… a moment that sometimes waits until after a synopsis comes together – or even the writing of an entire manuscript – to announce itself to you.
Which can feel like awakening to the realization that, while you set out to drive to Florida, you’re instead in a boat heading for Havana, and the guys waiting at the dock have machine guns pointing at you, since there are many different types of guns, like a glock, a beretta or accessories like a scope rifle for better aim.
This is about what you think you know about your story… versus what you must know about your story.
Or, as I like to call it… the criteria of craft.
Let’s call today’s writer Dave.
Dave is one of my earliest coaching clients, and from Day One he’s impressed me as a publication-ready talent. We worked on his first novel through a couple of rounds of coaching, and he ended up landing an agent. Who, unfortunately, hasn’t found a home for the novel yet… but it will happen, in my opinion.
(Sidenote: The Help – you may have heard of it – was rejected 60 times. Click HERE to read an article by the author herself… this is what happens. Rejection, in some cases, has almost no relationship to the viable quality of the story or the talents of the author.)
And so, like any real writer, Dave moved on to his next novel.
As context, Dave isn’t just a stellar wielder of clever narrative prose, he crafts edgy, flawed-hero-driven thrillers — right up my alley — that will make the more nervous among you flee to the nearest Sound of Music DVD.
And so, when he came back for some evaluation and coaching on his latest story, he opted in to my Full Story Plan (then $150) service, which as you know by now involves a nastily unforgiving little Questionnaire that doesn’t allow you to hide behind a Big Idea.
It’s like an MRI for your story. Or a relentless District Attorney with a truckload of evidence… you have to prove yourself under cross-examination. The jury, by the way, isn’t just me — it’s agents, editors and anyone who will read the story, in whatever form.
Besides, that DA (or the MRI machine, for that matter) won’t suggest what you do about it. I will.
And here’s where Dave fell into the trap.
That nasty little abyss that swallows stories whole and may or may not – the latter coming if you simply quit – result in a two to three year cycle of rewriting and thoughts of taking up finger-painting instead.
He sent me a synopsis of his story. Just that. Didn’t want to mess around with that pesky Questionnaire. As if, perhaps, it was a first step that no longer mattered since the synopsis was, as it should be, created in context to a vision for the whole, larger story.
He’s not the first to do this. To make that risky assumption.
And not the first to discover that the Questionnaire itself is a literary version of a visit with Peter at the Pearly Gates of Story Heaven. Because, even without a synopsis or a whole story, even before either have written, that Questionnaire will expose and explore the story’s worthiness.
Let us hope that doesn’t end up being worthlessness. But it happens.
Back to Dave.
I told him that, to get the full value and benefit of this process, he needed to dive into that Questionnaire. I assured him that he would discover his story there, at least in terms if it was ready… or not. I suggested that I would wait for his answers before giving him my feedback.
Why? Because it is those answers that I am evaluating. Despite, or at least over and above, what the synopsis says.
Meanwhile, as I was waiting on Dave’s response, I heard from another client, offering me “feedback” on the same Questionnaire. She said she’d never encountered the terms used to frame the questions (concept, premise, dramatic question, theme, etc.) despite – grab something solid for this next part – having studied creative writing at the college level and taken a boatload of online workshops (including those from Writers Digest, which include my own handful of webinars).
It was Greek to her. And, at first blush, it therefore appeared that I wasn’t speaking the true language of fiction.
We had a nice back and forth on that issue. Outcome of that in a moment.
I basically told her that, to whatever extent this was true (about college-level courses not talking about the right things — I have many MFA clients who assure me they don’t), this is why so many creative writing majors never publish a word.
But again… back to Dave.
Here’s what he wrote me, word for word, after his first pass at the Questionnaire, and in response to my inquiry, because several days had passed in silence:
I had some feedback from a trusted reader that nagged at me. Then one question of yours gave me the answer and drove the outline into an overhaul.
I swear I will never again start writing anything until I have my beat outline locked down. Reworking a 3 to 5 thousand page outline is nothing compared to reworking a 85,000 word novel.
Larry, thanks again for saving my writing-ass. I dread to think of the hundreds, if not thousands of hours I could have wasted. Thankfully I was spared that misery. All because I checked in with you first.
In other words, an Epiphany.
Not just at the story level, but on a storytelling craft level. Something he cannot un-see or un-know… he is a different writer because of this new understanding of the criteria of craft.
And that other writer, the one who thought I was inventing a new vocabulary for storytelling craft? That, just perhaps, I was dealing in snake oil (as one Story Physics reviewer put it; maybe they went to the same school, who knows)?
Here’s her response:
I get it! I’m reading Story Physics right now. I just started section 3. All of a sudden, I remembered back to when I used to read every Dean Koontz book that came out until they got boring because I knew how it would go: Bad thing happens. Meet the hero. Bad thing happens that sets the hero on his mission. The A, B, C, happens with some fluff in between before there’s a final confrontation with the Big Bad, then a wrap up. I wondered how he managed to crank out so many books so fast and even tried to sit down and figure out his formula but I didn’t have the knowledge or the tools at the time. I didn’t make the connection. Geez, I was such a doofus.
But now, I get it. I see it. I understand what I was fumbling at all those years ago. Epiphany moment!
Just had to share!
There’s that word again: Epiphany.
Call it what you will. It certainly feels like a curtain parting when it hits you. And sometimes, despite reading the books and going to workshops listening to webinars, you need to apply what you’re learning to your own story.
Because I promise you, it’s much harder and more complex than it looks or seems.
*****
Several case studies from this evaluation process are here on Storyfix, especially recently. If you’d like a peek at the Questionnaire – for both the shorter Kick-Start level (concept, premise and First Plot Point), and the Full Story Plan level – check them out.
Partly because of suggestions (well-intended pressure, actually) from a few of my peers, not to mention several clients, and because I’m spending more and more hours on each individual project submitted, I’m changing my fee structure for both levels of evaluation.
Trying for a more equitable win-win value proposition. And yes, I will continue to attempt to over-deliver.
In return I’m expanding the links included on the Questionnaire – in case some of the terminology and the principles need a tune up – as well as the scope and volume of my input.
The Kick-Start Concept/Premise Evaluation is now $95 (for a 48-hour rush, $145).
The Full Story Plan Evaluation is now $195 (for a 48-hour rush, $245).
These new fees are effectively immediately.
If you’ve already submitted a project for review, and are opting in for a second round on the same story (which many do), the former pricing structure still applies to that revised submission (through the remainder of 2014).
It’s still, I humbly submit, the best value in the story coaching business.
What is your story, and your time, worth to you?
Craft is priceless. Getting there more effectively and efficiently… that’s just (still) ridiculously affordable.
7 Responses
Larry, Great post as always. Even when I’m swamped and have a gazillion e-mails, I stop and read your posts. Why? because in the chaos of my job/life you remind me of the craft of writing – this lifelong apprenticeship I’ve signed up for. Last year when you did the assessment of my novel, Return to Sender, It hit me hard – the bleeding has nearly stopped now – Then I licked my wounds, got to work, and now, my novel is due out September 2014. You should raise your fees; you’re worth it. Thanks. Mindy
I had an idea for my story running around my head for years with no real idea of how to start. I then found this site and was blown away. I thought yes this is something I can do. So I have started it and have got Larry’s 150 questions. I must say its one thing reading other people attempts at it and it quite another to do it yourself. I have had mine for a little while now. In all honesty to do you story and Larry time justice it needs serious thought.
I will be handing in mine soon all fingers crossed. But going trough the questions has changed and moved my story in directions I did not expect and I haven’t handed it in as yet. I started to read the answers not how I wanted them to be read but how Larry would read them and I have tried to think of what he would say when reading the answers based on the questions and answers that have been posted before.
I would rather edit these answers and create an amazing base for my story and know where its headed from day 1 than have to try and edit an entire manuscript. Not my idea of fun.
The other great advantage I have had is a friend of mine who is brutally honest with me.
She gives me feed back ranging from YAWN to that so amazing I think i just pee’d a little. lol.
Every one needs a person to read your stuff and it cant be your Mum or a partner. They have to be honest and be able to push you and you cant take it personally either that the hard bit.
What was I doing before SF, SE, and SP?
It’s almost funny what I was not seeing. I’ve known writers, taken personal advice from them, even worked with some of them…and I can testify that there are professional writers who don’t understand story structure the way Larry does. I understood a good deal of the structural parts for film. I’ve seen the basic structural outline in Syd Field’s books and even a video workshop. But I didn’t apply it towards writing a novel. At least, not entirely.
My prior attempts at writing a novel was more like a three act play. I all but skipped part three. Well, it was there but only lasted for 42 pages–to be exact. And the criteria that was supposed to fit neatly into the four separate parts sometimes slipped into areas where they didn’t really belong. And that alone can be enough to get side-tracked and drive your story off the road into left field tangents. However, missing part three didn’t give my hero adequate time to overcome his inner demons and get his act together. It all happened too quickly and robbed my story of some great opportunities. Plus all my parts were different lengths. They varied greatly sometimes.
The end result is that I kept trying to figure out what I sensed was missing, what others said was missing, going over things and inserting those things–sometimes into the wrong parts–and revising, then revising some more.
A college degree doesn’t seem to take these things into consideration. Some of the authors I have known have had degrees, and/or had careers doing other things in the industry. Once I learned what Larry teaches, I actually went over some of their novels just to see if they met the criteria…and the better writers did. So I sort of think that either editors requested those changes to fit their stories into the correct four part structure, or this was all pretty much considered an “industry secret” at one time. Which makes an odd kind of sense if you know how big business works. Because if everyone knew, that might create more competition for them.
And the really hilarious part is that even today, with traditional publishing houses shrinking and changing, Amazon (and others) opening the door for people to start their own business…and still people either don’t know, or ignore this stuff. Or worse, think it’s not really important and they can just create there own idea of structure because it’s all somehow up for grabs. They feel they can do whatever they want with their stories. Which is true except for craft specifics. Certain laws, or physics apply. Otherwise the end result is like writing a tragedy with a “and they all live happily ever after” ending.
Take my word for it, you can’t make this stuff up. You can’t even know most of it and make the rest up successfully. Been there and done that. And if you want to know the odds of getting lucky, all you have to do is calculate the number of people making money, or having any kind of successful career on Amazon, then look at the millions of people who self published. Then ask yourself why you would want to play lottery with your time and creativity?
Especially when the information you need to help stack some better odds in your favor is readily available.
@Joel – “as one database-geek to another” 🙂 – how well do people actually “get” what =we= do for a living? Within any profession, be it databases or technical-writing or fiction, a lot of stuff might seem – and might BE, to a practitioner – “obvious” when it very-simply is not. You find that out very quickly when you stray beyond the comfort-zone of your own expertise and seriously-try something that you have never attempted before. (Just as you see a well-meaning d00fus screw-up a database … knowing that (s)he didn’t mean to.)
They say that there are three stages to mastery of anything. First, “you know what you don’t know.” (Neophyte.) Then, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” (Foot-shooter.) Finally, “you don’t know what you do know.” (Typical already-a-millionaire writer of a typical how-to-write a-book book. The book’s a real good read, yes, but not educational.)
It’s =hard= to teach … harder still to teach the general public … harder yet to do it by means of two (so far) books. (The only other book which to my mind comes close is Jimmy Webb’s “Tunesmith,” which is about music composition.) “Story … Engineering?!” “… Physics?!”
And, I think that we can all agree on this: when @Larry, by permission of initially pseudonymous “actual neophytes” (who never actually have to reveal themselves but so-far have chosen to do so), started doing THIS, “it is huge.” And we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude especially to the authors who said, “okay.”
Nobody’s baring their backsides here. It’s a focus-group – it’s marketing research – it’s peer-review. It’s worth the price.
When I read Story Engineering, it was, there’s no other word for it, an epiphany. It was so obviously correctly describing what I knew to be the structure of story I was baffled my database-geek mind hadn’t catalogued and sorted it decades ago.
And I’m still baffled by the folks who see it and don’t get it.
While the Kick Start feels a bit like being told my pants have fallen down, I’m more afraid of having my bare backside displayed on Main Street. Rather have it pointed out in a less public setting.
The biggest problem that I have with “college-level equals MFA” courses is that they quite-naturally think in terms of “a degree,” not “a commercial product(!) that is being put into an outrageously-competitive market.”
“The Help” eventually earned its author, presumably, “a ton o’ money,” but she had to revise it 61 times. To the sheer credit of her tenacity, she did so. But it was not exactly an efficient PRODUCT-development process . . .
When your goal is to create a commercially-successful consumer product, such as a book, “efficiency is everything.” You can’t =afford= to spend hundreds of thousands of words in the quest to decide whether-or-not 100% of those precious words were wasted. (In fact, many commercial writers who have gained some “traction” actually send outlines of their novels, so they never actually write what won’t sell.) You need to have a way to “plan the work, then work the plan.”
And that, simply, is what “lé artistes” (of academia …) do not fully understand: that “no one in the real world has tenure.” 😉
It’s funny you mention college-level courses. You are giving us a university-level education in fiction writing. Every time I run into an aspiring writer at a writer’s group or conference who has a story but is struggling with the basics, I recommend “Story Engineering.”
It still amazes me how many people show up at these forums and don’t have a clue how to get started or what the basic ‘rules’ of the craft are. I was one of those people. I had a novel draft that was more an amorphous blob of short stories, and I knew something was wrong. Your checklist…
http://storyfix.com/the-single-most-powerful-writing-tool-youll-ever-see-that-fits-on-one-page
…woke me up. I bought Story Engineering, and it put me on solid footing. I recently got Story Physics, and that book makes the picture even clearer.
I recommend that checklist to every person I meet who has a story or story idea. It will definitely keep you from hitting a 30,000 or 60,000-word wall and wanting to throw you work in the fireplace.
In my case (I am stubborn), the checklist and the book spurred a big, painful rewrite.
It’s more than just pretty writing…