I've been dinking around with this one story story for a while now, trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I finally figured out that it was the ending -- it was going well up to the last few pages, but then I wasn't sticking the landing. The immediate incident being told in the story was over, but there were ramifications for later on, and the protag had plans for what she was going to do in the future as opportunity and resources presented themselves.
It kind of sounded like the first chapter -- or maybe the prologue -- of a novel, rather than a stand-alone short. Except there really wasn't enough pending action to support something novel length. :/ There was too much blah-blah-blah at the end, too much speculation about what the protag would do some day in response to the immediate situation. It just sort of trailed off rather than giving a firm ending. Not good. This story's been bounced a couple of times before, and now I can see why.
I chopped off about the last thousand words and rewrote the ending. I figured out a different way the protag could respond to the situation, riskier and more immediate, but also more intense and satisfying. Hoping this one works. [crossed fingers]
Angie
ETA: closed to coments because of idiots spamming.
Showing posts with label structure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label structure. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Cliffhangers
Jane at Dear Author has a post about cliffhangers up today, with a survey asking whether people like them or hate them or don't care. She's talking about cliffhangers at the ends of books, which have issues of their own, and I left a comment there.
What really annoys me, though, are fake cliffhangers used at the ends of chapters. Something like, "Mary answers the door, then gasps in horror and draws back with her arms curled protectively across her face!" End of chapter. Reader goes "Ack!" and quickly turns the page, imagining that Ivor Evil the Villain is there with a flamethrower or something, only to find that the UPS guy's on the other side of the door with a stack of packages that almost tipped over. He apologizes, hands her the one or two that belong to her, gets her signature and heads off to the next apartment, at which point the conversation Mary and her sister were having before the doorbell rang toward the end of the previous chapter is picked up and the story goes on. The cliffhanger was nothing, meant nothing, and was inserted only to be a cliffhanger.
That kind of a cliffhanger is completely bogus. First, there's no reason to break a chapter there -- there's no change of time, location, POV, or even significant activity. Second, the tension fostered in the reader was a complete fake, with nothing behind it. It's the writer saying, "Haha! I fooled you!"
Then they do it over and over.
I've gotten into discussions about this particular device in the past, and writers who do this sort of thing have indignantly explained that it's "to get the reader to turn the page."
I have two comments for that. One, a writer who pulls this stunt might keep me turning pages through this one book, but I'll never buy anything with their name on it again. And two, if they think they have to resort to these kinds of fake-outs to get their readers to keep reading, they must not have any faith at all in their plot or characters.
Cheap trick. Doesn't impress anybody. Don't do it.
Angie
PS -- usual caveats, you can make this work, especially if you're writing melodrama-style humor, etc. Doing it with a straight face, though? Yuck.
What really annoys me, though, are fake cliffhangers used at the ends of chapters. Something like, "Mary answers the door, then gasps in horror and draws back with her arms curled protectively across her face!" End of chapter. Reader goes "Ack!" and quickly turns the page, imagining that Ivor Evil the Villain is there with a flamethrower or something, only to find that the UPS guy's on the other side of the door with a stack of packages that almost tipped over. He apologizes, hands her the one or two that belong to her, gets her signature and heads off to the next apartment, at which point the conversation Mary and her sister were having before the doorbell rang toward the end of the previous chapter is picked up and the story goes on. The cliffhanger was nothing, meant nothing, and was inserted only to be a cliffhanger.
That kind of a cliffhanger is completely bogus. First, there's no reason to break a chapter there -- there's no change of time, location, POV, or even significant activity. Second, the tension fostered in the reader was a complete fake, with nothing behind it. It's the writer saying, "Haha! I fooled you!"
Then they do it over and over.
I've gotten into discussions about this particular device in the past, and writers who do this sort of thing have indignantly explained that it's "to get the reader to turn the page."
I have two comments for that. One, a writer who pulls this stunt might keep me turning pages through this one book, but I'll never buy anything with their name on it again. And two, if they think they have to resort to these kinds of fake-outs to get their readers to keep reading, they must not have any faith at all in their plot or characters.
Cheap trick. Doesn't impress anybody. Don't do it.
Angie
PS -- usual caveats, you can make this work, especially if you're writing melodrama-style humor, etc. Doing it with a straight face, though? Yuck.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Series and Series
I went to a panel today (well, yesterday now -- on Monday) about long series which was interesting and entertaining. (E-mail Seanan McGuire, who moderated, and tell her she needs to actually write the Ikeamancer series she described at the panel -- she thought she was joking but it'd rock. :D )
One issue which wasn't raised other than in passing, though, is that there are two distinct types of series, and the kind of support work one does for each is going to be different.
Most of the writers on the panel had or were working on single-story series, the kind where there's some single story arc which the series as a whole is focused on resolving. The classic example here is of course Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien never considered to be a trilogy, IIRC; it was written as a single novel, and was published in six "books" organizationally, and in three volumes because, well, page count. But there are plenty of other series nowadays where there's a single story and you really do have to read the whole thing, in order, to get the entirety of this single story. No skipping, no reading out of order, and if the writer dies in the middle, the whole thing up to that point (both the writing and the reading thereof) has been pretty much wasted because you're never going to get the entire story. Someone (it might've been Seanan, actually [squint/cogitate]) asked whether it wasn't a lot easier to keep people coming back and reading if each book of the series wasn't an actual ending, but just the close of the current act. That might be true for some people, I suppose. It'd be interesting to see some good survey data on that. [Scribbles a note for an RTB column.]
The other kind of series, though, is the true episodic series, where each book is self-contained and when you come to the end, you have the entirety of that particular story. There might be some farther-reaching plot points which color all or many future books, and there might be character development which likewise shows in future books, but you generally can pick up Book Six first and read it and understand who's who and what's going on. You might feel a bit of confusion if some character or event from a previous book is mentioned, but it won't be a key point in the current book (or if it is, it'll be explained) and you'll generally get almost as much enjoyment out of the book that someone who'd read the whole series up to that point would've gotten. A good example of this which comes to mind is Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde series. Each book or short story is stand-alone. There's a chronology, and there are mentions of people and events from earlier in Diana's life in the later stories, but you can pick up any story and get what's going on, and there's no point where being unable to read the next one would make you want to smash something.
The clear advantage of this second type, of course, is that if the writer gets hit by a bus at some point, it'd be a very sad thing but at least the readers aren't left hanging with three-quarters of a story and no clue what was going to happen or how all these dangling plot points and perilous obstacles were going to resolve. And likewise, if a writer just loses that particular muse, or starts chasing a newer and shinier muse, or if the publisher decides they don't like the numbers from Book Six and therefore declines to contract for the projected books Seven through Twelve, it's a disappointment to the readers, yes, but it doesn't leave this ragged, bleeding hole in the series.
A major disadvantage of the first type, or at least the one which annoys me the most personally as a reader, is that if the story is complex enough, you pretty much (or I do -- maybe it's just the way my brain is wired) have to read all the books bam-bam-bam, because in the year or more which passes between books, you forget who's who and what's going on and what the characters were planning to do about this problem here, and cetera. Harry Turtledove's Worldwar books had that problem for me -- I read the first one, then a year later I got the second one and had no clue what was going on. So I reread the first one, then read the second one. A year later I got the third one, couldn't remember the characters or what each person/group had been doing again, so reread the first and second books, then read the third one. Then the fourth book came out and I couldn't remember.... [headdesk] These books are like two inches thick, so rereading all the previous ones every time a new one comes out is no small undertaking. As time went on, it was more and more difficult to find a large enough chunk of spare time to sit down with the whole stack and catch up before reading the new one. When book four came out, I never did read it, although I bought it. There are three or four more books after that too (technically a different series, but the same verse and chronology, so I look at them as the same series) and although we might actually have those around the house somewhere, I haven't read them and might never. I really love Harry's work, and have since Guns of the South, but jeez.... :/
Part of the problem here is that these books are complex, with multiple protags, each with his own goal, own plotline and own set of supporting characters, and for the most part each protag's storyline takes place in some chunk of the world (or up on the invading alien fleet ships) distinct from the others. (Very similar in structure to most of the Niven/Pournelle collaborations, like Lucifer's Hammer, for folks more into the harder SF.) So it's not just a matter of remembering who the protag was and what he was doing -- you have to remember all the protags, all the storylines, and which goes with which. I have a mind like a steel sieve when it comes to fiddly little individual data items and couldn't do that. I'll admit I don't have quite such a hard time retaining info about single-plotline series if there's really a single plotline, with a single protag and only one actual story to keep track of. I enjoy the more complex, braided-plotline books, but when they're series I just can't keep track of all the different names and events and info from one year to the next.
And of course, there are going to be distinct differences in the prepping and writing for each kind of series. With a single-plotline series, you need to keep track of the over-all storyline, where the volume you're writing right now fits into it, which threads from the previous book(s) you're picking up and furthering in this volume and where you have to lay threads which will be picked up a volume or three later, making sure your greater, series-long plotline progresses just enough and in the right way. At the same time, you need to do all the usual novel-plotting for the current book. (I'm assuming most writers would want to at least kinda-sorta pretend that each volume is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, despite evidence to the contrary in my own reading [cough] and that there will actually be a smaller plot arc over the course of the current volume. In a way it's just more of the same thing you do for a chapter or a cluster of chapters for every novel, but that difference of scale is a pretty significant one.
Whereas with a more episodic series, you need to keep track of your bible, make sure you're consistent with all the usual setting and character things from one book to the next, and maybe track one or two threads of a larger event or of character development which run between books. Most of the plotting, though, will be complete within the volume and won't have to fit perfectly into its place as Act Five of an eight-act plot, or anything like that.
There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of series. I just thought it was interesting that the second type was pretty much ignored at the panel. It makes me wonder whether it's a blip in the SF/F genre, or among this particular group of writers, or whether it's a more general trend in commercial fiction. If it's actually the general-trend thing, it hasn't hit my end of the business, for which I am profoundly grateful; there are plenty of episodic series which do very well indeed here, and I'm working on a couple myself -- one urban fantasy and the other SF. I know Sean Michael, one of Torquere's most popular writers, has a very successful series about a private club (which I think is a space station but don't quote me) called the Velvet Glove, which is episodic. And Laney Cairo's Liminus Australis series, set in a future Australia at war, isn't going to be completely episodic, but there aren't any ragged, bleeding plot threads left at the end of Running the Nullarbor, which is the first book. Aaand... [squint/cogitate] I'm willing to accept that there are probably some multi-volume stories too, although I can't think of any right now. [duck] So the market's definitely there for the full range of series types, and I'll be keeping several sets of virtual fingers crossed in hopes that the situation will remain stable for at least the next few years.
There was also some discussion of protecting your drafts and notes, and a story about how one person's 700+ pages of series notes vanished with a blown hard drive. Ouch. :/ At any given time, the entire contents of my STORIES folder is on my main computer, my laptop and a flash drive. The laptop and flashdrive aren't always completely up to date (probably not as often as they should be) but at least my chances of losing everything are pretty slim.
Someone mentioned completely off-site backups, which are a good idea. There are various ways of doing this, but despite some skepticism from one or two people attending the panel, I think GMail works dandy for this sort of thing. Not as one's only backup option, of course, but if you've got other backups too, the chances of everything going blooey all at once become remote.
Wikis were mentioned for organization, and I'll admit I've thought about this too. Right now I don't have enough info on any one series to make the work of setting up a wiki in the first place cost-effective, but it's something to keep in mind as the bulk of data and frequency of look-ups grow. I know a couple of writers personally who have wikis for their writing and they seem to work well. It's just the initial time investment, and then the required obsessiveness to keep everything updated and linked and all; I'd rather save that kind of effort for when I have more than three or four stories in a series. For right now, my notes files are working just dandy.
Oh, and there was some discussion of pitching your series differently depending on how many books the publisher will be willing to buy. So for example, you'd want to be ready to pitch a stand-alone book, a two-book series, a trilogy, a five-book series, etc., explaining how you'llhack mangle adjust the over-all story arc to work for each length, so the publisher can choose which one they want you to write. o_O Ummm, suuure. Thanks, but I think I'll stick with my publisher for now. New York is going steadily insane. [bemused headshake]
Angie
One issue which wasn't raised other than in passing, though, is that there are two distinct types of series, and the kind of support work one does for each is going to be different.
Most of the writers on the panel had or were working on single-story series, the kind where there's some single story arc which the series as a whole is focused on resolving. The classic example here is of course Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien never considered to be a trilogy, IIRC; it was written as a single novel, and was published in six "books" organizationally, and in three volumes because, well, page count. But there are plenty of other series nowadays where there's a single story and you really do have to read the whole thing, in order, to get the entirety of this single story. No skipping, no reading out of order, and if the writer dies in the middle, the whole thing up to that point (both the writing and the reading thereof) has been pretty much wasted because you're never going to get the entire story. Someone (it might've been Seanan, actually [squint/cogitate]) asked whether it wasn't a lot easier to keep people coming back and reading if each book of the series wasn't an actual ending, but just the close of the current act. That might be true for some people, I suppose. It'd be interesting to see some good survey data on that. [Scribbles a note for an RTB column.]
The other kind of series, though, is the true episodic series, where each book is self-contained and when you come to the end, you have the entirety of that particular story. There might be some farther-reaching plot points which color all or many future books, and there might be character development which likewise shows in future books, but you generally can pick up Book Six first and read it and understand who's who and what's going on. You might feel a bit of confusion if some character or event from a previous book is mentioned, but it won't be a key point in the current book (or if it is, it'll be explained) and you'll generally get almost as much enjoyment out of the book that someone who'd read the whole series up to that point would've gotten. A good example of this which comes to mind is Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde series. Each book or short story is stand-alone. There's a chronology, and there are mentions of people and events from earlier in Diana's life in the later stories, but you can pick up any story and get what's going on, and there's no point where being unable to read the next one would make you want to smash something.
The clear advantage of this second type, of course, is that if the writer gets hit by a bus at some point, it'd be a very sad thing but at least the readers aren't left hanging with three-quarters of a story and no clue what was going to happen or how all these dangling plot points and perilous obstacles were going to resolve. And likewise, if a writer just loses that particular muse, or starts chasing a newer and shinier muse, or if the publisher decides they don't like the numbers from Book Six and therefore declines to contract for the projected books Seven through Twelve, it's a disappointment to the readers, yes, but it doesn't leave this ragged, bleeding hole in the series.
A major disadvantage of the first type, or at least the one which annoys me the most personally as a reader, is that if the story is complex enough, you pretty much (or I do -- maybe it's just the way my brain is wired) have to read all the books bam-bam-bam, because in the year or more which passes between books, you forget who's who and what's going on and what the characters were planning to do about this problem here, and cetera. Harry Turtledove's Worldwar books had that problem for me -- I read the first one, then a year later I got the second one and had no clue what was going on. So I reread the first one, then read the second one. A year later I got the third one, couldn't remember the characters or what each person/group had been doing again, so reread the first and second books, then read the third one. Then the fourth book came out and I couldn't remember.... [headdesk] These books are like two inches thick, so rereading all the previous ones every time a new one comes out is no small undertaking. As time went on, it was more and more difficult to find a large enough chunk of spare time to sit down with the whole stack and catch up before reading the new one. When book four came out, I never did read it, although I bought it. There are three or four more books after that too (technically a different series, but the same verse and chronology, so I look at them as the same series) and although we might actually have those around the house somewhere, I haven't read them and might never. I really love Harry's work, and have since Guns of the South, but jeez.... :/
Part of the problem here is that these books are complex, with multiple protags, each with his own goal, own plotline and own set of supporting characters, and for the most part each protag's storyline takes place in some chunk of the world (or up on the invading alien fleet ships) distinct from the others. (Very similar in structure to most of the Niven/Pournelle collaborations, like Lucifer's Hammer, for folks more into the harder SF.) So it's not just a matter of remembering who the protag was and what he was doing -- you have to remember all the protags, all the storylines, and which goes with which. I have a mind like a steel sieve when it comes to fiddly little individual data items and couldn't do that. I'll admit I don't have quite such a hard time retaining info about single-plotline series if there's really a single plotline, with a single protag and only one actual story to keep track of. I enjoy the more complex, braided-plotline books, but when they're series I just can't keep track of all the different names and events and info from one year to the next.
And of course, there are going to be distinct differences in the prepping and writing for each kind of series. With a single-plotline series, you need to keep track of the over-all storyline, where the volume you're writing right now fits into it, which threads from the previous book(s) you're picking up and furthering in this volume and where you have to lay threads which will be picked up a volume or three later, making sure your greater, series-long plotline progresses just enough and in the right way. At the same time, you need to do all the usual novel-plotting for the current book. (I'm assuming most writers would want to at least kinda-sorta pretend that each volume is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, despite evidence to the contrary in my own reading [cough] and that there will actually be a smaller plot arc over the course of the current volume. In a way it's just more of the same thing you do for a chapter or a cluster of chapters for every novel, but that difference of scale is a pretty significant one.
Whereas with a more episodic series, you need to keep track of your bible, make sure you're consistent with all the usual setting and character things from one book to the next, and maybe track one or two threads of a larger event or of character development which run between books. Most of the plotting, though, will be complete within the volume and won't have to fit perfectly into its place as Act Five of an eight-act plot, or anything like that.
There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to both kinds of series. I just thought it was interesting that the second type was pretty much ignored at the panel. It makes me wonder whether it's a blip in the SF/F genre, or among this particular group of writers, or whether it's a more general trend in commercial fiction. If it's actually the general-trend thing, it hasn't hit my end of the business, for which I am profoundly grateful; there are plenty of episodic series which do very well indeed here, and I'm working on a couple myself -- one urban fantasy and the other SF. I know Sean Michael, one of Torquere's most popular writers, has a very successful series about a private club (which I think is a space station but don't quote me) called the Velvet Glove, which is episodic. And Laney Cairo's Liminus Australis series, set in a future Australia at war, isn't going to be completely episodic, but there aren't any ragged, bleeding plot threads left at the end of Running the Nullarbor, which is the first book. Aaand... [squint/cogitate] I'm willing to accept that there are probably some multi-volume stories too, although I can't think of any right now. [duck] So the market's definitely there for the full range of series types, and I'll be keeping several sets of virtual fingers crossed in hopes that the situation will remain stable for at least the next few years.
There was also some discussion of protecting your drafts and notes, and a story about how one person's 700+ pages of series notes vanished with a blown hard drive. Ouch. :/ At any given time, the entire contents of my STORIES folder is on my main computer, my laptop and a flash drive. The laptop and flashdrive aren't always completely up to date (probably not as often as they should be) but at least my chances of losing everything are pretty slim.
Someone mentioned completely off-site backups, which are a good idea. There are various ways of doing this, but despite some skepticism from one or two people attending the panel, I think GMail works dandy for this sort of thing. Not as one's only backup option, of course, but if you've got other backups too, the chances of everything going blooey all at once become remote.
Wikis were mentioned for organization, and I'll admit I've thought about this too. Right now I don't have enough info on any one series to make the work of setting up a wiki in the first place cost-effective, but it's something to keep in mind as the bulk of data and frequency of look-ups grow. I know a couple of writers personally who have wikis for their writing and they seem to work well. It's just the initial time investment, and then the required obsessiveness to keep everything updated and linked and all; I'd rather save that kind of effort for when I have more than three or four stories in a series. For right now, my notes files are working just dandy.
Oh, and there was some discussion of pitching your series differently depending on how many books the publisher will be willing to buy. So for example, you'd want to be ready to pitch a stand-alone book, a two-book series, a trilogy, a five-book series, etc., explaining how you'll
Angie
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Remodelling
So I'm working on this story. [headdesk] It's a contemporary, and if I ever get it finished and if it gets accepted it'll be my first non-magical contemporary to be published. It'll also be my first BDSM story to be published, although it's just light bondage -- very light -- so that's not a huge deal.
The problem is that I looked at the finished story and needed to change the setting, which was a movie location, which was just too... too. :/ Of course, setting sets the tone for a story and there are some things your characters can do in Setting A that they can't do in Setting Q, so I couldn't just reach into a hat and pick out a new setting; whatever I chose had to fit the plot and the circumstances. Specifically, I needed a setting where the characters could've known each other for a while, and might've been together to know each other for a while some time in the sorta-recentish past, and are now together again, but where they don't live near each other to see each other regularly, or at least between Last Time and This Time. That gap is important.
I pondered for a while and discarded some possibilities and finally came up with an SF convention. You can run into people once a year, or even less often depending on which cons you go to and whether you're a regular or just show up every now and then. I figured I could make them both pros -- one a writer and the other an artist, so a lot of it would depend on where they were invited as guests any given year; if they didn't actually live in the same area, it could very well be years between the times they saw each other. It'd be hard to stretch out the individual meetings for more than a few days each -- maybe four max, unless I wanted to make it WorldCon or something similar, in which case a week at the outside would work -- and that was a bit problematic, but it seemed I could make it work well enough. Okay, cool, convention it is.
Ever torn out a setting and installed a new one...? It's sort of like jacking up a house, jackhammering the foundation completely out, then pouring a new one with a slightly different layout here and there, then trying to set the house back on it while remodelling said house enough so that the walls actually match up with the new bits of the foundation. [headdesk] I did it, though, went through the story and rewrote a lot of the beginning where things were set up and established, changed bits here and there throughout the rest, smoothed it all over with sandpaper and tah-dah! Done!
Except not quite. :/ I kept looking at it, reading it over, and it just doesn't work.
I mean, the story works for me, but then I'm intimately familiar with SF conventions. I went to my first one as a teenager and was a gofer at that first con. I've been on staff I don't know how many times, from mid-size conventions to a couple of WorldCons, and was on the staff of a professional conference for just over ten years just for variety. I even chaired a major regional twice. But what's incredibly familiar to me is still an exotic locale to most people, and in order to make this work I'd have had to insert a lot more description and explanation.
Which I could've done, certainly, but when you get down to it, the setting just isn't that important a part of this particular story. I mean, yes, it dictates some of the plot points (which was why I couldn't just grab any old setting in the first place) but aside from that, it's not all that important for the reader to focus on the setting, beyond just being aware of where the characters are. Heck, somewhere between half and two-thirds of the story takes place in a bedroom and that could be anywhere. :P If I'd given the SF convention setting as much description and explanation as it would've needed, the sheer verbage involved would've given the readers the impression that the setting was a lot more important than it really was. The whole story would've felt unbalanced. [headdesk]
I do love conventions and I'll probably set a story there eventually, but this isn't the time to do it.
Back to the jacks and cranes and jackhammers.
I thought about it a while longer and finally came up with another possibility. I'm going to put the story in a much more mundane setting -- it'll start out at a local high-end gym (which everyone's at least reasonably familiar with, even if they've never actually been to one) and have one of the characters be a regular there (so he's been there all along) while the other worked there evenings and weekends through high school and the first four years of college, then moved away to go to grad school and such. That gives me the separation over time that I need to make the story work, and by the time the two characters hit the second guy's house (and bedroom) it'll all be basically the same from there on.
I'm pretty sure it'll work this time. Really. Now to go do the heavy lifting. Again.
Angie, rolling up her sleeves
The problem is that I looked at the finished story and needed to change the setting, which was a movie location, which was just too... too. :/ Of course, setting sets the tone for a story and there are some things your characters can do in Setting A that they can't do in Setting Q, so I couldn't just reach into a hat and pick out a new setting; whatever I chose had to fit the plot and the circumstances. Specifically, I needed a setting where the characters could've known each other for a while, and might've been together to know each other for a while some time in the sorta-recentish past, and are now together again, but where they don't live near each other to see each other regularly, or at least between Last Time and This Time. That gap is important.
I pondered for a while and discarded some possibilities and finally came up with an SF convention. You can run into people once a year, or even less often depending on which cons you go to and whether you're a regular or just show up every now and then. I figured I could make them both pros -- one a writer and the other an artist, so a lot of it would depend on where they were invited as guests any given year; if they didn't actually live in the same area, it could very well be years between the times they saw each other. It'd be hard to stretch out the individual meetings for more than a few days each -- maybe four max, unless I wanted to make it WorldCon or something similar, in which case a week at the outside would work -- and that was a bit problematic, but it seemed I could make it work well enough. Okay, cool, convention it is.
Ever torn out a setting and installed a new one...? It's sort of like jacking up a house, jackhammering the foundation completely out, then pouring a new one with a slightly different layout here and there, then trying to set the house back on it while remodelling said house enough so that the walls actually match up with the new bits of the foundation. [headdesk] I did it, though, went through the story and rewrote a lot of the beginning where things were set up and established, changed bits here and there throughout the rest, smoothed it all over with sandpaper and tah-dah! Done!
Except not quite. :/ I kept looking at it, reading it over, and it just doesn't work.
I mean, the story works for me, but then I'm intimately familiar with SF conventions. I went to my first one as a teenager and was a gofer at that first con. I've been on staff I don't know how many times, from mid-size conventions to a couple of WorldCons, and was on the staff of a professional conference for just over ten years just for variety. I even chaired a major regional twice. But what's incredibly familiar to me is still an exotic locale to most people, and in order to make this work I'd have had to insert a lot more description and explanation.
Which I could've done, certainly, but when you get down to it, the setting just isn't that important a part of this particular story. I mean, yes, it dictates some of the plot points (which was why I couldn't just grab any old setting in the first place) but aside from that, it's not all that important for the reader to focus on the setting, beyond just being aware of where the characters are. Heck, somewhere between half and two-thirds of the story takes place in a bedroom and that could be anywhere. :P If I'd given the SF convention setting as much description and explanation as it would've needed, the sheer verbage involved would've given the readers the impression that the setting was a lot more important than it really was. The whole story would've felt unbalanced. [headdesk]
I do love conventions and I'll probably set a story there eventually, but this isn't the time to do it.
Back to the jacks and cranes and jackhammers.
I thought about it a while longer and finally came up with another possibility. I'm going to put the story in a much more mundane setting -- it'll start out at a local high-end gym (which everyone's at least reasonably familiar with, even if they've never actually been to one) and have one of the characters be a regular there (so he's been there all along) while the other worked there evenings and weekends through high school and the first four years of college, then moved away to go to grad school and such. That gives me the separation over time that I need to make the story work, and by the time the two characters hit the second guy's house (and bedroom) it'll all be basically the same from there on.
I'm pretty sure it'll work this time. Really. Now to go do the heavy lifting. Again.
Angie, rolling up her sleeves
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Plotting
I've seen some discussions about plot here and there recently, at Romancing the Blog among other places. I've talked about plot before, but usually in support of something else, or on a comment on another blog. So here's my take on what your plot is:
Figure out who your protagonist is. Figure out what she wants. Figure out why she can't have it. Figure out what she does to try to get it anyway. There you go.
The "what she wants" part is your goal.
The "why she can't have it" part is your conflict.
The "trying to get it anyway" part is the meat of your plot, the action, the story, the "what happens" between the beginning and the end.
The climax is when the protag either gets what she wants, or realizes/accepts that she can't have it after all and deals with that.
So:
Protagonist ==> Goal ==> Conflict ==> Trying To Achieve Goal Anyway ==> Climax
This is the bare skeleton of a plot; you can hang whatever flesh you want onto it, add skin, moles, freckles, a tattoo, a sleeve, a belt, etc. But a story has to have a plot or it's not a story, so you need at least the basics, at least one main plotline. (And in a short story, one is usually all you have room for.)
Knowing what your main plotline is gives you a solid baseline while you write. Particularly with longer or more complex stories, where you have two or more intertwining plotlines, and/or a number of subordinate plotlines, they all need to be heading in the same direction ultimately, even if they start out far removed from each other in time and space, each with its own set of characters. They need to come together in the end and support some one storyline, to help (or hinder) the resolution of the main plotline; if they don't, then they don't belong in the same story. (Check out the Niven/Pournelle collaborations for some great examples of how to start out with half a dozen or more far-flung sets of characters and goals, and wind up with everything woven neatly together in the end. Lucifer's Hammer does this brilliantly.)
Even if you're a pantser (which I am), knowing what your main plot is gives your story a strong spine, and gives you as the writer a failsafe ruler to use when you're judging whether this or that subplot or supporting character or gimmick, or conversation or description or chunk of narrative, belongs in the story. Does it ultimately support the main storyline, even if only peripherally? If not, then chuck it.
Another way to think of the main plotline is as a six-lane interstate going from the beginning to the end of your story. You can add other roads -- state highways, frontage roads, meandering surface streets, dirt tracks through abandoned fields, whatever -- but they all need to connect back to the interstate eventually. Anything wandering off completely on its own, unconnected to anything else, doesn't belong on the map of your story.
Note that having a plot doesn't mean your characters can't ever just sit down and talk.
Having a plot doesn't mean your characters can't ever just sit down and contemplate their problems within their own minds.
Having a lot of action does not mean you necessarily have a plot. Random fire-fights or car-chases do not make a plot, while actionless conversation just might. One of the most common misconceptions about plot I see in discussions around the web is the idea that Plot <=> Action, and that if you don't have a physical fight or a mystery to solve or something like that in your story, you don't have a plot. That's not accurate at all.
Plot is about your characters trying to solve one or more problems, trying to get what they want despite obstacles. If that frantic speedboat chase doesn't help your protag get what she wants (part of the solution), or directly prevent her from getting what she wants (part of the obstacle), then it doesn't further your plot. If leaning over the fence and having a conversation with that annoying neighbor helps your character solve his problem (part of the solution), or at least shows him more clearly what the problem is (helping define the obstacle), then that conversation does further the plot.
Goal ==> Obstacle ==> Solution
That's plot. How you flesh it out is up to you.
Angie
Figure out who your protagonist is. Figure out what she wants. Figure out why she can't have it. Figure out what she does to try to get it anyway. There you go.
The "what she wants" part is your goal.
The "why she can't have it" part is your conflict.
The "trying to get it anyway" part is the meat of your plot, the action, the story, the "what happens" between the beginning and the end.
The climax is when the protag either gets what she wants, or realizes/accepts that she can't have it after all and deals with that.
So:
Protagonist ==> Goal ==> Conflict ==> Trying To Achieve Goal Anyway ==> Climax
This is the bare skeleton of a plot; you can hang whatever flesh you want onto it, add skin, moles, freckles, a tattoo, a sleeve, a belt, etc. But a story has to have a plot or it's not a story, so you need at least the basics, at least one main plotline. (And in a short story, one is usually all you have room for.)
Knowing what your main plotline is gives you a solid baseline while you write. Particularly with longer or more complex stories, where you have two or more intertwining plotlines, and/or a number of subordinate plotlines, they all need to be heading in the same direction ultimately, even if they start out far removed from each other in time and space, each with its own set of characters. They need to come together in the end and support some one storyline, to help (or hinder) the resolution of the main plotline; if they don't, then they don't belong in the same story. (Check out the Niven/Pournelle collaborations for some great examples of how to start out with half a dozen or more far-flung sets of characters and goals, and wind up with everything woven neatly together in the end. Lucifer's Hammer does this brilliantly.)
Even if you're a pantser (which I am), knowing what your main plot is gives your story a strong spine, and gives you as the writer a failsafe ruler to use when you're judging whether this or that subplot or supporting character or gimmick, or conversation or description or chunk of narrative, belongs in the story. Does it ultimately support the main storyline, even if only peripherally? If not, then chuck it.
Another way to think of the main plotline is as a six-lane interstate going from the beginning to the end of your story. You can add other roads -- state highways, frontage roads, meandering surface streets, dirt tracks through abandoned fields, whatever -- but they all need to connect back to the interstate eventually. Anything wandering off completely on its own, unconnected to anything else, doesn't belong on the map of your story.
Note that having a plot doesn't mean your characters can't ever just sit down and talk.
Having a plot doesn't mean your characters can't ever just sit down and contemplate their problems within their own minds.
Having a lot of action does not mean you necessarily have a plot. Random fire-fights or car-chases do not make a plot, while actionless conversation just might. One of the most common misconceptions about plot I see in discussions around the web is the idea that Plot <=> Action, and that if you don't have a physical fight or a mystery to solve or something like that in your story, you don't have a plot. That's not accurate at all.
Plot is about your characters trying to solve one or more problems, trying to get what they want despite obstacles. If that frantic speedboat chase doesn't help your protag get what she wants (part of the solution), or directly prevent her from getting what she wants (part of the obstacle), then it doesn't further your plot. If leaning over the fence and having a conversation with that annoying neighbor helps your character solve his problem (part of the solution), or at least shows him more clearly what the problem is (helping define the obstacle), then that conversation does further the plot.
Goal ==> Obstacle ==> Solution
That's plot. How you flesh it out is up to you.
Angie
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Creativity and Communication
Or maybe I should have titled this one "Conventions -- Breaking and Following." Or something like that. Because I've been thinking about walking the line between wanting to be new and fresh and different -- creative -- and wanting people to read my work and actually get what I'm saying. And not just word by word or line by line, but at a higher level in the story.
Recently, both Bernita and Stacia have blogged about expectations and conventions (whether they knew it or not :) ) and it got me to thinking. As writers, we always want to do something new and fresh, something unique and creative, something that'll make people sit up and notice us and wonder where we get our awesome ideas, 'cause damn! People who come up with something new and different are praised and remembered, and we're encouraged to be fresh and innovative with our writing, to avoid the standard and the common whenever we can manage it.
So it's easy to think that being new and different is always a good thing, and that following the long-blazed (and paved and marked and mapped) trail is always bad. Or at least, that following that trail is doing things the lazy way.
That's not always the case, though, and that's because art is communication and in order to communicate effectively, we need to speak the same language as our readers. That means more than just using English (or whatever) effectively; it means also being aware of the conventions of our literary form and genre because those conventions are part of the language. They're ways of communicating with the reader, and if we abandon those conventions without thinking carefully, we can end up alone in the wilderness with no one who even cares enough to try to pick up our trail.
Bernita was talking about characters, about types and stereotypes, and it got me thinking about the standard wisdom regarding fully-fleshed, three-dimensional characters always being Good and two-dimensional, placeholder characters always being Bad, or at least lazy. That might be true for major characters in the story -- protagonists, antagonists, major supporting characters -- but it's really not true for the bit parts. I commented at the time:
"But the bit players can be off-the-shelf types and usually should be. Making them three dimensional and fully rounded and quirky and interesting would give them too much importance. It'd set up expectations in the reader's mind that the writer has no intention of fulfilling, which would leave the reader feeling dissatisfied and maybe even cheated. It'd be rather like the old theater saw -- having a gun hanging over the fireplace in Act One and not ever firing it."
That's because readers are used to gauging a character's importance based on how much time is spent with the character and how much information is given about it. Inserting "the blond barista" into your story and saying nothing else about him is a signal to the reader that this character isn't important. He's a piece of furniture and is meant to be a piece of furniture. The reader can feel comfortable letting him do his job and then forgetting him, focusing her attention on other characters, on plot points and setting details which might actually be relevant later.
A writer who fleshes out every character, makes every single person who appears in the story unique and three-dimensional and interesting, no matter how important or trivial they are, does the reader a disservice because not every character should catch the reader's interest. By developing all characters equally, the writer has eliminated an important channel of communication with the readers and unless they open up a new one which conveys the same information, the readers are going to end up confused and annoyed, whether or not they fully comprehend why.
There might be a reason for thoroughly developing a particularly minor character, and the most obvious example I can think of is a red-herring character in a mystery. This sort of character is deliberately developed in a misleading way, because the detective character is being misled along with the readers, and that misdirection is part of the fun for readers who like to solve the puzzle for themselves. If there's no particular purpose to making readers pay attention to a character and believe they should remember him, though, then it's best to let the blond barista be just the blond barista.
Stacia was talking about a book she's working on which might well end up having no sex in it, although the sequel certainly will. This is another kind of communication, having to do with reader expectations based on earlier experience.
There are a lot of romance readers who prefer to have explicit sex in their stories, and there are a lot of readers who prefer the "sweet" sort of story where the scene fades at the bedroom door, or never gets there in the first place. There's some overlap between the two groups, but there are quite a lot of readers who are firmly in one camp or the other.
So what's the likelihood that someone who firmly prefers their romances sweet will read the first book, like it in part because it has no explicit sex, then read the sequel and be disappointed and maybe even angry because suddenly there's boinking right there on camera? Or conversely, that someone who firmly prefers sexy romances will read the first book, dislike it because it has no explicit sex, and never bother to read the second book, which they would have enjoyed? Both problems are based on miscommunication -- readers assume that books in a series are going to be alike in certain ways, that there'll be a similarity of experience in reading all of them. So the characteristics of the first book tacitly communicate to the reader what subsequent books are going to be like. When that's not the case, it's as though the writer has sent the wrong message to the readers, meaning X but actually saying Q, at least so far as the readers understand.
Objectively, there's no reason why all the books in a series should be similar, and there are some well-known series which aren't. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series comes to mind -- the first book is an SF romance with a good adventure story, the next several are SF adventure, then one book takes a very dark turn and the protagonist's life changes radically. Then we have an SF mystery-adventure with some hints of romance, and the most recent book was a classic comedy of manners type of romance in an SF setting. Most of us aren't Bujold, though, and at any rate the overall story after the first two books was more about the protagonist's life than just "Yay, space adventure!" type books. (The first two were about his parents.) The protag, Miles, grows and changes and there's a very strong continuity from one book to the next. When the stories turn dark (in Mirror Dance) the reader is ready for it. Not expecting it, perhaps (or at least I wasn't) but the change in tone didn't feel out of place. Nor did the romance which came later -- Miles had been looking for a woman to love and who would love him back all along, and had had several lovers through the series, so when he finally found The One and focused on pursuing her, the story flowed smoothly into the romance mode.
And I think that shows how to handle this sort of change. A very episodic series, where little or nothing significant changes about the main character(s) or the setting, or the kinds of stories told from one book to the next, sets up an expectation with the readers that the sameness will continue. And that can be good -- a lot of readers like knowing what they're going to get and going back for a fun comfort read over and over. But if there are changes and developments all along, and the focus of the books is on some overall story arc -- the protagonist's pursuit of some overall goal, even if it's something nebulous like growing up or figuring out who she is or finding some kind of purpose -- then the readers will focus on that as the backbone of the series, rather than on the type of story being told over and over.
Even with the first book of a series, it can be made plain that the main characters have plans which extend beyond the end of that first book, that there are things undone and questions unanswered, that the characters and their world are different at the end of the book and will continue to change as the story arc progresses. (Which was basically what most of the commenters agreed was the thing to do -- make it very clear through the book that the couple was heading toward having sex. That lets the people who want to see it know that it's coming, and lets people who don't want to see it decide whether to go on. Or at least be ready to skim here and there. :) )
So for example, in a romance series with all the stories set in the same universe and each book about a new couple meeting and overcoming obstacles to form a stable relationship, while having some fun sex along the way, inserting a book where that book's couple doesn't have sex would be jarring to the reader. No matter how good a story it was, failing to meet established expectations is always a problem and promising a second book about that couple (which hadn't been done before in the series either) which contained sex probably wouldn't help much. If the series focuses on something else, though -- if the whole point is clearly the developing characters and relationships over a number of books -- then the readers will know what to expect from the beginning. If it's clear that this isn't an episodic series, but rather that there'll be change and development and strong continuity from one book to the next, then the readers will get the message that there's an overall story arc here and that reading the next book won't just give them more of same.
It can work either way, but you need to communicate with the reader and make sure that what they're catching is what you're pitching. Taking a hard left off the paved road and setting off in a new direction, machete in hand, is fine so long as you make sure you leave enough signs and tracks that the readers can follow you. If you're deviating from something which is standard or traditional or conventional, you need to think about what those abandoned conventions signal to the reader, and make sure that whatever new and creative form or style or gimmick you come up with, you have some way of clearly replacing any lost signals. If not, your readers won't be able to follow you and you'll end up out in the wilds all alone.
Angie
Recently, both Bernita and Stacia have blogged about expectations and conventions (whether they knew it or not :) ) and it got me to thinking. As writers, we always want to do something new and fresh, something unique and creative, something that'll make people sit up and notice us and wonder where we get our awesome ideas, 'cause damn! People who come up with something new and different are praised and remembered, and we're encouraged to be fresh and innovative with our writing, to avoid the standard and the common whenever we can manage it.
So it's easy to think that being new and different is always a good thing, and that following the long-blazed (and paved and marked and mapped) trail is always bad. Or at least, that following that trail is doing things the lazy way.
That's not always the case, though, and that's because art is communication and in order to communicate effectively, we need to speak the same language as our readers. That means more than just using English (or whatever) effectively; it means also being aware of the conventions of our literary form and genre because those conventions are part of the language. They're ways of communicating with the reader, and if we abandon those conventions without thinking carefully, we can end up alone in the wilderness with no one who even cares enough to try to pick up our trail.
Bernita was talking about characters, about types and stereotypes, and it got me thinking about the standard wisdom regarding fully-fleshed, three-dimensional characters always being Good and two-dimensional, placeholder characters always being Bad, or at least lazy. That might be true for major characters in the story -- protagonists, antagonists, major supporting characters -- but it's really not true for the bit parts. I commented at the time:
"But the bit players can be off-the-shelf types and usually should be. Making them three dimensional and fully rounded and quirky and interesting would give them too much importance. It'd set up expectations in the reader's mind that the writer has no intention of fulfilling, which would leave the reader feeling dissatisfied and maybe even cheated. It'd be rather like the old theater saw -- having a gun hanging over the fireplace in Act One and not ever firing it."
That's because readers are used to gauging a character's importance based on how much time is spent with the character and how much information is given about it. Inserting "the blond barista" into your story and saying nothing else about him is a signal to the reader that this character isn't important. He's a piece of furniture and is meant to be a piece of furniture. The reader can feel comfortable letting him do his job and then forgetting him, focusing her attention on other characters, on plot points and setting details which might actually be relevant later.
A writer who fleshes out every character, makes every single person who appears in the story unique and three-dimensional and interesting, no matter how important or trivial they are, does the reader a disservice because not every character should catch the reader's interest. By developing all characters equally, the writer has eliminated an important channel of communication with the readers and unless they open up a new one which conveys the same information, the readers are going to end up confused and annoyed, whether or not they fully comprehend why.
There might be a reason for thoroughly developing a particularly minor character, and the most obvious example I can think of is a red-herring character in a mystery. This sort of character is deliberately developed in a misleading way, because the detective character is being misled along with the readers, and that misdirection is part of the fun for readers who like to solve the puzzle for themselves. If there's no particular purpose to making readers pay attention to a character and believe they should remember him, though, then it's best to let the blond barista be just the blond barista.
Stacia was talking about a book she's working on which might well end up having no sex in it, although the sequel certainly will. This is another kind of communication, having to do with reader expectations based on earlier experience.
There are a lot of romance readers who prefer to have explicit sex in their stories, and there are a lot of readers who prefer the "sweet" sort of story where the scene fades at the bedroom door, or never gets there in the first place. There's some overlap between the two groups, but there are quite a lot of readers who are firmly in one camp or the other.
So what's the likelihood that someone who firmly prefers their romances sweet will read the first book, like it in part because it has no explicit sex, then read the sequel and be disappointed and maybe even angry because suddenly there's boinking right there on camera? Or conversely, that someone who firmly prefers sexy romances will read the first book, dislike it because it has no explicit sex, and never bother to read the second book, which they would have enjoyed? Both problems are based on miscommunication -- readers assume that books in a series are going to be alike in certain ways, that there'll be a similarity of experience in reading all of them. So the characteristics of the first book tacitly communicate to the reader what subsequent books are going to be like. When that's not the case, it's as though the writer has sent the wrong message to the readers, meaning X but actually saying Q, at least so far as the readers understand.
Objectively, there's no reason why all the books in a series should be similar, and there are some well-known series which aren't. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series comes to mind -- the first book is an SF romance with a good adventure story, the next several are SF adventure, then one book takes a very dark turn and the protagonist's life changes radically. Then we have an SF mystery-adventure with some hints of romance, and the most recent book was a classic comedy of manners type of romance in an SF setting. Most of us aren't Bujold, though, and at any rate the overall story after the first two books was more about the protagonist's life than just "Yay, space adventure!" type books. (The first two were about his parents.) The protag, Miles, grows and changes and there's a very strong continuity from one book to the next. When the stories turn dark (in Mirror Dance) the reader is ready for it. Not expecting it, perhaps (or at least I wasn't) but the change in tone didn't feel out of place. Nor did the romance which came later -- Miles had been looking for a woman to love and who would love him back all along, and had had several lovers through the series, so when he finally found The One and focused on pursuing her, the story flowed smoothly into the romance mode.
And I think that shows how to handle this sort of change. A very episodic series, where little or nothing significant changes about the main character(s) or the setting, or the kinds of stories told from one book to the next, sets up an expectation with the readers that the sameness will continue. And that can be good -- a lot of readers like knowing what they're going to get and going back for a fun comfort read over and over. But if there are changes and developments all along, and the focus of the books is on some overall story arc -- the protagonist's pursuit of some overall goal, even if it's something nebulous like growing up or figuring out who she is or finding some kind of purpose -- then the readers will focus on that as the backbone of the series, rather than on the type of story being told over and over.
Even with the first book of a series, it can be made plain that the main characters have plans which extend beyond the end of that first book, that there are things undone and questions unanswered, that the characters and their world are different at the end of the book and will continue to change as the story arc progresses. (Which was basically what most of the commenters agreed was the thing to do -- make it very clear through the book that the couple was heading toward having sex. That lets the people who want to see it know that it's coming, and lets people who don't want to see it decide whether to go on. Or at least be ready to skim here and there. :) )
So for example, in a romance series with all the stories set in the same universe and each book about a new couple meeting and overcoming obstacles to form a stable relationship, while having some fun sex along the way, inserting a book where that book's couple doesn't have sex would be jarring to the reader. No matter how good a story it was, failing to meet established expectations is always a problem and promising a second book about that couple (which hadn't been done before in the series either) which contained sex probably wouldn't help much. If the series focuses on something else, though -- if the whole point is clearly the developing characters and relationships over a number of books -- then the readers will know what to expect from the beginning. If it's clear that this isn't an episodic series, but rather that there'll be change and development and strong continuity from one book to the next, then the readers will get the message that there's an overall story arc here and that reading the next book won't just give them more of same.
It can work either way, but you need to communicate with the reader and make sure that what they're catching is what you're pitching. Taking a hard left off the paved road and setting off in a new direction, machete in hand, is fine so long as you make sure you leave enough signs and tracks that the readers can follow you. If you're deviating from something which is standard or traditional or conventional, you need to think about what those abandoned conventions signal to the reader, and make sure that whatever new and creative form or style or gimmick you come up with, you have some way of clearly replacing any lost signals. If not, your readers won't be able to follow you and you'll end up out in the wilds all alone.
Angie
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Conflict, Plot and Structure
So I'm reading this novel online. It's being posted a chapter at a time, as it's written. The writer's not bad -- her mechanics are decent, I care about the characters, the setting is unusual and interesting, the flow is mostly smooth. Her dialogue doesn't clunk and she makes me laugh at times and some of the passages and scenes are quite beautiful. But I've found it hard to keep reading for the last six or ten chapters.
That's because, about that long ago (and that's as close as I can come without searching back for the exact point) the main conflict wrapped up. The characters had been running for their lives from an agent of an overwhelming authority and the entire first chunk of the novel had been about that flight, that struggle to escape from unjust persecution. The characters were clever and brave and had just enough good luck and they succeeded, yay! There were some less important plot holes left and I would've been interested in a sequel, but the Main Conflict was resolved and the story was over.
Except it wasn't. It just kept going. Another chapter went up, and another, and not a whole lot was happening. There was some character and relationship development, and the characters did some, "So, what do we do next?" type of pondering (which reflected my own thoughts and I'm sort of wondering whether it didn't also reflect the writer's flailing around as she tried to regain her grip on the story which had slid out from under her). A couple more chapters down the line the characters had another problem to solve, although it wasn't really a novel-weight problem. They solved that one and fell into another short-term problem, promptly this time. And just a scant handful of chapters ago, they solved that second not-really-heavy-enough problem and (promptly again -- she's getting better at this) found another one.
Now they have another longer-term goal and it looks like they're set for a while. But I still have to sort of make myself read each time a new chapter goes up, because my inner reader knows that the main problem was solved like eight or so chapters back and the story was supposed to end and it didn't and my inner reader is still a bit pissy about that. Maybe it's that I don't trust her anymore to be in control of this story she's writing. Once I start reading each new chapter, I enjoy it (which is why I bother nudging myself each time) but that reluctance is still there.
So what happened? It could be a few things, and without interviewing the writer about it (since I don't know her anywhere near well enough to have the, "So, exactly what mistakes are you making with this story...?" discussion [wry smile]) I have some guesses.
First, it might be that she didn't have a clear idea of exactly what the main plotline would be when she started. She might be a seat-of-the-pants sort of writer, who starts with some characters and a situation and just writes wherever they take her. This works for some people but not for others, and if this is how she works then in this case it hasn't served her very well. Even when writing seat-of-the-pants, you still need to be aware of how conflict, plot and story relate and she doesn't seem to.
Second, she might've had a clear idea of what her main conflict was all about when she started, but when she got to the end she saw that there were more unanswered questions or more interesting things for the characters to do, so she just kept writing until she came across another major conflict. If this is the case, then she might have a decent grasp of plotting but not know much about structure. That is, it's possible she can identify a major conflict and how it relates to a plotline, but she's not quite clear about how conflict and plot relate to story structure, or specifically to where a story begins and ends.
Or third, she might have started out with some clear ideas of what she wanted her characters to do over the course of the story, including the parts she hasn't written yet, but didn't know how the events of the story relate to conflict, plot and structure. Some beginning-level writers think that writing a story is just "telling what happened" and have no notion of the structure behind it all.
Whatever the problem is, one of those or something I haven't thought of, the bottom line is she's not in control of her story and it's suffering for it. Which is unfortunate because like I said at the top, it's basically a good story, interesting, well-written at the mechanics level, with good characters and all. It's the larger structure she's not getting.
Pick a protagonist. Who wants something and can't have it? Who's about to fall into a flaming pit and wants to escape it? Whose action to achieve some goal is going to drive the story? You can have multiple main characters, although they're trickier to keep organized and their goals need to be pretty closely related, even if the reader doesn't see how until the end of the story.
What does your protagonist want? [Goal] Why can't he have it? [Obstacle] What does he do to try to get it anyway? There -- that bit right there is your plot. It's depressing how many writers can't define "plot" at that basic level.
There can be multiple subplots (in a novel length story there had better be) but the main plot should be introduced first so the reader knows what the story as a whole is about. If your story opens with your protag griping to her best friend about how much she hates her job, how pointless her life seems, and how she has all these dreams and goals of owning her own business and making a difference in the lives of many people, then that's what the story's about. There's your protag's goal and that's what the readers will assume she's going to work to achieve over the course of the story. Introducing some gorgeous guy in chapter five and turning it into a romance novel doesn't work -- the readers will feel cheated and misled no matter how well-written the romantic storyline is.
The climax of the story comes when the protag either gets what he wants, or comes to realize and/or accept that he can't have it no matter what he does. Everything after that -- and it should be as short as possible -- is just wrap-up, weaving in loose ends. If there are loose ends which will take another chapter or more of weaving, then either they should've been taken care of before the main plotline wrapped, or they should be left for a sequel.
The story I mentioned at the top ended when the main conflict was resolved. The characters' main goal, as presented, was to escape the unjust persecution of the government and specifically of the government agent who'd been after them. Once that was achieved, the story was over.
The characters still had more to do, yes -- they weren't kicking back on a beach sipping umbrella drinks once they slipped the net and went zooming off unpursued -- but the main plotline of that story was finished and the story should've ended. Their next major goal, the one they're currently working on, should've been the driver for the main plotline of a sequel. (And I estimate she's over 150K words, while barely into the second main plotline -- it's not like breaking this up would leave her with two scrawny stories.)
The two intervening minor bits could've been worked in or worked around; personally I can think of one I would've dropped (neither of the two main stories would've been affected at all) and the other I'd have tied into the second main plotline. The one that could be dropped without hurting either of the larger stories could even have been written up as a short story, taking place between the two novel-length stories. It's not like these are printed books which have to fit neatly on a Borders shelf; each story can be whatever length it needs to be.
Instead it's all mashed together, the edges stuck onto each other with duct tape, and the story feels random and disconnected. It doesn't feel like "A Story," and that makes me as a reader back off a little, emotionally. It feels like the writer's just sort of wandering and I no longer fully trust her not to lead me off a cliff somewhere. Which is a bummer because she is a good writer; she just needs to learn what a story is so she knows when to begin and end.
That's because, about that long ago (and that's as close as I can come without searching back for the exact point) the main conflict wrapped up. The characters had been running for their lives from an agent of an overwhelming authority and the entire first chunk of the novel had been about that flight, that struggle to escape from unjust persecution. The characters were clever and brave and had just enough good luck and they succeeded, yay! There were some less important plot holes left and I would've been interested in a sequel, but the Main Conflict was resolved and the story was over.
Except it wasn't. It just kept going. Another chapter went up, and another, and not a whole lot was happening. There was some character and relationship development, and the characters did some, "So, what do we do next?" type of pondering (which reflected my own thoughts and I'm sort of wondering whether it didn't also reflect the writer's flailing around as she tried to regain her grip on the story which had slid out from under her). A couple more chapters down the line the characters had another problem to solve, although it wasn't really a novel-weight problem. They solved that one and fell into another short-term problem, promptly this time. And just a scant handful of chapters ago, they solved that second not-really-heavy-enough problem and (promptly again -- she's getting better at this) found another one.
Now they have another longer-term goal and it looks like they're set for a while. But I still have to sort of make myself read each time a new chapter goes up, because my inner reader knows that the main problem was solved like eight or so chapters back and the story was supposed to end and it didn't and my inner reader is still a bit pissy about that. Maybe it's that I don't trust her anymore to be in control of this story she's writing. Once I start reading each new chapter, I enjoy it (which is why I bother nudging myself each time) but that reluctance is still there.
So what happened? It could be a few things, and without interviewing the writer about it (since I don't know her anywhere near well enough to have the, "So, exactly what mistakes are you making with this story...?" discussion [wry smile]) I have some guesses.
First, it might be that she didn't have a clear idea of exactly what the main plotline would be when she started. She might be a seat-of-the-pants sort of writer, who starts with some characters and a situation and just writes wherever they take her. This works for some people but not for others, and if this is how she works then in this case it hasn't served her very well. Even when writing seat-of-the-pants, you still need to be aware of how conflict, plot and story relate and she doesn't seem to.
Second, she might've had a clear idea of what her main conflict was all about when she started, but when she got to the end she saw that there were more unanswered questions or more interesting things for the characters to do, so she just kept writing until she came across another major conflict. If this is the case, then she might have a decent grasp of plotting but not know much about structure. That is, it's possible she can identify a major conflict and how it relates to a plotline, but she's not quite clear about how conflict and plot relate to story structure, or specifically to where a story begins and ends.
Or third, she might have started out with some clear ideas of what she wanted her characters to do over the course of the story, including the parts she hasn't written yet, but didn't know how the events of the story relate to conflict, plot and structure. Some beginning-level writers think that writing a story is just "telling what happened" and have no notion of the structure behind it all.
Whatever the problem is, one of those or something I haven't thought of, the bottom line is she's not in control of her story and it's suffering for it. Which is unfortunate because like I said at the top, it's basically a good story, interesting, well-written at the mechanics level, with good characters and all. It's the larger structure she's not getting.
Pick a protagonist. Who wants something and can't have it? Who's about to fall into a flaming pit and wants to escape it? Whose action to achieve some goal is going to drive the story? You can have multiple main characters, although they're trickier to keep organized and their goals need to be pretty closely related, even if the reader doesn't see how until the end of the story.
What does your protagonist want? [Goal] Why can't he have it? [Obstacle] What does he do to try to get it anyway? There -- that bit right there is your plot. It's depressing how many writers can't define "plot" at that basic level.
There can be multiple subplots (in a novel length story there had better be) but the main plot should be introduced first so the reader knows what the story as a whole is about. If your story opens with your protag griping to her best friend about how much she hates her job, how pointless her life seems, and how she has all these dreams and goals of owning her own business and making a difference in the lives of many people, then that's what the story's about. There's your protag's goal and that's what the readers will assume she's going to work to achieve over the course of the story. Introducing some gorgeous guy in chapter five and turning it into a romance novel doesn't work -- the readers will feel cheated and misled no matter how well-written the romantic storyline is.
The climax of the story comes when the protag either gets what he wants, or comes to realize and/or accept that he can't have it no matter what he does. Everything after that -- and it should be as short as possible -- is just wrap-up, weaving in loose ends. If there are loose ends which will take another chapter or more of weaving, then either they should've been taken care of before the main plotline wrapped, or they should be left for a sequel.
The story I mentioned at the top ended when the main conflict was resolved. The characters' main goal, as presented, was to escape the unjust persecution of the government and specifically of the government agent who'd been after them. Once that was achieved, the story was over.
The characters still had more to do, yes -- they weren't kicking back on a beach sipping umbrella drinks once they slipped the net and went zooming off unpursued -- but the main plotline of that story was finished and the story should've ended. Their next major goal, the one they're currently working on, should've been the driver for the main plotline of a sequel. (And I estimate she's over 150K words, while barely into the second main plotline -- it's not like breaking this up would leave her with two scrawny stories.)
The two intervening minor bits could've been worked in or worked around; personally I can think of one I would've dropped (neither of the two main stories would've been affected at all) and the other I'd have tied into the second main plotline. The one that could be dropped without hurting either of the larger stories could even have been written up as a short story, taking place between the two novel-length stories. It's not like these are printed books which have to fit neatly on a Borders shelf; each story can be whatever length it needs to be.
Instead it's all mashed together, the edges stuck onto each other with duct tape, and the story feels random and disconnected. It doesn't feel like "A Story," and that makes me as a reader back off a little, emotionally. It feels like the writer's just sort of wandering and I no longer fully trust her not to lead me off a cliff somewhere. Which is a bummer because she is a good writer; she just needs to learn what a story is so she knows when to begin and end.
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