Usually, when you let it slip that you’re a writer, the response is, “what do you write?”  As if you’d just said the most unexpected thing possible.

Everybody’s a writer, it seems (that comes out later), but hardly anyone admits it.

And when you say “novels” or “screenplays,” one of two things is likely to happen.

Most often you get a polite nod, perhaps a flash of confusion and then, “wow, cool.”  Or  maybe just a nod that says, “okay then, we’re done with that.”  

Or once in a rare while the dreaded follow up: “have you published anything?”

Now there’s a dance and a half for you.  The answer is no more comfortable if you can yes than it is when you say not yet.  Trust me on this.

It’s possible, though, that the rare genuinely curious might ask you to tell them your story.  Ask you what it’s about.

Good luck with that.  You have about a 30 second window before their eyes glaze and you find yourself speaking to a blank albeit polite stare. You lost them at, “Well, it’s about…”

If this happens in casual conversation, your answer could be just about anything, focusing on any one of the four elements (that’s all you’ll have time for… trust me on that, too) of the Six Core Competencies:

It’s about a guy who… (character).

It’s about what would happen if… (concept).

It’s a story about love or… (theme).

It’s the story of growing up with an alcoholic mother who ends up in prison for… (structure, possibly inspired by something that actually happened).

You can make any one of these into a compelling elevator pitch.  In fact, eventually, by the time you have a draft that is worthy of submitting, you absolutely will.

But what if you haven’t finished it yet? 

What if you’re pitching your “story” to an agent at a workshop?  Which story will you tell?

As a writer developing a novel or a screenplay, it doesn’t matter what you say within the safe confines of an elevator.  But it’s absolutely essential that when it counts – when pitching to an agent, or at some point, when you’re actually writing it – you have a solid answer for all four of those elements: character, concept, theme and structure.

Because all four of them are stories.  Essential ones.

Stories that concurrently unfold in combination with the other elements, with edges and transitions known only to you, the author… and on their own.

Because you never know which of the stories a reader might react to first, or strongest.

This has always been true, but what may be new to you is an appreciation for the mindset of visualizing our stories as a melting pot for several conjoined storylines at once, each of them contributing to the other.

Consider your favorite novels and movies, and you’ll discover…

… there is a foreground story.

A background story.

A character-driven story.

A sub-plot story.

A sub-textual story.

An arena story.

An emerging story.

A departing story.

A thematic story.

A surprising story.

A touching story.

A gripping story.

A story of empathy.

A story of emotion and meaning.

The context and intention of the above is not to be considered as descriptions.  As adjectives.  No, I’m saying that these stories – like different people occupying the same room, all exist and unfold as discreet storylines within the pages of your manuscript.

Need an example?  Let’s look at The Davinci Code.

The foreground story is Langdon’s journey as an interpreter of symbols and clues in pursuit of a killer.  His journey, juxtaposed against his own belief systems, becomes a character-driven story, as well.

The background story, which emerges gradually, is the underlying cause of this skullduggery, in the form of an ancient sect of Catholic monks hell-bent on hiding the truth behind their religion.

The sub-plot story involves the nature of the woman called in to help him. Which ultimately links to sub-textual story about what really happened 2000 years ago.

The emerging story is the existence of a centuries-old sect of assassins working at the behest of the Church to hide certain truths, which poses a challenge to the belief system the Catholic Church has been protecting and wielding for over 2000 years, and what may or may not be true.  Which is part of the sub-textual story.

The thematic story is the relevance of this hypothesis to our very real modern lives, which haven’t been privy to the backstory this novel suggests.

The gripping story (dramatic tension) is Langdon’s survival in pursuit of the truth… will they kill him before he finds that truth?  Notice how this differs from the foreground story – the murder mystery – and that it overwhelms it in the final act.

It’s also gripping in its use of Leonardo Davinci and his art as a cryptic time capsule of meaning, using the real thing to whet our appetite for more. 

A story of emotion and meaning… because chances are this novel (and the movie) pissed you off or shocked you into doubt.  Which is why you talked about it, which is part of why it exploded.

A story of empathy because to some extent you care about poor Langdon, because he is metaphorically chasing down the truth of a religion that has always troubled you to some extent.  Or not.  For some, Langdon was them.

All this… in one little story that happened to sell over 80 million hardcopies, just as many paperbacks and fuel two movies and the author’s backlist into immortality.

Do we think Brown pantsed all this stuff?  

Stumbled upon it as he wrote?  Made it up as he went along?  And if he did, do you think he got it all down in a couple of drafts?  That he’s really that good?

Maybe this list allows you to appreciate the genius of this novel a little more, and the opportunity to go there for yourself.  When Nelson Demille was asked for a blurb by the publisher, he turned in four words: “This is pure genius.”

The truth is more likely this: Dan Brown considered all these stories as parts of a whole, then fleshed them out individually and sequentially. Drafting was probably part of the process, but because this didn’t take half a lifetime to create, I can assure you he was writing toward something in each instance, rather than stumbling upon these storylines.

And thus we look in the mirror and ask ourselves… do I do that?  Can I do that?  Should I do that?

The answer to the latter is… absolutely, you should.  If you want to break in, to write a story that leaves a mark, then absolutely you should.

Think about it ahead of time, that is.

And if you pants (make it all up as you go along), do you realize that this process is nothing other than, nothing more than, a search for all these stories?  And that only after you’ve discovered them, vetted them, played with them, can you actually optimize a draft that marries them seamlessly? 

Ever tried to play with an idea within a draft?  That’s why some writers require years and year to finish.  I’m here to tell you, you can play with an idea in your head, in conversation and using beat sheets, to almost a full extent before you write a word. 

Notice how each of the various stories going on – in The Davinci Code, in virtually every other sophisticated novel that works, and in your own stories —  has a beginning, middle and an ending resolution.  How the driving force that moves them through this 3-part grid (or it’s inherent 4-part dramatic unfolding: set-up… response… attack… resolution) is dramatic tension, which can be defined as: something that needs to be done, something opposing it, with stakes and consequences for both.

That’s what a story is.  For each of these levels of storytelling.

In a story that works, there are at least this many stories going on at once… sometimes more.

As authors with professional aspirations, it’s easy to focus on one or two of these stories in context to our Big Idea (whichever of the four elements that it initially emerges from) and let the others take care of themselves.  But as story architects, we always benefit from a view of the nuances of all the stories that are unfolding in our novels and screenplays, because only with this proactive knowledge can we manipulate and optimize them.

We almost always begin with at least some idea in our heads.   

We then attempt, or should attempt, to evolve that idea into a Big Idea.  And right there we face a critical crossroads:

To begin writing, or to continue the search for the rest of the stories (plural intended) that are required to exist arm in arm, dancing to the same music, within the whole of our narrative.  To make those parts a sum in excess of the whole. 

If the writing of drafts is your chosen path toward the discovery of all these concurrent stories (nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t get this, then it’s really really hard to pull off), then you need to know that you’ll have to go back and smooth the edges between them (the various stories), because it’s virtually impossible to optimize this dance until you know the entire arc of all the stories.

And in this market, you do need to optimize them to compete.

And you thought this was going to be easy.

Simply by acknowledging the need to tell all of these stories in context to each other and your Big Idea… you just made it easier, if only a little.

And a little is far better than hoping you’ll get lucky.

If you missed the inaugural Storyfix newsletter (February edition), you can get it HERE. 

If you like what you see, you can subscribe to future editions (it’s free) in the upper left-hand corner of that page… or the upper right-hand corner of this one.  Hope you’ll give it a shot.

That “tip jar” issue (mentioned in the newsletter) has been resolved, it’s bottom right.  This is the last time I’ll mention it here… unless there’s relevant news.

And if you’re new to the approach described in this post (the Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling), please consider my bestselling book on the subject… HERE.

Please help me grow this site in 2012.  If you benefitted from this post, please send it along to your writer friends and collegues.

So What’s Your Story(ies)? is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Things we’ve talked about before:

-         your hero’s inner demon, something that likely is explained by backstory and is an obstacle to what your hero seeks to accomplish in your story.  The exposure (to the reader) of this inner demon reveals a second dimension of character depth beneath the exterior one dimensional façade seen by the world;

-         the arena, or cultural landscape, within which the hero operates (and comes from), which exerts influence over who they were, who they are, and what they will become;

-         dialogue as a window into character.  Nothing says it better than the characters themselves.  Even if they’re saying it to themselves.

Which is the point of today’s post.

Allow me to make characterization even more complicated than it already is. 

If you can grasp this tricky inner dialogue concept, if you can turn the concept into a technique, then you’ll have the chops to make your characters more vivid and visceral than you thought possible, except perhaps in a Lehane novel or a David Fincher film. 

Inner dialogue is precisely what they, and storytellers at their level, do so well.

To identify this, let’s rip a page out of reality.  Just look around your life, you’ll see it – if not hear it – going on everywhere.

People are constantly engaged in an inner dialogue.

With themselves.

It’s not a verbal thing, per se.  People usually aren’t muttering quietly to themselves, nor should your characters, unless that’s part of their deal.

But there is a very clear, often palpable gap between one’s inner thoughts and their exterior behavior and attitude.  That gap is something most people are dealing with right beneath the surface, sometimes 24-7.

The shy person who must contrive a air of confidence and warmth in a crowd.

The insecure person who walks through the world with a cloak of bluster.

The need to fit in, even when one realizes this isn’t who they are.

Faking it in a marriage.  At work.  In church.

Sitting with friends at dinner in a nice restaurant, uttering not a single word, totally checked out.

Hiding hate, resentment, bitterness and fear behind a mask of calm.

Bad moods… that’s an inner dialogue.  Good moods… same thing.  But sometimes all that inner noise isn’t all that obvious.

And in fiction – if not at that dinner table – that’s where the fun is.

This is a common human state of being. 

In life, and in fiction.

The extent to which someone – including your hero and your villain – recognizes the gap between their true thoughts, beliefs, preferences and comfort zones, and the way they choose to behave or appear in spite of them…

… that is an inner dialogue.  A constant tug of war within the psyche.  A devil on one shoulder, a angel on the other.  Or at least, the voice of reason.

If they have no idea how conflicted they are, well, that’s a dialogue of another sort.  Don’t kid yourself, though, most of us not in therapy usually know.  The façade, or the vacancy, is a choice.

So what to do with this?

Before you square off with this dramatic can of worms, think about it.  Go through a roster of people you know, and suddenly you’ll realize how transparent the wall behind which this inner dialogue ensues can be.  The better you know the person, the more aware you are of what’s going on inside them.

They think they’re fooling everybody… but not so much.

Scary, isn’t it.

Chances are, too, because you are human, you are among these inner conversationalists.  All the better to put this to use in your fiction.

Now imagine you’re casting this person – or you — in your story. 

Imagine the possibilities of revealing that inner tension, the inherent contradiction as narrated by an inner dialogue, in a dramatic moment. 

Walking into a crowded room.  Lying about what you did last night.  Asking a girl out for the first time.  Feigning joy while considering suicide.  Whatever.

Recognizing this, you now have another arrow in your quiver of character building weapons.  Go as deep as you like, picking your moments to maximize revelation, tension and complexity.

First person narrative invites this.  But you can pull it off in third person, too.  Start to look for it in the work of names like Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, Jonathan Franzen, John Irving, and probably your favorite writer.

Not a coincidence… this ability to expose inner dialogue is part, a big part, of what got them to where they are today.

Heroes are obvious candidates for this. 

But if you can bring this complexity to your antagonists, as well – who may or may not be human, so write accordingly – you’ll have achieved a new level of depth there, too.  A depth can will immediately set your story apart.

Nothing creates empathy quite like the revelation of humanity.  Eavesdrop on those inner dialogues and you’ll bring a level of humanity to your main characters that will separate you from a largely one-dimensional pack of stories already in the mail.

Need more character?  My book, “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing,” goes deep and wide into all three dimensions of character. 

The first issue of the new Storyfix newsletter, “Writers on the Brink,” is three days out.  Expect the unexpected.  Epiphanies encouraged.  You can opt-in — it’s FREE, too — to the right at the top, just above the little monkey head.  That’s me, by the way.  Really.

Game Changer: Create An Inner Dialogue Within your Hero, and Your Villain is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

We write our stories for different reasons.  If one of them is to make a career of it – not simply to publish, but to last – you need to be able to finish that sentence for your readers with clarity and purpose.

You need to be playing the long game.

When you look at the regular names that claim a spot on the bestseller lists, and then ask yourself (and others) why you read them, you’ll quickly realize how true this is. 

They have a brand, an expectation that they deliver to.

We read John Grisham because he always delivers an interesting slant on the law, and there’s always an underdog being victimized by it.

We read Nelson Demille because his dialogue sizzles with cynical wit, his protagonists are self-depricating patriots who are the silent heroes we wish we could be, and the pursuit of the solution is always visceral and satisfying.

We read Stuart Woods because he doesn’t mess around with narrative, he prefers dialogue that is short, snappy and simply loaded with appeal.  We overlook the silly stories just to hear the characters snipe at each other.

We read James Patterson because it goes down easy, digests quickly and you can knock  off a whole novel on a single leg of a trip, including layover.

We read James North Patterson because he tears into the nuances of the law in ways that actually make interesting sense, and we feel enlightened along the way.

We read Clive Cussler to live vicariously. Exotic lands, dangerous journeys, treasure and treason, all that Indiana Jones kind of stuff.

We read Jonathan Franzen because… well, my guess is because the critics say we should, and when we do we’re ready for some cocktail party chit-chat, even if we have to lie about finishing.

I tried for that over the course of my five novels, but I didn’t stay the course.

We read — and I use the term simply to stay in tune here — Larry Brooks because he takes us into dark little corners of ourselves we are afraid to admit we find delicious, along with some snappy (and snarky) dialogue. 

Trouble is, I distributed that particular brand — that’s what we’re talking about here, the writer’s brand — across a sexy thriller, a techno thriller, an arena-dependant thriller, and a speculative apocalyptic thriller.  Some stuff stayed consistent, but I wasn’t carving a deep enough niche.

The long game involves knowing who are as writers, and delivering it.  It can take a while to land on it — it can take years — and sometimes, when a book hits, it becomes our inheritence rather than our choice.  Whatever… branding works, and we need to understand it when we can.

Part of the process involves realizing we are not writing for ourselves as much as we are writing for an audience, one we are trying to grow.  Rare is the first book that defines a career.  And yet, when it gets some traction, even a little, reades and want more of the same.  Which is why it’s best to focus on what jacks your wagon, rather than get stuck with some science experiement that ends up defining you.

Who are you as a writer?  And why will anybody care?

That’s the question we need to keep posted next to our keyboards.

Who do you read?  What is it about their work that you know is dependable, that you look forward to with each new story?

We read (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) because… is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

I had lunch last week with a writer friend, who is awesome.  She brought her lovely sister, and I brought my lovely and awesome wife, and over omelets and gluten-free bread we had a grand time commiserating the experience of writing serious stories seriously.

Like most writers, my radar for “what if?” propositions is always rotating, and I got a hit when the topic turned to the ladies room at one of the area’s hottest bars,  the kind where all the women look like they’re on the opening episode of The Bachelor, and the men like the buzz cut, cheesy golf shirt wearing guys those television reality housewives are, for some reason, always chasing down.

The talk focused on a woman who has served as the hostess in the ladies room at that famous club (hint: it’s in Scottsdale) for the past ten years or so.  A woman beloved by all who have washed their dainty hands there after reapplying make-up.  I immediately pictured Viola Davis in an Olive Oil pillbox hat, dishing out towels and smiles and sage advice for dollar tips.

Oh, the sights she must have seen in the room, the stories she has heard.  She, it was offered, should write a book.

And then the “what if?” descended on me: what if this woman heard something in that bathroom that she shouldn’t have heard?  About someone in the bar who wasn’t supposed to be there, doing things that shouldn’t be done?  And what if something happened later in the evening inside that bar, something bad, lighting a fuse toward the elimination of anyone who knew who might be at the center of it all.

Suddenly Viola Davis was running for her life, and because she’ll be the hero, working to help the bumbling detectives find the bad guy before they find her in a dumpster out back.

I pitched the idea to the table, and resoundingly heard what most writers hear when they spout an off-the-cuff idea, especially to people who aren’t writers: oh my God, you should write that!  Really!  That’d be so cool!

It was breakfast, mind you.  No alcohol involved.

We brainstormed it for a while, taking it through the First Act to a proposed first plot point, at which time the food arrived and we turned to other things.  Like why some writers drink and others simply go mad.

Sad, that seems to be the only two options sometimes.

On the way home my wife asks me, “so, are you going to write that story?”

I didn’t have to think about it.  My answer was a firm, no-looking-back, no.

Here’s why.

Because ideas are just that and nothing more.  They are aromas, not food.  Promises, not deliveries.  Seeds, not gardens.

Ideas – especially in the form of “what if?” – acquire true value when they open doors to something more substantive than whodunit gratification, when they put you, the writer, into a place that transcends immediate gratification and allows you to go deep and wide.

Ideas should scare the crap out of you.  Or at least, excite you to the point of obsession.  When you link a compelling “what if?” proposition to a deeper realm of time-tested passion… now you’re on to something

That’s the story you should write.

I had no real passion for the ladies room at this club, or for the social dynamic that becomes the social arena of such a story.  To analogize this, I’ve never been inside a crowded ladies room full of preening cougars – and yeah, that sounds kinda interesting, I admit – but who am I to write this story?

If I’d been harboring a thing for ladies restrooms… maybe.  But no.  Not me.

Not that you have to have lived every story you tell.  What I’m saying is that you should bring a long-standing, or at least overwhelming desire to have lived it.  Starting a book on the heels of a breakfast conversation is like getting married after a conversation in the check-out line at Costco.

It happens.  It never ends well, even in the most romantic of fiction.

The desire to live vicariously in our stories needs to be matched by our passion for the landscape upon which the story will unfold.

And that’s the question a writer should ask before taking any “what if?” idea seriously. 

What floats your boat?  How would you live your life differently if you could start over, what would you do, who would you be, where would you go, what would you embrace?

This crystallized for me this morning while reading about a new J.J. Abrams television show (Alcatraz), in which criminals who seemingly disappeared from an island 50 years ago are showing up in present day San Francisco, and they are killing people.  They’ve traveled through time.  They might be ghosts.  But the dead bodies they leave in their wake are real, and they must be found and stopped. 

Once a week, that’ll happen.

Now that interests me.  Both on a “what if?” level, and on a time-tested passion level.  I wish to hell I’d thought of it.  Time travel is one of the most intriguing premises I can think of… and yet, I’ve never written a time travel story.

Hmmm.  I should look at that.  Because the passion for it is there.  All sorts of thematic, dramatic possibilities.  All I need now is a killer “what if?” proposition that keeps me awake at nights.

The books I’ve published were all, to some extent, grounded in something I have an obsessive, passionate interest in.  Something I know.  Okay, one was thin on that count, and guess what: it was my least successful novel, and the hardest to write.

Come to think of it, the idea hit me in the check out line at Costco.

Don’t jump too fast at your “what ifs.” 

They are like items on a menu… the picture is appealing, and you know it’ll taste good.  But will it nourish?  Will it fill you, does it check something off your bucket list, will it give you focus and joy and challenge? 

Is the idea worth a year of your life?

These are the questions you need to ask before you ask “what if?” 

Write from a place of passion and obsession and innate, time-tested curiousity, a place where issues collide with the conceptual, set in an arena that fuels the drama as much as any characters you can place within it.

Write the story you should be writing.

If you’re reading this in an email or Feed, here’s some news: Storyfix has undergone a redesign, including a facelift.  Hope you’ll stop by, check it out, click a few links… let me know what you think.  And thanks for reading my stuff!

The Question You Should Ask Before You Ask “What if?” is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

“Don’t take any shit from anyone.”

- Billy Joel (storyteller) 

Here they are… all 16 of ‘em.

There are dozens more posts in the archives that gave these a run for their money, too.  I’m not crazy about so-called “top-10″ lists lately — especially when… oh, never mind — so why limit the love.

Enjoy.

A Mindset Shift That Can Get You Published

The Holy Grail of Getting Published Big

The 102nd Killer Writing Tip

Six Core Analogies for the Six Core Competencies

A Perspective on Cataclysmic Criticism

3 Edgy Little Tips to Make Your Story More Compelling

Opinions Are Like Manuscripts: Everybody’s Got One

Suffering is Optional

Putting the Character Into Characterization

A Deeper, Richer Understanding of Craft (Part 1)…. and… (Part 2)

5 Creative Flaws That Will Expose Your Lack of Storytelling Experience

Five More Mistakes That Will Expose You As A Rookie

Epiphany: The Bottom Line Revealed

Chipping Away At The Scariest Number Ever

The Rarely Spoken Variable

Theme… Simplified

*****

My wish for you is a stellar, breakthrough 2012.  Both in your writing, and in your life.

Thanks for allowing me into your head. 

*****

Coming soon in 2012: “Warm Hugs for Writers… Essays on Surviving and Thriving in the Writing Life.”  Sort of a Chicken Therapy for the Writer’s Soul kinda thing.  If you’d like to pre-order a PDF copy at a discount (it’ll be $6.99 upon release on PDF or Kindle), send five bucks (via Paypal to storyfixer@gmail.com, ) and you’ll get it first.

Top Storyfix Posts of 2011 is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Before you can pay something off, you need to set it up.

Before you ask someone to invest, you must make a promise.

Before there is a story, there is conflict.

Before anyone cares, there must be stakes.

Getting all of that in motion in your story is the mission of your first 100 pages.  Or, the first 20 to 25 percent of the story’s length.

And if you do it right, you’ll need all those pages.

The whole Part One Set-up leading to the First Plot Point enchilada can be confusing, and for some, sound like something a mad rogue screenwriter is trying to jam down your novelist throat.  As someone who is all three – a screenwriter, a novelist and completely mad – I assure you, this is equally valid thinking for both page and screen.

Essential stuff. 

I’ve written at length about the First Plot Point, and won’t return to Square One here.  Use the Search feature (top of third column) to go deep on this topic, then come back here for a new, clarifying and empowering perspective.

What’s in that enchilada.

A story unfolds in four basic parts.  Some say it’s three, but because the middle part breaks down into two separate missions, four is more accurate. 

The key word here is mission.  Each of the parts has a different one.  That’s critical to understand, it’s the difference between a writer who knows what they’re doing and one who is faking it or imitating what they’ve read. 

The order of the missions of the four parts is, by virtue of the nature of storytelling, ordained.  You mess with that order at your own peril. 

Don’t do it.

Your story won’t work until it lines up with this contextual sequence.

The first part is called “the set-up.” 

It contains a hook, one or more inciting incidents, an introduction of the hero, foreshadowing, the planting of narrative seeds (including sub-plot) and the establishment of context, arena, setting, time and voice.

The mission of this opening quartile is to invest the reader in the story, through empathy for the hero, both of which depend on the establishment of stakes and clearly defined dramatic question at the heart of the story.

Like… who did it?  What will happen?  How will it turn out?  What will I experience if I (the reader) stick with this story? 

It promises to answer another question: why will I care?

The last thing that happens in the Part One set-up is called “the First Plot Point.”  Its appearance is a milestone in the story signals the end of Part One and the beginning of Part Two.

Don’t mess with that, either.  Rather, learn what this all means, and discover the creative freedom that comes with knowing you are within the realm of what works.

Once you get this, you’ll see a First Plot Point at work in every published story.  No exceptions.  It’ll be like the parting of a curtain for you, and you’re now invited to come backstage and hang out with the writer.

Why this can be confusing.

It’s confusing because the terms can be confusing.  Inciting incident versus hook.  Inciting incident versus first plot point.  Narrative exposition versus character development.  Dramatic tension versus plot.

Back in the day, when the first storytellers were spinning tales over a fire and the carcass of a yak, the word rhetoric was pronounced blah blah blah.  Which is what the unenlightened writer still hears.

Don’t be that guy.

To add to the confusion… a hook can be an inciting incident, but it can never be the first plot point.  An incident can be the First Plot Point, but one can also appear in the middle of the Part One set-up pages (in which case it still isn’t a First Plot Point), or even at the beginning of it.  In which case, it becomes a hook.

So let’s clear this up.

By any other description or nametag, when something really compelling happens in the first scene of your story, or the first ten pages if it isn’t in the first scene, that’s a hook.  Big or little.  Yeah, it may indeed be an inciting incident (something happens that connects to the forthcoming storyline)… or not. 

Your hook could be unconnected to plot and entirely connected to characterization, like the revelation on Page 1 that the narrator of this story is a ghost.  That’s a hook. 

When it’s not connected to plot, it’s not an inciting incident.

Or, it could be huge, like someone murdering someone on page one, or leaving them, or hiring them, or painting them with stars and stripes, in which case it is an inciting incident and a hook.

If that happens on, say, page 45, that’s not a hook at all, but it is an inciting incident.  But it’s still not the First Plot Point… unless it is.

Having fun yet?  And you thought all these supposedly rigid paradigms and principles and structural guidelines would restrict you.

Fact is, you’re lost without them.  Because your story will fail without them.

The moment you realize that they set you free … you’re empowered.

The key to understanding the First Plot Point.

Lots of stuff can and should happen in your Part One set-up.  But not all of it connects to the hero in a meaningful and relevant way… to the forthcoming journey, quest or mission your story must give your hero.

Read that again.  It’s the key to everything.

Your story must impart a journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain to your hero.  That’s precisely what your story is.  A vicarious sharing, an unveiling, of that journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain.

That said, the key to wrapping your head around this is understanding that this hero’s journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain is, by intention and design, launched, fully rendered, put in motion and unquestionably underway…

… at the First Plot Point.  At the end of your Part One set-up.

Not before.

Sure, as I just said, lots of thing happen prior to the First Plot Point moment.  Some of them huge.  Massively dramatic.  Things that seem, at a glance to be the focal point of your story. 

But being the focal point isn’t the mission of the First Plot Point.  Launching the dramatic tension, the movement toward answering the dramatic question it poses… is.

Here’s a really nifty way to get this clear in your head:

The First Plot Point is the moment the hero becomes involved, subjected to, in quest of or otherwise impacted by, the hook and inciting incident(s) that you’ve put into the flow prior to it.  To the whole of your Part One.

At the First Plot Point (that concludes Part One), the hero (and/or the reader) is suddenly aware of what all the stuff that happens in the Part One set-up means.  How it relates  And because of the stakes you (the writer) have put in place prior to this moment, it’s also the point at which we (the reader) become fully invested in the story.

Prior to that, it’s all just ingredients set out on a counter and/or simmering in a pot, emitting an enticing scent, drawing us in… but not yet a meal to be consumed.

Until you serve it up on a platter for the reader.  Until you connect it all to the hero’s forthcoming journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain.

Serve the potatoes before the gravy is warm, and your dinner will suck.

Examples, please.

In The DaVinci Code, a body is discovered in a museum.  Hook?  Yes.  Inciting incident?  Yes.  But… it doesn’t yet connect to the hero and his (here we go…) journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain the story puts before him.   It doesn’t mean anything yet, at least in context to the story to come.  It’s just stuff that comes into play later.   This context alone – despite it happening too early – means it’s not yet the First Plot Point.

We (the reader) see that the police are out to pin this on the hero, who has been innocently called in to help investigate.  This adds tension.  We can smell what’s cooking.  But is it the FPP? 

Nope.  Not yet.  It’s just a cool inciting incident.  Because it doesn’t yet connect to the hero (even though we see it coming), it doesn’t ignite, or otherwise launch or define, the hero’s journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain.

Begin noticing this in the stories you read. 

The movies you see.  You’ll encounter dramatic moments early, you’ll see twists soon, you’ll get sucked in.  The hero might actually begin a journey early on… but you can bet it isn’t the primary storyline to come.  You can bet it will change, it will evolve.  It will take on deeper meaning and stakes.

It’s all just part of the set-up.

Until it isn’t.  Until – based as much on location and timing and mission – it changes everything, until it launches something, until it imparts meaning and direction and thrust and stakes…

… by revealing the real hero’s journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain within the world this story creates.

Coming soon: the Top Ten Storyfix posts of 2011.

Still the #1 fiction writing website on the internet.

Clearing the Air On – and In – Your First 100 Pages is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

We all begin our storytelling experience as new writers.  And thus, we all have a journey to take.  Each journey is unique, with an infinite number of starting places and contextual baggage to either help us or weigh us down.  Usually both.

Irrespective of those differences however, one thing is true: we all end up – or strive to end up – in the same place.  To become writers of effective stories. 

When we get there, the technical underpinnings of our stories – the physics of them, the forces that make them work – will be virtually the same. 

Storytelling is like gravity – you can play with it all you want, but in the end you have to honor the underlying forces and create your vehicle in context to them, or what you create will never arrive safely at its destination.

The process of getting to that point is the subject of much debate. 

In my view, seeking out the nature and limits of those storytelling physics (forces) is empowering.  It gives us a framework and a roadmap along the way. 

Some writers prefer to set out on foot, foregoing the road and climbing the mountains with a pick-ax.  To learn the physics through the pain of failure and/or the deductive reasoning of a child learning to walk can work, or even simply trying to imitate other writers… it’s all a certain ticket to frequent falls before you begin to walk with confidence. 

In my view, the biggest and saddest mistake a new writer can make is to fail to recognize the physics that govern the effectiveness of what we put on the page.  To believe that there are no rules, no physics, and/or that they reside in some magical, muse-governed realm that is accessible only through pain and decades of experience.

A lot of writers, and even writing teachers, like to say “there are no rules.”  That’s semantics.  That’s rhetoric.  Okay, there are no rules… but there are underlying physics at work… EVERY time.  Violate them, compromise them, and your story will fail.  Period.

That “no rules” thinking is just so wrong, at least if you don’t recognize it as semantics.  This is stuff you can learn, and quickly.  Not easily – it’s complicated, but eventually.  When you do, storytelling physics become the context from which you write.

Those physics kick in on Page One.

Which means that if you use your draft as a means of discovery of your story, meandering in and out of character and dramatic exposition without a clear path… then suddenly you find that path and finish your story accordingly… that can work.  Takes a while, but it’ll get you there.  But… if you don’t go back and revise those wandering first pages in context to the newly-discovered chosen path of your story… it’ll fail.  Or at least, it won’t work as well as it could.

And that’s the Great Trap so many new writers fall into.

You really can plan your story… then write it, then play with it.

Or, you can begin writing drafts as a means of discovering your story, beginning at Square One.

But if, once discovered, you don’t go back and revise your story in context to the newly discovered path of it, it’ll fail.  Every time.  It’s like a cook who begins with hamburger and decides she wants chicken enchiladas before her guests arrive… you have to start over.  Even if the table was already set.

That’s the most common mistake I see in my work as a story coach.  Writers who don’t write their stories in context to something… be they the principles of story architecture, or a story plan… something that becomes the very heart and soul of the story they are working on.

This trap is avoidable.  And we all get to choose.

I’m not saying you must plan.  That’s not a rule, it’s a recommendation… and once you begin to understand the underlying physics, a bit of an inevitability.

I am saying that, to write a successful story, the universal physics of dramatic theory must be honored and observed on the page, at some point, no matter what path you choose to get there.

I originally prepared these two mini-workshop posts for Lisa Miller, who ran them several months ago on her terrific site, which you can check out HERE.

Mini-Workshop Part 2: The Great Seductive and Often Fatal Temptation of the New Writer is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

(Refresher or Breaking News… this is essential, 101-level, can’t-hear-it-enough story coaching.)

Part 1: The Make Or Break Moment in Your Story

It’s not the ending.

And it’s not the opening.

The entire realm of story architecture is complex, and therefore challenging to discuss without a Big Picture view.  It’s like talking to an engineer about weight-bearing stress points on a bridge… it’s all in context to the Big Picture of building bridges that will never fall into the water.   To someone new to bridge building – even if they’ve driven over a million bridges in their life – they can’t really get it until they’ve gone through Bridge Building 101 and learned the physics of it all.

Storytelling has physics, too.  Nearly every unpublished story ever submitted has been compromised, to some degree, by the author’s less-than-full grasp of those physics.  Many times those stories were simply winged, written from the author’s intuitive, been-reading-novels-since-I-was-a-kid sensibility, which rarely is enough.

So, as I launch into a little rant about what I believe to be the most important moment in a story – any story – I realize that what I have to say is indeed in context to that Big Picture called story architecture.  Or, a four-part, three milestone, six core competency-dependent framework peppered with dozens of lesser but nonetheless important features, all of which are weight-bearing stress points within a story. 

When one cracks, the whole thing falls into the river.

That Most Important Moment is the First Plot Point. 

It’s sometimes called the Inciting Incident, but that’s only valid when the FPP and the II occur at the same moment (which they can and often do, but don’t have to; sometimes a killer II can occur as part of the set-up, prior to the FPP). 

Confused yet?  If you’ve already wrapped your head around the principles of story structure (which is a subset of story architecture), then probably not.  If you haven’t, then that’s the most empowering, urgent and magical tip you can receive: go out and find that knowledge.  It’ll change everything about your storytelling experience.

Once you do – or if you have – then you know that the First Plot Point is the milestone that transitions a story from the opening (Part 1) “set-up” scenes, and thrusts it into the reactive (Part 2) scenes that are all in context to it.

The First Plot Point usually occurs — it should occur — between the 20 and 25 percent mark of the story.  Prior to that moment, the scenes have introduced the players, shown us their world view, established stakes and reader empathy, and either planted or foreshadowed the elements that will come to bear on the dramatic tension. 

The launching of that dramatic tension is the mission of the First Plot Point.

Not to say there can’t be significant dramatic tension (the hero’s goal in opposition to an antagonistic force with an opposing goal) prior to the FPP.  Even so, the FPP needs to be there, because it changes the entire story by expanding it and/or shifting toward a new path: the hero suddenly has a problem or a quest or a need or a challenge… there are stakes already in place that hang in the balance… and there is opposition (either visible or implied) that stands between the hero and the achievement of that goal.

This is a universal structural principle.  It applies to any story, every story, in any genre.  It happens in a moment, within a scene, sometimes in a single sentence, at approximately the same place in every novel or movie you’ll read or see these days.

If the FPP happens too late, you risk losing the reader and diluting the pace.

If it happens too early, you risk a low level of backstory, weak reader empathy, thin stakes and a flat middle.  An opening “hook” (a very early moment that grabs and holds) isn’t a First Plot Point, it’s a powerful part of the set-up of that milestone.

If the story was a circus tent, held in place against the elements by strong poles, the FPP is the tallest and most important of those weight-bearing poles.  Because everything that happens before it is a set-up for it, and everything that happens after occurs in context to it.

Next up: #2:  The Great Seductive and Fatal Temptation of the New Writer

A Little Holiday Gift for You: Part 1 of a 2-Part Mini-Workshop is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

My current kick is power writing. 

Infusing narrative with a differentiating and memorable visual, an iconic freeze frame, a punch to the gut, a soft unspeakable touch, the forbidden, the exquistely beautiful, the unthinkable, the twisted and the ironic, the delivery of relief and the rendering of justice, the impossible made real… access to what is universal…

…asking readers to flesh out the moment in their own minds, taking them to the precipe of that which cannot be leveraged with words and is therefore etched into the imagination as an outline , the internal texture of which becomes something both personal and permanent.

These things are delivered as moments in our stories. 

To try for them in our overall narrative voice risks the dreaded interpretation of purple.  The most powerful writing skimps on adjectives and is long on sub-text, irony and the delivery of a poignant image in which our vicarious empathy for a character collides with the darker side of expectation. 

The most powerful writing sprinkles such moments – sometimes only one or a few — into the exposition of the story.

These moments stick. 

They may not be something you desire or will admit to, but long after you put down the book  it’s still there in your head.  There’s no rationalizing, no defending… you’re reading a thriller, a mystery, you’re reading something in which a hero is squaring off with darkness… all of which opens the door to the disturbing.

Let’s be honest, this is precisely why we read these things.

As the creator of those moments, my advice to you is this: don’t hold back. 

Here are a few moments I can’t shake.

The poster child of disturbing story moments comes from Sophie’s Choice, William Styron’s 1983 masterpiece of human angst set during the outbreak of WWII.  You’ve read it, you’ve seen it: a mother is forced to choose one of her two children from the steps of a train heading off to a Nazi death camp.  She can only choose one.  The other will die. 

Just try to forget that one after you’ve read it or watched Meryl Streep bring it to life on the screen.

In Chelsea Cain’s terrific novel Heartsick (the first of a series featuring The Beauty Killer, Gretchen Lowell), there is a moment when the hero (stud detective Archie Sheridan) is strapped to the table at the hands of the villainess, who brings her glistening lips close to his ear while holding a scalpal in one hand where he can see it, and whispers, “… however horrible you think this is going to be, I promise you it will be worse…”

I’ve read all of her books, all wonderful, but this moment defines them for me.

In one of Kyle Mills early novels his bad guy is doing something similar.  What I can’t shake is the fact that this bad guy knows medical things, and has the victim rigged to an I.V. feed that prolongs life much longer than Mother Nature would otherwise tolerate, given what’s in store.  Which we can only imagine.

And we do.

Phil Margolin did the same thing to a victim in the name of revenge: a widowed doctor deprives the guy who killed his wife of all senses and the ability to move, except, of course, the ability to experience pain.  With the know-how to keep him on the edge of consciousness for months, the doctor’s revenge begins.

Disturbing as hell. 

In an early Stephen King novel — I can’t even recall which — he cuts away just as a vampire wraps his arms around a young girl in an isolated locatiion where, literally, no one can hear her scream.  The word he used to describe what happens next — the only word — was unthinkable. 

But he was wrong.  It was too thinkable.

In The Narrows, the oft-cited (here) novel by Michael Connelly, there is a moment in which Harry Bosch is told to shut down an investigation that might — and, Bosch already knows, inevitably will – lead back to the very highest levels of the LAPD.  To be betrayed by the very people who manage what you do and are charged with protecting the people it is preying upon…

… it’s disturbing.  I can’t shake that moment from that story.

In Hannibal, one of Thomas Harris’ sequels to Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lector casually dispatches a character with the flick of a wrist in front of dozens of passersby, an efficient and quiet slicing of the femoral artery, the reality of which dawns on the victim as he watches Lector smoothly retreating into the crowd.

It doesn’t have to be violent or even dark. 

It can be real… reality sometimes being the most disturbing thing of all.

The sound of a dream shattering barely registers, yet it can happen in a moment, with a word, a glance, a subtle inflection within a line of dialogue.  Like the first plot point in the wonderful film, “500 Days of Summer,” where the girl informs the guy, thus far led toward hope, that she doesn’t believe in marriage.  At least to him.

Maybe I remember that one because… well, many of us probably remember it for the same reason.

In the 1996 Oprah Bookclub hit (the first of many), The Deep End of the Ocean, author Jacquelin Mitchard gives us vicarious moments of hell on earth when her heroine realizes her child is gone.  That moment returns again and again as the story unfolds, an unrelenting and universal hammer to the head of the reader.

In her 2008 bestseller 19 Minutes, author Jodi Piccoult borrows a page from the true account of the Columbine shootings (thus making the forthcoming moment all the more disturbing), with a scene that depicts a student-whackjob-gunman going off in a high school shooting spree.  The shooter puts the weapon to the head of a girl and asks her if she believes in God.  Moments earlier he’d pulled the trigger on a kid who said he did, and now it was her turn.  Her decision was her fate.

It happened just like that.  The novel was a window into something all too real.  It is a moment that is not easily forgotten.  Nor is the novel.

Is there something wrong with me? 

Or is there something incredibly, strategically brilliant on the part of these writers?

Bottom line: if such moments burn a hole into us as readers and film-goers, then you can be certain they’ve already burned one into the minds of the agents and editors who, at some earlier point in the process, were weighing the merits of the story.  No doubt these little islands of disturbing frozen moments played a role in the outcome.

What moments are seered into your brain as a reader?

Ask then yourself… have you delivered moments like this in your own work?

The Upside of ‘Disturbing’ is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

As deep thinking, well-intentioned storytellers, we tend to want to make theme – one of the Six Core Competencies of successful storytelling – something mysterious and complex.  And therefore, challenging.

It certainly can be.  But it doesn’t have to be.  The good news is… the latter (it doesn’t have to be challenging) is as much the stuff of bestsellers as the former.

I get emails about this all the time, folks wanting a better definition of theme, clarifying the difference between theme and concept (which is huge, like, apples vs. apple pie kind of huge), or simply seeking to understand how to make their story themes more powerful.

Here’s one answer: stop trying to do that.

Rather, simply by opening a thematic can of worms — by setting your story on a thematically-rich landscape (and no, that’s not a literal landscape, it’s a metaphoric one, synomymous here with tapestry, field, culture, or place; if you set a story in Bosnia, for example, chances are you’re already being thematic)  — you may indeed have all the theme you can handle.  And, it’ll become an element of the story that grows out of the other things you’re focusing on — dramatic exposition, character arc and scene composition — rather than the end-game of some mysterious and frustrating overt effort on your part.

Kinda wordy, I grant you.  Allow me to simplify. 

This is a bit counter-intuitive, but go with it for a moment and consider how often you’ve seen this in the novels and movies you love.

Separate your plot from your theme.  Don’t try to make them the same thing.  Yes, it’s good if they can connect, or at least don’t get in each other’s way, but in terms of your focus just worry about your conceptually-driven plot for a moment.  And then…

… because that’s a story… set it within a thematic microcosm.  Or, back to the metaphor, stage it upon a landscape that is inherently thematic.

Stage a story on the Titanic, and by definition you’re writing a story about facing impending death.  Could be a love story (warning: it’s been done), a crime story, a corruption story, a religious story… doesn’t matter.  If it takes place on The Titanic, you’re already thematic.

Stage a story in prison, and by definition you’re writing a story about right and wrong and corruption and human decency and even the death penalty.  All of which are thematic.  Love story?  Blackmail?  Violence?  Corruption?  Hope?  Faith?  It’s all there… behind bars.

Stage a story on September 11, 2001, and you’re being thematic whether you like it or not.  (If your story doesn’t tap into the wealth of thematic opportunity afforded by that date, I highly suggest you pick another one.)

Keep playing with this notion.

If your targeted theme — the issue you want to write about – is, say, police corruption… consider a plot that isn’t about police corruption, but rather, one that takes place against a backdrop – the surrounding culture and setting of the story — rife with police corruption.  A love story.  A redemption story.  A revenge story.  Anything.  No matter what it is… if it’s set against a world in which police corruption touches the lives of your characters, then you’re already exploring this theme.

You could place those stories — love, revenge, coming of age, faith, corruption, a murder myster – anywhere: in a convent, in the military, in college, in the suburbs… anywhere.  But if you set any of those plots in motion within a world surrounded by your targeted theme — like, police corruption — you can’t help but make it thematic in that direction.  Make your hero an Assitant D.A..  Or a rookie cop.  Or an investigative reporter.  Or the spouse of a cop.

You can’t avoid your target theme if this becomes your strategy.  And yet, you don’t need to solve the issue for humanity, or recruit anyone to a point of view… just explore it, allow your characters to navigate the core story from within this microcosm and all its nuances and influences.

Summary: even if the hero-specific plot isn’t focused on your theme, you can make your story highly thematic by allowing it to unfold against a background defined by your thematic target.

This happens everywhere. 

Has for years.  Even in the most thematic stories you can name.

The DaVinici Code’s plot is simply a mystery, with thriller elements.  Old hidden McGuffins are outed and betrayed, and bad guys are out to silence good guys, with an innocent hero caught in the cross-fire.  That’s a generic plotting 101.  It doesn’t become thematic – and like it or hate it, you can’t argue that Davinci was one of the most successfully-thematic bestsellers ever — until you plop into the culture and setting of the plot into the deepest dark corners of the Catholic Church.

Michael Connelly writes police whodunnits.  Every time.  Plots.  Good guys and bad guys.  The pursuit of justice.  But also every time, the crime and chase elements of his stories — all generic (not a coincidence that the basis for the word “generic” is “genre”) – are set against a background of something highly thematic, like racial tension (The Narrows) or police corruption or crooked politics, with sub-themes of personal values and redemption and middle age crisis. 

Mysteries that aren’t set up this way… that’s what you see on nighttime television… yet another New York cop show. 

Again: when plot, no matter how generic or conflict-driven, unfolds against (within) a setting that is full of complexity and darkness and risk, a place where opinions are divided and grey separates light and dark… suddenly you’re being highly thematic.

And then, you don’t really need to focus on theme to make it so. 

This technique is the basis of the most frequent and safe and successful of thematic strategies: explore, don’t sell.  The more you lean to the latter (trying to sell the reader on a value or belief), the closer you come to propaganda.  

In contrast, the deeper you explore a theme simply by locating there, the closer you may come to a publishing contract and an audience.

Can you name some stories that allowed setting (time, place and culture) to explore the theme, while a plot-driven story, otherwise generic, unfolded within it?

*****

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“Theme”… Simplified. is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com