I admit it, I spoke too soon. 

Last post I said I’d put up a killer article for Friday.  My intentions were good, but my schedule wasn’t.  Friday is over, and the egg on my face is already peeling off.

To be honest, I’m in Hawaii (Maui) with my beautiful wife simulating a second honeymoon.  That agenda, too much sun and the World’s Scariest Almost Lost My Blog moment (see last post) conspired to make this something I couldn’t get done.

Oh, did I mention getting an offer on my house, to which we needed to counter, all of which involved about seven back-and-forth trans-Pacific faxes?

And it was my birthday.  When your website crashes on your birthday, you question everything you know.

Tomorrow I’m on an airplane for 6 hours, and when you throw in the check-in time (if you’ve ever flown out of Maui you know what I mean, the security line alone is always about 300 yards long… and I’m not exaggerating), I have about an 11 hour day ahead of me.

So I’m shooting for Monday. 

I hope you’ll join me.  Because I’m going to blow a widely-accepted piece of conventional story structure wisdom all to hell.

Aloha.

Make That Monday is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

A while ago I promised you Shutter Island.   Specifically, a deconstruction.

I’ve read the novel, seen the movie, read the book again, got the t-shirt.   Been there, done that, did it again, loved it even more.

So later this week we’ll launch into this.  I highly recommend you see the movie, and if you have time, also read the novel (I’m deconstructing from the mass market version with Leo’s grimacing mug on the cover, the movie-issue reprint).  Not only is it one of the finest examples of storytelling craftsmanship I’ve ever seen, it’s a great workshop for comparing the book to the movie and understanding the narrative common ground and parallel structures.

Please do this.  I’ve learned so much from this story already, and so will you.

In fact, it was in working on this deconstruction that I stumbled across the Next Great Writing Analogy.

You know how I love these little real-world analogies.   I’ve compared the process of effective storytelling to flying airplanes, playing golf, doing surgery, building a house, even making love.  None of which you can do at a professional level of competence unless you understand the physics, infrastructure and processes involved.

If you wing it, pants it, underestimate it or otherwise blow it, the airplane crashes, the golf is excruciating, the house collapses under its own weight and looks like a barn designed by pre-schoolers, and your lover will leave you.

Three words: foreplay is everything.

Mental models such as these help clarify the principles we, as storytellers, should hold in the highest regard.  Because writing a great novel or screenplay is every bit as hard as these tricky avocations and skills.

Which is why I love this new one. 

Because it creates an easily accessed visual snapshot of the story structure model in way that nearly everyone can relate to.

I’m talking about stairs.

Every scene in your story is a stair.  Leading somewhere.  Connecting to the stair or landing before it, and the stair or landing that follows it.

Picture a stairwell.  The kind you find behind a door marked as such in an office building.  You’ll need four stories (this is why the English language is so hard… here’s a whole new meaning for the word story) in this visualization.  Don’t worry about the building itself or its floors, just picture the stairwell.

Four flights.  Each flight separated by a landing.  And you know what happens on these landings — you make a turn.  You head in a new direction.  And yet, you are still going to the destination for which you originally embarked — the ending. 

The stairs always take you closer to the goal.  To the destination.  They take you higher.  In effect, they move you forward on your journey. 

There are no sidetrips.   One stairwell is not noticeably longer, though you do notice that the angle of incline seems to be getting a bit steeper as you get higher.

Now, in this analogy, imagine that each stair is of a unique different height and shape.  Sure, they’re all roughly the same in terms of design, but when you look closely they are of different colors, and some have beautiful inscriptions and carvings in them.  They are art, as if the builder focused only on that specific step for a period of time, making it the very best and coolest step it can be.  Yet always with function, purpose and context. 

The mission of each stair relates contextually to the journey the stairwell is taking you on, and specifically to getting you on to the very next step that awaits.

Every stair has a purpose.  There are no wasted, frivolous steps on this climb.

Four flights.  Each flight with roughly 8 to 15 individual steps.  Each of a slightly different height.  Some carpeted, some rough.

Now let’s think about the landings. 

With four flights, you’ll encounter three landings.  At each landing you’ll turn in a new direction, though you’ll still be heading upward.  Moving toward the goal. 

You will have benefited from everything you discovered at each stair-step along the way. 

And, you’ve noticed that the stairs in each flight have a unique look and feel to them.  The stairs from the first flight are different than the stairs from the other flights.  These first steps ease you into the journey.  Some may be challenging, some not. 

But they all mean something.  They all prepare you for the next three flights.

When you get to the first landing, everything changes. 

Perhaps in an unexpected way… or not.  But you are definately at a turning point.

Because waiting for you there is new information.  It causes you to turn toward the next flight of stairs, which presents slightly different hues of storytelling steps.  You immediately notice a new context on this flight, and realize that you care about this climb because what you encountered on the first flight caused you to care.  Another eight to fifteen steps are before you, each with its own mission — to take you higher, to get you closer to the next landing.

Chew on this a while.  Each scene is a step in the stairwell.  The three landings are, in order here, the First Plot Point, the Mid-Point (you’re halfway to the destination), and the Second Plot Point.  Each of them sends you in a new direction, each delivers new information, but you’d never get to this point — or understand why you’re there – had you not climbed the flights that preceded it.

You’ll see this at work in Shutter Island. 

You’ll actually see it at work in any decent story, but Shutter sticks it in your writerly face.

I’ll do an overview of Lehane’s second career masterpiece prior to the actual deconstruction, alerting you about what to notice, what to look for, and how he lures us into a world and a belief system that is completely and utterly not what you think it is.

I don’t use the word masterpiece lightly. 

Shutter Island, both the book and the movie, qualifies as such.

My New Favorite Storytelling Analogy is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

We all know what breaking in means.  It means selling your first novel or screenplay.  It means breaking in to the business.

Many writers know what the term breaking out means, but few of us care about it – or should care about it – unless we’re already published.  It means emerging from the anonymous sea of published authors for a shot at a regular gig on the bestseller lists, by virtue of writing a Big Book.

Big, as in critically and commercially successful, and in a significant way.  Not “big” as in one of Stephen King’s opus flagranti stories of 1100 or so pages.

When someone suddenly hits a home run after writing several books you’ve never heard of, that book is becomes their break out novel.

The essence of both phenomena is the same.

In both cases the writer separates themselves from the pack with which they have been running. 

The newly published writer gets toasted by her writing group because she just sold her first novel.  She is no longer one of them.  She’s just broken in.

The suddenly famous previously published writer gets their picture in People Magazine because the critics are all-of-a-sudden loving them.  This writer is no longer anonymous, they’ve broken out, and the rules all change at that point. 

At a glance you may think of this as a so-what…tell-me-something-I-can use type of observation.   That is, until you understand a certain aspect of it, something you won’t expect, that you absolutely can and should use, beginning now:

The criteria and standard for both – breaking in and breaking out – are exactly the same.

In other words, the thing Dennis Lehane had to pull off to get Mystic River into Sean Penn’s hands is precisely the same thing that Danielle Girard had to achieve – I know, you’ve probably never heard of her, which is precisely the point – when she sold Savage Art, the first of her five published works.

Or, what I had to pull out of the hat when I sold my first novel in late 1999, Darkness Bound.  Same deal. 

Danielle Girard and I both broke in.  The reason you probably haven’t heard of either of us is that we haven’t yet broken out.

And it isn’t for lack of trying, I’m here to tell you.  And, if you’ve been here a while and are appreciating Storyfix, I hope you agree it isn’t from lack of storytelling knowledge, either.

Which is also an important variable in this mix, because even if you do meet these forthcoming criteria for breaking in and/or breaking out, you’ll still need to catch a break for either of them to happen.

Not all worthy books catch that break.  Sucks, but it’s a fact.

That said, you’ll never catch that break unless you know what it takes for a book to even get in the game at either level.

And I’m about to tell you.

Before I do, though, consider this: how many novelists can you name that have successful careers, but never really get huge, never really make it to the same lunch table with Grisham, Patterson, Nora Roberts, Terry Brooks, Caleb Carr, Harlan Coben, some lady named J.K. Rowling and a long roster of other A-list writers?

That’s what they are – A-list authors – and the thing that they have in common isn’t a discernable superiority of storytelling skill, though they certainly are good enough at what they do to maintain their seat at that particular table. 

No, what they have in common is that they all broke out.   Usually several books down the road after they actually broke in.

And for both of those they had to catch a break.

Once a writer has broken out, once they are famous, the criteria you are about to discover here no longer apply to them.  They simply need to continue to be good, to deliver work that fans expect, and to never (or rarely) deviate noticeable from whatever their branded niche is.

Ask Robert James Waller about that one – his break out novel  — a little thing called The Bridges of Madison County – was as huge as they come.  So were the movie stars who sucked up to him to land their roles in the hit movie.  And yet… when was the last time you saw a Waller novel in anything other than a used book store? 

Sort of like Nicholas Cage after the Oscar.  He’s good.  He’s no DeNiro or DiCaprio, as his breakout performance once promised, but he’s good enough to still get box office.

Nothing is certain in this businss.  All was have to cling to are the principles that will at least get us into the right slush pile.

Can you name Dennis Lehane’s latest novel?  Didn’t think so. 

Why?  Because he deviated.  (The book, published in 2009, is called The Given Day, a historical mainstream character study.)   He wrote it because he could, because he’s Dennis Lehane, which is the only reason it got published. 

Rest assured, he’ll return to the gritty thrillers that have made him the poster boy for break out success with Mystic River, and deservedly so, along with a guy named Dan Brown.

I’ve teased you long enough.

I’ve written here that even if you nail the six core competencies in your story – concept, character, theme, structure, scene construction and writing voice – you may still very well fall short of your goal of selling it.

Because way more than half of the manuscripts submitted these days do precisely that – they’re all just fine in the six core competencies department.

It really depends on how you define the word nail in that context.

If you’re simply good at all six, if you’re simply fine, chances are you won’t break in. 

Janet Evanovich can be fine and sell books, you can’t.

Or if you’ve published and you’re stuck at the lower mid-list and know the feeling of sitting at a book signing with nobody there, and all you’re doing is being fine, rather than the thing that caught a publisher’s eye back in the day, chances are you won’t break out. 

At least until you go to another storytelling level.

That’s how the A-listers are different.  They’ll do okay, they’ll still get their novels in the bookstore window, by simply being good at all six. 

Good, just like you, only they get seriously paid.

To break in…  or break out… you need something better than good.

And I don’t mean simply good in all six of the core competencies.  I mean really really good, phenomenally good, in one or two of them.

You need to hit one or two of the core competencies out of the park.  To show an editor, and the reading public, something astoundingly compelling, original, provocative, shocking and unforgettable.

Ask Dan Brown how well that works.  Even with a rather unremarkable protagonist, an average writing voice and scenes that are straight out of a writing workshop exercise, he made $300 million on one story, and another $100 million with other books, which were only fine, because of it.

The Davinci Code became the best selling novel of modern times – and, by the way, it was Brown’s break out novel after a handful of earlier books you almost certainly didn’t read until after you read Davinci – precisely because he knocked two of the core competencies to the moon.

His concept and his themes in that story were off-the-charts brilliant. 

Even if they pissed you off.  Perhaps precisely because they did piss off a large percentage of the reading public.

To break in… to break out… you need a concept that in one or two sentences will make a publisher want to write you a check.  That rocks their world.

To break in… to break out… you need a character that comes alive off the page in such a palpable way – think Holden Caulfield and Harry Potter, the latter of which, by the way, had the benefit of a killer concept, as well – that people will send you truck-loads of mail begging for a sequel.

Sequels, by they way, are almost entirely driven by your character, rather than any of the other core competencies.  Harry Potter without Harry, or someone just as interesting, is just another YA. 

Sequels, also by the way, are the consequences of writing a breakout novel.  They won’t publish a Book Two if the first one flops.

To break in… to break out… you need a thematic landscape that leave people breathless and talking at the same time.  Think The Cider House Rules, Indecent Proposal, The Lovely Bones, and just about all the Oprah books.

Simple, right?

Just create something freaking brilliant in the realms of concept, character and theme.

One home run in one core competency, if it’s strong enough, could do it.  Two will get you to the next level.   Three… well, that’s just not realistic, at least at the level we’re talking about.

Do this long enough, project after project, by not settling for stories that don’t deliver the goods against this break in/break out criteria, and you just might catch that break that add you to the A-list.

Or at least, add you to the row upon row of paperbacks at Borders.

One dream come true at a time, right? 

Write on.

Swinging for the concept fences:  www.whisperofthesevenththunder.com

Breaking In, Breaking Out, and Just Plain Catching a Break is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Or, how not thinking it through before you stamp “Final” on a draft can bite you in the butt… while your readers are laughing theirs off.

Change of pace today.  The following have been culled from real church bulletins.  Thank the Lord for typos and best intentions.  Enjoy.

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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. 

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The sermon this morning: ‘Jesus Walks on the Water.’ The sermon tonight: ‘Searching for Jesus.’ 

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Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale… It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. 

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Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say ‘Hell’ to someone who doesn’t care much about you. 

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Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.. 

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Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.. 

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For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs. 

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Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. 

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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days. 

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A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow. 

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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice. 

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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones. 

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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. 

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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered. 

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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility. 

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Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow. 

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The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. 

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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. 

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Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B S. is done. 

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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday. 

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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM.. Please use the back door. 

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The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy. 

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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. 

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The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday: ‘I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours.

The Consequences of Writing Casually is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The following is a guest article by writer and musician Steve Steuart. 

I was a musician, and then I was a writer.  Actually, both, once music gets in your blood it’s there for good. 

As I began an in-depth study of storytelling, both here on Storyfix and elsewhere (including Larry’s ebooks), I quickly noticed something.  Wasn’t sure it was meaningful at first, but the deeper I went, the more this struck me as important.

What I realized was this: a song, or any composed musical piece, has an underlying structure that is almost identical to that of good story writing.

Western music theory, that little construct used by Beethoven and Bach and Mozart and Chopin and Chi-cough-ski and you name it, allowed for the world’s most beautiful sounds ever produced to come alive in such a way that hundreds of years later causes us to still hold those sounds in high regard.  They are regarded as the best music ever written. We all have our favorites and might not even really like classical music, but that’s not the point. The point is creative genius was made possible because of an adherence to an underlying and dependable structure.

As I read and came across terms like Plot Point and Conflict and Foreshadowing and the subsequent definitions and examples of those terms, I couldn’t get the words Modulation, Syncopation and Dissonance, out of my head. We all relate what we learn to what we know, but in this particular case the relationship between writing a story and composing a song was undeniably a close one. Even as the years passed and my connection to song writing had become strained for lack of doing, I never forgot the way these certain things were described in my music composition classes as a means to create variety in music. Listen to jazz or classical music and you will find a lot of variety within a piece. Jazz could almost be described as never repeating what you’ve already done, or if it is repeated it’s completely different. Charlie Parker and Bill Evans are masters of variety in their improvisations. They weave a story of sorts, that’s pleasant, not only because of their natural talent but because of their knowledge of what makes music good. Just like a good story teller, they know where they’re going when they start the journey and why.

(Note from Larry: to my pantser friends, this helps clarify the need for understanding story structure before you write your story, even if you don’t have a clue what your story will be, which I don’t recommend.  Imagine trying to write a symphony without understanding music theory.  And yet, the default process of newer writers who don’t have a command of storytelling principles is, in fact, to “just sit down and start writing.”  A better approach is to sit down and starting learning the principles of storytelling.  They won’t allow a pantser to get their any quicker or more efficiently, but it’ll allow anyone, including pansters, a fighting chance at ending up with something that works.  Without that understanding, no matter how you write, you don’t stand a chance.  Sadly, too many writers don’t get this.  Steve addresses this point toward the end of his article, as well.)

So let’s look at some of those associations between song and story.

Click HERE to read the rest of this fascinating post.

Story Structure vs. Music Theory — a guest post by Steve Steuart is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

With humble apologies to those who are impatient with my infrequent efforts to make a buck from this site (hey, all this good stuff is free, and I do appreciate your support when these moments arrive), but I’m excited to break this news today:

I’m announcing the release of my new ebook…

The Three Dimensions of Character: Going Deep and Wide to Create Compelling Heroes and Villains

If you’ve read my Story Structure or 101 Tips ebooks, you know I don’t mess around with these things, the content is rich, fresh, and for many the clearest presentation of that particular aspect of storytelling that they’ve come across.  Based on initial feedback, this ebook is no exception.

If you’re serious about selling your fiction, then you need to be serious about the crafting of deep and compelling characters.  And it’s not easy.  For my money it’s the most challenging thing we face as storytellers.

This ebook breaks it all down into a tool chest of elements, perspectives, examples and applications.  Maybe for the first time you’ll finally see the difference between a mundane character and a great one, at least from the writing point of view.  And also, maybe  you’ll never again hear the feedback that your hero or villain is flat and one-dimensional.

Don’t know about you, but I hate it when that happens.  And it doesn’t anymore because I build characters using the principles I outline in this book.

Okay, enough selling.  The ebook sells for $14.95, and it’s guaranteed to please.

To read more about it, click HERE.

To order it now, click HERE.

Thanks for listening.  More Avatar soon.

We Interrupt This Series (Avatar) For An Important Announcement is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

You may have noticed – I hope you have – that both of my ebooks are now dressed up with significantly upgraded covers.

When I first published these I struggled with finding a resource for designing professional and compelling covers.  There are plenty of do-it-yourself solutions out there, but almost all require high-end desktop publishing software.  So I went out-of-house without knowing what I really needed.  

The cover of my first ebook ended up looking more like a DVD case.  The next one was done quickly and ended up as a 2-D design.

That was before I found Colin Dunbar.  Or I should say, he found me.

Colin offered to upgrade my covers, and the designs you see to the right are the outcome of that offer.  In return I offered to introduce and recommend him to my readers, many of whom are interested in publishing their own ebooks.

But it gets better.  Because all Storyfix readers are interested in manuscripts, and Colin provides a valuable service there, too.  Our manuscripts need to be perfect in every possible way, including visual presentation, and a professional designer like Colin is one way to make it happen.

So please enjoy Colin’s guest post below, and, if you’re close to publishing an ebook or submitting a manuscript, check out his site (see his ad at the bottom right of this Home page).

Turn Your Manuscript into a Visual Masterpiece

A guest post by book designer Colin Dunbar

You’ve invested hours and hours in your book.  Weeks.  Months.  Maybe more than a year. 

You’ve run spell check after spell check.  Read and re-read your genius words.  Had your manuscript edited.  Your friends have read it. 

The jury is in – you’re ready.

But wait.  Are you really ready?  Maybe there’s one more base to cover.

Does your book look as professional as it reads?

Have you considered that editing is not the same thing as page design?

If you’re writing your book to make money, either as a published author or a publishing author, you need to consider these issues carefully.

Imagine thumbing through a book you’ve plucked from the shelf at a bookstore.  You notice that it lacks a compelling cover design, and when you look inside, all you see is plain text with the title and author’s name.  There are no page numbers, no table of contents, no alphabetical index.  The margins aren’t consistent, and there is no white space where there should be white space.

What would your perception of that book be?  Would you buy it?

As an author, this is your future.  Because every prospective reader, whether it’s an ebook or a published book, bases their purchase decision largely on these visual cues.

You’ve designed your story.  Now it’s time to design your product.

First impressions count.  With readers, and with publishers.

As Richard Hendel writes in On Book Design, “What the author writes in a book is not all that tells what a book is about.  The physical shape of the book, as well as its typography, also defines it.  Every choice made by a designer has some effect on the reader. The effect may be radical or subtle, but it is usually outside a reader’s ability to describe.”

Professional book design encompasses everything required to turn your book into a user-friendly reference work, or an easy-to-read fictional work.

Some elements to consider with book design are:

* Suitable headlines and sub-headings.

* Paragraph and sentence length.

* Font selection and size.

* Suitable images that support the text (non-fiction).

* Language that is easy to read.

* Layout that suits the type of book (e.g. children’s book versus business book).

* Margins, headers and spacing for total visual appeal.

Don’t leave your success to chance.

You wouldn’t arrive at a job interview or your wedding without paying special attention to how you look.  Even though that day gives way to a deeper, more rewarding experience.  You’ve put too much of yourself into that moment when it all begins.

So it is with your ebook or your submitted manuscript.

Book design is not about tricking your manuscript out with fancy trimmings, it’s about turning a good book into an effective, easy-to-use or entertaining professional product.

If you are a serious author, and want your work taken seriously, and especially if you want people to buy and keep your book, then professional book design services could make the difference between success and failure.

Colin Dunbar has more than 30 years experience in book design. He also enjoys writing non-fiction, and is the author of Invest in Yourself and How to Get What You Want.  You can check out his book design service at his website, or click on the ad below, and/or at the far right of this page.

Book Design Service

Turn Your Manuscript into a Visual Masterpiece is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

A Guest Post by Patti Stafford of The Stafford Scribe

You may be asking yourself how the Laws of Motion can apply to writing. It’s a legitimate question, and a very good one. Hopefully I can shed some light on the matter.

Whether or not you realize it, physics applies to every aspect of life—life is in motion and Newton’s Laws of Motion apply directly to life, the earth, and the universe.

Character arc is basically the character starting from nowhere, no involvement, and through various situations he changes. He must grow in some way. If he remains the same throughout the story—he doesn’t arc. It leaves a very big hole in your story—possibly like the Black Hole in space, but that’s a whole other analogy.

Characters are in motion, just as an object is in motion—let’s say a ball. The ball remains in motion until something happens to change its direction or the force of inertia stops it. In this case we hope it changes direction. If there was no gravity combined with friction to work against an object, the object would stay in motion.

We’re going to apply physics to character arc in a story. Don’t let it scare you—I’m not a physicist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once. I’m a writer and with any luck I can come up with some simple analogies to explain it. You will have to use your imagination just a bit, but being writers, this should be second nature.

So, what can Newton teach us about characters and character arc? Let’s begin, shall we?

Newton’s First Law, also known as the Law of Inertia, states, “A body persists in a state of rest or of uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force.”

It seems pretty clear but I guess it can be confusing without a connection being made. How did I come to make the connection? Well, I live with a musician that applies everything in life to either music or physics. One day as he was explaining something; most likely about bad driver’s who don’t apply physics to their driving or how ballistics are wrong in Hollywood drama; I was trying to pay attention—I really was, but having heard these same conversations several times my brain started thinking how the laws of motion apply to characters—because I’m a writer and I relate almost everything to writing.

A body (the character) persists (and he’s adamant about it) in a state of rest (until we get a hold of him and begin writing his story) or of uniform motion (he’s doing the same old thing, day in, day out) unless acted upon by an external force (the conflict that motivates him to do something different).

If the character remains at rest or in uniform motion we don’t have a story. He’s boring. He needs an external force applied to him that puts him in motion and changes his direction (his arc).

Here’s where we’ll start to use the imagination. If the world was flat, and I mean completely flat like a piece of wood, and our character was a ball (a body/object) it would remain at rest until something (or someone) came along and bumped it.

Once the ball (our character) was set in motion it would remain on its course, in motion, at a constant speed—in a straight line, until an external force acted upon it.

Now, friction is an external force and the friction between the ball and the wood would eventually cause the ball to slow down until it comes to rest. If that same ball were in space without the resistance of friction, it would hurl along, on its course, at the same speed, until something (an external force) caused it to veer off its path.

A character is the same way—he will remain either at rest or on his current course of action (or non-action) until something causes him to change his path—the external conflict.

Newton’s Third Law states, “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

For a moment, I’m going to debunk Hollywood dramatics and then try to explain how this affects our character.

The Hollywood Debunk: In the movies when someone is shot with, let’s say, a 12-guage shotgun, the person being shot is blown 10 feet backwards and often through a wall.

If you’ve ever fired a firearm—of any small caliber—you know this is bull, and Newton’s law explains it—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It breaks down to this; if the person being shot is thrown 10 feet, then the person firing the weapon is also thrown 10 feet (equal) in the other direction (opposite reaction). There, I feel much better.

Watching a movie with a ballistics expert can be quite the experience—you’ll never watch a movie the same way again. They can get away with that in the movies for some reason; novelists can’t. You can bet your sweet feather pen that if you write it wrong, some ballistics expert will read your book, decide you’re an idiot and never pick up another one of your novels.

So how does an equal and opposite reaction affect our character? Well, whatever conflict is applied to him to get his butt in motion—he must (or should) have a reaction that’s pretty equal to the conflict, and opposite of it. If someone is chasing him and trying to kill him, he’s going to run like hell to save his life (equal and opposite). He’s not going to stand there and be killed—he’s going to do the opposite of getting killed; which is trying to stay alive.

When you begin writing your character’s story, up until that point, he’s been at rest (in a sense) or he’s been in the same constant motion—he hasn’t really been doing anything. If he’s lucky, you’re going to pull him out of his boring, sheltered life, make him miserable by causing him conflict and he will react and grow—he will change and come out better in the end. This is his arc; without it, he remains at rest or in an unwavering state of motion and no one cares about him. He has to have external forces and/or a conflict acting upon him that causes him to change course.

Apply Newton’s Laws of Motion to your characters to bring them to life and make them jump off the page—get their butts in motion.

PATTI STAFFORD runs The Stafford Scribe, a Website devoted to the craft of writing, the writer’s life, and inspiring writers to embrace their passion. She is also Course Presenter for the Fear of Writing Online Creative Writing Course, staff writer for BloggingTips.com, and runs the ISSG-International Scribes Support Group.

Writing and the Laws of Motion is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Bruce H. Johnson is the creator of Free Spirit Universe, which offers abundant and valuable stuff for writers on the path toward understanding the infrastructure and physics of telling a great story.

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The issue of concept generation and worthiness is a critical and challenging realm to explore for the serious storyteller.  Which is why my next post will continue to focus here, with a deeper look at a question we all ask ourselves – some of us beat outselves up with it – and one that I get asked frequently: how do we know if our story idea is good enough?  Stay tuned.

The Heart of the Story — A Guest Post from Bruce H. Johnson is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Long ago, when my publisher was calling in favors to solicit blurbs for one of my first books – that’s how it’s done, by the way – she convinced the very successful Lisa Jackson to participate, which she did with a very gracious blurb.

Little did my editor know, or even have a clue, that Lisa lived about a mile from me. 

Not that we starting hanging out at Starbucks.  Lisa is the busiest, most prolific author I know.  Or I should say, know of (we haven’t actually met, though we may have passed each other in the aisle at Safeway without realizing it).

Which is why I’m delighted and proud to have her here on Storyfix.  As you’ll see, she’s one of us, very real and honest and open, just way richer and more famous.  Which is no accident.  Because she’s really good at what she does.

Lisa Jackson has written fifteen international bestsellers – yep, you read that right – including the #1 New York Times novel, Fatal Burn.  Her latest novel is Montana Fire/Aftermath, Tender Trap, released in December 2009.  If you’re encountering this post after that, chances are a newer one is out there already.

Learn more about Lisa – and believe me, there’s lots to learn – at her website, http://www.lisajackson.com.

But first, read what she’s sharing with us today.

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Writing is just not about creating worlds and characters and coming up with plot points and motivations, there’s a whole business side attached to becoming an author – published or not. Who knew you would have to worry about taxes, office supplies, publicity, retirement, health insurance, websites and so on and so forth? Who cared? I, for one, just wanted to write . . . well, to be honest, I wanted to sell.

The wolf was at the door, I had a couple of small boys and I needed to make some cash. Babysitting wasn’t cutting it; an outside job only meant dollars to be dispensed for a wardrobe, gas and babysitting. And I wanted to be with my boys.

When my sister, Nancy Bush, suggested we write, I was leery. She was talking romance novels and neither one of us had read one. But, what the heck? Babysitting wasn’t exactly keeping me in diamonds and Ferraris. Well, it wasn’t even keeping me in aluminum foil and a beat-up Honda Civic.

So, we gave it a shot. The book written together, with another friend went NOWHERE on an SST. (Except it was before SSTs came and went.) It was rejected all over New York, well, and the continental US. But Nancy and I persevered. She sold her next book out of the chute and it took me another year.

The deal is I never planned to be a bestseller. In fact it wasn’t even in my realm of dreams. I know, I know. Most authors look to the stars from the get-go. I didn’t. I just wanted to feed my family, buy insurance and put gas in the car. Eventually I did and then, man, oh, man the business side of becoming an author leapt into my life—not only did I worry about cover art and blurbs, or rack space and publication dates, I had all that bookkeeping/tax/office stuff to keep track of. Yikes! I’m pretty good at that stuff–I just would rather be writing. You know.

Anyway, flash forward to today and mind you it’s been over thirty years since I first put fingers to a manual typewriter. Everything’s changed technologically–think cell phones, computers, Kindles, blackberries, Internet-, facebook, etc.–you get the picture. Everything to writing the book and researching it, to sending it over the Internet . . . wow.

The important thing I did was just kept writing. As distracting as all of the above can be, I just keep trying to write the best book I can and attempt to keep the tendency to work around the clock at bay, because, trust me, the last thirty years have flown by! I don’t worry about movie rights, or the lack thereof, bestseller placement, literary fiction vs. pulp, where I “stand” next to other authors; cuz, really I don’t care about that so much.

I just want to tell a really good story. 

Lisa is so prolific that the publisher can’t keep up with her covers – she has three books in the pipeline which will fill in the blanks below.  

If you sometimes think you’re too busy to chase your writing dream, keep this handy and reassess.

Storyfix note: wow.

Storyfix is an affilate of Amazon.com.  In case anybody who looks like a lawyer should ask.  

Storyfix Welcomes New York Times Bestselling Author Lisa Jackson is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com