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What Separates the Gifted from the Schlubs and How Praise Can Backfire

ByJohn Brown

What makes someone gifted?

Raw talent?

Sure. An apptitutde for something always helps. But it appears it’s not enough. True expertise takes work. And those trying to help (i.e. parents, teachers, coaches) can hinder if they give the wrong kind of praise.

I wanted to share three articles reporting the results of a number of interesing studies on expertise which often appears as a skill level that seems unobtainable by normal, motivated individuals.

The Meadow Mount School of Music

This music school in the Adirondacks has “trained such luminaries as Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, and Yo-Yo Ma.” A number of researchers wanted to see what the difference was between the students who seemed most skilled and those who weren’t. They divided students “into three skill levels, including one the faculty had identified as having the best chance of becoming world-class soloists.” Then they looked at the differences.

According to the report, “the results were clear-cut, with little room for any sort of inscrutable God-given talent. The elite musicians had simply practiced far more than the others…Psychologists found a second attribute in elite players that is less obvious than sheer hours of practice. While most of us think of practice as the repetition of tough spots (and this is how many young people do practice), elite musicians, they found, took a different approach.”  Read full article.

The majority of childhood prodigies never fulfill their early promise

Why? According to these researchers it’s because so many early-bloomers get warped by their experience and fail to develop perseverance. More here.

Praise that Undermines Achievement

It appears that how we praise achievement affects performance. Sometimes in large and startling ways.

You may think that it’s good to praise your child for being “smart” or “good” in some subject. But there’s growing evidence that giving kids such labels doesn’t improve or motivate performance, but actually reduces it.

Psychologist Carol Dweck and her team have studied the effect of praise on students in a variety of settings. “Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise.” So what type of praise actually works? Read here.

When does genius bloom?

We often think genius must be tied to being precocity. After all, Motzart was doing musical flips when he was still a kid.  For writers, however, it appears this isn’t the case. More here.

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  • Plot Basics

    ByJohn Brown

    In the comments to this week’s writing excuses on the 3 act structure, a writer asked if the try/fail cycle would really work with her chase story because her folks do not “fail to solve the problem” every time so much as “escape by the skin of their teeth”.

    I thought this was a great question because we ARE often led to believe that the characters need to fail in each attempt. But if we look at a number of stories we’ll see that this isn’t the case. The hero is NOT always failing in his scene or sequence goal. In fact, much of the time he succeeds. So how does plot really work? Here’s my post.

    [edited for clarity]

    Jen, fwiw:

    A few things finally opened up acts and plot to me. Maybe they’ll be helpful to you. I say this because a chase would work the same as anything else. I’ll just start at the beginning, although I’m sure you know a lot of this.

    1) Story is about someone solving a problem. The problem is one of happiness (danger or lack on some level–physical, social, freedom, etc.) or mystery.

    2) The reason why we tell stories about problems is because the solving of problems, if done a certain way, evokes suspense, surprise, and curiosity in the reader, and then a release of emotional tension. Why we humans like that ride, I don’t know. But we must keep this in mind when dealing with #1 because these effects are the main effects the bulk of people go to story for.

    3) Plot is simply the actions the characters take, the results of their action, and what they decide to do next. Except this can’t be any old action and result. It has to be action and result that builds the anxiety of suspense, surprise, and the mystery or puzzle.

    4) There are four possible answers to the question of “did the hero’s action solve the problem?”: yes, no, yes but, no furthermore.

    For example. Yes, you killed the monster. No, you didn’t. Yes, you killed the monster, but it bit you and now you have the virus that’s going to turn YOU into a monster. No, you didn’t kill the monster furthermore you woke up its mumma.

    Of those four possiblities, only the last two build suspense and curiosity. The first removes it totally. So it’s out. And a no answer leaves suspense unchanged. All you’re doing is delaying things with that. What you want to do is ratchet it up.

    So if you want to build suspense then when a character takes an action, that action has to make things worse. They may escape by the skin of their teeth, but now the federal police know where they are (yes-but). Or not only did they not escape the police, but now the mafia, the real bad guys, know where they are (no-furthermore). These escalations and complications to the plot/problem continue until the hero’s plan is in total shambles and it appears he really is done for. That’s when they get one last shot at it.

    If someone is trying to escape you don’t need a different plot structure. Their actions simply need to make it harder and harder and harder. Their plan needs to start to come apart. Things go wrong. Things they didn’t plan for make it worse. Someone double-crosses them or goes AWOL. We need to see them walking into dangers they didn’t plan for. If you go back and look at Prison Break season 1, you’ll see this all over the place in the last two episodes.

    5) Acts are just a nifty way of breaking up the problem solving process into parts. In act 1 (the beginning), as stated, you introduce the problem and show that the character won’t or can’t walk away. Often a big reversal or reveal (a big yes-but or no-furthermore) marks the end of that act. But the key thing is that the hero MUST act. The stakes or too high or they simply can’t get away.

    Now in act 2 (the middle) the hero says, aha, this is the real problem. Let’s try to solve it. Act 2 is a breeze to write IF you think about escalations and complications and nasty surprises–yes-buts and no-furthermores. He takes an intelligent action. BAM. It gets worse. And as these complications pile up we see that the hero comes to a point where his plans are in a shambles and the problem looks almost certain to squash him for good. In Star Wars, sure they saved the princess, but they led the empire to the secret base and the death star is going to blow them away (a grand yes-but).

    In the last act, the hero straps on his guns and trys one more thing. Sometimes it helps to think of acts 1 and 2 as the hero reacting and act 3 as the hero finally getting the inititative, although it appears to be almost too late, and strapping on his guns. In Star Wars they do this. They’re running, running, running, and then they attack the death star. But the odds are slim. And they only have one little chance.

    Remember: the odds are slim at this point and things get worse not because this is how problems are solved. Many get solved on the first try in real life. But because solving a problem in this way produces maximum suspense, surprise, and curiosity–the chief effects readers go to stories for. Any time you see a new plot structure or theory, you need to ask yourself what effect it has on the reader. If you can’t see any, junk it.

    So you might have three acts, four, five, seven (all variations I’ve seen). It doesn’t matter. An act usually ends with a huge change in the nature of the problem. See Robert McKee’s STORY. But the number of acts isn’t the issue. It’s the effect on the reader. The acts are just means to an end. If we don’t keep the end in mind we’re likely to misuse the techniques. 

    6) The key for moving through the acts is to ask myself about actions, obstacles, and results. Here are some questions I’ve found productive.

    Action. What are some intelligent actions the hero might take in this situation? What would I do? What are some logical steps that the reader might not think of?

    Obstacles. What happens? What are some compelling obstacles the hero will face in this attempt? Are there points of conflict with himself, someone else on his side, the antagonist or his henchmen, someone in the background, with the setting? What does the antagonist do to foil the hero? What is a logical but maybe an unexpected and surprising obstacle to both the reader and hero? How does the hero’s plan begin to come apart?

    Results. What happens? What are some possible results that pose a yes-but or no-furthermore? What would be unexpected, surprising to both the hero and the reader? How does the character’s action make it worse? How does the result reveal the problem is much worse than the hero and reader first thought?  I’m thinking of complications and escalations–things that make the problem harder to solve or more important because more’s at stake.

    In all of these, I choose the options that gives me the most zing and run with them. If they peter out, I try another (take 2, take 3, take 4), until I have one that works. Then I repeat it all over again and again until the hero is looking the gun in the face.

    7) The “hero’s journey” is nothing more than a bunch of mystical names for common elements in this specific type of problem solving structure. Why does the hero have to leave home? Not because of some mystical archetype mumbo jumbo. No, because this forces them out into unfamiliar territory–adventure, risk. Things go wrong. The hero has to face the problem.

    Why does the hero go to “the cave”? Again, not because of some mystical archetype mumbo jumbo. No, because turning and facing the monster, going onto ITS turf, poses the MOST RISK and hence most danger and hence most suspense for the reader.

    Always keep the purpose of the story in mind. Suspense and curiosity DRIVE the structure of most stories. Yes, there are other effects we go to story for. But the reason stories are structured the way they are is because of those two reader effects. And all the rest of those Joseph Campbell terms are useless to writers unless they make the connection and see how they play into suspense and curiosity.

    And even then I’ve found it’s wrong-headed to bind yourself to to a form just because. Or to think you need to slavishly follow it. The decision has to feel right for the story. It has to build anxiety and curiosity. And whatever does that well is right, regardless of whether it follows some formula. Although, I will say that certain story structures are used again and again because they deliver the goods to the reader better than other structures. Like biological evolution, they survive because of natural selection by readers.

    So that ended up longer than I intended. Hopefully the ideas were as helpful to you as they were to me.

    This writer’s question arises because of the common way of explaining the try/fail cycle sets us up to think there is only a no or no-furthermore option to each attempt by the hero. However, if we just look at a handful of stories, we’ll see the yes-but option is used all the time. What we want to avoid is the yes option, because that just stops the story. It stops the story because story is about solving a problem. And once the problem is solved, the story is over.  

    Other writers talk of formulas, however “pattern” has always been a more helpful way of looking at it than “formula.” I know, that’s semantic quibbling. But “formula” suggests to me THE way while “pattern” suggests to me something not so strict, something with some give to it and perhaps a great number of variations. Either way, pattern or formula, I found that unless I can understand the why of a part of the pattern, the effect it has on the reader’s experience, it’s not much use to me. It all comes down to plunging our hero into trouble or mystery, and then making the trouble or mystery worse SO THAT the reader feels increasing anxiety, curiosity, and surprise.

    BTW, here’s a good explanation of the 3 act structure with some tips from Stephen J. Cannell, an old pro. I really like his tips on act 2 issues and complications. Because if we make the antagonist an active force, he or she will provide many wonderful yes-but and no-furthermore options.

    You’ll find other excellent explanations of plot in TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight V. Swain, HOW TO WRITE BEST SELLING FICTION by Dean Koontz, and THE SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING by William C. Martell.

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    Writing Update: 5/28/11 – Freewrites, Storylines, Proportion

    ByJohn Brown

    I finished the next chapter of my outline, which turned into three chapters. Hurray for making progress. However, I’m going to need to make more time on a weekly basis if I’m going to meet my goal.

    I’ve kept stats over the last four novels. My average is 500 words per hour during the drafting stage. That includes revising and doing quick researches etc. So sometimes I will write a smoking (for me) 800 or 900 words per hour. Sometimes I won’t finish a thing. When I’m all done it averages out to 500 words. I’m going to see if I can’t get 20 hours this next week and finish 10,000 words. 

    Addition to last week’s post

     Do you remember last week’s post about the process of making it come alive in my mind first? Orson Card illustrates this as he describes how he prepared to write a story in his essay “How One Story Can Give Birth to Another“.

    Spideysense, farmer’s faith, and freewrites

    Last week when writing chapter 7, I finished, but felt something was off.  Years ago I would have freaked about writer’s block.  I would have told myself I sucked because the chapter was glucky. But not now.  It’s a gift.  So I stopped and talked to myself in a freewrite.  I had farmers faith that if I just kept working on it, something good would result. 

    Here’s what I wrote in that freewrite. It’s an awful read for you, but it shows you just how sloppy and cryptic and freewheeling my freewrites are.

    Okay, so I’ve written the stuff below and I could tweak it, I guess. But I keep having this nagging feeling that it’s not good. It’s not a compelling villain. I think he’s creepy and evil. And, truth be told, I don’t want to make him into something other than what he is—a total thrall to the Glory and the mother. So as the “pet” of the mother, what else could he be called? I don’t know.

    I shall call you endless because you will be spared, you shall continue, whereas the rest will not. Blessing. Blessed. Grateful. What would you call a thing that did you bidding reliably? But enthralled. I am part of you, you are part of me, and so you may take my name.

    He WOULD think—I am not like them. I am GRACED by the Mother’s touch. I have taken her into myself. Or she has graced me and so I have become more than I would be otherwise. I am obedient.

    What else do you call pets or tools. Maybe that’s what she calls him. My skir master. The skir lord. My trowel. Harvester.

    He’s over the harvest. Reaper. Or he’s the one that supplies food. Supplier. Gatherer. Cook. Chef. Hunter. Provider. Butcher. Slaughter.

    So I like Endless with the whole part of him being part of her. But he could use that—”you’re just like us” “no, we are part of the XXX (what was the name I had for them?) endless. You are meat”

    Devourers, Mothers, Sublimes

    Okay, so do I go with Endless or Harvest Hope. Endless it odd, neat. What could I add to Harvest to do the same. Harvest Lord, King, Overseer, Meatman, Food provider, Feeder, Harvester, Harvest, Rancher, Collector, The Harvester. Harvest.

    I think when you’re raised, you get a new name.

    Rebellion.

    Soul collector.

    The Shepherd.

    Harvest Prime

    Bald Head

    Laughter

    Everlast

    DIVINES

    ID HIM AS THE MAIN HARVESTER

    RIGHTEOUS ANGER

    The issue was that his motive wasn’t working.  I had a feel for what I wanted him to be, and my Spideysense was telling me it wasn’t working, wasn’t interesting.  Thomas McCormack in his book calls this feeling for what you want in your story a “prelibation”.  What an odd term.  But it’s real. 

    “Prelibation.  The desire for a certain effect on the reader.  It may or may not be followed instantly by an intuition of what item of narrative will cause that effect, and it’s important to see that intuition and the prelibation it is trying to serve are not the same thing. The intuiting of the narrative that will produce the effect-wanted is the work of the imagination” (p153 The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist)

    There’s more in his book. I recommend it highly. So, after that freewrite, I didn’t have a solution, but I’d pinpointed the issue, the prelibation. I took a break with kids into the big city. Came back and had my solution for a narrative that would do the trick.  Luckily, it was something I’d cut out of the outline. Back it went with some significant tweaks and was better than before.

    Storylines & the Size of this Presentation Phase

    For those who have read my series on suspense, at this point, the presentation of the problem for the main story and many of my sub-stories is complete.  Depending on how you categorize them, I have nine to eleven story lines (which makes it impossible to write this book in 100k words).  There’s one main story line that touches everyone—the Mokaddian threat.  Then there are other questions and issues I raise that set the reader up with the expectation for a resolution.

    1. Talen
      1. Mokad/Nashrud (external threat)
      2. Lusts (internal threat, mystery)
      3. Sugar (relationship)
    2. Legs: Vulnerability
    3. Sugar
      1. Talen (relationship)
      2. Urban (relationship)
      3. Ancestors (relationship, mystery)
      4. Mokad (external threat)
    4. Argoth
      1. Mokad (external threat)
      2. Nettle (relationship)
      3. Bone Faces (external threat)
    5. Eresh
      1. Flax (conflict relationship)
      2. The Creek Widow (relationship)

    So most of these story lines have been presented, although not all. It took about 30,000 words to finish the presentation phase. I’m estimating 170,000 words, so that a presentation phase of roughly 18%.

    There are a lot of story lines and characters to juggle. Sometimes I kick myself for having so many. Of course, I love them, despite the challenge they present. Nevertheless, I AM looking forward to writing that thriller with a limited cast.

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  • Indie Thoughts: Tend Your Garden

    ByJohn Brown

    From Joe Konrath.

    Your ebooks function much like a garden.

    One rare occassions, a plant will thrive with little help from you.

    Others may whither and die no matter how much help you give them.

    But the majority need to be constantly tended. Planted, watered, fertilized, weeded, pruned, mulched, replanted, harvested. In other words, lots of work.

    Ebooks aren’t a Mr. Popeill invention where you can set it and forget it. Quite the opposite. You need to pay attention, and keep active, or your garden won’t thrive.

    Everyone experiences slow downs in sales. It’s inevitable, and it seems to be cyclical, but not in any sort of way I’ve been able to prodect. Sales seem to rise and fall for reasons unknown.

    But if you’re doing what you can to make your books discoverable, you have a better shot at sales than those authors who self-publish then self-ignore.

    Here are some tricks to tend to your garden.

    1. Change prices. As an indie, this is one of the biggest advantages you have over the legacy industry. You decide what the customer pays, and this is powerful. Don’t be afraid to weild that power by experimenting with prices, both lower and higher.

    2. Newsletter. There is no excuse why you don’t have a newsletter. People who sign up are actively looking for your titles. Make them aware a new title exists.

    3. Sales. Unlike a change in price, a sale only lasts for a short time. KDP Countdown is what I’m currently using, because it offers 70% royalties when I drop the price. I’ve been pleased with my results.

    4. Advertising. Bookbub and Booksends are the ones I use regularly. If you’ve had success with another company, list it in the comments.

    He names eleven tips. Link to the rest at JA Konrath’s blog.

    This goes back to something Blake Russell said in the myth posts I pointed to a few posts ago. There are some folks who suggest that you can either write the next book or you can promote the current one.

    Folks who suggest it’s either/or leave me scratching my head. Why not do both?

    Applying to BargainBooksy or BookSends takes less than 30 minutes. Sending a review copy out to a decent review site takes about the same amount of time. If I spend just one hour a week on promotion, I can do all three of those things each month plus something else.

    Some folks suggest that promotion doesn’t work when you only have a few books out. And forget about it if you only have one. Promo can’t do anything for you if you only have one book out. At least, not as much as completing the next book can.

    Let me ask a question.

    If I open a McDonalds down some back road where nobody sees it and nobody travels, do we think that releasing a second McDonalds down some other back road where nobody travels is going to increase sales?

    Nobody is going to go down those roads except by accident.

    Is that how McDonalds or Walmart or whatever company you want to name built their vast empire? They did it by accident? How about the diner everyone loves in your town? They hid it at the end of a dirt road, told nobody about it, definitely did not put up a sign (good grief, not a sign), and, shazam!–the customers started rolling in?

    Mcdonalds11

    Some folks say, no, you’re missing the point. The purpose of a promotion is to get people to buy other books in your list at higher prices, so if you don’t have a lot of other books, your promotion can’t do anything for you.

    Using loss-leader or sampling strategies with one book to sell others is certainly a smart thing to do. Because it works. With cheeses at Sam’s Club, with books, with a lot of things. But is that really the only thing you’re trying to do?

    How about building a base of readers who have some degree of loyalty to your brand? You don’t need ten books to start to do that. You don’t need two books. You can start with one.

    I started two series last December—a thriller and an epic fantasy–and (writing gods willing) will be releasing book 2 in the fantasy series this month. Since December I’ve sold close to a thousand in each series. It was easy to see that at least half of my sales, maybe more, came because of some type of promo. I know this because I watched the numbers.

    This means I now have hundreds more folks waiting for book two than I did for book one in both series. I’m going to be releasing book two in both series with a bigger customer base than I would have had without promo. Why would I not want to start at a higher level for each successive book?

    More readers means more word of mouth. Why wouldn’t I want more word of mouth about my books?

    More word of mouth means higher odds that an influencer will hear about, try, like, and then promote my books. In fact, I’m looking at at least double the odds. Somebody remind me: why wouldn’t I want those better odds?

    One of the main keys to this business is to get a big enough customer base so that the word of mouth takes on a life of its own. I am building that base more quickly with promo than without. Why would I want to build that base more slowly?

    Finally, I have twice the money I would have had otherwise to invest in promo and covers and editing etc. Or just go spend on my wonderful wife and girls. Why wouldn’t I want this revenue?

    Traditional publishers have built reader bases for an author one book at a time, often spaced a year apart, for decades. They put money into the promo that works in in-store venues: covers, pre-release reviews and the necessary ARCs, catalogs, a sales team, and co-op visibility in the stores. And while that promo didn’t guarantee anything, it made the odds more likely the book would get readers to sample and build that reader base.

    Why shouldn’t we put money into the promo that increases the odds for online stores?

    What business out there can’t benefit from good promo?

    Of course, the next question is what methods of promo work? There are a many methods that are a waste of money. But not all of them are. I think it’s our job as entrepreneurs to test and find ways that are effective a la The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

    Anyway, Konrath’s advice to not self-ignore, and Blake’s “do both” approach make a lot of sense to me.

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  • Writing tips from Best Seller Debbie Macomber

    ByJohn Brown

    I saw this today and thought of the assignments I give in my workshops. Look at what this hugely popular writer did to learn and focus her craft:

    1. Knew what she liked and followed HER passions (she knew what rocked her).
    2. Took 4 books she loved and broke them down to look for patterns she could use. This is exactly what Bernard Cornwell did (link at bottom).
    3. Identified what it was she wanted to deliver to her readers. I believe her four words were “Provocative,” “Relevant,” “Creative,” and “Honest” (form follows function).
    4. Notice also how much she loves plot turns (story cycle–surprise and conflict).

    What a delightful interview. I’m going to pick up a Macomber and give her a go. Anyone have a recommendation on a title?

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    Writing update: 5/16/11 – outlines & writing vividly

    ByJohn Brown

    Finished chapter 5 of CURSE last Saturday. Huzzah!

    The writing is a blast, even though it still requires work. Along those lines, I’ve been meaning for some time to write up the techniques and principles I use when drafting.  So I think I’m going to do a semi-regular post on a weekly basis where I share these tidbits as I run into them. It will be kind of like director commentary, although I’ll have to be careful not to toss out any spoilers.

    This week I’ll talk about using chapter outlines and writing vividly. 

    Bullet Outlines & Chapter Outlines

    Up to this draft, what I’ve done is work from a bullet outline.  Each bullet is a short statement of what needs to occur.  Sometimes it’s very general about the story arc–presentation of the problem, struggle, and resolution.  Sometimes it’s a very specific step.  Sometimes it includes cryptic notes.  For example, here are some bullets for SERVANT:

    1. Talen goes to village, they suspect him
    2. Talen runs, sabin catches him by his hair and pulls him back, field stone size of liver. Plant idea of him catching Hatchlings
    3. Woods back home, freaked
    4. Father is not as concerned, strange, sends him out to field–Talen starts to think about catching the Hatchlings himself

    As you can see, it gives me a roadmap (which often changes) so I’m not starting from nothing when I open up my chapter document.  But it’s very general.  When using this, I often have to use a number of takes to get the scene written because those first takes are me imagining the scene. In fact, my first take is usually a sketch of the scene with me blocking out my goals for the scene and how I expect the events to occur. However, in this last go at CURSE I wrote a chapter outline.  It took me about 25 hours, and the outline for CURSE ran 32 pages. I’ve pasted the first two chapters below.  You can see they’re still mostly in summary, but they represent the initial sketch of what’s going to happen.   

    1.               The Village of Plum – TALEN

    It’s past midnight, behind enemy lines. A thin moon hangs in the sky. Talen, Sugar, River, and five of Shim’s best soldiers crouch in the black shadows of the tree line running along the road to the village of Plum (Sugar’s former village), watching for soldiers or a village guard.

    Talen jokes with Sugar, telling her he wanted a dance tonight, not a sneak behind enemy lines, even if it was in the dark. He’s more than half serious. As they’ve worked together over the last three months since the battle in the cave, he’s become attracted to her.

    Also during those three months, the clans of the New Lands split into two factions. Five clans, led by the Fir-Noy, believed Shim, the leader of the Shoka clan, was being controlled by sleth. The remaining four clans followed Shim. The Fir-Noy faction immediately took up arms, initially to protect themselves, but they soon began talking about ridding the land of the sleth curse. Tensions rose, and in a series of altercations a number of people on both sides were killed. Now both factions have mobilized forces to establish pickets and patrols along a border between them.

    A few days ago, Argoth received word from his spies that something was afoot in the Fir-Noy clan, as if they were preparing for a strike. Futhermore, they’ve decided to excavate the grounds about Sugar’s old house. Argoth knows Purity had her own cache of weaves under the hearth of her old home, the location of which she revealed to Sugar just before she died. Argoth has begun to train up an army of dreadmen for Shim. But he’s stretched thin. He needs all the lore he can get. So he’s sent Sugar and the others to retrieve the items before they’re lost. They’ve come on the evening of the annual apple dance festival, hoping the Fir-Noy would be less vigilant. So far, they’ve been right. In fact, Talen begins to feel like it’s been a little too easy.

    As Talen and the others prepare to move forward, Sugar puts her hand on Talen’s arm. He can feel Sugar’s Fire and soul, and her touch only enflames his desire for both. He’s alarmed by this intensity, and finds it hard to focus, so he moves his arm away.

    “You’re going to give me a boost up,” she says.

    Up ahead in front of the Fir-Noy village stands a thick timber pole probably 11 feet high. Fastened to the top of that pole is what looks to be a skull.

    “You brought us round the wrong side,” Talen says. Their objective was the ash ruins of Sugar’s burned out house, not this pole. 

    “You can’t think we’d come all this way, and I’d leave without it.”

    It’s her father’s skull. The only thing of his that remains. Talen, not wanting contact, motions at one of the taller soldiers with them. “He’d be taller.”

    “Come on,” Sugar says and moves forward in a crouch. They move out of the shadows and into the moonlight, watching the village. Sugar climbs up on Talen’s shoulders and cuts loose the bonds holding her father’s skull. The whole time Talen’s desires make the experience uncomfortable.

    Once Sugar has the skull safely in her sack, the group keeps to the deeper night shadows of the tree line and moves around the edges of the village fields until they come to a ditch. Along the way, one of the soldiers touches Talen, and he feels that same overpowering desire. Something is not right inside of him. He knows it. But there’s nothing to do about it now as they follow the ditch to the ash ruins of Sugar’s house.

    Sugar and Talen sneak over to the hearth of the burned out home. River and the five Shoka soldiers take up watch. Soon Sugar finds the secret cache, but as she’s removing the items, they hear a sound come from one of the surrounding houses. Talen and the others stop and listen. Suddenly Fir-Noy soldiers burst out of the door. They overwhelm one of Shim’s soldiers and rush straight for the others.

    Talen and the others turn to run, but Fir-Noy soldiers begin to pour out of four other houses. Then a Fir-Noy dreadman emerges and shouts it’s the boy that’s wanted. They can slaughter all the rest. It’s clear these soldiers were waiting for them, but there’s no way they could have know Talen and the others were coming, unless they were betrayed. 

    2.               Hue & Cry – SUGAR

    Sugar stuffs the last item in the secret cache into her sack and rises. The Fir-Noy are shouting, but River charges a gap in the quickly forming mob. She fights ferociously. The others race after her, Sugar and another soldier bringing up the rear. Sugar and the others are multiplied, but they’re not fast enough to avoid the soldiers completely, and Sugar is forced to fight and kick to break her way through. When she finally does break past the men, she finds she and the last soldier have been separated from the others and there’s no way to immediately join back up.

    Sugar and the soldier run, but he’s wounded. He tells Sugar to run on without him. She refuses, then a company of Fir-Noy round the corner of a house. The soldier turns to face them and tells her once again to run. In her mind’s eye, Sugar sees the same situation unfolding before her as when the mob came after her mother and da. She ran then and regretted watching her father get butchered. She isn’t going to run now. Besides, she’s multiplied. So instead of running, she rushes over to the soldier and, with lore-given strength, picks him up, puts him over her shoulders, and, despite his protests, speeds away.

    Sugar knows she won’t be able to outdistance her pursuers like this, but she also knows the villager Stout keeps a horse in the barn just ahead. She turns the corner on the barn, puts the soldier down, and tells him to get the horse. Then she darts back out into view of the soldiers following and leads them away. She glances back and sees the soldier slip into the barn. It’s the best she could do for him. If he can get on Stout’s horse, he’ll have a chance to escape.

    Sugar looks to see how she might join back up with Talen and the others, but it’s impossible now. And while most of the Fir-Noy soldiers chased after Talen and the others, a good number are chasing her. Furthermore, others in the village are coming out of their homes. She speeds past them. All over the village dogs begin to bark, but she hears one cluster that sends fear down her spine. The villager Solem keeps a pack of prize-winning sight hounds. He emerges from a barn with his pack on a leash.

    “There!” a man shouts. The barking of Solem’s dogs rises in pitch.

    Sugar increases her speed then hears Solem. “Stu, boys! Take her. Get the wretch!”

    The dogs shoot out after her.

    So how has it worked?

    So far it’s worked very well. Having that initial sketch done means I take a lot less time finishing each chapter.  However, it doesn’t change the general drafting process for me:

    1. The chapters still change as I write. I find cooler ways to accomplish what I need. I also run into things I haven’t imagined yet and have to invent them. For example, on chapter 2 when Sugar is having issues, I realized I didn’t know exactly where the houses lay in the village, so I had to sketch that. It presented opportunities and images.  For example, I thought about the Fir-Noy bowmen being on the roofs. I hadn’t imagined that before, but it was so cool to me, I had to put it in.  Then I felt I wanted Talen and her to huddle together at first. I had to run through a few options about how that played out before I found one that felt right.  
    2. I still find I need to sketch out my goals for the chapters and an initial blocking of what happens. This is much shorter than it’s been on previous drafts, but I still find it helpful. Blocking scenes helps.  This is me just figuring out where everyone is and how they move. Sketching this first helps me write faster.
    3. I still have to do takes, although I move through them more quickly.  

     As you can see, I find the sketch/draft method incredibly helpful.  Just like a painter, I sketch out what I’m thinking of painting. That might require a few sketches where I add in more details.  Then I switch over and begin to paint.

     

    Writing Vividly

    On another note, I read “Stories are made out of scenes; Scenes are made out of nouns” by author James Maxey again. I really like this essay. Everyone is always talking about verbs, but nouns are such powerhouses.

    Speaking of which, here is the opening to Maxey’s “To The East, A Bright Star” which was published in Asimov’s.  It has one of my favorite beginnings. And part of the reason is what Maxey talks about with nouns.

    TO THE EAST, A BRIGHT STAR

    There was a shark in the kitchen. The shark wasn’t huge, maybe four feet long, gliding across the linoleum toward the refrigerator. Tony stood motionless in the knee-deep water of the dining room. The Wolfman said that the only sharks that came in this far were bull sharks, which were highly aggressive. Tony leaned forward cautiously and shut the door to the kitchen. He’d known the exact time and date of his death for most of his adult life. With only hours to go, he wasn’t about to let the shark do something ironic.  

    Tony waded back to the living room. Here in the coolest part of the house, always shaded, he kept his most valuable possession in an ice-chest stashed beneath the stairs. He pulled away the wooden panel and retrieved the red plastic cooler. Inside was his cigar box, wrapped in plastic bags. He took the box, grabbed one of the jugs of rainwater cooling in the corner, and headed up the stairs to the bathroom. He climbed out the window above the tub onto the low sloping roof over the back porch.

    This all reminds me of Swain’s thoughts on bringing the material to life, which I thought Maxey did so well in those paragraphs.

    Few of us read voluntarily about the primer-level doings of Dick and Jane.  Simplicity is a virtue in writing, true; but never the primary virtue.

    What is?

    Vividness.

    How about brevity?

    It’s important too.  Within reason.

    Within reason?

    Who, just learning this business, knows where or when or how to be brief? In the wrong place, brevity can destroy you.

    So?

    As in the case of simplicity, brevity is never the heart of the issue. Vividness is.

    How do you write vividly?

    You present the story in terms of things that can be verified by sensory perception. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch–these are the common denominators of human experience; these are the evidence that men believe.

    Describe them precisely, put them forth in terms of action and of movement, and you’re in business.

    Your two key tools are nouns and verbs.

    (p25 Techniques of the Selling Writer)

    Of course, there’s more–the telling detail, metaphor, working memory overload, details from the point of view. But it all plays into being vivid.

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  • Some Key Concepts for Love Stories

    ByJohn Brown

    My first four professionally published short stories were all love stories of one kind or another. I love good love stories. And so when the Writing Excuses team podcasted about this topic with Dave Wolverton, I was excited to hear what they had to say. Of course, they didn’t dissappoint. However, I would like to add a few things here.

    1. A love story or romance is a happiness story. The problem is one of danger to, lack of, or opportunity for the happiness that comes with having a close bond with someone else. To be loved and included, to be valued by someone.

    2. Love stories don’t have to be between two characters who are romantically interested in each other. They can be between two people who become friends or a person who is on the outs with a particular group as with RAINMAN, or between a father (or father figure) and son as in TREASURE PLANET, or a mother and daughter.

    3. It seems to me that these social story problems can be broken down into four elements.

    1. Raising the idea
    2. Making the characters attractive
    3. Raising obstacles and conflict
    4. Showing signs of progression

    RAISING THE IDEA

    Just as with any story problem, we have to know there’s an issue. The idea of possibility or lack has to be presented to us. And the specific person who we hope the character bonds with has to be identified. How is this done?

    Lots of ways. But I can see two big ones right off the bat. The first has to do with what a character notices about the other person. In a romantic love story, it might be some thoughts about another’s attractiveness, either looks or character. This could happen when the character sees the other person, touches them, hears them speak. And it doesn’t have to be a stranger. Perhaps they had a crush on that person when they were younger. There are all sorts of cues we use to signal romantic potential. All we have to do is raise a few of those for the reader and the idea is planted.

    The second way the idea is raised is by having some other character raise it. Someone else notices the person and thinks them attractive. Or they make a suggestion that our character getting together with them is a possibility.

    So when Jack sees Mary he can think about when the blankety blank she’s going to get off the commando team because all she does is distract the men. Not him, of course. Or Bill can tell Jack that Mary has been watching him. And Jack can say, she can look all she wants because she’s never going to get a piece of this.

    MAKING THE CHARACTERS ATTRACTIVE

    The second thing I see that’s necessary is that the other person is attractive to the reader. Or, at least, the reader could see how the character could be attracted to this person. This doesn’t always have to be physical beauty. Nor does it have to be sexual attraction. A buddy story would be about something else–about someone who we think is admirable in some way. But it has to happen for the reader to believe the story.

    Of course, our hero may be duped. Jack might be falling for Cindy when she’s really just after his money. The readers know both sides and can see how Jack’s choices make sense, even while we feel great anxiety of the trouble coming down the line. 

    RAISING OBSTACLES AND CONFLICT

    These are key, of course. No obstacles or conflicts and there is no story. Jack sees Jill. Says I love you. They marry. The end. So we have to have obstacles. They can start immediately with the character recognizing a possiblity. For example, Jack is simply oblivious to Jill’s interest in him. And when he decides to trust his friend’s advice to pursue her, he sees her with another man. She’s not an option for him afterall.

    If we think about yes-buts and no-furthermores and that usually the hero has to fail at the end of act 2 for us to feel triumph at the end of act 3, we’ll see that obstacles and conflicts progress just as they do in any other story.

    There are many obstacles or points of conflict. Distance (CASTAWAY), social status, fears of rejection, a stuttering problem, another person who Jack is interested in or who Jill is interested in, something Jill does that Jack doesn’t agree with, jobs that are demanding and keep them apart or make them keep secrets (TRUE LIES). Are too closely related. It’s against your vows or values (you’re a nun or he’s a client) Etc.  Many are internal and have to do with trust, fear, competing desires, and commitment.

    The key to the obstacles, I’ve found, is in making it hard to choose or fulfill commitment. It isn’t about sex or kissing. Because you can have a story where two people have sex and it doesn’t resolve any tension in the love story (what if the guy is seen that night with another woman?). It’s about two people being able to say I love or value you and meaning it.

    And so anything that would keep them from commiting works. And after they’ve committed, anything that would make one recant. Or be unable to enjoy that love going forward.

    SHOWING SIGNS OF PROGRESSION

    The last thing is that the audience needs to know that things are moving forward. In plotting, we need a few yesses along the way or the story’s over. How do we do this? What are the signs? I can think of a few.

    1. The character’s thoughts are more and more about the other person, noticing all sorts of things, dealing more and more with inner dilemmas.
    2. The character’s actions become more and more open. The lingering looks, or glances she tries to  hide, the touching. The character’s words become more and more direct. Usually oblique at first and then more clear later.
    3. There is more validation from other characters.

    Why do so many stories have the characters in a romance dance? Not because dancing is some mystical thing. No, it’s a romantic cue. We associate romance with dancing. And being in such close proximity raises the pulse. But you can put people in close proximity in many other ways–in a crate as they’re being smuggled into the country, standing smashed together in a subway, retracting a bullet from the leg, cutting and washing hair (John Travolta in PHENOMENON), etc.  The reason why we do this; however, is so that we can get a yes, a sign of progression. Of course, we could also use it to raise a devestating conflict as when Maria dances with Captain Von Trapp in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. But that’s only devestating because during the dance they had declared in subtle ways that they were interested in one another.

    So we raise obstacles and show signs of progression, back and forth, the obstacles pointing more and more toward disaster until at the end of act 2 Jack loses…and we get the no-but plot turn. No, he’s failed completely. But then a desperate glimmer of hope…

    In the end we need final confirmation. One thing that says, yes, they’re committed. Often in romantic love stories writers use sex as a blunt confirmation. I think it’s often the lazy way out. Here, show Jack and Jill having sex. Okay, next plot point. It’s lost most of its power for me. And such a thing should be anything but cliche. My advice is to think of many other ways that show commitment and value. A few examples off the top of my head are what Dean Koontz in his ODD THOMAS series did this for Odd and Stormy, FAR AND AWAY with Joseph and Shannon, WHAT ABOUT BOB, and SABRINA. In fact, having sex was turned on its head in this one. Lovely.

    At least think about other options because romantic love stories are not about sex. Sexual tension stories are. But that’s a different problem. A different type of story. And it seems writers sometimes confuse these two. Romantic love stories are about two people finally saying, yes, I love you, I value you, and I mean it, and always will. And as an audience, we believe.

    And if that doesn’t move you, then remember that one of the things we go to stories for is surprise. Something new. How wonderful would it be if something as simple and Jackbiking into Jill’s work place with a parrot on his shoulder is the ultimate moment of the story, and says everything that needs to be said? And when Jill looks up at the commotion, her heart to this point hardened or desolate, and sees the bird, the audience weeps or cheers…

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