Thrusters

I picked up a great book on the craft of writing this week. Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell takes the writer through the more subtle aspects of fiction writing sometimes overshadowed by the heavy-weight topics of character and plot. Included in this 300 page Writer's Digest publication are topics ranging from epiphanies and foreshadowing to flashbacks and transitions.

While a cliffhanger is one kind of page-turning device most writers are familiar with, Morrell also delves into the broader category of what she calls "thrusters." These structural devices "push the story ahead, move the action forward, and raise questions or cause curiosity about unanswered issues or things to come." While cliffhangers interrupt the action, forcing the reader to forage ahead for a sense of completion, other thrusters can be more subtle.

Opening lines, if engaging as they should be to attract the reader's attention, can be thrusters. If action doesn't thunder on the page immediately, the writer can still hint at the promise of action to come and provide setting, exposition or something else to encourage the reader to continue. Other thrusters include scene breaks to change point of view so the reader will worry about the viewpoint character, jumping from place to place or mood to mood to keep the reader's curiosity actively engaged, chases, danger, emotional bombshells, surprises, flashbacks and interruptions. All of these tricks and more serve to deny the reader something in exchange for their unwavering interest in the story.

One last hint: Always start scenes with a provocative statement, moment or tease. View each new chapter and scene with the same critical eye you gave page one.

Here Comes the Bribe

Just thought I'd take the opportunity to do a little blatant self-promo. My first romantic comedy is due out this Spring from The Wild Rose Press.

You can find me and my book by going to the "Coming Soon" section on the top right hand side of the page. HCB is in the General Contemporary division under its title.

Thanks!

Excerpt:

A single administrative assistant accepts her temporary boss’s offer to masquerade as his fiancée to keep his matchmaking grandmother out of his personal life and out of the way while he negotiates a high-profile merger for his family-owned company. In exchange, she’ll get the down payment for the loan she needs to keep her ex from selling her condo out from under her.

But neither of them counted on the lines blurring between real and pretend--or for the temporary arrangement to leave them both longing for something more permanent.

Oh our crazy laguage.

Tonight’s Blog comes from Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct. I learned something really interesting today. Pinker says, “All speech is an illusion. We hear speech as a string of separate words. But, in the speech sound wave one word runs into the next word seamlessly, there are no white spaces like in text. We hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the edge of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.” Crazy you say? So did I. But, think about hearing a foreign language. It is virtually impossible to distinguish one word from another, the words are not in your mental language. He also give some fun examples of sentences that should alike but have completely different meanings. These are called “oronyms”. Here’s a few examples.
The good can decay many ways.
The good candy came anyways.

The stuffy nose can lead to problems.
The stuff he knows can lead to problems.

I’m not sure what this has to do with making your writing sparkle but I thought it was interesting anyway.

What is the Sparkle?

The Sparkle This Blog asks, "What's the sparkle that makes a manuscript publishable while another languishes in the slush pile for months on end only to receive a rejection?"

Today, instead of posting an article about writing, I'm asking the question.

What makes a story sparkle for you?

What books are 'keepers'? Tell me why they are your favorites.

The Ordinary World

Unless you're writing a thriller or an action adventure that begins in the middle of the action, the Ordinary World is an important place to understand. Most writing philosophies and methods, including screenplays incorporate some kind of glimpse at the beginning of a character's journey. Here's why:

It's impossible to gain the full perspective of a character's arc without seeing where he/she came from, both physically and emotionally. Like a rainbow captured in fragments, we can appreciate its beauty, but can't grasp the full scope--the beginning and end--for the full effect. At the story's conclusion, we must know without doubt the character has developed and grown through the trials of the story. If we don't know his beginning, we cannot appreciate the fully -realized character at the end.

The Ordinary World is also important for staging the growth of the larger world surrounding the character. This gives the story higher stakes beyond that of the protagonist(s). Not every character has to save the world from a bomb, but audience want to know this character's growth will resonate beyond the micro-world of the story. Think of it as an arc for setting. Maybe, through the events of the story, the town evolves from one of hatred to acceptance or from a closed-mentality to a wider perspective. The larger world doesn't have to be a town. Any group of people defined throughout the story can show the impact of the character's journey beyond the protagonist. If the reader doesn't see the Ordinary World the hero(ine) occupies, the chance for a resonating message at the end is lost.

Most stories, especially romance, benefit from a less-explosive first scene because it allows us an emotional investment in the character before the inciting incident whisks them along.

Alicia Rasley teaches an amazing course on beginnings. Find her articles about craft on her website.

8 Female Archetype Examples and The Villains

Continuing with archetype characterization from the book "Heroes and Heroines: 16 Master Archetypes," by Caro LeFever, Tami Cowden and Sue Viders, I have listed examples of the eight female archetypes. Do you agree?

My example of the Seductress is Scarlett O'Hara. Is she a heroine or a villain? If Gone With The Wind was Melanie's story, would Scarlett be a villain? Is Melanie a Nurturer or Waif?

The authors of "Heroes and Heroines: 16 Master Archetypes" also propose sixteen villains and I list them as part of the commentary on archetypes. However, I find the descriptions to be stereotypical instead of archetypal. And of course that is the point of characterization. Both the protagonist and the antagonist need to be fully realized.

Plot Lane Must Turn Right

Turning points, both main and subplots, are on my mind today. Trying to find scenes that carries enough gravity to form the skeleton of a well-told story is never easy. According to Robin Perini, a successful turning point has all of the following elements:

1. deep character

2. a touchpoint of theme

3. braiding of internal and external conflict (intertwining of plot and character)

4. layering (multipurpose scenes and multi-dimensional characters)

5. surprise (the unexpected that keeps the reader turning the pages and reveals character)

A turning point must change the direction of your plot or subplot and contain conflict, action, emotion and surpise. This surprise can be an event or can merely be a surprise in how a character reacts emotionally, but it must surprise both the reader and the character.

Like all scenes in the story, the arc within the scene should be well-defined with characters exhibiting "different" behavior or opinions at the scene's conclusion than they had at the scene's opening. This is especially true with turning points. Think Robert McKee's postives and negatives--a literary litmus test to justify a scene's inclusion in the overall story.

How do your turning points match up?

To learn more about the power of turning points or her Discovering Story Magic seminars, visit Robin Perini's website.