What I Learned About Writing in June

2018

Avoid characters saying what they are going to be doing. Instead, have them do it. A great example is Inception, or another heist movie, where they show them planning, but not the actual heist plan. That comes when they actually perform the hype. 

Planning is super important. If you have the plot of your novel, you have everything. Take JK Rowling, for example. She plotted. Planning should take 3 months.

You can put more pressure and suspense in your novel by adding a time crunch. For instance, applications for the song writing contest are in seven days. 

You have to be careful how you pace your story. If you are about to reveal who is behind the door and begin ten pages of exposition or flashback or a character talking about how the door reminds them of the Photography Museum, your reader will get pissed off.

Try to make your story as honest as possible. You want to talk about things that really matter. You don't want to skirt around things because that will feel fake. What are you avoiding putting in your story? What issue are you avoiding because you're scared of what people might say? THAT's what you should write about. Try being honest.

The 15 Steps of Plotting is an amazing resource:

https://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/

Step 1. A scene snapshot of setup. A visual representing the tone of the story. Show the character's problem before the adventure.

Step 2. More setup. Expanding on the character's life. Show what they are missing.

Step 3. Show the theme. The character does not yet understand it.

Step 4. Inciting incident. An intense moment that changes the character's life forever. It plunges them into a new world, and gives them a spark to change their life. Their brother coming home, a family member getting sick, someone slapping them in the face and telling them to meet them in the courtyard at 4:30. ;)

Step 5. The character is scared. They are uncertain. They grapple with if they should change and accept the inciting incident, or continue life as normal. This is their last chance to remain as life was, or to plunge into a new way of being, an adventure, or a change in mindstate.

Act 2

Step 6. The acceptance. The character dives headfirst into a new world. The character accepts that they will have to make changes.

Step 7. B Story. This is where you introduce a sidestory. Often a sidestory is only there to add suspense to the A story, or to draw out the entire book so that there is withholding of the A story. This way you don't get all the information at once. The B story will put a pause in. And that is fine.

The B story should also talk about the theme. This is often with the character and a love interest. Woop woop. What truth are you trying to tell in your story?

Step 8. The promise of the premise. What are readers expecting from your book? Is your entire 'hook' to buy the novel that it is about shared dreaming? In that case, this is the section where you need to show your character having shared dreams. Hint: that's what the novel I'm working on is about. 

This is where you need to show the character exploring their powers, going on adventures, trying things out, and fulfilling the reader's expectations. If it's a romance, they should be going on dates. If it's a mystery, they should be chasing down clues. If it's a horror, they should be hit with demons and new terrifying aspects of the world.

Step 9. The Midpoint. This is the peak of exploration. The character either gets a great thing or does not. If they get a great thing, it might not be everything they expected. Perhaps it's actually something that screws them up. In this point, they might get in a relationship, but they will instantly find out they were cheated on during Day 1. Or they might find the answer to the mystery, and that might get them put on watch by the gang they were chasing down. In Pride and Prejudice, I think this might be when Lizzie goes to that dance expecting Wickham.

Step 10. Descension into doom. What is your main character's goal? In my novel, it is to connect with people. In this step, your character's goal should be defeated by feelings and physical things in the world. Jealousy, fear, irritability, doubt, should plague your character. Their shame, worries, past conditioning. They should also be tripped up by things around them -- parents, the government, the school, their curfew, their age, their knowledge, their reputation, their 'look' (if they are young and everyone thinks they are stupid.) Things are spiralling downwards. This is where Hazel and Augustus are sad as their illnesses worsen.

Step 11. Peak of misery. I'd say this is the climax because it is the intense point of low feelings. It's the opposite of the midpoint when all was good. A lover dies. A sister makes a terrible mistake. The character gets arrested and thrown into prison. The character sets fire to a car while drunk driving.

Their initial goal? Remember it? This is the point where it seems impossible. My character should be so miserable and hating of their actions that they feel they will never be able to connect with anyone again. They are racked with guilt and regret and feel nothing can ever change. I'm sad just writing this.

Also, something or someone should die. For instance, a relationship should end. A character drops their crush and will never like that person again. Someone cuts off the relationship out of their own feelings of fear of getting arrested and ruining their lover's life. Or a character decides they don't care about anything anymore and will live life on the streets. 

Step 12. Wallow in misery. A character wallows in the hopelessness. A character stops worrying that their grades are dropping and that their mom yells at them every night. They have driven themselves to utter misery. They grieve the loss of their dream to attend university because they've been rejected from them all and cannot afford to go without a scholarship. They decide they don't want to continue with any education at all. They go to church and pray to get some happiness back, but hear nothing from god. They drive around all alone into the hills cursing themselves for killing their best friend. Woe is me. To be, or not to be?

Act 3

Step 13. Thanks to the B story, the character gets a spark of revelation, or a change in opinion, or a glimmer of hope, a change in their life, something that zaps them out of their misery like a cutting of light through a crack in the door. This can also be last-minute Thematic advice. The theme of my novel is that you should not trust your subconscious because it's easily swayed. I'm going to show that we are easily swayed by media and our peers. This might be a point where my character realizes they thought they knew a celebrity, but they really didn't -- they were making it all up through their own subconscious.

Or they might start hearing voices due to all their talking to their subconscious. Or they might realize the voice they have been hearing this entire time was their own brain. Or that their imaginary friend was their schizophrenia. Anyway it's some spark of revelation or new idea. Usually it comes from a love story / from the love interest. 

This revelation encourages them to try again somehow. To get their goal. So you have to remember your character's goal again. For my novel it was to connect with people, so the character might realize they never really knew the celebrity and they ought to focus on people in real life instead. They have to connect with people in reality instead of in dreams. 

Step 14. The character finally understands the theme. They use the theme into their fight for the goal. They have the experience from story A and the context from story B. So they combine their knowledge and use it to meet their goal. Or do something else.

Step 15. Final image. This can parallel the opening image. It should show that a change has occurred in the character.