A guest post by Curt Fouts
Before you hop in the car for that cool literary road trip you have planned, check your route and your reason for going. I-70 through Kansas? Not exciting, even if you plan on hitting all the tourist traps offering two-headed cows and 500 pound chicken eggs.
Larry’s recent posts that delve into concept and premise came at the right time for me. Is your Story Worth Saving? was a gut check, coming as it did along with the case studies. I pored over what Larry wrote and scrutinized my own story I had spend years writing, editing, and polishing.
What was wrong? I obeyed the laws of Story Physics. I had engineered a good story. My characters were well-drawn, my hero empathetic. I weaved the themes in ever so delicately, with solid structure and crisp scenes, every dialog a controlled conflict, tension, powerful emotional experience for the reader, pacing…
The first sign of trouble came when I attempted to write the query letter. Writing the synopsis was easy compared to that, and anyone who has done both can see where this is heading.
I suffered through writing more than thirty iterations of the ‘hook,’ the sizzle part of the query letter that captures the essence of your story, but it wasn’t sizzling. It read like a scientific report. It screamed, “So what?” And that’s a very bad sign.
Larry’s posts on concept and premise came along while I was struggling with this. As I studied his words and dived back into my scribbled-over copies of Story Physics and Story Engineering, the sickening realization came over me like a creeping stomach flu:
My premise is not compelling.
I squirmed inside myself, my brain twisted around trying to justify what I had done, attempting to make my work fit the criteria, but ultimately I had to face facts. You can write a well-structured story with all the dramatic elements about a platoon of ants struggling to get the remnants of a nut log back to their anthill, but who would want to read it?
I have read a tower of books on writing and storytelling, and Larry’s works accord with other gurus I admire and listen to like Randy Ingermanson and John Truby, among many others. Why is there so much overlap among so many different gurus, with the rare differences coming mostly in emphasis of one thing over another, or perhaps terminology? Because, as Larry reminds us, these are fundamental principles that go back to the foundations of time, when primitive man sat around fires telling stories to pass on wisdom and to make sense of the world around them.
Most story gurus will recommend you first develop your concept and premise and explore them. Deeply. Probe them, ask what-if questions, flesh them out, even to the point of identifying your story milestones and writing a synopsis.
I would add one more step that many gurus add as well: Use your premise to write the hook to your story, that blurb you see on the back of a book or DVD case, the tantalizing bit of what’s-it-all-about that makes you want to rent this DVD, or take that book home and curl up in bed with it.
Does your hook sizzle? Does it engage your emotions, tease your intellect, pique your curiosity? Titillate you? Does it make you want to dive into the story?
Test your hook out on others. Blake Snyder of Save the Cat fame, may he rest in peace, said he would test out his hooks on people while standing in line at Starbucks, the grocery store, wherever. He would know whether or not he had a good premise based upon the reactions of others. That is powerful advice.
So, I stand by the road, rain pouring down my back, my storyteller umbrella blown inside-out and tattered by the harsh winds of story physics. I cry over my beautiful, shiny literary machine, crafted with so much love over so many years, the dreams I indulged in, my hair flying in the breeze as we raced to Bestsellerville. But now, she’s out of story gas, off in the ditch, perhaps destined for the junkyard. All I can do right now is light an emergency flare, wave my arms and warn you off the route I have taken.
The literary trip you embark upon must follow the laws of Story Physics, and you must plan it using the principle of Story Engineering. But if you proceed from a premise that is not “compelling, interesting, and rewarding,”* your trip to Bestsellersville will end with your beautiful machine broken down in the parking lot of Heartbreak Hotel.
* – Story Physics, p. 34
29 Responses
after coming back and reading through the comments, I just wanted to add that I was a bit confused about Curt’s quest for a hook. Was he talking the story’s hook in the first 50 pages that suck the reader in, or the hook for his query letter. And I am still not sure. But I think what is the niggling problem is very basic – character goal, motivation and conflict. what does he want, what is driving him, and what is preventing him from getting it. I am not sure it’s clear so I think that is why you can’t nail your story hook. Being heroic requires great sacrifice for a cause or person he thinks is worth more than his life. There is a shallowness and immaturity to medal chasing and IMHO therein likes the biggest conflict. And it’s something a good woman can’t fix. Most young men leave home and join the military for adventure, escape a dead end life, money, patriotism, boredom. I doubt he hop the bus saying I want a medal. And I suspect medal chasing would be wiped from your brain once you move past basic or advanced basic training. I suspect most wonder if they can really cut it and not freeze when faced with actual danger. Ultimately, after having been that close to death, the medal he may receive someday will actually have enough meaning that it’s something he tucks away rather than showing anyone. Make me care so much about this man’s journey I can’t put the book done.
Jason,
Sounds like you are in touch with where you’re at and you think deeply about your work. Hopefully #10 will be the one.
An older friend of mine told me that people who write poetry (a life-long hobby of his) do it for themselves, and perhaps for their circle of fellow poets. Unless you’re Maya Angelou, you ain’t getting published.
I think that applies to us all at one level or another. If you don’t love writing, then why torture yourself?
The trick is to channel your creativity into a marketable form and enjoy the best of both worlds. But that is a very difficult trick.
@Jason–You may have a collection of “failed novels,” but I like your ideas. Even the plague that ravages planets wouldn’t be unheard of in a time when space travel becomes possible. What if the villain were purposely sending infected people to these planets to infect them as a futuristic type of biological warfare? The cosmos has gotten too overpopulated, too difficult to control. Wipe out a number of planets where the inhabitants don’t fit into the villain’s schemes of the perfect future and the rest fall under his control when he offers up a cure–and a better way to live. His way! BWAHAHAA!!!
@Curt
Yes, I’m the one with 9 failed novels in his basement. I don’t know if I’m now a good novelist. I just know that #10 is far better than anything I ever did before. It’s a decent, story and all the scenes are on topic and lead toward the eventual goal. I even layered the story: the containing story is the hero wondering where he came from (he doesn’t know who his father is), and the inner story is the battle he gets into on the planet where he was born. But, like you, I need to make the beginning a lot more compelling.
The nine novels in my basement were great for me to set up my science fiction universe and to learn what works and what doesn’t. For now, I’m mining those books for some characters and places along with the general setting. I also learned that the space travel technology I was using didn’t work with what I know about Physics.
The book I’m writing is a new story, and takes place on a fresh planet I’ve never used before. It is part of the universe I’ve always used. It also shows a very dark side the the Empire I’ve always used and have previously shown in a good light.
So, when I look back, I think some stories have potential if I start over. One about a teacher whose former student turns out to be a futuristic Stalin resonates with me (I’m a teacher). When that one failed I gave up on writing for a few years because I was so frustrated. I’d like to revisit that one. On the other hand, my failed novel about a plague that somehow spread from planet to planet is a bit silly. There are some ideas there, but the spread of the plague is silly: planets aren’t like states or even countries. There is some real separation between them!
So, my failures are primarily where I built my science fiction universe. However, there are a few good ideas in there if I’m willing to start over from scratch.
By the way: your other idea about sticking with my artistic vision does not apply to those nine novels. They’re terrible even by my standards. However, there are features of #10 which might doom it in the commercial market. It has a very Christian element to it, though it’s not what would be considered Christian fiction. I also have a crippled hero, a rarity in the science fiction market. Finally, it’s a very low-tech sort of science fiction.
I do have a side project going: I’m completing a history of my church. It’s a rural church (we don’t even have indoor plumbing — I wonder why I’m writing low-tech science fiction?). There would only be a very limited interest in its history, but I’ve been working hard to put the principles of story construction into it. I even have a climax: a big showdown with the Presbytery in the 1980s in which they tried to shut the church down. I’m also the current keeper of the documents which prevented it. It will never make money for me, and I plan to sell the history “at cost” anyway. I’ll probably even lose money because I’ll be giving copies to so many people.
You did mention reading choices. I have to say that I have more than 9 failed novels. I started writing novels in elementary school. However, my early work (some of which is lost) was plagiarism of Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Twin Peaks. I created new characters, but they had an uncanny correspondence to the characters in these works. You might guess my television watching at that time.
You mentioned reading choices and genre. My reading used to be primarily science fiction. Over time I discovered that, for the most part, I’m more comfortable with older science fiction than I am with the newer stuff. I love authors like A.E. van Vogt, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and so on. Eventually I branched out and read some fantasy and spy or action fiction. In fact, Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory” was a big influence on my current book. I’ve enjoyed some dystopian novels, and I actually gave a few shout-outs to Cormac McCarthy’s book “The Road” in my current novel. His description of the end of the world fit well with the planet’s history of a nuclear holocaust, so I tossed in a couple references that I hope people who have read his work will recognize. I really appreciate what he did in helping me to picture the world that my characters only know as history. So, getting out of genre helps, especially since my science fiction is relatively low-tech.
You really did mention an important issue: “Make the change and have a shot, or stick to my artistic vision and most likely doom the project.” Truthfully, the answer might come down to hunger. If you are living off your writing, you might compromise your vision. If, like me, you have a non-writing job, then the project is a labor of love, not a money-maker. I dream of making a living off my writing, but I like the freedom that I write what I want and please only myself. I want to share my book, and I want to be published, but I know that I can live just fine if it never happens. For someone like me, one question might be how strongly I feel about my project.
I might also ask whether the issue is important. Suppose an editor doesn’t like my blond and blue-eyed hero on a planet of people who are not blond and blue-eyed. I made the choice to emphasize that his father was from off planet, but an editor might see racism. Does that one matter? Not a whole lot, though I like him blond. I’ve really built up his picture in my mind. What if an editor thinks people won’t be able to relate to a crippled hero? I think this is fundamental to his identity, but is it vital to the project? What if the editor wants me to take the Christian element out of the book? To me, this is huge. Not only is it huge because of my own Christian faith, but because I think the contrast between the Christian religion and the dominant religion on the planet is a vital part of the story. An editor (and some Christians out there) might not like that my hero was adopted at age 9 by a Christian pastor who was also an alcoholic. In fact, he was adopted mostly because the pastor thought raising a crippled boy might distract him from drinking. It didn’t. But, this would be offensive. Again, since this character’s health problems are why my hero stays on the planet to start the story going, I think it’s important, but an editor might prefer innocent heart problems. I like the alcoholism because my hero’s first family was very abusive, the pastor tended to neglect him, especially when off on a binge, and the hero had to learn to take care of himself at a young age. In fact, one of the hero’s weaknesses that he has to overcome is a search for a father figure in his life and, instead, be a father to his dead best friend’s son.
I’ve given you a hint that my novel has pathos, pain, and action. I think I handled these things decently. The battle in draft #3 is to improve the beginning so that I can hook the reader. I really like my first scene, but then the thing sags as the hero gets reaquainted with the planet and people he hasn’t seen in over 20 years, we meet the key players, and I set up the revolution and locations that are coming. I need to seriously tighten that part of the book up. Right now, it’s one of those books that the reader would set down before reaching the “good” parts.
Funny thing: in my 9 failed novels, the ending was a failure (by then I realized I had failed, and just wanted it over with). I was pretty good about beginnings, but lost steam as I went along. Now that I’ve started planning out my book, I have a great first scene, a good ending (sad, but satisfying), a good middle, but a terrible first quarter.
Anyway, I hope this rambling response addressed your questions. I’ve enjoyed visiting this blog and learning from other people who want to be published authors.
@all – wanted to “show up” in this discussion of Curt’s story, and thank him again for such a great guest post. He’s submitted his story plan for analysis, and I’ll be doing that turnaround quickly once he’s ready. That’s why I’m not chiming in along with all these great ideas and thoughts on his concept — not that you need my help — because I’ll a) be providing my take direct to Curt, and then, if he’s up for it b) share the responses (his and mine) here. Thanks to all for the generous time and genius thinking you’re providing for the writers here. Larry
Elizabeth: Joseph Conrad-Francis Ford Coppola tie-ins…
I like it!
Curt–
As Larry would say, you’re still engaged in a “search for story.” It keeps changing! First, it was a thriller, focused on getting a medal. Then it was a love story, focused on the woman in the second half. Now, it is a mainstream coming-of-age story. Based on everything you’ve said, I think that is the true story. As Robert Jones commented, everything must be built around that clear through-line that provides cohesiveness to the book.
With what we know now, and borrowing from Trudy’s blurb, how about a hook/premise along the following lines? —
Does it take a medal to prove one’s courage? The search for self takes a young man to the jungles of Noriega’s Panama. After he’s humiliated in a love affair, (name) enlists in the military, determined to prove his manhood by earning a medal. His tough boss senses the uncertainty under his bravado and does everything he can to deny him the medal. (Name) seeks validation in a carefree romp with his soldier buddies, only to have a lovely Panamanian woman challenge him on a deeper level. Finally, (name) must confront himself on a dangerous mission deep in the jungle. Suddenly, no one cares about a chest full of medals when the goal is to survive for one more hour. It will take every skill, every talent, every brain cell and a whole lot of luck for (name) to make it back alive. Will he find himself in the jungle or be lost forever in a “heart of darkness”?
@ Nann Dunn: “A good portion of what I learn from this group comes from the outstanding comments…”
I agree. Your comments and the advice from others is valuable to folks like me trying to get something off the ground, or to just improve my craft.
This is an awesome forum, and this thread has made me dive deeper into my story.
Curt–Sounds like you have a good story with a firm grasp of the essentials. It’s almost a “road trip” type of story–albeit without the car–where the hero comes full circle in discovering himself by going after what he “thinks” he wants, and learning, being redirected, by each set-back. I like those slice of life stories with a literary flavor. So long as the story physics are in place, it should work very well. There’s lots of potentially interesting things on each level. I would definitely want to read it.
I also think having to sum up those key factors so folks get where you’re coming from will be of help to you in your plot and query letter. You’ll have a sounding board for what people respond to and what they can’t see yet in your description. That alone might be worth the price of attending a writer’s conference 🙂
Robert: The Medal is the McGuffin, the Golden Fleece that impels the protag to leave home and embark upon his journey, which he does at the beginning of the story after embarrassing himself over an older woman (he’s 18, she’s 21).
He thinks he has it in hand, he coasting, having fun with the guys, when the hammer comes down. The Antagonist shows his ugly side, and tells Protag that his medal has been denied.
— Point of clarification here that is made clear in the story: Medals are not just won for bravery. There are lower ones for doing your job well, doing something special, etc.–
Protag thinks the medal will validate him, make him an adult, so that is what he chases throughout the story, in the form of doing good things at work, special projects, etc.
He dreams of glory, but realizes his medal will most likely come from events more prosaic. But it doesn’t matter to him. The folks back home will see the uniform and the medal and be impressed.
The astute reader will will see from the beginning that a medal will not fix what is broken in him, and I want them to see that. This is a coming of age story about a young man who thought he was an adult by virtue of graduating high school but gets a cold bucket of water to the face that says he is not.
The story is in his journey to understanding (among other things) what the adult reader already knows: External things do not validate who you really are. Sounds simple, but most of those readers buy cars, houses, vacations, bling, to validate who they are.
I hear alarm bells going off, but rest assured that no story character mounts a soapbox and delivers any sermons. It all comes out in the narrative and scene execution.
He never intends to fall in love (the hero never does, does he?) but of course he does, and that is where the personal growth happens and where most of the dramatic tension happens. Movies like Tootsie do this, although the dynamics in that movie are different than this story.
My writings contain all kinds of stuff I’ve seen over the years, and this story is not autobiographical, so I don’t have hangups over changing something because it really didn’t happen that way.
You’re asking some wonderful questions and making me think deeper about this. I will have to sit quietly and think about it all. I was not prepared to discuss this more in-depth than the Concept and Premise.
Don’t apologize for the advice. It’s all good stuff, and even if I’ve heard it before, it benefits me to hear it stated in a different way.
My story has the elements you describe, much how you describe them, including a hint that even though the protag does not know it, this is really about him finding rewarding and supportive relationships with other people, to include perhaps, a good woman who helps him become the better man she sees inside him., and as a bonus it weaves in with the medal/career success thread to produce a resolution that makes sense from what was set up by the story.
Curt–All those things about relationships sounds great. And they should distract the hero from his goal at times. However, if I’m reading you correctly, the medal isn’t really the goal–it’s a symbol of making restitution, of doing some good to make up for the past. This is the strong emotional stuff of which great stories are made.
But (isn’t there always a “but?”), I want to camp out on something for a moment to make sure you understand it. All those relationships are subplots. Unless finding the “right” woman is the core. Then the story goal is finding an ease to his hurts by finding true love, not restitution, or a medal. We must be sure to identify the specific and overriding goal that the story delivers to your hero. The fact that this is partly based on real life muddies that because life is a series of goals and a novel is the story about one of them. Even if the hero gets the girl in the bargain, that’s still a subplot, a bit of gravy that tops off his medal/restitution.
The big question is, how does your villain threaten the goal of the hero? Even if based on real life, can the villain be played up in such a way that he could ruin everything for the hero? Drive him over the edge, ruin his chances for restitition, his relationship with the right woman, all of it? There is one clear overriding threat for the reader to identify with, to root for the hero to overcome. Even in stories based in real life, a main villain can be made to symbolise much. He can be a composite for everything the hero has to overcome in terms of roadblocks, encapsulate all the little things your story doesn’t have room for on paper. Your villain could be an amalgom for the barrage of minutia that life has fired at your hero. But rather than clutter up your story with numerous subplots and characters, your villain becomes symbolic of the worst of life’s pain and the key factors that attempted to block your hero from succeeding.
If you think of your villain in this way, you won’t cheat the story you intend to tell, merely clarify it, sum it up in a way that symbolizes the trials and hurts and still keeps it very real while tightening it. When those other relationships distract the hero, it only adds to the tension of whether the hero succeeds in his goal, or not. For example, the wrong girl/failed relationship makes the reader think, “Hey, get your head out of the sand. Can’t you see what this girl is doing to you? Get back on track!” Consequently, the right girl may help to keep him on track by giving him a kind of emotional support he’s never had before. Meanwhile, that relationship teeters on the brink of whether the hero can find himself and achieve that all important goal. It all comes back to meeting his goal and overcoming the villain who stands in the way. All parts of the story must support the whole, enhance it in a strong emotional way.
I may be telling you what you already know, but it bears repeating anyway–for you, as well as some who may learn from this discussion.
A good portion of what I learn from this group comes from the outstanding comments often given. I find most of them, although they reflect on the specific article or problem offered for resolution, can be applied to the broad spectrum of writing. Today is no exception. Thank you all for your insights, and you, Curt, for allowing us to see, and make wide-reaching but intelligent suggestions about, your search for perfection.
@Elizabeth, I love your cut-to-the-heart precision. I’m keeping your post to run my story through as I write it.
Robert,
Thank you. I appreciate your advice, thoughtful and specifically helpful, as always.
Carving away the flabby bits is critical, isn’t it?
The conflicts are externalized, but much of the dramatic conflict and tension comes from his relationships (first a failed on with the ‘wrong’ woman, later the trials and tribulations of trying to make it work with the ‘right’ one, which is what I want the reader rooting for. His past failures haunt him, but you see it externally in the scenes of them trying to make the relationship work.
So, within the dynamics of the relationships, which share the stage and even crowd out at times the seeking-the-medal thread, the conflict and tension arise from his relationships, people trying to make it work, fighting, courting, flirting. Late in Part 3 (2nd half of Act 2) the work and love story threads intertwine and stay that way for the rest of the story.
You’ve given me much to cogitate on.
Jason,
Are you the guy who talked about having a pile of manuscript drafts in the basement? I’m curious because I’d like to hear from people who wrote their stories before understanding story craft, and who then tries to rehab them, which is what I’ve been doing for the past few years with this one.
Some writing books and blogs will tell the aspiring writer to sit down and examine your reasons for writing this story. I didn’t understand that at the time I read it, but I do now. As one author put it, you may be better off writing an essay or memoir that clearly expresses your thoughts and feelings, but that will not see wide publication.
With the technology we have now, anyone can produce a book, and you may be a brilliant writer who has a collection of handed-down family stories. Unless you can elevate the concept and mold the stories into a dramatically-compelling story arc, the collection is likely of no interest to a commercial audience, but your family would love you for writing such a work and having books pressed for them to read and pass on.
Sometimes you just have something inside you that must come out, so you write. The trick is, if you want it to be commercially viable, you’ve got to follow the rules discussed here. That was a hard pill for me to swallow.
I’ve brainstormed many ways I could punch up this story:
* Protag falls in love with Noriega’s daughter, or the daughter of one of his colonels
* Protag comes to see US policy is wrong, flirts with the ‘dark side’
* Protag with a sniper rifle on a roof, with El General in his crosshairs, but he’s a rogue! The US doesn’t really want Noriega dead
* Protag’s Air Force paycheck is critical to saving grandma’s farm
* Protag’s love interest and her family are die-hard Noriega people, providing the dramatic conflict (an actual suggestion)
*Give protag a more exciting job with a more Maltese Falcon-type plot, or alternately, like Mel Gibson in Year of Living Dangerously (Suggested by someone who read the script I wrote from this story)
So, if someone were to suggest a change that had a high probability of making my story commercially-viable, but the change compromised my thematic intent for writing the book, my very dream and vision, I have a dilemma. Say I’m a Huey Lewis fan and I wanted it to be about the power of love, but that is incompatible with the strategy that will give me a good shot at selling the book. Now I have a decision: Make the change and have a shot, or stick to my artistic vision and most likely doom the project.
I can understand someone making either decision. Can you?
This is why authors like Tom Wolf, Kurt Vonnegut, Aldous Huxley, Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell stand the test of time. They could write about deep themes and make it compelling, although many accuse Huxley of crafting thin stories upon which he hangs his heavy philosophies. Vonnegut was accused of the same in his final works. Although I’m a big fan of both authors, I can see it. (Huxley: Island. Vonnegut: Galapagos)
Originally, this was a huge collection of stories. I carved off a bunch and focused on one time a place. I had planned on writing a delightful romp about an Air Force guy and his buddies in Panama, a kind of a Good Morning Vietnam for a different time and place, but it had no dramatic tension, and if you’re writing funny stuff that rides atop serious themes, it’s challenging, and late in the story you’ve got to knock off the humor or turn it from ribald to bittersweet if you want to deal with the darker issues that lurked earlier in the story. Great authors pull it off, but it’s an uphill pull for mere mortals.
So, I’m left with what I have, and either it will work or it won’t. I will either find a way to make it work, or I won’t. There are many good short stories in there…
BTW, I think my journey also highlights the consequences of your reading choices. Writers should read widely, but I wonder how many at my level mainly read mostly in the genre they are writing in?
I love the classics, The Lost Generation, Huxley, Vonnegut, Steinbeck, etc, but they were very different authors writing very different stories for a very different time. Most of their work did not have classic Dashiell Hammett, Elmore Leonard or Lester Dent plots. In the hands of a master, that can work.
I can’t remember who said it, but he was right: Writing is hard 😉
Curt–I think you have a great beginning, but I would step back and review Elizabeth’s questions and give the overall synopsis a fresh view with those things in mind. I have no doubt that you are a writer and a thinker. However, we all suffer from a certain stigmatism when it comes to viewing our own work in progress.
What the notion of concept/premise does is give us a strong understanding of the foundation upon which everything else must be built. Glad you are seeing those things in a new light. We might also say that those harsh winds of story physics are really a gift that tore holes in your umbrella so that you could see what is beyond the veil.
With this new insight firmly in hand and mind, we could also say that if each of our novels were converted into a screen play and given to a dozen different screen writers, directors, and DPs, we would get a dozen different takes on our story. However, if we were to examine each of them, one would probably stand out as being the most dramatic, capturing the emotional heart of the story, cut out the flabby parts, and knocked it out of the park as far as keeping the audience glued to their seat with curiosity and suspense.
Let’s think about suspense for a few minutes. What is it about your story that arouses it the most? Because if you can identify that thread out of all you have going on, play it for all it’s worth, you’ll have identified your core story. That will be the conflict that arises from your main character and his sadistic boss. Not the battle “within” your hero. That part is important, but it comes under the heading of “inner demons.” All those internal fears and struggles must be made manifest in the conflict between the hero and villain, or you have no real story…nothing to play off of dramatically on your physical stage.
As Elizabeth said, there’s nothing “carefree” about this romp. It is a mine field of past hurts and present emotional/physical conflict. So I think you have some work to do as far as figuring out the hero and villain relationship and this will bring about the missing pieces you’re struggling with.
Query letters are very much like the best book jacket blurbs. They arouse questions that make readers curious. Agents and editors are readers too. You need to pose questions they feel need immediate answers–then they are hooked. They need to feel there is an interesting conflict and wonder how it will get resolved, in other words.
The best titles are metaphors. “The Heat is a Lonely Hunter” is not only a metaphor, but it also evokes some emotion, gives us some indication of what the story is about on some gut level. “Heart of Darkness, Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird,” all have the hint of promise that some emotional conflict will ensue. Your title is the gateway to your book. Don’t neglect the opportunity to lure readers in with that hint of promise, or a secret revealed–and work at until it becomes a poetic metaphor that exudes resonance.
Trudy,
Writing a good query, like all good writing is both an art an a science, and I still grapple with it. And I took a seminar on it recently at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference.
From what I understand, you learn as you paper the walls of your writing den with rejection letters.
Okay, then. You’ve got too much fluff in your query letter. Keep it short and tight. Here’s a suggested approach.
Panama Libre is a story of a young man, humiliated enough to leave town, his tail between his legs. He vows never to return. He joins the air force and discovers he’s good. Really good. He finds himself reinventing himself, proving to his superiors, he was the consummate soldier. Except one superior who sees through him, almost as if he knows the naive kid from (town). Against the backdrop of political unrest of Noriega’s Panama, he meets a woman and embarks on an affair that baffles and enriches his soul. They are wrenched apart when his next assignment takes him into the treacherous jungles. Suddenly, no one cares about a chest full of medals when the goal is to survive for one more hour. It will take every skill, every talent, every brain cell and a whole lot of luck for (name) to make it back alive.
I agree with you about that compelling hook. I’m on the third draft of my novel, and I finally figured out that I needed to really improve my hook and I really needed to compress the first bit of the book and get the story going.
This one is so much better than anything I’ve ever written before, but it just makes me aware just how much improvement I have left.
I thank you for your willingness to share your experience. It’s painful to realize.
Elizabeth,
The protagonist is young. He needs to grow up. The hometown embarrassment is no big deal to an outside adult looking in, but remember back to when you were 18, and hopefully I capture that experience in the scene where it happens (my writer’s group and beta readers thought I did).
He wants a medal. That is his validation, the external thing he thinks will show everyone in his hometown that he is an adult. The antagonist hates him and thwarts him. Of course, his journey ends up showing him that external things don’t validate you. But the emotional core of the story is his pursuit pursuit of a Panamanian woman. She reminds him of an older woman he has a crush on back home (the woman he made a fool of himself over in the first chapter). The Panamanian woman becomes his new quest. After much difficulty, they end up dating in part 3 (2nd half of Act 2), but the road is rough, and bad things happen, forcing the protagonist to take control of his fate and fight.
The demons are not so dark, merely bleached bones and ghosts of failures past, as well as his need to impress others that overrides his true feelings.
Curtis,
You flatter me too much! I enjoy reading non-fiction and fiction that is philosophical, literary criticism, and then regurgitating. But for it to seep into my fiction, I’ve found it has to germinate for awhile and seep down into my soul. If I try to consciously write fiction about philosophical issues, before they’ve soaked in good, it becomes too pedantic, like a fumble-fingered and much-less-literate Aldous Huxley.
My problem is, that this story is drawn from real-life, and as the expert tell us, that can put severe limits on your creativity: The grandma needs to be a sneak thief! What??? My grandmother was a saint, God rest her soul! She would never do something like that.
I appreciate your advice, it goes directly to tapping that ocean of powerful and scary forces deep within our right brains.
Curt, it occurred to me that maybe you DID answer these specific questions in your book, but you might think a hook/blurb should be drawn in broad, rather poetic, brush strokes? No, no–always be specific. Tell us! Punch it!
When hooking the reader–if he doesn’t really know what the book is about, all he’s left with is Noriega’s Panama. That’s not strong enough to hook most readers.
Hmm, this sounds interesting, and I don’t see why it would need to be scrapped completely. The hook relies on an exotic landscape for its appeal, but, as far as the plot goes, it’s nebulous and not specific enough.
Here are my questions about the hook:
He’d like to return a hero, but what specifically does he plan to do to be heroic? Is there a specific battle he’d like to take part in? Is there a nefarious enemy (one man) he’d like to take down? What is his mission?
It hardly sounds like a “carefree romp.”
What specifically is the boss trying to do (the conflict in context to the hero’s goal?
How does the woman play into his goal and his time in Panama? Does she physically show up there?
What is the demon (Internal Conflict) raging inside him?
I think if you can be specific and answer these hook questions in compelling ways, the book could be saved. If you can’t–then yes, maybe it will have to be scrapped (or, at least, heavily tweaked).
Curt,
First things first. Give yourself credit for what you do well and do very well.
“Ontological Angst.” “Anything more than Nasty, Brutish, and Short is Icing on the Cake.” “Che and Churchill: There’s a Little Eichmann in All of Us.”
1. You are a master of disstiled thought. And, brother, you do think! You roll out insight as you breath. (I’ll take a dollar for everytime someone has said something to you like this, “Yeah, I never thought about it like that, but, yeah.”)
2. Now, the trick is to internalize your hook/premise/concept statement so it restates as your brand of distilled thought.
If you can’t get it internalized you have to wonder why. Remember, when you write and are at your best, you write out of that cauldron of ontological angst. My guess, and it is only a guess, your character might be a little bland for that cauldron. Let him be this guy, “Che and Churchill: There’s a Little Eichmann in All of Us.”There may not be a carefree romp across an exotic landscape. The throbbing Latin Rhythms might recede into the background of but a few scenes.
But, “his toughest battle against his greatest enemy is the one that rages within himself” will be the thing that compels you and the reader will follow your passion.
When an idealistic young man is so delicate he can be simply embarrassed all the while struggling with his inner Eichmann, you will have yourself one of Curt Fout’s vintage Coldron Stories. Dude. It’s a series. 🙂
grace and peace
Curtis
P.S. My oldest is named is Curt.
Hi Nann,
Thank you for the encouragement.
Here is a draft of the hook I’ve been working on, which should leverage the concept and the premise. I’ve improved on it since writing this post, and I had to go through much rewriting to get the story up to this level:
Panama Libre – Historical Fiction/Coming of Age
Between dictatorship and colonialism, chauvinism and surrender, a path to freedom awaits those brave enough to risk the journey.
An idealistic young man escapes to the Air Force after suffering a hometown embarrassment, and he vows to return with a medal pinned to his chest. But his path to freedom and home again winds through the jungles of Noriega’s Panama, throbbing with Latin rhythms and simmering with political unrest as the Cold War draws to a close.
His carefree romp across Panama’s exotic landscape is bedeviled by a sadistic boss determined to end his career, and by his obsession with one elusive woman, the ideal, who he can’t put out of his mind. He dreams of military glory, but his toughest battle against his greatest enemy is the one that rages within himself.
“So, I stand by the road, rain pouring down my back, my storyteller umbrella blown inside-out and tattered by the harsh winds of story physics.”
Curt, if your story reads like this, I don’t care about the premise! You know I’m kidding, but that is powerful writing. Would you be willing to post your concept and premise here and let us see if any of us find it compelling? Not everyone has the same interests, of course, but don’t be too quick to assume your.premise won’t fly. One of your readers likes it, perhaps others will, too.
I think it’s incredibly huge to actually look in the mirror and admit to yourself that your concept just isn’t interesting enough to compel. It’s like being in a relationship with someone who cannot admit they are wrong so they stay stuck. That said, I read many great hooks/concepts that failed in execution. it’s a package deal , no ?
Hi Elizabeth and Mindy,
Thank you for the kind words. Commiserating with fellow writers salves the wounds, which is one more good reason to join a local writing group, and I’m blessed to belong to a lively, honest and supportive one here in town.
After lurking for almost two years, I’ve come to see Storyfix as my on-line writer’s group. We’ve got an excellent teacher with proven chops, and I learn much from the comments and back and forth from you, Joe Canfield, MikeR, Robert Jones, and others.
Some people come home from work and watch TV or surf the internet. My family is active, everyone going in all different directions, so when I have time to myself, I write. I enjoy it, and the engineer in me is fascinated by story craft, so un-digital, elusive and defiant in the face of attempts to definitively quantify it, capture it, and reduce it to a cold set of rigid rules. I still grapple with concept v. premise, but I immediately ‘got’ Larry talking about 10 to the 10th power and 9 billion ways to screw up your story in his last post.
So there’s no way I’m quitting. I’m aiming higher!
I still may be able to salvage the story. The most critical beta reader was shocked when I told him I was thinking of shelving it, and he begged me not to. The story has deep thematic elements subtly running through it that resonated with those who read it.
So I’ve got some tweaks to make, and at some point I will submit it to Larry for his gimlet-eyed assessment.
If I can’t make it work, I’ve got other projects in the works, and thanks to what I have learned, I will launch them from a solid foundation.
We all go through it. Just light that flare and get back to work. Good post. Mindy
Dear Curt,
Wow, what a sad post. Because of your vivid writing, I definitely felt your pain. We have all felt it, and you’re not alone.
But just think of what you can do now–with your knowledge, experience, and deeper understanding–going forward?
I know–the thought of going forward–*gag*. You mean, I have to do this AGAIN? I might miss something AGAIN in my next book? Is writing really worth all this work and pain? Makes me think of an old joke, “I love writing. I just can’t stand all the paperwork.”
Of course, it’s worth it. At least, to those of us who keep coming back here to Larry’s blog.
Somehow, I think it will be worth it to you to keep going. I hope you’ll continue letting us follow you on your writing journey. You make the journey come alive in a way we can all relate to.