How Soon to Introduce Key Story Elements
There are a lot of different opinions on the subject of how and when to introduce the protagonist, antagonist and the story Problem, but it seems that many of the darts cluster around the same spot no matter which source you consult.
In the 3-act structure of a play or screenplay, the first act serves to show the audience what the protagonist’s normal life is like and to identify his/her goal (which the rest of the story will try to keep him/her from achieving).
The plot point at the end of Act 1 is that moment or event that spins the protagonist’s head around and sends him/her off on a whole new tangent. It is the “inciting incident,” or the first “disaster” in the first scene.
But how soon do you have to get to that head-spinning point? How soon do you have to introduce your protagonist, antagonist and The Problem?
Many action stories open smack in the middle of a disaster, seemingly bypassing the whole first act. But even in those, you’ll typically find that the opening disaster IS the character’s normal life, where he/she is in the business of fighting crime, fires, disease or facing other challenges on a regular basis. The inciting incident, then, has to be something even more disastrous, more personal, an event that has the power to spin even Mr./Ms. Macho’s head around and set them off on a new course.
Bob Mayer, a terrific presenter and published author of dozens of books under a number of names, suggests that the reader must meet the protagonist and antagonist and discover the Story Problem by the end of the second chapter or second scene. That seems reasonable to me.
However, in my newest novel, the antagonist won’t appear onstage until the last third of the book. So how do I introduce him/it within the first two scenes? The answer, Mayer says, is to use surrogates.
Here’s how it works: Your story has a force that is opposing your protagonist in his/her quest. (By the way, the antagonist doesn’t have to be evil, it only has to have goals that oppose the protagonist’s goals, and it needs a passion to reach those goals that is equal to the protagonist’s own passion.) The antagonist’s job is to throw “rocks” at the protagonist to thwart his/her efforts. So the surrogate can be some other person/entity that throws rocks at the protagonist until the antagonist arrives onstage.
It’s important that the surrogate presents obstacles along a path that’s relevant to the antagonist’s goals. You could have somebody throwing rocks at the protagonist for reasons completely unrelated to the antagonist and his/her goals, but that’s not a surrogate for your antagonist, it’s just another element of conflict.
In the case of my new book (still in the planning stages), the bad guys will be called terrorists for lack of a clearer identity. But in the first third of the book, the protagonist doesn’t even know who her foes are, only that there may be a plot afoot that will cause a great disaster virtually in her back yard.
Her first surrogate antagonist, then, is the man who predicts this disaster and sets her off to look for clues that his prediction might be valid.
But the main surrogate is the plant manager who prevents her from continuing her unofficial investigation to uncover the plot and revealing the antagonists that might cause this predicted disaster. The plant manager, in fact, serves as the antagonist-surrogate for most of the book. Only in the last third, possibly even later, will the protagonist find out who the real antagonists are and what their goal is. By then she will have already begun to develop a plan to stop the disaster without knowing precisely who the attackers are.
So it would seem that Mayer’s rule can actually work for a book like mine. Maybe you can use the technique as well.
For more information on Bob Mayer and his books and workshops for writers, go to www.bobmayer.org.
Budgeting Time for a Book Project: Dreams vs. Goals
I know that it takes a major investment of time to produce a book worth publishing. And up until last year, I’d looked at my objective like a little savings account where I squirreled away and forgot a few dollars here and there until…surprise!…I’d accumulated a substantial sum. I didn’t think about the long view, how many years it would take to get to my goal. I just kept writing, one chapter at a time, and I lived in the present, enjoying the journey, looking forward to the satisfied surprise at the end.
But as I grew older and the years started to move faster, I became more pressed by the quantity of time available (in each year, and in my lifetime) for lengthy projects like books. Last year, for the first time I mapped out my whole year’s budget, because I had two book projects I wanted to complete. I knew if I didn’t allocate enough time every week, every month, I wouldn’t be aware of the time pressure, wouldn’t hear the tick of the clock, and I wouldn’t meet my goals.
I set out with the plan to write a non-fiction business book, transcribe and revise my grandfather’s hand-written autobiography, and, if time allowed, start on the first book of a new novel series. My sights were set on completing at least two books, and possibly half of another, all while managing my client projects. (I am a business writer and consultant.)
I tried to be realistic, with a goal of only 22 pages per week for the business book. Since I knew I could write 10 pages a day (on a good day), this was do-able, taking up, at most, three days a week on average, some weeks more, some less, depending on client work and my clarity of thought at the moment.
And the plan worked, at least in principle. I completed the business book within the budgeted three months.
But then I had to write the proposal. I hadn’t budgeted nearly enough for that time. I had to conduct a lot of research on the competition, and had to gather, crunch and illustrate statistics to support my premise.
First. I wrote the full proposal, complete with graphs and artwork, a professional cover and interior layout.
But then I found proposal guidelines for a specific publishing house I was targeting. I was meeting with one of its editors at a writers’ conference that October, so I had to create a subset of the full proposal for her, adding new bits and pieces that weren’t in the full proposal (then later adding those bits and pieces to the full proposal).
And then there were revisions to the proposal recommended by my agents to help them pitch it to other editors. These were all beneficial changes. But I’d allocated two weeks for the proposal; it took nearly six instead.
In the meantime, every other week, I revised a chapter of my 2nd technothriller to take to my writers’ group meeting. I hadn’t budgeted for that at all. Sometimes I could do the revisions in a half day or less, but other times it took a whole day because the changes were structural, not cosmetic. The book had already made the rounds of editors and been rejected in its earlier, much fatter, incarnation, and my group believed it only needed some streamlining to make it ready for another try. Still, this effort ate yet another couple of days each month that I hadn’t accounted for in my budget.
And then, as they say about the best laid plans, my husband got sick and was diagnosed with colon cancer. The writing plan fell off the map and my entire life revolved around researching his disease and how to beat it…even after the doctor told us to take him home to die. Now, nine months later, he’s in remission, doing great, and taking a vacation from chemo.
And now I’m back where I was at the beginning of 2007, trying to decide how to budget my time for big writing projects. Only it’s worse now. I have too many projects I want to do. But this time I know enough to budget for the other parts of writing a book that don’t involve writing a book.
Writing this entry today has actually helped me manage this planning task so I don’t make myself crazy. I am hereby allowing myself the rest of 2008 to evaluate the various projects, to do some research, stick my toes in the water and get a sense of which projects make the most sense to pursue next year. If I get some clear direction before then, great, I can start sooner. If not, no pressure.
And, of course, nothing is etched in stone because the Universe can throw in its own twists at any moment. But the important thing is to know where you want to go and what it takes to get there, even if you get knocked off course for a while.
A dear friend once said to me: “I have dreams; YOU have GOALS.” That’s what this budgeting is all about: not dreaming of writing books and having a successful publishing career, but setting concrete and realistic goals to make the dreams come true.
Novel Structure Secrets – Part 1: How to Lay an Egg
With a few exceptions, most of us start writing novels armed with little more than high-school or college English skills, a certain amount of novel-reading experience, and something we think is a good story idea. We know a good book when we read one, but don’t have the first clue about why it draws us in, keeps us engaged and invested in the protagonist’s quest from beginning to end, and leaves us feeling satisfied.
As my dad used to say, “I’m not a chicken and I can’t lay an egg, but I can tell a good one from a bad one.” That’s where most of us start our writing careers: trying to lay an egg–preferably one that doesn’t stink.
Here’s where the first secret of novel structure can advance your work from amateur grade to apprentice-professional grade in one huge leap, virtually overnight. It is a technique as simple and obvious as lifting your eyelids in order to see, and yet it is not widely known.
It is known simply as “scene and sequel,” for the two main cycles of a story’s engine: action and reaction.
Developed and taught by the late, great Dwight V. Swain at the University of Oklahoma, the scene and sequel technique works like the steps of a dance: one, two, three…four, five six…repeat.
This article will briefly introduce the concept for you, while other resources, listed at the end, will flesh out the concepts further. However, I guarantee that even this bare-bones overview will help you tune up your stories significantly.
ABOUT SCENE AND SEQUEL
We all know that novels, even those seemingly quiet stories about relationships or inner conflict, are composed of actions and reactions. That’s where it starts. At the 50,000 foot level, SCENE = action and SEQUEL = reaction.
SCENE (action) is made up of 3 parts:
1. Goal
2. Conflict
3. Disaster
SEQUEL (reaction) covers:
4. Reaction
5. Dilemma
6. Decision
Every story follows an up and down pattern–like a mountain range–with your protagonist and his/her a goal at the bottom of each mountain and a “disaster” of some magnitude occurring just over the crest of the mountain. SCENE is the climb up one side of the mountain. SEQUEL is the tumble down the other side and the dusting off for the next climb.
The goal in SCENE tells us readers what the POV character is trying to achieve and sets us up to feel disappointed, hurt, frustrated, etc., along with him when the obstacles start coming at him.
Remember that you also need an overall STORY goal where each scene goal represents some part of the protagonist’s effort to reach the story goal. Although you can have scenes and SCENE goals from other characters’ points of view, it is your protagonist who carries the STORY goal from beginning to end.
The climb from goal at the bottom to disaster just over the top is all about conflict: those rocks you throw at your character to keep him from reaching his scene and story goals. Conflict consists of obstacles that the character must navigate around, deal with or overcome on his way toward the scene goal. They are bothersome or may even be threatening, but they don’t stop him from climbing that hill.
Disaster is conflict of a higher caliber that in some way stops the character…makes him change his approach, makes him consider giving up…or in some way alters his path to the story goal.
The prisoner who is tunneling his way out of his cell may face conflicts along the escape route–rats in the tunnel, his fellow prisoner wanting to go first or making too much noise–but the conflict that becomes this scene’s disaster may be the collapse of the tunnel just ahead of him. Now, instead of completing the escape today, he has to go back to his cell and hope the guards have not discovered the tunnel’s hole or his dummy on the bunk.
Following a disaster, the character reacts instinctively. Reaction is the first part of SEQUEL. Reaction can be obvious and dramatic, or subtle or even denied. But once you put us inside a character’s head, you have to make us feel what he feels, even if the fear or rage or other emotion only briefly bubbles up before the character deliberately cuts it off .
After reaction comes dilemma in which the character considers his options. In some stories, the character may go though an elaborate external discussion or internal consideration of the choices before him regarding what to do next. In other stories, especially action stories, the options are weighed at a subconscious level and the character may not even experience a debate at all, but instead will jump directly to decision.
Decision is the last step in SEQUEL and is the end of the scene-sequel cycle. The decision at the end of SEQUEL becomes the new goal in the next SCENE.
That’s it. You are now and chicken and you know how to lay an egg
Actually, there’s a lot more to it–a lot more involved in making the egg not stink–but this gives you a general sense of how the technique works. I find that it comes in handy especially when I’m revising. I use it as a diagnostic tool when a section of a book seems a little flat or doesn’t feel quite right. However, I’m starting a new novel and am attempting to plan its scenes more deliberately than I have in any of my previous three novels. So I’ll let you know how it goes.
For pdf’s of handouts I’ve used to teach scene and sequel, email me at writebook2(at)gmail(dot)com. And check back here periodically for new entries. I plan to post valuable tips and revelations from my agents from time to time as well, so if you have questions you want answered, please feel free to email them to me at writebook2(at)gmail(dot)com.
And to read what the master has said, check out the books, Techniques of the Selling Writer and Creating Characters by Dwight V. Swain.
How to Break into Publishing after Self-publishing
This is a quick followup to the previous post on the stigma of self-publishing.
With the big houses in New York primarily focused on the big-profit books and authors, those who have previously self-published may be better off getting into them through the back door.
How do you do that?
First, make yourself famous, to some degree or another. (I hear you laughing.) There are lots of great websites, blogs and newsletters with tips on developing your “platform” and expanding your reach or your audience base (i.e., your book’s ready-made potential buyers). This takes time, but is do-able with well focused efforts.
Second, aim lower, push farther: Sell your books to smaller, boutique publishers to break into “legitimate” publishing, then promote the hell out of those books to prove you can make money for your publisher.
Now, consider one more thing: If you can make money and develop a good, solid readership with a small publisher, why switch to one of The Big Houses at all?
As I’ve learned in hiring creative agencies to develop marketing campaigns for my client/employer companies: bigger isn’t necessarily better. With a small agency, your account gets the attention of the best people on the team…because that’s all there is. On the other hand, with a big agency, you may be paying for the most creative and successful people in the industry, but finding only the less brilliant players assigned to your account and projects…unless, of course, your company represents a huge potential income to the agency.
Big publishers may have the most money, but you may get less support for your book from them than from a small publisher that really wants and needs your book to succeed.
Remember that small publishers may be just as concerned about picking up your self-published books for the same reasons the big houses will be. But they may be more impressed by your promotional efforts and sales of your previous books and more willing to give your next book a chance. Once they’ve published the first book and made a little money, they may be more interested in buying and re-publishing your self-pubbed books under their own imprints to leverage and enhance whatever momentum your previous books have created.
Small publishers want to make money, just like big publishers…just like authors. But they operate on a smaller scale: smaller advances, smaller print runs, smaller risks, smaller profits. Being a little closer to the ground, they can afford to take risks because the fall won’t kill them if things don’t work out. Your previous efforts in self-publishing and promotion can show them that you are a safer risk than the next author.
