I am thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year, joining with thousands of others in trying to write 50,000 words–a novel–during the month of November.

You can’t count any words written before November 1, but I know I can’t do this if I don’t work on a plot before the mad rush officially begins. So far, I only have a situation.

What’s the difference in a plot and a situation?

A situation is a single event, a strange combination of story elements. For example, there’s an annual contest called Stuck on a Truck. The idea is for selected people to put their hands on a truck and keep them there. The last one standing–and still stuck on that truck–will win the truck. It usually takes 100 hours for the last ones to drop out. That’s 4-5 days with no sleep.

It’s an interesting situation and one that I’d like to write about. But it’s not a plot.

Transform a Situation into a Plot

For the situation to become a plot, I need to add characters with real problems they must overcome. I am sifting through the ideas for characters, looking for flaws, quirks and a heart for readers to connect with. I also need to add a setting, ground the story in a particular historical period (contemporary, historical, fantasy, etc.), a particular geographical place. And finally, I need to be mean, cruel, despicably unfair to my characters; in other words, I need intense complications that force my characters to make decisions they don’t want to make. Tension on every page.

Fortunately, there are 29 plot templates I can follow when considering options.

Also of interest:

• 30 Days to Stronger Scenes
• 30 Days to a Stronger Novel
• Villains: A 3-part series
• How to Create Whacky, Interesting Character Descriptions that Stick with a Reader
• The Mesh of Plot and Subplot
• 4 Ways to Deal with Narrative Summaries

Need help with something else? Use the Search Box to look for more information. Or ask a question in the comments or send me an email at darcy at darcypattison dot com.

Are you doing the NaNoWriMo? Why is it right for you this year?

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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I am working on a novel revision for an editor and I expect to turn it in by Monday. But today, as I was reading through one last time to polish everything up–oh, my gosh!–there’s still so much work to do.

Last Minute Revisions

At this point, it’s not major structural changes or big plot changes. Instead, I am looking to tighten every scene and make as many connections as possible. And I am polishing language and voice.

Here are some thing that I’m working on:

Connections. I noticed that K gave A something. Now, K is a minor character, and while I like K, the connection here was weak. Instead, I wondered how the story would work if C gave A that same thing. Much nicer! It brought back in a sub-plot/theme with C that I thought would never work into this part of the story.

Conflict and Tension. Yes, the mainstay of fiction is conflict and tension and you’d think I would have that right by now. Instead, I realized that I was relying on the external conflict and ignoring the internal conflict. What I needed was conflict to be within my main character, while at the same time, she is facing external problems. I had to go back paragraph by paragraph and make sure that the internal conflict was present, was related to the external problem and that it grew over the course of the story.

Pacing. I separated one long chapter into two chapters, making sure the ending of the first chapter was a cliff-hanger and the beginning of the next chapter had a good hook.

Verbs. Yes, verbs. As we all know by now, strong verbs make for good story language and a strong voice. And I was doing pretty well. But I noticed in this chapter that I was slacking off some. For example, I replaced “They stared” with “They gaped”, and later with “They gawked.” Subtle differences, yes, but important.

Characterization. I am confident that A is a strong character. But what about B, C, D, E, F, G? As I read through, I am looking for places to characterize them better.

When is a Novel Revision Finished?

Um, never. I think I could endlessly revise a novel and my friends will attest to that. But at some point, I’ve done all I can do without more feedback. With this final pass through, I’ll be at that point. It will be time to send the novel out into the world for someone to read and evaluate. Does that mean I am finished with revisions on this particular novel? Doubtful. Bu until some fresh eyes catch weak areas, I can’t see anything else to do. Soon, very soon, it will be on its way.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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So What? That’s the question you must get past in your fiction. Why should a reader care?

Keep Reader’s Interest: Make Everything Matter More

The best way to make a reader care about your story, your novel is to make things matter more, put more at risk, up the stakes.

Personal Stakes

This can be accomplished on multiple levels. The first is a personal level. We must care about your character for some reason. A typical kid in a typical school is boring. Why do we care about this character?

• Moral Character. Because they are honest or loyal, kind or brave, respectful or trustworthy, loved by one and all. Some character trait must endear them to us and that usually has to do with a high moral character, at least on some level. And of course, your story will challenge that moral fiber
• Someone Loves Them. It’s important that you Show-don’t-Tell that someone loves this character. We like likeable folks; especially if you have a rough character, someone must let the reader know that the character is still lovable. It might be just a dumb animal who loves and is faithful to Mr. Rough Mouth, but it must be something or someone.

Public Stakes

In the world of your story or novel, something must also be happening that has consequences. If A doesn’t figure things out, then X, Y and Z will happen and those things add up to one major catastrophe for the city or nation, the neighborhood or the ranch, the business or the spy endeavor.

• Stretch out the tent pegs. Give the story’s consequences a wider influence than you had originally planned. The events reach tentacles into the very fiber of society (on whatever level is appropriate).
• Price of Success. What’s the price your character must pay to succeed in their quest? How can you increase the price in terms of moral character or personal relationships? How can you make the character hurt more, while also taking the results to a wider field?
• Self Sacrifice. Funny–if a character volunteers to endure something, we admire him/her. If they are forced to do it, we sympathize, but we don’t admire them as much. A willingness to pay an unusually high price will raise the stakes.
• Extreme Effort. Here’s where a story can easily go wrong: you make the trials and ultimate resolution too easy. Instead, push your character to his or her physical limits, mental limits, emotional limits. You love this character that you created, yet you MUST tighten the screws in every way possible, make them suffer, force them to fight for every inch of success. Whatever trials and conflicts you’ve thrown at them, intensify it. Think about extreme sports: the triathon combines on three hard races for a grueling competition. And yes, it’s no accident that upping the public stakes can hardly be separated from its impact on your character.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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In my WIP, I’m looking for mini-conflicts among characters. I want to keep the tension high throughout. Donald Maass, agent and author of Write the Breakout Novel, says, “Tension on every page.”

Ongoing Conflicts. These mini-conflicts are the stuff of everyday life:

• The ongoing battle between teacher/student over chewing gum.
• The ongoing battle between brother/sister over hanging up towels in the bathroom.
• The irritation of being the only one in the household to notice that the trash needs to be taken out.

You should give these conflicts only a tiny fraction of space, but they will repay you in big ways as they make the character, setting and plot more concrete and realistic.

Scene beats. Mini-conflicts might just be the tiny beats of a scene. It’s the small actions, dialogue, reactions, movements that are required for a character to physically move in space and interact with other people and his/her environment. You can build in min-conflicts in something as simple as making a cup of coffee. The tap water is too hot/cold; the coffee grounds spill; all the coffee cups are dirty; the sugar bowl is empty and the creamer is sour.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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When, How, and Why to Cut from Scene to Scene

30 Days to a Stronger Scene Table of Contents

Importance of Scene Disasters

Are you personally a peace maker? Do you try to smooth out conflict among your friends? Are you in trouble when you try to write fiction!

Scenes must end in disaster, at least a majority of the time. Fiction is about conflict and that means that scenes should end with conflict and tension. The situation just got worse for the main character.

Featured Today in Fiction Notes Stores

I’m emphasizing this point by giving it a post of its own, it’s that important. Too many authors begin first drafts loving their characters so much that nothing bad happens.

Boring.

Something must change by the end of a scene:

• New information comes to light and we suspect it’s important information.
• Someone’s feelings/emotions change for the worse.
• A character fails to obtain something.
• Partial success, but it only brings discouragement; the cup feels half empty, not half full.

Make sure that every single scene has conflict and ends with something worse than before.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Conflict on Every Page

Literary Agent, Donald Maass preaches the necessity of “conflict on every page.” I’m revising a scene today and realized I was being lazy.

Information Exchange isn’t Enough. In this scene, a daughter comes home and reports on events of the day to her father. There was a short exchange, seven snippets of dialogue between the two. I realized it was just straight reporting, no conflict.

To find conflict, I looked first to the relationship and then to the setting. It’s a father-daughter relationship and I’ve been trying to enrich the relationship with some tender moments. But I also realized that I didn’t have enough conflict between them. What do fathers and teenage daughters fuss about? In the setting, they are eating dinner together.

I finally settled on the daughter’s lack of manners, slurping soup. It reinforces the general idea that she’s a tomboy, raised by a widowed father and a negligent nanny, raised wild and definitely without table manners. But I also made the father slightly greedy: food is fairly scarce and he wants her bowl of soup.

Richer Scene. With that idea in mind, I went back and rewrote the scene. I still had the same exchange of information, the report on the events of the day. But now, the ongoing relationship supplied the conflict and tension. We know more about each character, about their relationship, AND the day’s events. Much richer scene.

I must remember: don’t be lazy. Find the conflict in every scene.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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In part 1, I covered plot patterns beginning with character or beginning with a pattern such as the Hero’s Journey. This continues the discussion of 9 ways to plot.

5. Combinations of Plot Paradigms

Many descriptions of how to write plot combine a couple of these paradigms:

Overlaid with Three Act Structure.
Syd Field: Snowflake + Important Points Paradigm. Syd Field basically advises a Snowflake approach to writing plot, but overlays a paradigm that points to important events and connections among those events. His plot points aren’t labeled with reference to the hero and his journey, but with reference to the three act structure; often, however they coincide. Field works mostly with screenwriters, so is emphasis on the three act structure comes from that.

Emphasis on Inner Plot. Peter Dunne in Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot likewise has a chart of events, with a variation of the hero’s journey. Dunne, however, emphasizes the difference in the inner and outer plot, relegating most of the outer story to acts one and three, leaving act two as the character or inner plot. Same story, but with a variation when you want the story to be about two people changing each other. It won’t work, though, when the main antagonist is man v. nature or man v. himself.

To emphasize the importance of both inner and outer plots, Dunne recommends you write plot points on an index card with the outer conflict on one side and the inner conflict on the other.

Major Change at Midpoint. Another idea for patterns is from David Seigel, a screenwriting, who emphasized that at the midpoint of a story, there must be a change in the main character’s goal. It’s the understanding that interesting characters grow and their needs and wants change because of events. His classic example is from The Lion King. In the first half of the story, Simba wants to be happy; in the second half, he wants to be restored to his rightful place as king of the lions. Seigel said that without this major change, stories are ineffective. He basically falls in with the hero’s journey type structure, but puts his emphasis on this major shift of the story. (Seigel had his plot paradigm on line at one time, but it’s no longer available.)

6. Emphasis on Writing in Scenes

One other variation in writing and plotting novels is the emphasis or de-emphasis on writing in scenes. Screenplays and theater plays must be written in scenes, but novels can be fuzzier about this and still succeed. However, I think there’s value in learning to write in scenes, as it keeps a story focused better. Dwight Swain’s classic Techniques of the Selling Writer, is followed by Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure. One of the most helpful on scene writing is Sandra Scofield’s The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer.

When you write in scenes, it’s possible to plan every scene in a novel, as Swain and Bickham recommend. But generally, you need some other paradigm of the overall structure to do a good job of it.

7. MICE quotient

There are other approaches to plot patterns that I find less helpful; nevertheless, knowing them sometimes makes it easier to be bold in doing something different. For example, Orson Scott Card in Character & Viewpoint discusses the MICE quotient: stories are governed either by their milieu (For example, fantasy which invents and explores a new world), an idea (mysteries), a character (romance or character novels) or an event (an imbalance in the world, an injustice that must be put right). The author’s focus on one of these elements determines what actually makes it into the story.

For example, on The Lord of the Rings, it could be classed as an event story, with the Dark Lord disturbing the balance of the world order. Card argues, though, that it is rightly understood as a milieu story. The story begins in the Shire, travels through Middle Earth, and as it is destroyed by the battle, it returns to the Shire; Frodo can’t remain there, though, because he’s been too damaged by his contact with evil, and takes the boat ride with the elves across the Western Sea. If it was just an event story, the story ends with the defeat of the Dark Lord. But as a milieu story, it doesn’t end until we see the end of Middle Earth.

8. Author’s idiosyncratic plot pattern

Hero’s journey overlaid with the process of grief. Pattern can also come in the shape of any process of change or growth that a human might undergo. For example, in my novel, The Wayfinder, I used the process of grief as a structure: loss, denial, acceptance, healing, You can even combine several of these structures: the process of grief overlays the hero’s journey for a more complex structure.

Patterns can come from any other source: you can think of a novel as peeling away layers of an onion; as way-stations on a long journey; as episodes.

What plot patterns work best for you?

Books Mentioned in This Series

• Bickham, Jack. Scene & Structure
• Card, Orson Scott. Character & Viewpoint
• Dunne, Peter Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot
• Field, Syd.
• Noble, June & William. Steal this Plot.
• Scofield, Sandra. The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer.
• Swain, Dwight.Techniques of the Selling Writer
• Tobias, Ronald. 20 Master Plots
• Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey.
• Vorhaus, John. The Comic Toolbox.

Websites Mentioned in This Series

• Free Write to Let Characters Reveal Themselves
• Idea, Idea, Character, Character, Character, Setting
• Plot Starts with Character
• Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method

Next: Enhancing the Basic Plot

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I’m back in the trenches here, revising scenes.

I’m looking at a single-spaced page of my current WIP. I’ve done the Scene Box Test only to find that there are four boxes on this single page. That means four scenes.

Yes, a scene can be accomplished in a single sentence or single paragraph, but I don’t think I did that on this page. Instead, I was just trying to throw things onto the page and cover all the connections between subplots.

So, my revision task for today is to sort out all those scenes and see if I can combine some, sharpen others, maybe omit one or two. Hopefully, the result will be a page of tension that pulls the reader through the story.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win