Scaling Mt. Plot Line

In my April 13, 2011 blog, I addressed/suggested ways to create compelling characters.  In this blog, I've elected to focus on crafting an interesting plot.


An interesting plot or compelling characters; which is more important in writing? Obviously, this is/should be a rhetorical question as a writer should painstakingly focus on BOTH aspects while crafting works of fiction (unless of course you're a certain author of vampires who's somehow successfully managed to completely throw the whole concept of a plot line under the bus, repeatedly running it over until it's rendered a flat, mutilated mess).  Unfortunately, SM isn't the only author out there with a limited attention span only allowing them to focus on one aspect of composing a novel.  Many authors believe that the charaters in the story are what carries it and that their readers will completely ignore the absence of any real, tangible plot or one that is so insipid a text book would be more interesting.  This phenomenon is seen quite a bit in the Young Adult genre. 

On the other side of the coin, still many authors tend to focus on plot lines more than the characters for fear their audience, mainly adults in this case, will surely scrutinize a poorly constructed plot over lackluster characters.  Very rarely do you find an author who writes with both aspects in mind and with obvioulsy equal time and attention devoted to each one.  J.K. Rowling, for example, is one of those authors.


Here are some ways that authors can go about creating a captivating plot:


1.  Graphs, Charts and Outlines-This is a clear case where I should be taking my own advice. Personally, I hate composing these.  Yet, despite this fact, I must conceded they are extremely helpful.  Outline, outline, outline.  An outline (or chart or graph whichever floats your boat) is a tool used to figure out where you want your story to begin, climax and end.  It includes all the key elements in your story as well as pertinent sub-elements that form the stepping stones to take you where you're going. Essentially, your entire story is laid out naked before your eyes ready for scrutiny and the discovery of any potential plot holes.  Your first set of revisions can actually also be done at this stage with simple nips, tucks or all out plastic surgery saving you a heap of grief in the long run.


2.  Imagination-This is one of those "duh" examples but I'm using it anyway.  We all have an imagination.  Some of us just harness it better than others. In developing a plot line, let your imagination run rampant.  Don't be afraid to try new things and live a little (cough *Nicholas Sparks* cough). After all, when else will you be able to sail across the Pacific, journey to a mythological land, or have conversations with animals all while completely sober?


3.  Be open minded-Don't close yourself off to revisions or possibilities that weren't conceived with your original plot idea.  Consider your initial idea a lump of soft clay.  Initially, you decided to mold a flower pot, but half-way through, you notice it's sagging off to one side and it's becoming painfully obvious that it will never hold any water.  Do you keep molding the pot, say screw it and let it hardended into an ugly, deformed pile of junk?  Of course not.  The flower pot idea isn't working so you change plans and mold a cute little tea cup instead.  The same should be done with your plot lines.  If they don't work, fix them. 


4.  Reality Novel Writing-Have you ever heard the saying "real life is stranger than fiction"?  Well, sometimes there's a hint of truth to that (except if it involves sitting on your ass, with your hand in a bag of Cheetos watching Ghost Adventures--don't judge).  Take some of the more devastating, humorous, or important events of your life and write about them.  Now, change the characters' names and the setting.  Shazam, you now have the makings of a plot line for a novel.   See how easy that was.


5.  Fix or Adapt an Existing Story-For example, how many variations of Romeo and Juliet are there?  Answer:  A crapton (yes, that's an actual unit of measurement).  Recently, the story of Little Red Riding Hood was re-written, re-tooled and re-made to be much more interesting and relevant to the 21st Century with the movie/book Red Riding Hood.  Just because a story has been written before doesn't mean it can't be rewritten and improved upon.  Of course, if  you're going to do this, just make sure it's an original storyline and that you're only borrowing concepts and not committing all out plagiarism.


6.  Play God-Make your character's lives a living hell.  Keep lovers from reuniting; maintain a never ending conflict; give your characters impossible obstacles to overcome.  I've read many articles that have stated that an author should ask themselves "how can I make this situation worse"?  Find a way and do it.  You'll not only build up to an explosive climax, but you'll also take your readers on one hell of a ride in the process; a ride of which will take them a while to recover from.

7. Know your plot-Do not create a plot you're not going to be able to carry out.  The beautiful thing about fiction is that it's, well, fiction.  There's no truth to it and you can bend the hell out of facts in the process.  However, there's a fine line between genius and ridiculous and facts can only bend so much until they break into pieces. Don't let your story break apart on you.  If you find that you  have a somewhat complicated plot, do your research.  For example, if you're writing a story that takes place in the Prohibition era, research the Prohibition era. Chances are your reader already has.


Building a Plot Line is Like Scaling a Mountain

The very basic of plots are much like scaling a mountain.  In the beginning, you start out level with both feet firmly on the ground.  The higher you climb, the more the tension builds until you reach the climax, or peak of the mountain. As you begin to descend the mountain, the conflict slowly winds down until resolution is reached back where you started on the ground.

Plot Lines are essentially broken down into six levels:

1.  Exposition-This level gives the readers the basic information they need to carry with them throughout the entirety of the novel.  It includes all the background information on the characters, the setting and sets the plot into motion.  As important as this level is, it's even more important not to dwell on it as too much information can bog the entire story down.

2.  Inciting Moment-This is probably the most important level as it connects the situation the charactes are part of in the beginning of the story to the end of the story.  The inciting moment begins the action and sets in motion the events that carry out the plot focussing on character and audience suspense. In Romeo and Juliet, the inciting moment occurs when the two meet for the first time.

3.  Rising Action-The basic conflict is complicated by related secondary conflicts (sub-plots) all of which serve to make the protagonist's life a living hell.

4.  Climax-The climax is the culmination of levels 1-3.  It's where the shit hits the fan and the characters' lives are altered in irreparable ways--at least they should be.  For an example of anti-climatic, read Breaking Dawn.

5.  Falling Action-Any conflict(s) between the protagonist and the antagonist (villian, pain in the ass)  slowly unravels with the protagonist having either won or lost.  A final moment of suspense may be added to fog the final outcome making the reader doubtful as to who came out on top, forcing them to read through to the resolution. In a series, this event may be dragged out with no final resolution being reached until later installments.  Therefore, instead of a mountain, you'll be faced with several large hills.

6.  Resolution-The End.  All conflicts have, hopefully, been resolved leaving the author with very little, if any, questions.  Sometimes an author, to be an asshole, will completely end at a cliff-hanger leaving the readers to guess what the hell happened (think Sopranos finale).


In my next blog, I'll address the differences and advantages of writing in third person vs. first person point of view.

Finally, I'd like to give a shout-out to my Denmark reader(s).  I have absolutely no idea who you are or how you found me, but I'm happy you did.  Hell, I almost have as many views from you as I do from my own country which in some ways is kind of sad.

A Clear Case Of One Man's Mission To Ruin It For The Rest Of Us

If you feel compelled to praise your novel as "a special piece of work" and compose a synopsis describing it as "a man's exploration of love, self, wilderness and LSD, and time spent masquerading as a ram" (grammatical errors aside), you may want to reconsider your career choice.

Rich Shapero is a former venture capitalist with entirely too much money on his hands and a sick desire to royally piss off those talented authors who legitimately desire to buck the endangered gatekeepers in order to traverse the route of self-publishing (whether through e-books or in general).  Not finding many takers for his book Wild Animus--a story about his life--Shapero has taken matters into his own hands and pocketbook.  Singlehandedly, he's launched his own publishing company, appropriately dubbed Too Far, where he's printed off several thousand books for distribution.  Now, if Mr. Shapero were to have stopped there then, despite Wild Animus' piss-poor reviews, he may have been able to garner the support of those authors who don't believe agents are necessary.  But no, oh no, he didn't stop there.  The books are printed, so what else does he need?  Why a way to get the word out about it, of course.  And what's the best way to get the word out?  Why to hire actors to dress up as rams and parade around like a bunch of idiots to market your efforts, of course.  Now why didn't the classical authors of yesteryear think of that? I mean, just think of how much more successful Jack London's The Call of the Wild would have been if he'd hired a gang of Saint Bernards to maul the heck out of unsuspecting readers.

For many people, Shapero's antics are amusing, perhaps somewhat comical.  In fact, there will be people who purchase his book based solely upon its negative press and the desire to take part in a literary trainwreck.  For us more serious authors, however, people like Mr. Shapero are the bane of our existence. They are the reason why this industry is a closed one; why agents and publishers are afraid to take a chance on new, unpublished authors.  This is also exactly why new authors who choose to publish their works on e-readers may not find the success they crave. Mr. Shapero has opened up a Pandora's Box of stupidity which will inevitably call others like him to action invariably creating a domino effect that will only serve to topple new authors in the views of society.

It would be a completely different scenario if Mr Shapero had the talent to go along with his wallet, but, if the reviews have any grain of truth to them, that's not the case either (although one person's crap may be another person's Twilight).  Indeed, Mr. Shapero has gone too far.

One highlight in the article--blink and you'll miss it-- is the following excerpt:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Marx's book was turned down by a half-dozen publishers. He self-published the work, called "Season of Life," about a former professional football player turned minister. After he sold 14,000 copies out of his car and home, the book was picked up by Simon & Schuster. It was No. 10 on last week's New York Times nonfiction best-seller list."

This is a classic example of why e-publishing is currently such a huge success. A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter can't get published conventionally yet Snookie from The Jersey Shore had no problems landing a book deal.  What the F***.

Venture capitalist rewrites the starving-author story

Julian Guthrie, Chronicle Staff Writer

With deep pockets and an even deeper belief in his inner Hemingway, first-time novelist Rich Shapero is taking vanity publishing to a new level.


The Silicon Valley venture capitalist wrote his novel, founded a company to publish it and then launched one of the biggest and most colorful individual book giveaways ever.


Shapero, 56, is spending nearly a half-million dollars to promote "Wild Animus," due in stores in early October. And he has a 13-city book tour planned.


Thousands of advance copies have been handed out at music festivals, food fairs and art exhibits. Actors dressed as rams -- a key character in Shapero's book -- have stampeded book industry events. Shapero paid for the creation of a directory of book clubs nationwide, and then offered books for free.
He also sent copies to interested members of Bookcrossing.com, the online community of 250,000 bibliophiles. Members have posted reviews ranging from "Weird and different," to "One of the worst books I ever read."


Shapero is part of a self-publishing explosion that has enabled wannabe writers to print books on demand.
As fiction editor Jay Schaefer says, innovations in technology have "turned publishing into an open mike."
"Anyone can get up and do the equivalent of perform their book," said Schaefer of Chronicle Books in San Francisco, which is not affiliated with The Chronicle newspaper. "So there are a lot of books out there that to some degree would not have been published before."


Online publishing companies such as Xlibris and iUniverse offer aspiring authors services from copyediting to publishing and marketing. Bookstores are experimenting with kiosks that allow authors to print books while they wait.


The venerable Kirkus Reviews announced last week that it will begin reviewing self-published books -- for a $350 fee. The announcement marks the first time in the company's 71-year history that individuals can pay to have a book reviewed.


"There are more people who want to be authors than readers," said Michael Cader, a book packager who writes the newsletter PublishersLunch, which has a daily circulation of 28,000.


He referred to a recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts, which found that the percentage of Americans who read books has steadily declined over the last two decades, while over the same period, the number of people taking creative writing courses increased by 30 percent.


Cader said that an estimated 175,000 books were published in the United States last year. That doesn't include the tens of thousands of self-published books. While the vast majority of self-published books never make it past the author's coffee table, some manage to attract the attention of mainstream publishers.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Marx's book was turned down by a half-dozen publishers. He self-published the work, called "Season of Life," about a former professional football player turned minister. After he sold 14,000 copies out of his car and home, the book was picked up by Simon & Schuster. It was No. 10 on last week's New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.


"There are a number of successful books that began life as self-published books," Cader said. "But, attention doesn't equal sales."


Cader said he hadn't heard of Shapero's book. But when told of some of the author's publicity efforts, he remembered a "Wild Animus" encounter.


"I was at the Book Expo America in Chicago and heard of these people dressed as sheep or something who jumped in a fountain, I think," Cader said. "I was aware of it and tried to stay as far away as possible."

Steve Zeitchik, news editor at Publishers Weekly, said, "You've always had vanity publishing, but what's happened over the last few years is that it's now very easy with these new technologies to print books even one at a time. What makes a difference in (Shapero's) case is there is a lot of money involved."

Shapero, a managing partner at Crosspoint Venture Partners, a leading venture capital firm, has applied a Silicon Valley recipe to publishing: He gathered a group of imaginative, think-outside-the-box types, convinced them of his mission and launched a crusade. He describes himself as "pathologically independent."

Sitting at a conference table in the office of his new publishing house in Woodside, Shapero called his novel "a special piece of work," and said there's "a lot going on in publishing that needs to change."


He made oblique reference to the days when Walt Whitman could walk around and hand out books and said his quest is to deliver "great truths which are hidden." Hemingway accomplished this with "The Old Man and the Sea," he noted.


"I am doing this because I feel it is important to me and might be important to others," said Shapero, who is wide-eyed and boyish-looking. He said his days as a venture capitalist -- he was called a "Guru of Growth" by BusinessWeek -- are numbered. Writing is his future.


His special piece of work, as he calls "Wild Animus," has a first printing of 50,000 copies. A typical first printing for a first-time author is between 5,000 and 10,000 copies. Marketing budgets covered by traditional publishing houses hover at around $1 per copy, one-tenth of what Shapero is spending.
Shapero says that his gratification will come from readers who connect with the book. He said he worked on the story in three different periods in his life. He opted not to go through an agent or to a publisher because he wanted the work to be entirely his own.


"I wanted to preserve complete artistic control," he said.


The book is about a man's exploration of love, self, wilderness and LSD, and time spent masquerading as a ram. It begins at UC Berkeley in 1969 and heads north to Alaska.


Shapero graduated from UC Berkeley in 1970 with a degree in English literature and in more recent years took off on a 400-mile solo hike in the Alaskan wilderness. He describes his Alaskan explorations as meditations in transcendence and "a test of human endurance and the human spirit."


"It's about love and the quest for love," Shapero said of his book.


The spacious offices of his publishing house, called Too Far, were empty save for two employees. Shapero said he plans to publish books by other writers, but couldn't give specifics.


"I want to be a source of content for things that explore life's mysteries," he said. "That could be about the source of love and surrender and what surrender means. These are things that are critically important to me, much more than world affairs or the state of my bank account."


He plans to devote the next two months to promoting "Wild Animus." He promises the street theater and publicity gimmicks will continue: "We still have a few tricks up our sleeves."


His enthusiasm is untempered by some early reviews. One newspaper review stated, "After the first hundred pages, the reader will figure out that the essential elements that comprise a novel are missing."


"My objective isn't to change the world," Shapero said. "I can't reinvent our culture. But with Too Far, my objective is to publish what I find important."




Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/26/SHAPERO.TMP&ao=2#ixzz1JSQCxtBB

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/26/SHAPERO.TMP#ixzz1JSPQx9Eo

Common Syndromes Afflicting Authors

As we tediously paint words upon blank pages with every stroke of a key, it is only natural that we authors experience afflictions.  Sure, there is the usual writer's block which heals itself over time and a sudden bought of enlightenment.  However, there are also those afflictions that can be pathological in nature.  Afflictions that can tear apart a writer's hopes and dreams rendering their carefully crafted sentences dull and their manuscripts lifeless.  The good news is these afflictions (a/k/a common mistakes writer's make) can be cured with a small dose of reality and common sense.

1.  Claustrophobentences-What the reader develops when reading a sentence packed with so many adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases that they're praying for a period to make the room stop spinning.  As those more eloquent individuals than I have so aptly stated: "Sentences are not mini vans."  Sure, you want your sentences to have more depth and verbiage than an elementary school book report, but there is a fine line between crafting a sentence comprised of elegant fluidity and one filled with utter foolisness.  Plenty examples of the latter are contained within the pages of a Stephenie Meyers novels, but that's a blog for another day. 

For the love of God Don't:   It was such a gloriously beautiful morning that I decided to hop out of my warm, comfy bed, pull on my magenta slacks with the the copper buttons positioned vertically down the side of each leg and skip down the road to Grandma's home; the white house on the corner of my unusually quiet but quaint neighborhood.

Thank God I can put the Aspirin away now, Do:  I'm going to Grandma's house today.

The latter sentence states the same idea without going into all of the unnecessary and cringe-inducing detail. 
Claustrophobentences,  if you've finished an entire page of your manuscript and you only have two punctuation marks, you may want to up the meds.

2.  Descriptochondria-The new blue silk shirt rubbed against my tan, smooth skin as I swiftly walked down the weathered sidewalk, aligned with dying, sun-scorched plants, purposefully avoiding eyecontact with those of whom I passed.

Descriptions (or adjectives) are meant to be fun like the occassional cocktail and night out on the town.  Like those indulgences, they are also to be used sparingly adding just an added touch of zest to your manuscript. Enough to get your readers buzzed without the unpleasant hangover.

3.  Punctuficiency and Punctugluttony-There is a happy medium between using entirely too much punctuation and not enough punctuation and it's the author's mission to find it.  We've all read novels where we had to read and re-read a sentence, paragraph or entire page because something just doesn't jive well.  Chances are those novels either suffer from comma deficiency or semicolon gluttony.

Punctuficiency:  I went to the barn found a shovel walked to the back yard and began digging the grave for the novel whose utter senselessness consumed my thoughts sending me into hysterics.

Punctugluttony-After I buried that monstrosity, I went to the kitchen, ransacked the cupboard; and found a jar of peanut butter, to make a sandwich.

4.  ImgoingtopushmyselftogetthisnoveldonesoicanbethenextJKRowlingitis-At one time or another we've all suffered from one aspect of this.  True, as writers most of us don't care about making money as we write just to satisfy the aching within our souls.  Still, there are those who hear about an author's success or the success of a particular genre (vampires anyone) and decide that writing a novel can't be that hard.  Hence, thirty days later after they've quit their jobs, they have the first draft of their novel hammered out and are counting down the days until the bejamins start rolling in (these people are still sitting on the couch with one hand down their pants and the other stuffed in a bag of Doritos counting).  For those of us living on planet Earth, we know the process of writing a novel is a little more involved than putting a few coherent sentences together.

5.  Firstdraftisperfectnia-There is a high that comes after one completes their first novel that is like nothing they've ever experienced before.  It's as though tapping that final period on the keyboard has somehow validated you as an author.  Now, instead of saying to yourself  "one day I will have to sit down and start writing that novel", you can honestly say that you've written that novel.  With that high comes the dangerous assumption that the first draft is the finished product (for those writers who haven't done any research that is).  So, when those authors pitch their novel to an agent who asks to see their manuscript, they are shocked and dismayed when, five minutes later, they are greeted with a flat-out "thanks, but no thanks," response.  I know this may come as a shock to you, but you are not perfect.  With that being said, neither is your writing. I don't know how many times I've gone through my first novel and still, after each and every time, I'm finding errors in grammar, spelling and puctuation along with dialogue and sentence structure that would be better with additonal revisions.  When you read your own work, you know what you mean; your mind mentally corrects those mistakes that would be glaring to others.  To correct this affliction, I suggest you do the following:  Take your manuscript and put it away for at least a few weeks (some sources say as long as six months, but who can wait that long); after that time has passed, take it back out and start editing.  You will be amazed by how much you actually do change and how much closer to perfect your manuscript will be.

6.  Monowordpotence-One of the most basic of rules that any author is or should be well acquainted with (in fact, I distinctly remember learning about it in grade school) is varying the words you choose to begin your sentences.  Or, in layman's terms, "don't use the same damn word to begin each sentence or, if unavoidable,  more than two sentences within the same paragraph."  In a popular saga, that shall remain nameless, there is at least one page where the word "the" (at least, I think it was "the") was used over 40% of the time.  This means that nearly half the sentences on the ENTIRE page began with the word "the". That's enough to make any manuscript go soft (pun intended).  Let's take a look at what monowordpotence looks like:

The quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy, brown dog.  The lazy, brown dog was having a bad day.  The lazy, brown dog told the quick, brown fox to stay off his lawn.  The quick, brown fox did not listen.  The lazy, brown dog went all Chuck Norris on the quick, brown fox.  The lazy, brown dog had stew that night.

The previous paragraph makes my head hurt.  The gun in the corner of my room may fix that.

7.  Stairing at this page makes me want to rip my hare out as nun of the words hear make sense the way they are written, you sea what I'm saying?-Homophones--words that sound alike but have completely different meanings and spellings--are one of the most battered, bruised and abused step-children in the English language.  Whenever I go onto public news forums and read the comments posted on some of the articles, it makes me cringe to the point I start fearing my face will permanently freeze that way.  If you are absolutely not 110% positive that you are using the correct spelling of a word, by all means do yourself and your reader a favor and LOOK IT UP.  Just say "no" to homophone abuse.

8.  Whose, who's, it's, its, mania-Contractons are a beautiful thing as they are used to efficiently combine two simple words together to form one even simpler word requiring less work on the part of the reader.  However, it's those individuals who don't understand their concept nor take the time to learn from their mistakes that make others want to pull their hair out.  Common contractions such as I'm for I am; won't for will not; it's for it is; who's for who is; and they'll for they will have been part of our grammatical society for eras.  Yet, still there are those who have absolutely no idea how to use them.  If you have to ask someone when to use whose instead of who's, you may seriously want to reconsider a career in writing as you're going to be in for a huge headache when their, there and they're creeps up on you.

9.  Don't Turn your head and ignore-Feedback is critical for any author.  For a new author, it may mean the difference between an admirable career and writing term papers for little Billy next door.  The opinions of others matter--especially those in the demographic you're aiming to appeal to.  What you may think is an airtight plot after reading it over and over again a thousand times may, to your reader, really contain enough pinholes to sink the Titanic.  You are biased; your readers are not.  Keep an open mind and the doors will follow.

10.  Kitschy Cliche Syndrome-"My cheeks turned as red as a rose", "Your eyes are as blue as the ocean/sky/Smurf's butt" (pretty much anything obviously blue).  This is a syndrome that I have to constantly treat myself for--a thesaurus works pretty effectively. It's also one of the easiest syndromes to develop as, although the writing may not be bad and the grammar correct, it doesn't bring anything new or exciting to the table.  We all know that roses are red and the sky is blue--why beat that dead horse some more?  Readers want new and enlightening.  They want passages that make them think and challenge their intellect, not something that rehashes phrases contained within the notes they passed to their middle school crushes.

Scenario #78,784 In Just One of a Million Ways the Twilight Movies Would Have Been Better

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm neither a huge fan of the Twilight movies nor Stephenie Meyer's writing.  Any writing that is critically acclaimed but of which is also riddled with grammatical errors, just rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps, it's our fault and not the fault of Ms. Meyers (who's laughing all the way to the bank) that something so mediocore could be so popluar. In my opinion, her writing is all about selling a product at the compromise of quality and not so much for the love of the written word (hence Midnight Sun).  I know my writing is not perfect and I have a lot to learn, but I really resent the fact that Meyers is now publicly reviewing the work of other writers--work that is far more superior than the Twilight Sighga.  With that said, Meyer's books, as unintentionally laughable as they sometimes can be, are far more captivating than the movies based upon them. 

One of the major reasons behind that is none other than the casting of Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan.  I've wanted to like her acting, I really have, but the more I see of her, the harder it becomes. 

In the new movie Sucker Punch (of which I have not seen but have heard poor reviews), the lead character is played by Emily Browning.  Emily Browning was the first choice to play Bella Swan, however she turned it down.  Either Ms. Browning is repetitively kicking herself or she's laughing, along with the rest of us, at the absurd acting and horrible plot line her name could have been attached to. 

And now it's time for me to duck and cover from all the Twihards out there...

Link to Browning in Sucker Punch:

http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/3304/early-starts-for-sucker-punch-stars?nc#photo1

For my fellow Twihaters

This is an absolutely WONDERFUL blog that picks apart the entire series one grammatical error at a time:

http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/

Don't say I never gave you anything ;)

I will be posting Chapter 3 of Enigma Black within the next day and will probably not post any more of it as I am still seeking representation.