagonist in each case, but the fact is that I can’t think of a novel with an inactive male protagonist. I don’t really think that’s coincidence. These stories make me absolutely crazy.

Now, what I mean by an inactive protagonist is that this character doesn’t seem to be taking the lead in trying to solve the problem of the story, whatever it is. For one reason or another, this putative protagonist isn’t the real hero of the story. And that bugs me. It bugs me so much that it ruins the whole story for me. It bothers me even more when the story is aimed at a YA audience.

The one I’ll talk about was a very famous fantasy trilogy. Some of you may even guess which one it was. There’s no doubt the author is one of the premier fantasy writers of our time. The story was just wrong for me.

The first book was great, with a really kick-ass female protagonist. The second book was very hard for me to finish, in large part because that female character placed herself behind a much less capable male character (and love interest). They were actually, potentially, a very good pair–each providing strengths the other lacked. He was the thinker, she was the fighter. Cool!

However the male character’s agenda was allowed to overwhelm the female protagonist’s. Even though she knew there was something she should be doing, she hung back, letting the male character take the lead. I had to force my way through that book, telling myself that the second book in a trilogy is often the worst. The third book would be better, I was sure, because I had liked the first so much.

At the end of that second book, the male character was magically given the same abilities that the female had. Not only that, he was stronger. Ugh! And once again in the third book, the female protagonist sublimated her goals to his. To me, they were essentially fiddling while their world burned. I couldn’t even finish this book because I frankly just didn’t care what happened to these characters anymore.

The other books I referenced above have similar patterns. Female characters waiting for some guy to come along and make a plan and lead the problem solving. I don’t care if the protagonist has to enlist allies. That’s fine. I don’t even care if the allies turn out to have special skills that place them in leadership positions during part of the story. I do very definitely mind when the protagonist is not the one trying to solve the problem of the story. Oddly, that only seems to happen with female protagonists, which really burns me.

I want my protagonists to be active in trying to solve the problem. Now you know what kind of story you won’t be getting from me.

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Using Critiques

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on April 8, 2012| 7 Comments »

I can’t over emphasize the value of critiques–both getting and giving them. They’re not only how we make a story better, they’re also how we grow as writers.

I’m starting to work through the critiques of MAGIC’S FOOL so the topic of how to make the best use of these critiques is very apropos.

Some critiques are like ringing a bell. They start an avalanche of ideas that makes the writer jump up and down shouting “Of course. Of course, why didn’t I see that.” Those critiques are precious. Sometimes you have to work a little harder for that same insight, but it’s just as valuable when you do see it.

Often a critique or a group of critiques will point out a problem that the writer isn’t aware of. After all, as the writer, you know all sorts of things about the story that didn’t make it onto the page and no matter how long you let it rest you can’t ever completely come to the story the way a reader would. If three or more people say the same thing, you probably ought to pay attention because there likely is a problem there. But, and here’s where things get interesting, it isn’t always the problem that the critiquer points out. It might be something deeper. Occasionally, it’s something much simpler that leaves me saying to myself something like, “Yes, but if I hadn’t been an idiot and cut this paragraph, that would have made much better sense and you wouldn’t have been confused.”

In this case, I’ve got an interesting mix of critiques. One reader says that I need an external antagonist. Another keeps asking me to show not tell and says the first half was slow, but the second half was great. Still another says that the story has potential, but lacks excitement. As a writer what am I to make of this? 

The first thing is to wonder if they’re all reacting to the same thing and just saying it in different ways. I think they are. I think what they’re trying to say is that they’re not feeling the protagonist’s problem, at least during some parts of the story. I haven’t done a good enough job of ratcheting up the conflict.

 And now I have at least some ideas of how to make my protagonist’s conflict much stronger. I’ll need more, but that’s what revision is all about. So, thanks to my great beta readers. It’s going to be a much stronger story when I’m through with this revision.

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Getting Back in the Swing

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on December 7, 2011| 2 Comments »

Well, last month I finished up the first draft of MAGIC’S FOOL and turned my attention back to BLOOD IS THICKER.

BIT had run off into the weeds about half-way through November and I had to figure out how to get it back on track. It’s a first draft. These things happen sometimes. Sometimes, even if you outline–which I do only in very broad strokes–you get to a place in the story and realize your characters simply refuse to do what you’d planned for them. Then you have to break out the carrots or the whips and try to drive them back out into the storm.

In this case, I’d brought my main characters back to something that is endangered that they are trying very hard to protect. (No, I’m not going to tell you what. You’ll have to wait and read it.) Anyway, one of the people who had promised to guard this something for them so they could go out and seek a solution had let them down. They came back just in time to avert disaster. It was an important point for the two main characters, who had been somewhat at odds, to come back together again.

Now, the problem was to find a way to get them to leave again. Obviously, they can’t put their faith in that character again. Their obvious motivation would be to stick right there. The quest so far hadn’t really required their particular talents; others could do it just as well. So, I needed to figure out how to push them out of the nest (so to speak.)

I needed some inspiration. By letting my subconscious turn this problem around, I found a complication that makes their quest more urgent. It also ties in neatly with a subplot I’d set up earlier. I also found a way to use their peculiar talents–something the other characters can’t do as well.

So, all’s well with BLOOD IS THICKER again. All I need to do now is build some momentum.

I will say, though, it’s interesting switching gears between a middle grade fantasy and a paranormal romance.

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Writing Myself Into–And Out Of–A Corner

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on November 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well, it was bound to happen. It’s just the opposite of what I expected.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m about two-thirds of a discovery writer. Even when I’ve tried to write a chapter-by-chapter outline, I ignored it completely once I started to write and went where the story and the characters wanted to lead me. So, I don’t put myself through that anymore.

At the same time, my second book (now shelved) broke me of the idea of writing entirely by the seat of my pants. I require a few milestones before I’ll actually start writing. Generally, that’s the central conflict, the inciting incident, and the climax at a minimum. Better yet to have an idea of the first and second try/fail cycles, too. Enough of a road map, generally, to keep me from going too far off into the weeds with still enough freedom to discover some fun and exciting things along the way.

It’s not a guarantee, though. Well, nothing is, in writing or any other creative endeavor.

I’ve written myself into a bit of a corner on BLOOD IS THICKER. I know what needs to happen next. I just haven’t figured out why my characters would do that. From where I’ve go them now–and I like what leads up to this point–I just don’t see their motivation. I have to let my subconscious play with that and bubble up a few ideas. There needs to be something that pushes them back out. I have the beginnings of a notion of what that should be. If it works out, it’ll tie nicely into a subplot I started a few chapters ago. And that’ll strenghten the whole thing.

I know that I will eventually find the way out of this corner because I’ve done it before. I had the unfortunate experience last week of being stopped on both projects. MAGIC’S FOOL wasn’t really in a corner, though. I was just working out one of the new combined characters.

So, in the interim, I started work on the query for SEVEN STARS even though I don’t plan to start querying that until around March. It’s never too soon to start that because queries take a lot of polishing.

And then MAGIC’S FOOL came together in my head. I see my way clear to the ending now. Most likely I’ll go ahead and finish that while I let my subconscious play with the problem in BLOOD IS THICKER. 

What’s surprising is that MAGIC’S FOOL was the one I was struggling with because it’s a rewrite. I was deeply insecure about this one. Now I see pretty clearly exactly what I need to do. Not only to get to the end, but also what elements will need to be strengthened in the second draft. And I’m not worried about it anymore. This rewrite is going to work!

I really expected it to be BLOOD IS THICKER that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me finish it first. Goes to show you never can tell.

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Ending Conflicts Too Soon

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on October 23, 2011| 3 Comments »

I came across this problem last week. I’m not talking about the main conflict of the story, of course. That would mean I’d completed the story in eight chapters. Trust me, it’s not close.

No, but no novel (or very, very few) lives on a single conflict. There are always others–internal conflicts between mutually exclusive desires or fears. Conflicts between characters, even when they’re on the same side in the larger conflict. Sub plots. A dozen other kinds of conflict that enrich the story.

And I acknowledge that I have a problem. I have a desire to end a particular kind of conflict too early. It’s the conflict between my two romantic leads. I have no problem stringing this out before they come together. It’s after they’ve become a couple that I tend to want to smooth over their little differences. I want them to be happy together. But the course of true love never does run smooth–certainly not in fiction.

BLOOD IS THICKER is the sequel to my paranormal romance BLOOD WILL TELL. The central conflict hits very close to newly-weds Rolf and Valeriah. And there’s a conflict between them in how to deal with it. Rolf wants to run around trying to fix it (typical male). Valeriah is driven to protect . . .  well, you’ll just have to wait and read it to find out what she wants to protect.  Can’t give too much away.  (Besides, it’d take too much backstory to explain in this post.)

Rolf is basically clueless and occasionally puzzled by Valeriah’s reaction. For Vallie, it’s a sort of hot and cold conflict. Sometimes she’s really pissed off with Rolf. (And she’s half werewolf.  You really don’t want to make her mad.) Other times, she’s merely annoyed. Which, of course, only makes Rolf more confused. He’s trying to be strong for her and she’s reading it as detached.

I had the scene in my head where Rolf finally gets it and they get back on track. So, I wrote it. Nothing wrong with that. But I’d only gotten a couple of chapters further before I realized my mistake. It’s a good scene. I’m going to keep it. It just can’t happen for about a dozen more chapters, bringing them back solidly together just before the climax.

So, I’ve spent the last few days redoing chapters 7 thru 9. I don’t usually allow myself to go back during a first draft. I try to make the first draft forward only and keep the infernal internal editor switched off. But when it’s a conflict I need to pull forward in the story, well, I didn’t think I had any choice.

Even better, this conflict allows me to draw two characters closer together and set up a separate conflict which will probably continue even when the first is resolved. Don’t you love it when that happens?

Back on track, now and almost done with chapter 10.

In other news, Rebekah Loper has passed on a couple of blog awards to me.

The Blog on Fire award, which requires me to share seven (more) facts about myself and pass it on.

 

 

 

And the 7 x 7 Link Award, which requires me to choose one of my posts in each of seven different categories and then pass the award along.

 

 

Thank you, Rebekah. I’ll be taking care of the requirements in my next blog post.

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Escalation

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 28, 2011| 11 Comments »

It’s not a secret. Things should get worse and worse for your characters until the climax, when, hopefully, the conflict is resolved, the protagonist having won, learned something, and grown or changed. In most, if not all, of my stories, that’s also going to put the protagonist in a position to finally get what he wants–which may or may not be what he thought he wanted at the beginning of the story.

I’m ashamed to say that in one of my current projects, I got that wrong. Not for the story as a whole. Just for the first try/fail cycle. Still, that’s bad enough.

How did that happen? Well, I was making revisions and I added some events to help make the central conflict clearer right from the beginning. So far so good. It’s just that I added them in the wrong order.

This is where a great critique group is the biggest help. It’s more than possible to be so close into the details yourself that you can’t see a screw up like this. But a critiquer will tell you that something is off.

So now I just have to go back and put things in the right order.

  1. Insignificant event that shows the problem, but doesn’t make it seem very bad.
  2. Public event that is largely benign, but upsets people.
  3. Overheard reaction of those people.
  4. Major event that scares the protagonist into taking more action.

Yeah, that’ll work much better than the other way around.

Edited to add:

Well, I thought that plan was going to work, but after playing with it all day, I’ve decided against it. Plan B is to just add some more tension and danger to the last incident. I need to see if I can make it as scary–or even scarier–than the first.

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The End

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on August 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

Gosh, I got so involved in revising the end of SEVEN STARS that I almost forgot to blog. (Well, that, and Mom’s birthday.)

I haven’t quite finished this round, yet. But I’m awfully close. I just might press on and finish it tonight. I’ll still want to do another read-through and I still have a couple of things I want to add or strengthen.

While I made revisions throughout the book, I think the beginning and the end changed the most.

The end is actually changing. But some of how the characters get there is. Some of the way things happened in the earlier drafts didn’t build tension the way it needs to. Plus I seem to have skipped some internal monologue towards the end. Actually, I think I was getting a bit fatigued when I wrote the original ending. But that’s what good critiquers will help you with–and keep you honest about.

I had to write two new fight scenes. Not the easiest thing for me to write, but I hope I’ve done a better job of it. That’s what readers will tell me, though.

I’m still really loving this story.

 

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