Lessons from The Source Code

Imagine an aspiring doctor or med student who, upon being invited to sit in on a lung replacement operation, declines because they’re planning on going into podiatry and, besides, they have a conflicting tee time.

Only on Grey’s Anatomy.

Which is my way of introducing you to a movie I’m hoping you’ll check out.  One that may or may not be your cup of Joe.  It’s science fiction, with elements of action thriller and speculative adult drama.

It’ll be worth your time.  Both as a movie experience, and more importantly, as a writer seeking to steepen your learning curve on story structure.

It’s called The Source Code.

It stars Jake Gyllenhaal (pronounced Jill ‘n Hall in case you’ve never watched Extra on TV) as a decorated soldier who suddenly wakes up – the term used loosely here – inside the body and life of another man, someone he’d never heard of.  At first it’s as confusing to him as it is to the viewer.

The film has been getting good reviews and it’s a lot of fun, in addition to being thought-provoking.  But more importantly, it’s a clinic for writers, one that strips away the flesh of dialogue and setting to exposure the bare bones of story structure and dramatic physics.

If you’re struggling to understand story architecture, if you’re a “show me” type of learner, or if you’d simply like to the see Six Core Competencies play out before your writerly eyes as if someone was narrating with Cliff Notes and a highlighter… this is the story.

You might even want to see it twice.

Check your watch, the plot points happen right when they’re supposed to.

Notice how the hook happens early.  As in, the first scene.  And how the hook isn’t the First Plot Point (it never is), it’s just a way of kicking things off in a compelling way by posing questions that compel answers.

Notice how the first quartile of the story – Part 1 – is 100% a set-up of what’s to come, none of it explained.  This is intentional and perfect, the job here isn’t to answer questions, it’s to pose them. 

Also, if you notice there’s precious little here in Part/Act I  in the way of character establishment or development, well, that’s part of the set-up.  Be patient.

Pay attention to how – and this is critical – nothing changes at the First Plot Point. 

That isn’t a rule, it’s an option.  But the role of the First Plot Point isn’t optional.

When the First Plot Point arrives (right on time, too, and clearly so, as the hero demands answers to the same questions you’ve been asking), it fulfills the primary purpose of this most important of all the story milestones: the hero suddenly has a mission.  A quest.  A need.  One neither he nor the viewer fully understood before this moment.  One with an opponent.  One with stakes (that weren’t there until the FPP).

Notice how, after the First Plot Point, everything that happens is there to show the hero’s response to this new agenda and quest.

Then – and it is just as critical – comes a whopper of Mid-Point context shift. 

The curtain parts, both for the audience and the hero, which is the first job of the Mid-Point.  Note how this changes the context of the hero’s journey (in Part 3, which follows), how he is suddenly in attack mode as opposed to the response mode of the second quartile (Part 2) of the story.

Then comes the Second Plot Point, which is even more astounding and game-changing than the First.  Notice how the story spins in a new direction here toward what we know will be the climax of it all, and how our hero takes charge –  literally – of that resolution.

It’s all classic story architecture.

Notice, too, how this is all concept-driven, and how the concept is exposed early but not explained until, well, the First Plot Point.  This isn’t a rule, per se, it was the writer’s choice, but in terms of how the set-up is built and the nature of the First Plot Point, it’s perfect.

In fact, the First Plot is the explanation of the story’s concept.

Notice how character builds, adding layers and backstory and inner demons along the way.  Notice how we begin to care about this guy, how the story becomes more than a cool and astoundingly original idea as it morphs into something we empathize with.

Something with theme infusing every scene.

Check out the sub-plot (a romance, often the best sub-plot you can create), which provides sub-text to the primary conflict.

And watch how the writer doesn’t give it all away, how there are dead ends and suspect baddies and a nifty deception that’s been visible all along if you just knew where to look.

And then, at the end – which, admittedly, relies on some very Hollywoodesque leaps of logic as it asks the viewer to just go with it (none of which compromises story structure, by the way) – makes you feel, makes you smile and maybe even pinch back a tear or two.

That’s the power of theme.  Right here slapping you upside your head in this overtly high concept thriller being marketed to fan boys, popcorn movie lovers and Gyllenhaal fans.

Theme isn’t optional.  Ever.  No matter how cool the special effects.  No more or no less than the other five core competencies.

The Model Exposed

Not everyone likes or writes science fiction or even high concept adult fiction.  Some writers favor character-driven drama, romance and the arena of historical context to add juice to the experience.

Not everyone believes movies are a place that can shed light on story architecture for novelists, either.

Doesn’t matter, in either case.  When it’s there for the taking, the exposure and illumination of classic story architecture at work, and effectively so, is an opportunity the real writer – in any genre – should not pass up.

Need more story architecture?  Check out my new book, “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Storytelling,” out now from Writers Digest Books.

Also, if you’d like to see these principles demonstrated just as clearly in a critically-acclaimed novel, I’ve just released my 2004 novel, Bait and Switch, as a new Kindle edition for only $2.99.  Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and named it to their “Best Books of 2004” list, so I’m not all full of myself in suggesting that you might just like it.  A funny, sexy thriller, if that’s your thing.

Story Architecture: A Clinic With Popcorn is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

We get stuff stuck in our heads.  One way to get the wrong stuff unstuck and the right stuff successfully installed is to experience the learning – the truth – in different ways.

Some refer to these different ways as learning styles.  Cognitive.  Kinesthetic.  Active.  Inactive.  Two-by-four to the skull.

It’s all good if it gets the right stuff into the proper brain cells.

When it comes to writing, we must acknowledge we are dealing with some abstract, fluid and frankly cloudy issues which sometimes elude us.  Contradictory opinion makes this landscape even more nefarious, like trying to land an airplane in a fog bank during an earthquake with no fuel and no landing gear.

Even when we see it on the page, sometimes we aren’t quite sure what just happened.

As writers seeking to be successful, we must be sure.

That’s why I use so many analogies as I preach the gospel of the Six Core Competencies.  I describe my approach as a left-brained attack on a right-brained avocation, though I am quite certain a successful story draws equally from both hemispheres.

Here, then, are some analogies, one for each core competency, that might help the hemispheres of your brain collide and make magic.

Concept

An idea is a seed.  An idea is rarely a vetted, viable concept.

A ghost story about doctors.  That’s not a concept, it’s a seed, the germ of an idea.

A ghost story about a deceased doctor who keeps showing up in an inner city ER to save patients without insurance… that’s a concept.  An idea with legs.  An open door to the consideration of the other core competencies, which the seed alone doesn’t provide.

Seeds come in all sizes and shapes and purposes.  But without planting, without nourishment and watering, they are nothing more than little buds with no story to tell.

Unless you’re making a salad, the seed is never the end-game. 

Sometimes we aren’t sure what seed we hold in our hand.  So we plant it, nourish it, and soon it begins to show itself for what it is.  What it should become.  In which case, you may need to transplant it from a pot to a yard, because the thing was an oak instead of a tulip all along.

If you stare at the seed long enough, you begin to ask it questions.  Who are you?  What can you do?  And then, when you ask the right questions, those inspired by the literary license to transform any seed in the world to any plant/story species in the world – which we have as writers, by the way – the questions change.

You play with the seed until the questions – the what if? questions – begin to possess you.  When one of them quickens your pulse, you know your seed has just become a concept.

Character

Two words: Charlie Sheen.

Love him or hate him, there’s no arguing he’s complicated.  Maybe a little sick.  Possibly as brilliant as he claims to be.  Certainly contrary to much of what we hold as heroic.  Inarguably multi-dimensional.

So is he the hero or the antagonist?  Too early to tell.  A plot twist may be coming.

He has a backstory.  He has character arc.   And – if you’ve been paying attention – he has an entire detox-center full of inner demons.

All of which he denies.  He is a case study in truth or dare, truth or consequences, true grit versus truly pathetic.

He shows us three dimensions of demonstrated character.  The guy on television, the character written for him, the man the show dictates must appear in that role.

The guy whose bluster is transparent and his fear palpable.

The guy we can relate to, or at least in this instance empathize with, because he has children he loves that a court of law says he can’t see.  He is a walking poster boy of sub-text.

The ending isn’t written yet, and the ending is where true, third-dimension character emerges.

The character is never the story.  The character is our window into the story.  There’s a funky guy in Albuquerque suing his employer, too, but we don’t care.  It’s the character that draws is in, and it’s what happens to the character that provides the stage for us to see who he is.

Theme

It’s Sunday.  You go to church with a heavy heart. 

The preacher opens with a story about his recent fishing trip.  About the ride out to the lake.  About the new gear in the back of the SUV.  About the stunning sunrise and the reflection of the mountains on a smooth glass of morning water.

About his complex relationship with the fish.

He cites scripture about becoming “fishers of men.”  

And you leave… clueless.  You have no idea what that fishing trip has to do with you, with life, or with scripture.

You just experienced a story without theme.  Without meaning and relevance.

Entertaining and interesting… yes.  The guy tells a great story. 

But it’s not what you came for.  The preacher was into it, passionate about it, and wanted to share it.  But it was about him, not you.  He wrote that sermon for himself, even though he believed others might get something from it.

You didn’t.  As a sermon, as it was written and presented, it was empty.  Void of meaning.  And you’ll forget it by next Sunday.  In which case, you just might try another church altogether.

The story has to pierce the heart of the reader.  A great story is always entertaining… and always relevant to life on a personal level… for the reader.

Structure/Plot

Let’s talk about sex.  About love making.  Romance.  Stage setting.  Foreplay.

Sex has structure to it.  Oh yes it does.  All the stuff you can think of that seems to defy structure in sexuality is really from, analogously, what would be the other five core competencies.  But when it comes to what happens when — not how – in what order and why, which is the essence of structure, things go down pretty much same for everybody.

And if you doubt that, when was the last time you began your love making with an orgasm and ended it by undressing your partner and pouring a glass of wine?

This is true even if you’re in the room alone.

And it’s especially true if you want to turn professional, which is another story altogether. 

Just sayin’.  That’s how you discover structure in storytelling… by looking beneath and beyond the concept and characters and theme and the inherent creative lattitude of storytelling and really comprehend the sequence of the story’s architecture.

Known fact: with sex, going too fast too soon doesn’t usually work.  Neither does going in the wrong direction, or – horror of horrors – screwing up the ending.  Satisfaction is at the heart of the implied contract between consenting participants.

The most powerful thing about love making is a sense of anticipation.  Of exploring sexual tension and expressing feelings.  The give and take.  The mystery and fascination.  The complete and total confidence and thrill that comes with submission and/or taking charge. 

If one party just lies there, the story isn’t a good one.

Some like it edgy, some prefer it safe.  It’s always a dance, never a solo.  At least when it’s good.

You understand the genre of what you’re about to do before you light the candles.  If you’re both on that particular page, then limits expand.  But woe to the lover who brings out the wet suit when the partner wants to stay on dry land.

It’s organic and natural, but it’s not.  You can play, but you dare not stray from the expected lane, even if you challenge it which can be fun if the swerve is mutual.  If you turn on Letterman in the middle of the story, you’ll lose your audience. 

The night has phases, and you know not to mess with them.  The dinner out.  The candles and music.  The dress code.  The limitations.  The context of the past (as in, make-up sex versus stranger sex versus first-time sex, versus agenda sex, etc.).  The passion of the present.  The learning curve and the open door.

You don’t make love between the salad and the entre.

It’s a sequence that never changes.  Even so, it has limited creative options and opportunities.

It’s all about the foreplay. The set-up.  The ying and the yang.  Don’t write a story without them.

You know how it ends before you begin.  Getting there is the real story.

Which, if you know what you’re doing, you time and execute perfectly.

Scene Execution

It’s time to drop to one knee and propose.  You pick the day.  The spot.  You buy the perfect ring.  And now you have some choices to make.  Because there are lots of ways to pull this off.

But because it’s so important, it has to be perfect.  You could do it easy, impulsively, off the top of your head (that’s for you, pantsers), what feels good in the moment… or you can plan it, in context to what you know about your story, so it’s perfect.

This scene has a succinctly defined mission, as all scenes should.  You know precisely what needs to be put into play. The mannin in which it changes the story going forward.  Now it’s a question of how to make it happen.

A proposal – just like a scene in a story – always happens in context to a past and a future.  How you got there matters.  What you do to prepare matters.  What happens next matters even more. 

What you know about your story, and your intended, also matters – you’re not going to shower flowers on someone who is allergic to pollen, and you’re not going to propose via text to a hopeless romantic.

Your creative choices don’t just forward the plot, they matter to all five of the other core competencies.  Just as much as the mission of the scene matters.  But no more or no less.  Because it will become part of your story.  It will forward it, energize it.

Writing Voice

You’re a talent scout for a major record company.  You used to be a book editor, but this pays more.  Someone recommends a local band, so you drive to Walla Walla to sit in on their gig at Monty’s Grill and Karaoke Bar.

The band is solid.  They write their own stuff, and it’s got edge.  Chicago meets Muse, with a dash of Jay-Z.  Not your typical garage fare.  The drummer is better than a lot of your contracted acts.  The guitars are tasty, too, ready for radio. 

But that singer… ouch.  Not that he/she is off tune, just… boring.  Nondescript.  High school talent show 101. 

Thing is, he/she is the founder of the band.  He/she is the band.  As in a story, there’s no separating the singer from the band.  The singer defines the band.

And so you pass.  The music is great, but the voice… not so much.  It won’t compete at a professional level.

Not that you need the next Daughtry or Josh Groban.  You should be so lucky.  A lot of bands do well with so-so singers, but the voice must at least compete.  This singer doesn’t have the chops, despite the killer songwriting.

It’s all about the story… until the voice detracts from it.  In that case it’s a deal killer.

Any light bulbs going off out there?  Hope so.

Larry Brooks is the author of “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing,” just out from Writers Digest Books, and has spent much of the four weeks since its release as the #1 bestselling fiction writing book on Amazon.com.

Special offer: if you forward a receipt to (storyfixer@gmail.com) for an online purchase of the book (or not, I trust you) dated between today and the end of the month I’ll send you my ebook, “101 Slightly Unpredictable Tips for Novelists and Screenwriters” for free.  Just say “Storyfix sent me” in the subject line (or not) and the deal is yours.

And if you bought the book earlier, you have my sincere thanks, but not the free ebook.  Gotta get the rest of the gang off the procrastinating dime here.  My hope is that, having read it, you already feel like you’ve received more than your money’s worth.

Procrastinating?

Here’s a timely post that will help.  It’s from  Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen, a blog about how to get things done, and done right.  Click HERE to check it out.  Mary is also the editor over at Writetodone.com, so she always reflects a writer’s point of view.

Six Core Analogies for the Six Core Competencies is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Even if you’ve seen the preview and decided this isn’t your cup of tea. 

It’s a high concept story that has traces of, well, some creative and contemporary blending of fantasy, science fiction and The Twilight Zone. 

Why should you see this movie? 

Because you’re a writer.  That should be reason enough.

Because, like a med student who doesn’t consider those cadavers in Pathology 101 her cup of tea, either, we need to pursue every possible avenue and opportunity to wrap our heads around the craft of storytelling.  And nothing says “ah-hah!” quite like seeing it done well.

And if you’re about to invoke your rights as a novelist who feels above the craft of the screenwriter, think again: story is story, and there’s no more transparent tutorial for it than in a solid flick.

If you were a budding tennis player and Roger Federer was in town for an exhibition, you’d go, right? 

This story is like a 2-hour crash course in concept, story structure and theme.  Which, if you’ve been paying attention here on Storyfix, are two of the six things we need to master before we can produce publishable work.

The other three essential core competencies are on display, too, but it is these three – concept, structure and theme – that are sometimes best internalized by seeing them in full glorious action, rendered by skilled professionals.

The Adjustment Bureau, while a pretty good movie (my opinion), is a clinic in those three particular core competencies.

Let’s start with story structure.

I won’t belabor it (again), but there are four parts of a story – novel or movie – each with different contextual missions, each separated by specific milestones that have their own mission statements.

Internalizing that little gem alone can set you apart from the workshop crowd.

Over half of my new book defines what those parts and milestones are, and they’re available on this site in my Story Structure series (see the Categories and Archives tabs for those).

Take a notepad to the theater for this one, see if you can pick out the hook, the first plot point, the first pinch point, the context-shifting mid-point, the lull before the second plot point, and the second plot point itself.

If you can’t, then I hope you’ll go back to study up on them.  Because they’re dramatically evident in this movie (they might as well scroll font across the bottom of the screen when they show up).

A Killer Concept

There’s little doubt that the first spark of creative life for this story began with its concept.  Such a spark can theoretically come from any of the four elemental core competencies, by the way – concept, character, theme and story sequence/plot – but in speculative stories like this it’s concept that is often the ignition point.

Chances are, too, that the creator of the original story (Phillip K. Dick, upon whose short story this film is based) used the tried-and-true “what if?” technique to get there:

What if our fate is really being controlled by forces we cannot see or control?  What if we try to defy them in the name of love?

See this film to experience how many directions a powerful “what if?” concept can take you, and why a descending decision tree of creative choices becomes the most powerful story-design technique ever devised.

That alone is worth the price of admission… times a thousand.

An Eternal Theme

Often when we stumble across a compelling and powerful “what if?” concept, we are milliseconds away from encountering an equally provocative thematic landscape.

Go to the film’s official website and you’ll see the theme announced in the title graphics.  You can watch the trailer, too, which reveals (as they often do) of several of the story’s major milestones.

Watch and learn. 

And grab some popcorn while you’re at it… just don’t get any that that greasy stuff that is supposed to pass for butter on your notes.  Because you’ll want to go over them in detail later.

(Storyfix is an affliate of Amazon.com. Somewhere out there is a guy in a cheap suit making sure this is noted.)

A Whole Truckload of Reasons You Should See “The Adjustment Bureau” is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Allow me to be completely honest and transparent here. 

I’ve been looking for a way to notify my 4000 or so Storyfix friends when my new book, “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing” finally launches.

So let me go straight at this:

It’s out.

Actually, the fabled “publication date” is a bit of a ballpark thing these days. 

The Amazon listing for the book, which has been up for about six months, had listed today, February 24^th, as the “Publication date.”  But it’s been for sale there on a pre-order basis for about two months, and they began delivering on those pre-orders about two weeks ago.

As for the bookstores, they’re typically late to this party.  Some may have the book now, but the ones I checked at dawn this morning – yeah, that’s how it goes on Launch Day – didn’t have it yet.

I encourage you to ask your bookseller to get with the program.

If you’ve been here for a while you’ve had your share of my previews and references and links about Story Engineering.  A good number of you have already opted in, and for that I thank you.

By the way, the book has already visited the #1 spot on Amazon’s “Top 100 Bestsellers” within the fiction writing category (if there’s a book out there, it has  a category;) for both the trade paperback and the Kindle versions.  It’s bounced around the Top-15 for a few days now (it’s currently #2 on the Kindle list as I write this), but it’s a long road ahead and chances are I’ll be checking in there about every 90 seconds or so.

That’s how it goes from the writer side of this process.  It’s what you’ll do, too, when your book reaches launch day.

Any writer who says she/he doesn’t check is lying.  Any writer who says they don’t care is named Jonathan Franzen (inside joke, Google him and Oprah in the same line and you’ll get it).

So here we are.  The book is out. 

I hope you’ll pick one up.  It’s the whole six core competencies enchilada, complete with extra spicy sauce and examples right off the bookshelf.

Dare I say, it’s the book you’ve been looking for to wrap your head around turning a story idea into a publishable manuscript.  There are many other worthy and wonderful titles out there in this arena – including the work attributed to the names below — but you should know that Story Engineering offers a completely new paradigm and model on how to get it done.

We never get too much insight into things that are both hard and worthwhile.

For now, I’d like to offer you a few blurbs from some famous names.  Terry Brooks, Christopher Vogler and Jim Frey kind of famous.

I told you I didn’t make this sh*t up. 

I just broke it down, then re-interpreted, re-engineered and repackaged it in a way that’s never been done before.   

The Blurbs

“If you’ve been searching for an accessible, well-reasoned explanation of how the story building process works, look no further. Here is the roadmap you need to understand the craft of writing.”  –Terry Brooks, author of more than twenty five bestselling novels including The Sword of Shannara

“Nobody on the planet teaches story structure better than Larry Brooks.  Nobody.” – Randy Ingermanson, author of Writing Fiction for Dummies

“Story Engineering is a master class in novel writing. Reading it is like getting an MFA, without the pesky admissions process or student loans. This book will make you smarter about the craft. Period.”  – Chelsea Cain, New York Times Bestselling author of  Heartsick, Sweetheart, and Evil at Heart

“Larry Brooks’s Story Engineering is a brilliant instructional manual for fiction writers that covers what the author calls the `Six Competencies of Successful Storytelling.’ The author presents a storytelling model that keeps the writer focused on creating a dynamic living and breathing story from concept to the `beat sheet’ plan, through story structure and writings scenes. It’s a wonderful guide for the beginner and a great refresher for the pro. I guarantee this book will give you new ways to fire up your creativity.”  – Jim Frey, author of How to Write a Damn Good Novel

“A useful guide explaining how to transfer screenwriting techniques to the craft of novel-writing. Good for screenwriters, too, summarizing the essence of entertaining commercial storytelling with great clarity.”  – Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure  for Writers

“Larry Brooks’ groundbreaking book offers both novelists and screenwriters a model for storytelling that is nothing short of brilliant in its simplicity, its depth, its originality and its universality. Following his unique process is guaranteed to elevate your writing to the highest professional level.” – Michael Hauge, author of Writing Screenplays That Sell, and Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds

“Save yourself years of fuzzy workshops and failed drafts. Here is Story revealed with clarity, inspiration and simplicity. A masterful guide to the novel.” – Kay Kenyon, author of Bright of the Sky

Thank you, Storyfix readers, for making this book a reality.

Larry’s son, Nelson, has one more college year to go , so he hopes you’ll give Story Engineering a try.  It’s unconditionally guaranteed to enlighten and empower your storytelling process, so if you decide you want your money back… see the clerk at Barnes & Noble.

Kidding.

Day Zero: The Morning Your Book Hits the Street is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

I tend to view the world through the lens of a writer.  Which means I’m constantly assigning meaning to things while scanning for hooks and nuances and story opportunities.

What some people mistake as a dumb blank stare and others as stand-offishness is really me trying to read between the lines.

I view the writing journey as just that – a journey – something to be savored and struggled with.  Anything we commit ourselves to – writing, love, a day job, a fitness program – becomes a seminar complete with exercises and feedback and broken intentions, all of it imparting available wisdom for those who take the time to notice. 

Like American Idol, for example.  

A guilty pleasure of mine.  Which is perhaps why I’m writing about it here, trying to attach some measure of meaning to it.

It’s art, it’s craft, it’s talent.  Or not.  It’s a dream struggling for breath. 

Sounds a lot like writing to me.

I can’t help but notice the parallel between what these kids are trying to accomplish and what anyone who has sat down to pour a story onto a page is faced with. 

That includes the jokesters who don’t take it seriously, who wrap a gimmick around their voice, usually to mask inadequacies.  The self-deluded few who can’t carry a tune yet believe themselves to be supremely gifted, who are invariably indignant finger-flippers as they storm out of the facility.  The good-but-not-great aspirants who fail to realize they need a non-gimmick hook to stand out.  The inconsistencies and prejudices of the judges who wield the gavel on it all.

It isn’t fair.  A lot a great talent goes home.  But it is life itself playing out on that stage.

In life, everybody gets rejected.  Everybody.  It’s who comes back for the next audition that counts.

I just finished watching the first two Hollywood week installments. 

What we see are those who seemed worthy, breaking the promise of their first impression.  We watch them beg for their lives after Randy has sent them packing.  We witness back stabbing, elitism and ego, style trumping substance, and substance trampled beneath a veneer of glitter and bluster.

We see hearts splattering and dreams shattering.  And we see doors open as an emerging light ignites hope.

We see life.  We see ourselves, and we wonder how we might fare if there was an equivalent competitive venue for our storytelling.

Which there is, by the way.  Absolutely. 

It’s called publishing, however you wish to define it.

Because what we put out there – either through submission to publishers or our declaration of self-publishing – is subject to the same fickle whims and inequities as those kids on AI are facing.

So what of it?  Life hasn’t been fair for a long time, and yet, there are the very consistent physics of intention-leading-to-consequence manifesting all around us.  What’s to be learned from this ear-candy analogy for writers looking for an edge to get into the next round?

What makes a dream come true?

There are four variables play on AI.

I broke it down this week.  Those singers – and those writers tracking with this analogous parallel universe – have only four weapons at their disposal.  Four arrows in the quiver.  Four hammers in the toolbox.

They have their voice.

They have their look.

They have their stage presence.

And they have, or at least they need, an indefinable something else.  What the departed Simon Cowell called “the it factor.”

Do all four need to be there?  Yes, to some degree.  Can you make it if one of them is only mediocre in comparison to the competition?  Sometimes.  If you saw the Grammys you know after watching Bob Dylan that a singing voice is sometimes optional.

But can you make it if all four are simply good, yet none of them stand out and scream, “I’m the next American Idol!” rather than, “I’m the next winner of the weekend karaoke-a-thon at Sparky’s Bar and Grill!”

Something needs to pop.  To explode. 

And as it sizzles, the others need to be conjured and presented at a professional level.

Look closely at next week’s cuts, and notice who gets on the show and who doesn’t.  One of those four things will be off-the-charts compelling for those going on to the next round.  The rest… hey, they were good.  They got this far.

But it wasn’t enough. 

Maybe it’ll be that cute chubby kid we can’t help but root for.  Love that guy.  Sure, he sings wonderfully, but his stage presence is, well, under development.  But he has an off-the-charts X-factor, if not an It-factor. 

Maybe it’s the cheery guy with the beard whose voice sounds like a loofa being scraped over a microphone.  A growl that sounds good because it translates to passion and soul.  His stage presence recalls an orgasm you wish you had.  And the sum of it – a guy who looks like he should be driving George Clooney’s car – is astoundingly charismatic. 

Josh Groban isn’t threatened, but I bet he’s a toe-tapping fan.

And of course, there is the bevy of hot young starlets betting their dream on their shoes and eye-liner.  Is that enough?  Not when it’s a commodity.  And yet, when you have a two singers of equal talent, one who looks like Britney Spears and the other who looks like Flo at the mall Starbucks, who’s gonna get the nod?

Like I said, life isn’t fair.

And neither is the world of publishing your writing. 

But it’s fair enough, because there are laws of physics in play.  Dynamics of expectation.  They are, in fact, the same imprecise forces we see up on that American Idol stage.

The wise writer notices and makes a plan.

In our case, there are six variables in play. 

All six need to be good, even great.  But if all six are simply good – even great –that probably isn’t enough.  Just like the auditions for AI, in which hundreds of pretty darn good singers are sent packing, it takes more.

It takes at least one of those six things to pop.  To explode.  To differentiate.  To grab and intrigue and seduce.

I call them the Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling. 

They are: concept, character, theme, story structure (plot), scene execution and writing voice.  They are non-negotiable, yet flexible.

Voice is a commodity.  Just like on Idol.  You are not the next Josh Groban of literature, Jonathan Franzen grabbed that golden ring and ran with it.  You need something else to establish your differentiated brand, your talent.

Chances are you’re pretty good at most if not all of the Six Core Competencies.  Hey, you’re not in this game because you struggle with sentence structure.

But simply knowing that you have to swing for the fences with at least one of those Six Core Competencies could be the thing that launches your career into a higher orbit.

Too many writers don’t embrace that challenge.  They try to write just like their favorite author.  To blend in to a published crowed.

What do you do better in your stories than any other writer, and that an editor or reader hasn’t seen in a long time, or in that form?  That is the question.

The karaoke bars are full of people who sound every bit as good as the lead singer of Lady Antebellum.  Trust me, you do not want to be just another storyteller who can write well.

No, you want to be the next Chuck Palahnuik.  Who writes like nobody else out there. 

So keep singing.  Keep going to the audition.  Keep working on craft.  But do it while thinking Big, and strategically.

Whether in traditional publishing or the emerging self-publishing arena, good isn’t good enough anymore.   At least to break in and make your name.

Sometimes you have to scream.  And look good in the process. 

My new book, “Story Engineering: Mastering The Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing,” is available now on Amazon.com and other online venues, and will be in bookstores by early March.

The Writing World According to American Idol is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Steroids for writers.  Hmmm… what an interesting notion.

A magic pill that will make you stronger, faster, better and more successful, almost immediately.

I’ve got just the ticket for you.  And it’s not even illegal, immoral or, once you let go of some old school brainwashing, controversial. 

In fact, it’s not even debatable.

This is the dirty little secret of writing fiction.

You’ve been looking for something to take you to the next level.  To put you into the game.  Do this, and do it right, and your learning curve will go vertical, and your career will suddenly kick into a higher gear.

It won’t give you talent.  But it will unleash the talent you have.

Here’s a tough truth: if you don’t go for this idea, you’ll have to find another way to discover and inject into your brain the exact same things it’ll do for  you… only it’ll take you years, even decades to get there.

What same things?  If you have to ask… you need this steroid.

This steroid changes you almost immediately.  Overnight if you’re a fast reader.  No, I’m not selling you my book or ebooks here.  I’m pointing you toward a strategy that just might be the most significant milestone in your fiction writing learning curve.

Guessed it yet?  I bet not.  That’s because…

It’s not what you signed up for. 

It might even offend your very expensive grad school aesthetic sensibilities.  You might consider this akin to learning how to whip up a perfect Pomodori Secchi e Basilia sauce (sundried tomato and basil, after a year of cooking school in Paris) by first learning how to bread chicken.

Or, you think that because you’ve taken all the workshops and written a rather significant pile of manuscripts, that your learning curve is moot and it’s just a matter of time for you.

If that’s you, I submit to you that it may be this very skewed sensibility that is holding you back.

It doesn’t make you better if it takes you years to discover what’s at the core of this craft.  It only makes you a slow learner.

Because you can discover it almost immediately.  If you know where to look.  (Yes, I know this reads like one of those red-ink splattered sales letters… that’s by design, because I want you drooling for this by the time I reveal it.) 

Are you ready to let go of your critique group  promulgated, let-the–characters-speak-to-you mumbo jumbo approach to storytelling, and cut smack to the sweet spot of dramatic and narrative truth?  The physics of dramatic narrative?

Quick side note: characters don’t talk to you.  Never have.  That voice of dissent and resistance is your inner intuitive storyteller telling you there’s a better narrative path ahead.  That you’re heading down the wrong road, or least not the best available road.

And by the way, this same phenomenon is every bit as available in a pre-story planning phase as it is mid-draft.  And in that case, the consequences of listening don’t force you to trash dozens of pages or commit to a less than linear or logical path.

But I digress.  Back to your storytelling steroid shot.

Are you tired of trying to stuff a cloud into a sandwich bag, sweep a puddle into a colander or build a house made of pink ribbons and ice cream? 

Does your Big Idea flame out around page 90?

Has the muse been ignoring you lately? 

After this steroid shot, you can fire her fickle ass and get on with the business of furthering your writing career.

Here it is.

It can be defined in two words: study screenwriting.

Even if you not a movie person. 

I’m not talking about becoming a screenwriter here – that’s a different drug altogether – I’m talking about knowing what screenwriters know.

It’s the same stuff you need to know.  Identical.  Only in screenwriting, they start there.  They don’t circle this wagon like they do in novel-focused learning, they use it as the basis of everything.

I’m talking about structure.  About pacing.  About setting things up to optimize reader involvement.  About sub-text, character arc and thematic resonance.

It isn’t rocket science.  But it IS screenwriting.

This works.  Even if you believe that a novel is a five year commitment to drafting and sweating blood in context to nothing more than some mythical muse – the one you can now demote – speaking to you from deep within your subconscious.

The muse doesn’t know what makes a story work any more than gasoline knows what makes an engine run.

No, you have to light it on fire before it produces energy.

The muse is just an idea that excites you.  Which are a dime a dozen and worthless without… well, knowing what screenwriters know.

Screenwriting basics are the match for that fire.  Screenwriting basics are, in essence, storytelling on steroids.

And they absolutely can and will make any novelist better.  Immediately.

Here’s why.

No matter where you stand on the issue of storytelling structure, dramatic theory, the presence and criteria of six discreet yet interdependent core competencies and the complete and the utter unfairness of the wavering bar that comprises the publishing business, this is true:

All successful stories have the same set of fundamental essences and forces in common.  Identical literary physics residing beneath what appears to be – and should be – very unique and completely original outer layers of narrative content, context and voice.

There are no exceptions.

The next commercially successful story you encounter that you may consider to be outrageously original will, in fact, be built upon these very same fundamental essences and forces. 

Do you know what they are?  You may think you do, but… are you published?  If not, why not?  You know you can spin sentences and concoct ideas with the guys in the window at Barnes & Noble, so… why not?

It’s not because the world isn’t fair.  It is, perhaps, because you don’t fully understand what screenwriters learn in Week One and published novelists who haven’t studied screenwriting have managed to wrap their mind around, usually over many years.

Study screenwriting and you can wrap your head around it in just a few days.

It’s almost literally the equivalent of steroids for your writing muscles.

Stories are just like people. 

Take away the clothing and the skin and disregard height and weight — all that exterior stuff — and we all pretty much look identical on the inside.  Because people and stories are built identically in the inside. 

Same organs, in the same place, for the same reasons.

When one of them breaks, we hurt, we limp and we die.

Same deal with the stories we write.

It is our hearts and souls and programmed socialization that makes us unique in an infinite number of ways, and that is analogous to what the writer brings to the inherent, commonly-held and commonly-bound physics of storytelling. 

It is why no two stories are every really the same.

Screenwriting will teach you this faster, quicker and better than any writing workshop you’ve ever attended.  Because…

Screenwriting is rooted in the fundamental physics of dramatic narrative.  The forces that make a story work.

Traditional novel-writing methodologies don’t go anywhere near them without veiled, imprecise terminology often dripping with literary pretension. 

Right up there with: listen to your characters when they speak to you.

They don’t have to speak to you if you know how and where to lead them.

Screenwriting is almost all narrative craft.  Read a script sometime, you may find the eloquence of a grocery list (or, you may find genius).  Either way, writing style is never the point.

Novel writing… the grocery list doesn’t stand a chance.  And yet, too many new novelists have this exactly backwards.  They are obsessed with narrative skin and the exterior realm of an idea.  The one the muse fed them.

Novel writing aspires to art.   As if craft somehow manifests by the mere aspiration to art. 

But literary art is nothing more than craft taken to a level of excellence at which – like great architecture, sculpture and staying married for more than ten years – assumes a veneer of awe. 

Art is really just craft done better than pretty much anyone else at the writing seminar can do it. 

The muse left the room the moment the actual storytelling process began. 

At that point, you need to take over.

If your muse was a screenwriter, she’d stick around to make sure you do this right.

How to inject this steroid into your storytelling bloodstream. 

No needles are required.

Read the book Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, by Syd Field.  A better title would have been: Screenplay: The Foundations of Storytelling, Period.

That’s the only book you need to gain access to this steroid.  There are many others that cover the same ground, including my stuff, but none with the clarity of entry-level illumination quite like Field’s.  He didn’t invent it, he just gave it amazing and empowering access.

The initial resistance to the notion of this steroid at this point,at least for some writers, is the completely erroneous belief that storytelling for film is somehow different than storytelling for novelists.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  It’s only different on the outside.  The guts of it are identical.  The fundamental physics – the forces and structure that make a story work – are the same.  And if you can’t bring yourself to quite believe that, continue reading and then do it, and you’ll discover this to be true.

You may never look at a film, or a novel, quite the same way again.  And hopefully, you’ll never write one the same old unpublished way again.

You may want to get your hands on a few actual scripts to see this implemented with your own eyes.

Then, or in place of actually reading a script or two, start watching movies in context to what you’ve learned.  You’ll be blown away by what you see. 

After that, start applying these very same physics to the novels you read.  You’ll find them valid there, as well, hidden among all the eloquence and wit and poetic and/or snarky genius of the narrative.

Yep, everyone from Stephen King to Jonathan Franzen (I found Franzen’s First Plot Point on precisely the exact page it is supposed to appear, according to basic dramatic theory, in his current #1 bestseller… I’ll leave the cause and effect of that to you) to Janet Evanovich is already doing what you’ve just discovered.  Already implementing what screenwriters know at the most basic, elemental level of storytelling. 

Finally, apply those principles to the novels you write.

Quick note — do this discovery with modern commercial films and books.  Don’t expect Bill Shakespeare or Leo Tolstoy to become your contrarian banner wavers.  You can’t write like them or their immortalized peers, and nobody is publishing them, either, so how they wrote their stories is a moot point.

Trust me, you’ll get a rush from this steroid. 

It’ll be like the curtain rising on your writing future.  Like a massive light bulb the size of a stadium tower going off in your brain.

Precious few screenwriters know how to write a novel.  Frankly, they’re too busy chasing real money in the movie business to sit down and bang out 400 pages, when for them, 120 pages might make them rich.  Only a few do both, because only a few can.

But you, the novelist, are already in possession of that which can’t easily be taught: the sensibility of artfully combined thoughts and words.  When you add that to what the screenwriter knows – and what published novelists know, too, though perhaps without calling it what it is or giving credit where credit is due – your future suddenly looks much different.

Like an athlete on steroids.  Only you’re not cheating.

Look in the mirror.  That suddenly buff, confident, beaming literary athlete staring back at you with a grin that says it’s time to crush it out of the ballpark…

… that’s you.  Because now you know.

Once you know, you’ll never go back.  Or backwards.  You can’t unlearn this.

And you won’t ever be asked to testify before Congress, I guarantee.

Have you experienced the breakthrough realization taught by screenwriting, or perhaps through the applied six core competencies model presented here on Storyfix?  Please share your experience with writers who are holding on to their old school resistance.

They’re out there.  It’s up to us to save them from years of plotting and plodding in the dark.

Over at the wonderful ProcrastinatingWriters.com, Jennifer has written a killer review (insert blush here) of my latest ebook, “Get Your Bad Self Published.”  Hope you’ll check it out.

(Storyfix is an Amazon.com affiliate, but only when you buy something from a link here.  Otherwise they’re on their own… and I hear they’re doing fine.)

Your Story… On Steroids is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Storytelling.  It’s everywhere.

When it works, there are almost always six separate elements – essences, really – that are in play.  Sometimes you have to read a 400 page novel or sit through a two hour movie to witness this universal model at work.

Sometimes you can behold their collective, congealed power in a minute or so.  At the end of this post you’ll get that chance.

It’s never an accident or a convenience. 

It’s always an intention of the part of the writer.

Not long ago I shared a link to the television commercial that is shaking up the ad industry, not to mention selling a few million units of product (Old Spice body wash for men) that wouldn’t have otherwise made it off the shelf. 

It worked because it told a story, and it did so in a highly creative, compelling and original manner.

It had a concept.  A character.  A theme.  A structure. 

It had execution.  It had a voice.

Those are the six core competencies of storytelling. 

By that or any other collection of labels and names, they are all essential to a successful story.  In any genre, format or medium.

The longer your story, the more critical they are.

The shorter your story, the more readily evident they need to be.  Even if, because of the limitations of length, they are merely implied.

That’s not a contradiction, it’s an artful subtlety.  Which is why copywriting is hard.

It’s also why writing novels and screenplays is no place to invent your own rules.  There are underlying principles driving everything, and they can — and should — be discovered, studied and observed before, during and after one undertakes to write such a story.

Getting them down on paper is craft.  Making them work is art.

Both are essential in any form of storytelling.

Leave out any of the six core competencies, or even merely be weak in any single one, and the story will suffer for it.  And at a professional level of aspiration, it won’t get past the approval stage.

Here’s an even better story, told in 90 seconds.

And nothing about it, in terms of the six core competencies, is implied.  The only leap it asks the viewer to make is, in fact, its point.

It’s about as subtle as a head-on collision. 

This piece is a clinic on the six core competencies.  See if you can spot them as separate yet brilliantly melded essences: concept, character, theme, structure, execution, and voice.

Note how the totality of these blended parts become something in excess of the sum of its parts.

All without a single word of narration or dialogue.

I won’t tell you what it’s for.  If you haven’t seen it, you need to experience this for yourself.  Experience it full frame, turn the sound up high.

Watch and learn.  HERE.

Pay attention.  Your story — and your life — may depend on it.

Another 1.5 Minute Workshop on the Six Core Competencies is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Fair warning, this is a pitch. 

If you have a story, regardless of its stage of development, and you’d like to see how it stacks up against the criteria and parameters of my Six Core Competencies development model – or if you’d simply like to know if the thing is working or not – you might be interested in what I have to offer.

It’s on my mind today because I just finished an analysis for a writer who was pretty sure his story was ready to go.  While I don’t like wearing the black hat, I had to tell him it wasn’t, and I presented a lengthy and succinct explanation as to why.

He may not know it upon his first exposure to my feedback, but basically, I saved his ass.  This is a serious writer with serious aspirations, and this little intervention could change his life.

Because if he revises his story in the direction I’ve prescribed, he has a shot at selling it.

He’s a good writer working with the seed of a good idea, and while his fully-developed outline indeed covered all the structural and mechanical bases, it was just enough off the mark to ensure rejection.

If he doesn’t… at least he’ll know why it didn’t sell.

I can and will do that for you, too.

Here’s why you may need my services in this regard.

Imagine you’re a star pitcher – analogous to a strong writer – and you’re attending a tryout for scouts from a major league team (analogous to submitting your work for representation or publication).  There are lots of pitchers here that, like you, can throw a baseball over 90 miles per hour, the very thing that has made you a local legend.

You and every other player here today.  Velocity is a commodity at this level.

Like many of these pitchers, you look good out there on the mound.  Smooth as butter.  The folks in the grandstands ooo-and-awe as your fastballs pop the catcher’s mitt, and they assure each other – and you – that you’re ready for the Big Time.

But of the dozens of local star pitchers trying out today, only one or two will be offered a professional contract.

Will it be you?  Are you ready?  Do you know what it is that will separate you from the others in the eyes of those crusty old scouts? 

Are you aware, specifically, how high the bar really is, and what you need to bring to the ballpark to compete at this level?

Welcome to the Major Leagues

Like velocity, every writer pitching a story believes they have the chops to write the hell out of it.  Their friends and peers tell them so, and maybe they’ve had a dance or two with a few scouts (agents) before.

So if everybody is throwing heat (nifty prose and killer concepts) and if everybody demonstrates solid mechanics (story structure and character arc), who gets the contract?

In writing, that’s a judgment call.  One that you, as the author, aren’t in a position to make.  All you can do is the best you can do.  If someone can show you how to do it better… well, that becomes your call at that point.  You can listen, you can respond or you can defend what you’ve done.

Pitchers who continue to believe that their high heat will make them successful at the pro level find out quickly how wrong they are.

In pitching, it’s about so much more than velocity.  Or even throwing strikes, which is also a commodity.  It’s more about placement and strategy, about working the strike zone.  Because at this level a strike, thrown out over the plate, will quickly leave the ballpark in the form of a home run.   

At this level you need to tickle the black with a running sinker thrown deceptively from the stretch while behind in the count with men on base.

Which is to say, good just isn’t good enough in the major leagues of writing.  Because good is everywhere, common as discarded paperbacks.

Success at the major league level is about changing speeds, deception, movement of the ball, consistency, endurance, confidence and power, and a sure touch with men on base.

Is your story at that level? 

You may have nailed the structure of your story (you may have even learned it from my ebook on the subject), and you may believe your command of the six core competencies is what’s been getting you the approval of your peers.

But is it really ready?  Is it better than good?  And how do you know? 

Answer: I’ll tell you. 

Here’s how it works. 

I will evaluate your treatment or outline (we can talk about reading your entire manuscript some other time, because that’s much more expensive) up to 25 pages (combined with any actual manuscript pages you care to submit), for $400.

Why that much?  Because it takes me hours.  And it’s worth every dime no matter how long it takes.  Three decades of studying, learning, practicing and teaching this stuff is what enables me to know where to put my thumb in a leaking dike.

Included in the process is an up-front questionnaire that allows me to understand your intentions and strategy for the story, against which I will evaluate the story itself.  The evaluation begins before I read a word of the outline itself.

What comes out of this is a Coaching Document that analyzes your story on four of the six core competencies – conceptual strength, characterization, theme and story structure.  And while an outline doesn’t exemplify scene execution and your narrative writing voice (the other two of the Six Core Competencies), I’ll give that a go, too.

If it’s great, I’ll tell you.  If it’s broken, I’ll tell you that, too, and why. 

And if it’s good but could be better, I’ll identify what’s soft and what can be done to make the story stronger.

It’s like a coach coming to your house (figuratively, I promise not to show up on your porch) before you attend that tryout. 

That’s my pitch.  If you’ve got a story and you’re not sure if it’s good enough… or even better, if you’ve got a story and you are sure it’s good enough, it’s an investment in your writing dream.

(Sample Coaching Documents available upon request.)

Coming Thursday – The Top Ten Storyfix Posts of 2009

Let Me Fix Your Story… Before Someone Kills It is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

All this talk about story structure… it’s easy to get the wrong idea.  Because in the sequence of revelations and midnight ah-hahs and pure flashes of genius that come with the territory of writing a novel or screenplay, structure doesn’t come first.

It doesn’t even come second. 

But eventually it must come.  Or the campaign you call your story will never fly.  Or if it does get off the ground – at least in your view – it’ll sink faster than a Dick Cheney Presidential run.

So what does come first?

Structure is the skeleton upon which you hang the meat of your story.  Which means, you need to create the muscle and skin and organs of your story, not to mention its personality and emotional landscape – the meat of it all – first and foremost.  Or at least have a strong notion of what those things will be.

Without all that, structure is just a bag of useless bones. 

And with all that, but without solid structure holding it in place, what you have then is a mess.

Didn’t know there even are such structural principles for storytelling?  Thought you could just make up whatever structure you want in the service of your story?

Here’s the truth: you can’t find a published book or movie without structure.  And not just any structure, or something the author concocted. 

You can’t just make it up as you go.  You need to apply the known principles of dramatic fiction or your story will collapse like a building without beams.

A successful writer uses principles of structure to help formulate the elements of a story.

For example, proper structure depends upon an inciting incident that transitions the story from set-up mode into hero-response mode. 

Which means, simply by understanding this concept the writer knows that the inciting incident – also known as the First Plot Point – is at the top of the list of the things that must be created before the story will work.   That it is the most important moment in the whole story.

And then, once formulated, the writer who understands structure knows precisely where to put it within the sequence of the story.

Structure, then, serves two purposes.  It is a tool that guides us toward the creation of the elements of our story, allowing no omissions or short-shrift.  Then, once the story’s elements are known, structure becomes the roadmap for laying out those elements in proper sequence.

So what does the writer need to know before structure becomes relevant as a roadmap?   

Well, genre, for starters.  Then, at some point, you need to decide on first or third person narrative.  You need a killer concept upon which to build.  You need a compelling hero to carry the dramatic ball – the key word being compelling, which means you need to have thought this through beforehand.  You need to give that hero something to do, to accomplish, to save, to fix, to discover or to redeem.  You need to give them a few internal demons that will make the journey difficult.  And mostly, you need external obstacles that oppose those goals.

All before you worry about structure.

Structure won’t give you those things.  But it just might lead to them by virtue of knowing you have a blank space to fill in.

And then, it provides a purpose for them and a place to put them once conceptualized.  It tells the writer that until that happens, milestone by milestone, part by part, the story isn’t yet complete.

If you don’t understand story structure, you may not ever realize that your story is half-baked or too thin.  Which means, when the rejection slip arrives, you won’t have a clue why.

Let’s circle back and put structure in proper perspective. 

Story structure is one of six core competencies you need to bring to the storytelling party.  The others are: concept, character, theme, scene construction, and writing voice.

Three of those – four when you include structure – are elements of your story: concept, character and theme.  At the end of the day, when your story stands alone as solid and saleable, all of them will be in place.

The other two – scene construction and writing voice – are issues of execution.

The four elements are the game plan.  The two executional skills represent the ability to bring that plan to fruition.  A great plan in the hands of an unskilled writer won’t fly.   Neither will a shabby plan in the hands of a great writer.

A skeleton – story structure – can’t walk around, chat up neighbors, have coffee, solve crimes, fall in love.  A skeleton has no purpose, no life of its own.  Only until you put some flesh on those storytelling bones will you have created something that deserves an audience.

And like a human skeleton, you shouldn’t mess with Mother Nature. 

Structure is a tool, nothing more.  An essential one. 

New definition of insanity for writers: trying to bring a skeleton to life before you know what the monster you are creating – the flesh of the story – will be like once incarnated.

The power of structure works equally well for story planners and pantsers alike.  Because successful pantsers write their drafts either in search of or in context to it, rather than making it up as they go along.  The only thing they make up as they along, at least the successful ones — is the flesh that will hang on those structural bones.

Once these elements – concept, character and theme — fall into sequential place, one of two things usually happens to the pantser: they go back to the drafting board and start over, writing the next draft in context to the elements that are now in play… or they try to retrofit them into a manuscript that had no idea (no context, no foreshadowing, and no structure) these particular creative body parts would ever make an appearance. 

The latter, of course, is a disaster. 

For story planners, we are stuck with another type of madness…

… the limbo of knowing too little about our stories to actually write it well.  So we resort to notebooks full of random thoughts, index cards, sticky notes on office walls, flowcharts and long walks with a patient friend to discover the best concept, character and theme that we might eventually come to wrap our head around it all.

And then, once we do know, we drag our skeleton – story structure – out of the closet to dress it up with the shiny new suit of dramatic flesh we see in our mind’s eye.  It may not work perfectly, but at least there will be something there that can be saved. 

Because all the essential parts are there, and roughly in the right place.

Here’s the magic of that process, for pantsers and plotters alike: that skeleton is roughly the same every time: two legs, a backbone, shoulders, two dangling arms, a neck and a skull.  And yet, despite that simplicity, human beings wander the earth with unfathomable individuality, both in a physical and an emotional (personality) sense.

God doesn’t worry about the structure, that’s a given.  It is what it is.  Yet God creates with great latitude the form and function of the individuals that are draped over that skeleton.

So it is with writers as we play God with our stories. 

Story structure is there for you, waiting in the closet of your imagination.  If you can’t grasp that skeleton in a generic sense, then chances are you won’t create a story that will work.

Once you know what your story is about, why it will fascinate, what it will explore, who it will introduce us to, and why the reader will invest themselves and come to care about it all, structure becomes the necessary and solid means by which you will bring it to successful life.

So many stories to tell, so little time.  And yet, only one basic skeletal model upon which to hang it all.

For an in-depth understanding of narrative structure, check out Story Structure – Demystified, a new ebook that takes the mystery out of knowing what to write, where to put it, and why it won’t be remotely formulaic.

To order, click HERE.  To learn more, click HERE.

Why Structure ISN’T the First Thing You Should Think About When Planning Your Story is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Beginning next week, if you hear what sounds like a flock of Hitchcockian birds descending on your neighborhood, that’s just the collective sound of thousands of keyboards on frantic overload. 

Because about 50,000 writers will be pounding away on a new novel, sweating blood to finish within 30 days as part of National Novel Writing Month.

If you’re one of them, good luck with that. 

I feel I should weigh in on this, since the mission of Storyfix is to empower authors to write successful novels and screenplays.  But I’ve been hesitant about it, because in some ways the whole proposition rubs me the wrong way.

You see, I take this novel writing thing very seriously. 

And that’s the problem… only a fraction of those 50,000 writers do, too.

I say this with love and empathy, by the way.  Not every person who wants to try their hand at a novel is a serious writer.  Nothing wrong with that, a lot of people play golf, too, and never aspire to a tour card.  And it’s likely a fine way to test the literary water, get your feet wet, see what it’s like to play God on the page. 

But if that’s you, then you don’t yet qualify as being serious about it… at least not yet.

It’s like going on a diet – whatever gets you in the game is good.  If there was a National Gut Losing Month out there, I might choose in, too.

But – and this helps make my point – it wouldn’t work.  Not for me, not for anyone truly serious about losing weight and keeping it off.  Because, if you know anything about shedding fat, diets don’t work.  Only a lifestyle-change can produce the results you seek. 

Only getting and staying serious works.  And part of being serious is knowing something about what you’re doing before you begin your program.

Same with writing a novel, in an analogous sort of way. 

There are only two possible camps here. 

In one there are those who just want to have a little fun with NaNoWriMo, experience the process, and hopefully end up with a pile of paper they can use to legitimize their claim that, yes, they’ve written a novel.  Their feet will be wet, and that will be that.

But if, at the end of the 30-days, you plan on stuffing your manuscript into an envelope and sending it to someone in New York – and many of you do – you need a reality check.

The other camp, much smaller, is composed of those who are serious about writing a novel and getting it published, and are using this “official” month as a catalyst to get it going. 

I have no quarrel with the former.   Have a gas.  And to the latter I also say, good luck with this.

Because you can’t really write a publishable novel in 30 days. 

Even the late Michael Crichton, one of the most prolific and successful of our modern novelists, took six to eight weeks of long, isolated days to get it done, and he was a freaking genius.

Credible advice for the serious writers signing up for this experience. 

First, writing a publishable novel is a function of knowledge.  Not the kind you get from having read a box full of novels in the last year, but the insight that comes from studying the craft and getting inside the discipline of it, which is largely invisible to readers. 

It is the rare prodigy that can read a novel and intuitively understand the inherent structure and criteria required to produce something that a professional reader – an agent or editor – will stick with past page 10.  Something that sometimes takes proven professionals years to finally master.

If you’re that prodigy – I’ll say it for the third time here – good luck with that.

If you’re not, then you need to bring a bag of tools to the table.  And you have one week to ramp it up.  It’ll take you more than 30-days, but if you follow this advice at least those 30-day won’t be wasted time.

Many sites are writing about this. 

Both Jennifer at Procrastinating Writers and Suzannah at Writeitsideways are offering a ton of good information, and they’re both credible.  Not so with a few other writing sites.  One so-called guru, who has done NaNoWriMo all of once (and has never published a novel, by the way), is offering to “share (his) secrets on how to be successful during NaNoWriMo.”

This is like Harrison Ford, who flies a small airplane on weekends, offering to “share his secrets of aviation success” to a crowd of graduates trying to enroll at the Air Force Academy to fly F-18s.

This will help.

One approach to ramp up is to cram on all the archived posts here on Storyfix.  There are over 91 articles available here, and about 85 of them are directly relevant, especially my 10-part series on story structure and my 7-part series on characterization.

This can work, too.

Another way to succeed in this endeavor is to go into Day 1 of the process with your story almost completely planned out.   Beware anyone telling you that you can over-plan your story – trust me, if you want to write a draft in 30 days that stands a chance at being anything other than complete chaos, you cannot over-plan.

Even professionals who use their drafts to explore and discover their story – a viable approach, by the way – can’t do so in 30 days, and they need to bring a steep learning curve even to stand a chance.  It just ain’t gonna happen here.

This will work, too.

Another way to succeed is to break the NaNoWriMo month down into two parts:

-         a 10-day planning phase in which you do the aforementioned story planning;

-         and then a 20-day intense drafting phase in which you write 2,500 words per day.  A very doable output, by the way, at least for a serious writer, and especially if you have confidence that the day’s pages are precisely what the story needs at the moment at hand.

Now let me tell you what won’t work.  

If you begin the month with no real idea how your story is going to be built, or worse, how it’s going to end, and if your plan is to feel your way into it by writing 1,667 words per day and seeing what happens next, your manuscript will be a complete mess.

Yeah, I know, sounds harsh.  And it’ll piss a few people off.  But the absolute sure-thing truth is that such an approach will yield a story that will require a massive rewrite.  Because, unless you’re Stephen King (who isn’t entering) or Michael Crichton (who isn’t entering because he’s dead), there’s not a remote chance in hell that your story will have the requisite balance, foreshadowing, structure and nuance it takes to even qualify as a first draft. 

Cynics might respond by saying that any draft will require a rewrite.  And they’re correct, which is why the whole NaNoWriMo proposition makes we queasy.  If they called it National First Draft Writing Month it would go down better. 

As is, the implication is that you can spend the month in a manner that will take you further down the writing road.  And you can, but only if you bring an understanding of story architecture and criteria to the party. 

You won’t learn it by writing, and more than you can learn surgery by just trying it, or by watching Grey’s Anatomy.  You must learn story architecture before you can write something good enough to submit.

Beware of Poseurs

Be careful who you listen to on this front.  Listen to Jennifer, listen to Suzannah, listen to me.  Don’t listen to self-proclaimed gurus who are taking time out from their busy blogging celebrity to irresponsibly grace you with self-anointed wisdom in an arena they know nothing about.

Or, just have fun with it.  Who knows, you might discover a talent you didn’t know what there, or at least, understand why something that looks so easy from the reader-side of the proposition, isn’t.

About NaNoWriMo – Three Ways to Thrive, One Sure Way to Suck is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com