The basic unit of the story is the scene. The scene is a miniature story in which something happens to push the larger story forward, and its anatomy is fairly simple: the GOAL of the scene (what the main character is trying to accomplish); the CONFLICT (back and forth between movement toward the goal and obstacles); and the DISASTER (end of the scene).
The DISASTER or ending can end in four ways. Let's imagine that the scene goal is that Tom wants to ask his boss for a raise. Here are the four possible outcomes:
Yes: Tom's boss says, sure I'll pay you more money. The "Yes" answer generally stops the story action, and therefore should only be used for a specific, deliberate effect.
Yes But: Tom's boss says, sure I'll pay you more money but you're going to have to work half days on Saturdays. This is a good scene ending because it introduces a further question into the story: How will Tom be able to put in this extra time when he already has something else to do on Saturdays that is essential for him to complete the story goal.
No: Tom's boss says, no you cannot have more money. If you have a "No" scene ending then you can safely delete this scene since it doesn't advance the story -- your character is in the same place after the scene as he was before it started.
No and Furthermore: Tom's boss says, no you can't have a raise, and furthermore you're fired. This is an effective scene ending because it heaps further problems onto our hero's poor shoulders.
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When writing it's important to always be moving your story ahead. Your scene ending is the means to accomplish this movement.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Writer's Block
As writers we all deal with it. Here are some tips posted by Merlin HERE.
*
MERLIN SAYS...
I recently had occasion to do some…errr…research on writer’s block. Yeah, research. That’s what I was doing. Like a scientist.
I found lots of great ideas to get unstuck and wrote the best ones on index cards to create an Oblique Strategies-like deck. Swipe, share, and add you own in comments.
Talk to a monkey - Explain what you’re really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout.
Do something important that’s very easy - Is there a small part of your project you could finish quickly that would move things forward?
Try freewriting - Sit down and write anything for an arbitrary period of time—say, 10 minutes to start. Don’t stop, no matter what. Cover the monitor with a manila folder if you have to. Keep writing, even if you know what you’re typing is gibberish, full of misspellings, and grammatically psychopathic. Get your hand moving and your brain will think it’s writing. Which it is. See?
Take a walk - Get out of your writing brain for 10 minutes. Think about bunnies. Breathe.
Take a shower; change clothes - Give yourself a truly clean start.
Write from a persona - Lend your voice to a writing personality who isn’t you. Doesn’t have to be a pirate or anything—just try seeing your topic from someone else’s perspective, style, and interest.
Get away from the computer; Write someplace new - If you’ve been staring at the screen and nothing is happening, walk away. Shut down the computer. Take one pen and one notebook, and go somewhere new.
Quit beating yourself up - You can’t create when you feel whipped. Stop visualizing catastrophes, and focus on positive outcomes.
Stretch - Maybe try vacuuming your lungs too.
Add one ritual behavior - Get a glass of water exactly every 20 minutes. Do pushups. Eat a Tootsie Roll every paragraph. Add physical structure.
Listen to new music - Try something instrumental and rhythmic that you’ve never heard before. Put it on repeat, then stop fiddling with iTunes until your draft is done.
Write junk - Accept that your first draft will stink, and just go with it. Finish something.
Unplug the router - Metafilter and Boing Boing aren’t helping you right now. Turn off the Interweb and close every application you don’t need. Consider creating a new user account on your computer with none of your familiar apps or configurations.
Write the middle - Stop whining over a perfect lead, and write the next part or the part after that. Write your favorite part. Write the cover letter or email you’ll send when it’s done.
Do one chore - Sweep the floor or take out the recycling. Try something lightly physical to remind you that you know how to do things.
Make a pointless rule - You can’t end sentences with words that begin with a vowel. Or you can’t have more than one word over eight letters in any paragraph. Limits create focus and change your perspective.
Work on the title - Quickly make up five distinctly different titles. Meditate on them. What bugs you about the one you like least?
Write five words - Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page.
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On the other hand, remember Laurence Olivier.
One day on the set of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman showed up looking terrible. Totally exhausted and practically delirious. Asked what the problem was, Hoffman said that at this point in the movie, his character will have been awake for 24 hours, so he wanted to make sure that he had been too. Laurence Olivier shook his head and said, “Oh, Dusty, why don’t you just try acting?”
So, when all else fails, just try writing.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Research
Here’s the short and easy take home message: Don’t fake your facts. Someone, somewhere, is going to find you out. Call universities, museums, science labs, accounting offices, veterinary hospitals, or other places having people who know what you need to know. Be polite and keep calling until you’re connected with one or more experts. Tell the person you are a writer. Most of the time the expert is delighted to talk with you provided the conversation is no more than about ten minutes. Explain what you want to do in your story, then ask the expert if this is a reasonable scenario. Let the expert discuss and suggest things—you stay quiet and take notes.
When you’ve written your section(s) ask the expert if he would read what you wrote to make sure it makes sense. Finally, acknowledge the expert’s help in your published book or manuscript.
When you’ve written your section(s) ask the expert if he would read what you wrote to make sure it makes sense. Finally, acknowledge the expert’s help in your published book or manuscript.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Setting Your Goals: An Exercise
I just read an interesting article that said people who write down a goal double or more the chance of accomplishing it. We've all heard to write things down, of course, but maybe it's a chestnut that needs to be revitalized.
I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke:
How do you eat an elephant?
One piece at a time.
This process works with any large task, from prioritizing goals, to writing a novel or other large piece of work, to anything else you may wish to accomplish in your life. You start with an overview, then keep breaking down the big tasks into smaller and smaller pieces until each task is manageable so that you can make headway.
The first time you do this, it might take you an hour or more to organize your goals to write them down, but it’s time that’s well worth investing. You don’t need to wait until right before New Year’s Eve either – anytime is the right time to focus your life. Also, create a folder on your computer or get a notebook and write on it GOALS in big letters. You’ll want to get into the habit of writing down goals with the date as you think of them, big and small, and you can refer to your notes as you start to take action. Writing down your goals will clarify them in your mind and allow you to take specific, positive actions to accomplish them.
Finding your goals can be a repeated two-step process: first write down all your ideas for something, and then take time to winnow and prioritize. Both processes are essential, and they shouldn’t be done concurrently. This process can get messy after the first stage, but you need enough material to choose the best solutions, not just the quickest ones. If you’re stuck, try free-writing your thoughts (and make sure you WRITE them, not just THINK them). For example, “When I was a kid I wanted to sail around the world, and the idea still appeals to me even though I have many obligations and haven’t sailed in years. Hmm. Do I like the idea more of being on the water, or of visiting exotic places, or of doing something that people are impressed by? I think it’s the idea of being free, and no one being able to catch me. Well, there is the lake nearby and lots of people sail there every weekend; surely I might be able to at least start with this…”
Be open to crazy ideas, then find the realistic kernels hidden within those clouds. Ready?
1. Write down what you want to accomplish in your life. You know the drill: think of what someone might say about you if you died tomorrow or what you’d like them to say differently if you died in seven years, think of what might be on your tombstone, how you might be remembered by important people in your life, and so forth. What sort of legacy do you wish to pass on to the next generation? What are some things you could accomplish that might bring this legacy about? Take time to contemplate your own mortality and what you want to do with your brief time on Earth.
2. Keeping your life goals in mind, what would you like to accomplish in the next five years? Put down anything and everything you can think of, then study this list and choose the most important goals. You may want to divide them into different categories – mind, body, spirit, work, family, personal – then pick the top one or few for each category.
3. For each goal, break it down into two or more steps that need to be taken. Imagine this date next year, and think about the progress that would satisfy you. Be realistic: you’re not going to earn a PhD in a year, but you may investigate schools, take a few prerequisite courses, or sit for the GREs.
4. Break down each year goal into steps. Figure out how much you might realistically do each month on each goal. You may want to concentrate on one for a few months, and then switch, but always have reasonable amounts to do for each month. Choose a concrete endpoint. For example, if you wish to write a novel in a year, your monthly goal might be “produce 20,000 words” rather than “write every day.” The more specific your goal, the easier it will be for you to evaluate whether you have actually fulfilled your goal.
5. For each monthly goal, again break it down into four weeks.
6. If you wish, you can break down your weekly goals into day goals.
*
Once you have your goal list you have a good sense for where you want to aim your efforts. Now comes reality.
A goal sometimes sounds reasonable on paper, but when you start to implement your plan you find it’s not quite so easy. For example, if you want to write that novel in a year and calculated so many words per month will get you there, you may realize after writing for a few days or weeks that you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re simply producing many pages of garbage (and/or becoming very good at Spider Solitaire). Step back. Should you outline your story before writing it? Should you read some how-to books, or join a critique group? Should you lower your word output from 1000 words a day to 300? YOU ARE NOT FAILING IF YOU HAVE TO MODIFY OR CUT BACK! As long as you’re doing something, and making progress, you are doing more than most people ever do to fulfill their dreams.
Another technique that many people use is a “to do” list for daily tasks. Some find these helpful, but others find them overbearing and guilt-producing. I like to have only one task on my “to do” list, and once I finish that to add another item and start work on that, but since I need to remember tasks to add to my “to do” list I may be engaged in semantics – a sublist from my true “to do” list. Oh well. Other people swear by using palm pilots, or having computer alarms, or whatever. Play with different organizing tools and tricks, and see if any of these helps you to become more productive. The most critical and basic one, I believe, is simply to write things down no matter which formats you use.
Good luck pursuing your dreams.
I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke:
How do you eat an elephant?
One piece at a time.
This process works with any large task, from prioritizing goals, to writing a novel or other large piece of work, to anything else you may wish to accomplish in your life. You start with an overview, then keep breaking down the big tasks into smaller and smaller pieces until each task is manageable so that you can make headway.
The first time you do this, it might take you an hour or more to organize your goals to write them down, but it’s time that’s well worth investing. You don’t need to wait until right before New Year’s Eve either – anytime is the right time to focus your life. Also, create a folder on your computer or get a notebook and write on it GOALS in big letters. You’ll want to get into the habit of writing down goals with the date as you think of them, big and small, and you can refer to your notes as you start to take action. Writing down your goals will clarify them in your mind and allow you to take specific, positive actions to accomplish them.
Finding your goals can be a repeated two-step process: first write down all your ideas for something, and then take time to winnow and prioritize. Both processes are essential, and they shouldn’t be done concurrently. This process can get messy after the first stage, but you need enough material to choose the best solutions, not just the quickest ones. If you’re stuck, try free-writing your thoughts (and make sure you WRITE them, not just THINK them). For example, “When I was a kid I wanted to sail around the world, and the idea still appeals to me even though I have many obligations and haven’t sailed in years. Hmm. Do I like the idea more of being on the water, or of visiting exotic places, or of doing something that people are impressed by? I think it’s the idea of being free, and no one being able to catch me. Well, there is the lake nearby and lots of people sail there every weekend; surely I might be able to at least start with this…”
Be open to crazy ideas, then find the realistic kernels hidden within those clouds. Ready?
1. Write down what you want to accomplish in your life. You know the drill: think of what someone might say about you if you died tomorrow or what you’d like them to say differently if you died in seven years, think of what might be on your tombstone, how you might be remembered by important people in your life, and so forth. What sort of legacy do you wish to pass on to the next generation? What are some things you could accomplish that might bring this legacy about? Take time to contemplate your own mortality and what you want to do with your brief time on Earth.
2. Keeping your life goals in mind, what would you like to accomplish in the next five years? Put down anything and everything you can think of, then study this list and choose the most important goals. You may want to divide them into different categories – mind, body, spirit, work, family, personal – then pick the top one or few for each category.
3. For each goal, break it down into two or more steps that need to be taken. Imagine this date next year, and think about the progress that would satisfy you. Be realistic: you’re not going to earn a PhD in a year, but you may investigate schools, take a few prerequisite courses, or sit for the GREs.
4. Break down each year goal into steps. Figure out how much you might realistically do each month on each goal. You may want to concentrate on one for a few months, and then switch, but always have reasonable amounts to do for each month. Choose a concrete endpoint. For example, if you wish to write a novel in a year, your monthly goal might be “produce 20,000 words” rather than “write every day.” The more specific your goal, the easier it will be for you to evaluate whether you have actually fulfilled your goal.
5. For each monthly goal, again break it down into four weeks.
6. If you wish, you can break down your weekly goals into day goals.
*
Once you have your goal list you have a good sense for where you want to aim your efforts. Now comes reality.
A goal sometimes sounds reasonable on paper, but when you start to implement your plan you find it’s not quite so easy. For example, if you want to write that novel in a year and calculated so many words per month will get you there, you may realize after writing for a few days or weeks that you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re simply producing many pages of garbage (and/or becoming very good at Spider Solitaire). Step back. Should you outline your story before writing it? Should you read some how-to books, or join a critique group? Should you lower your word output from 1000 words a day to 300? YOU ARE NOT FAILING IF YOU HAVE TO MODIFY OR CUT BACK! As long as you’re doing something, and making progress, you are doing more than most people ever do to fulfill their dreams.
Another technique that many people use is a “to do” list for daily tasks. Some find these helpful, but others find them overbearing and guilt-producing. I like to have only one task on my “to do” list, and once I finish that to add another item and start work on that, but since I need to remember tasks to add to my “to do” list I may be engaged in semantics – a sublist from my true “to do” list. Oh well. Other people swear by using palm pilots, or having computer alarms, or whatever. Play with different organizing tools and tricks, and see if any of these helps you to become more productive. The most critical and basic one, I believe, is simply to write things down no matter which formats you use.
Good luck pursuing your dreams.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Put Your Best Writing Up Front
Always put your best writing up front. Don't hold anything in reserve.
The writer often feels (even if not articulated) that he or she isn't capable of writing at this high level of quality throughout the whole manuscript. And in a sense this may be true, but there is a wonderful technique called cutting and pasting that's so easy. Simply go through your manuscript and cut the bad stuff, put all the good stuff end to end, then fill in the holes.
The bigger hurdle for the writer often is the sense of inadequacy: you may feel you were lucky with this one scene, but couldn’t do it again.
Yes you can. Have faith in yourself. If you use up all of your good stuff, you're going to have to come up with more that is just as good. And you will. Many studies have shown that the best way to become skilled in an area is, surprise, doing it. So keep writing, even if it stinks, and when something's good copy and paste it in your end-to-end file. You'll be amazed at how this file begins to grow into a gripping story.
The writer often feels (even if not articulated) that he or she isn't capable of writing at this high level of quality throughout the whole manuscript. And in a sense this may be true, but there is a wonderful technique called cutting and pasting that's so easy. Simply go through your manuscript and cut the bad stuff, put all the good stuff end to end, then fill in the holes.
The bigger hurdle for the writer often is the sense of inadequacy: you may feel you were lucky with this one scene, but couldn’t do it again.
Yes you can. Have faith in yourself. If you use up all of your good stuff, you're going to have to come up with more that is just as good. And you will. Many studies have shown that the best way to become skilled in an area is, surprise, doing it. So keep writing, even if it stinks, and when something's good copy and paste it in your end-to-end file. You'll be amazed at how this file begins to grow into a gripping story.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
A Great Market for Self-Published Books
An important and often overlooked market for self-published books is public libraries, and you need to prepare for this market before publication.
This market requires a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). An LCCN is a unique identification number for your book in the Library of Congress’ catalog record. Since you’ll be applying before publication you need to get a Preassigned Control Number (PCN) (http://pcn.loc.gov/ ). The PCN requires cataloging in publication (CIP) data, so you will also need to get your book data, called publisher-generated CIP data. The librarian I chose gave me a good price and fast turnaround of a few days at http://www.cipblock.com. There are other people who do this also; you can compare prices etc. with a google search. The CIP data allows individual libraries to categorize your book for their own shelves.
If you obtain a PCN, you will need to send a copy of your final book to the Library of Congress once it’s published.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Viral Marketing
John Kremer (http://www.bookmarket.com/) is one of the best-known authorities for promoting book sales. He tends to think “out of the box,” as anyone who has read his 1001 Ways to Market Your Books will tell you.
One interesting tactic he promotes is the theory of Viral Marketing. Kremer argues that as more people read your book, more people will talk about it and pass it on. I’m not quite sure about this, at least unless you have many titles, since once a person has a copy of your book and reads it he’s probably not going to get it again unless maybe for a gift. If you the author don’t have anything else to sell to him, then the relationship is over. There IS a role for giving books away, say for endorsements (ARCs), book reviews (ARCs), or prizes, but for what my experience is worth I saw a lot of my *free* books being sold on Amazon (used and new option) or ebay. I didn’t see consequent increases in sales even though my book was supposedly getting to more people.
But that’s just me.
I wonder if a happy medium might be to offer a few chapters for free, and if the reader likes the book he can read more. Kindle already does this automatically, but it might not be a bad policy for e-books in general. Of course the sample chapters should contain valuable information, or else the person may decide it’s just not worth purchasing more of this drivel.
For anyone who is interested in viral marketing, Kremer has set up two web sites offering free e-books for fiction (http://www.allbooksfree.com/) and nonfiction (http://www.freebooksforall.com/). I’d love to hear what you think of this!
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