Curse of a Dark God is Finished!

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I finished the 10% edit, going from 205,000 words to 185,000, this morning and emailed the finished manuscript to Super Agent Caitlin who will perform various incantations before sending it off to ye Editors for review. 

While that’s happening, I will be switching gears and starting the thriller. I’m looking forward to this.  Not only am I having fun developing the ideas, but unlike these epic fantasies I’m writing with a gajillion story lines, this is going to have one story line (okay, with maybe, maybe two subplots), one point of view (instead of three or four), and a limited cast of characters like six (as opposed to close to twenty). I’m preparing to reach  escape velocity. I’ll tell you what jupiter looks like when I get back.

Generating Story 5: Hunt Zing

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Even after you choose a genre, you still need to develop ideas for character, setting, problem, plot, and text.

What do you do? How do you develop those ideas?

The first thing you do is hunt zing.

Feeding the beast

Zing is any idea that turns you on, sparks your imagination, or stokes your desire. Zing tingles your cool meter. Dude, yes, ah, oh baby, man-o-man, great oogily boogily–these are all common responses when you come across these types of ideas.

Most zings are small tingles. Sometimes they’re zaps. Rarer still are the freaking gigawatt monsters that shake you about and leave you breathless. But I’ve found I can’t wait for those. Or maybe I should say that they often come only after I’ve caught smaller prey.

Your imagination is a beast. Feed it and it will get up and terrorize the neighborhood on its own accord. Starve it and it will lie there like a gigantic dust mop and gather flies.

Nothing in, nothing out.

YOU MUST FEED YOUR IMAGINATION!

Some of us might feel we don’t have much to feed our imagination. Most of us are not Ann Franks or CIA agents or little old ladies caught in terrorist plots. But we don’t have to be.

I once taught teen writers workshop where we met one day each week for three weeks. During the first class I introduced zing and told the students they were to hunt for 10 zings each day.

They were dismayed. They groaned. Ten? Was that possible?

The next week all of the students came back bubbling about all the things they’d found. One of them said it had changed things for her: her world which had been relatively hum-drum was suddenly filled with the cool. The other students agreed.

We all are limited by what we can perceive and focus on. Our working memories are so small. And so it’s easy to focus on so many mundane business-of-life things and miss the wonderful show of lights that goes on around us.

This is what hunting for zing does for you. It quite literally changes your world.

Be a hunter.

Capture the zing.

This is the first step. You have to gather interesting material. Lots of it. Which means you must turn your zing sensors on.

What do I mean by this?

Open your eyes and ears and heart. Be on the look out. When something cool comes along, capture it. Use scratch paper, the back of a receipt, get a notebook, a folder file, a camera, a sketchbook. Just capture it when it comes. And it will come.

Most of the ideas are never used, but unless you capture them, i.e. notice them, you won’t get the ones that do develop into something special. For many of us writing them down is the way to really give them the attention they need. I promise you: these little scraps and snippets have a way of combining at the oddest moments, and suddenly you have more than an itty-bitty old zing, you have a freaking power plant!

The Drag Net

Having your sensors on is like deploying a drag net—it catches whatever swims into it. One of the benefits of this is that you get ideas you’d never in a million years come up with on your own. Here are some random things I caught in my drag net.

Some people actually raise chickens in their apartment (from a book I happened to pick up while browsing a section of the library).

Hum, what if my character’s neighbor does that? What if it’s his kooky sister? Maybe his wife decides they need to be more self-sufficient. Or maybe she’s told a neighbor she’d take care of her chickens.

A girl was sold to cover her father’s debts (while reading an article about ancient history)

Could that happen today? How would that work? What if it was someone else kidnapping a girl to pay off debts?

“The monkey, which costs $15,000, is what Truelove envisions as the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool. Since 1979, capuchin monkeys have been trained to be companions for people who are quadriplegics by performing daily tasks, such as serving food, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, retrieving objects and brushing hair. Truelove hopes the same training could prepare a monkey for special-ops intelligence.” (From an online newspaper that’s sent to me each week)

A SWAT monkey? Come on! Could this primate be put to nefarious purposes? What if he stole something incredibly valuable? What if a major thief uses them? What if it’s a boy in the neighborhood?

There’s a guy who lets his toenails grow to horrible lengths; they look like claws. It’s incredibly disgusting (Something a friend said about one of his friends in an email)

Does your main character have a partner? Someone they work with in the office? A mate in their medieval army squad?

GARDEN GROVE (CBS) — An Albertson’s supermarket on Harbor Boulevard was evacuated Monday after a burglary suspect fell through the ceiling to the ground near a cash register.

What if that’s your main character? What was he doing stealing copper? Maybe he was forced to?

Headline in Daily Mail Reporter: Ghurka kills 30 Taliban. ‘I thought I was going to die… so I tried to kill as many as I could’: Hero Gurkha receives bravery medal from the Queen. Corporal Dipprasad Pun defeated more than 30 Taliban fighters single-handedly.  Used the tripod of his machine gun to beat away a militant after running out of ammunition.

Could this be used as a scene in the story? What about the tripod business?

In this May 2011 security camera frame grab provided by the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office, dogs are seen at the home of a resident near Deer Park, Wash. A pack of dogs has killed about 100 animals in the past three months while eluding law enforcement and volunteers in northeastern Washington state. The killings are happening in a wide area of mountains and valleys west of Deer Park, a small town about 40 miles north of Spokane, authorities said. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office)

What if these guys are roaming the neighborhood where your character lives? What if it’s a fantasy story and these are not just dogs? Are they bewitched? Trolls? Something come in from the woods?

As far as pictures go. How about this gal? Would she fit in a romantic comedy? A murder mystery? What if she went missing? What if someone kidnapped her son?

What about this newspaper clipping? Click on the image and read the fine print.

All you have to do is start asking questions of these zings and they can’t help but produce character, setting, problem, and plot.

Deploy your drag net.

Do it now.

Hunting With A Purpose

Even though your drag net is out, you cannot rely on it to deliver all the ideas you need. Very often you need to go hunting with a purpose. In fact, whenever you have development objectives, you’ll be on the lookout for that thing you need to develop.

Let’s say you want a funny and new fight scene in your story. Look at the stuff above.

  • A fight including that gal in the wedding dress?
  • One in the space the copper thief fell from?
  • How about one in a chicken apartment?

Maybe you need a new love interest.

  • What if she’s the copper thief?
  • What if she’s out hunting the wild dogs?
  • Maybe he’s the guy who kidnapped the nun?

Do you see? When you have a purpose, you look at the things you come across with a different lens.

But you might need to be a bit more active in your hunt. You might need to do some things to find what you’re looking for. I’m talking about directed research.

An Example

I attended Orson Card’s literary boot camp. He had us take a day and develop five story ideas (or seeds) which we were to write down on ONE side of a 3×5 card (hum, sounds a bit like the story setup we talked about in the previous blog).

2 of the cards were for story ideas we developed from research conducted at Barnes & Noble or in a library

2 were for ideas developed from a drag net of events or curious things I saw that day

1 card was for an idea developed from an interview with someone.

The assignment was to look at things as a writer, to exploit what I see as a writer. On the card we were to tell a story. The fundamental idea–what happens and why. Just the idea and some events. The space limint on a 3×5 card forces you to think of story and NOT the writing.

Oh, and the research was supposed to be for something we didn’t find interesting, which meant we didn’t know squat about it.

I researched Iroquois Indians, women who did crazy things like going over Niagra Falls in a barrel, and some other crap I can’t remember. I also read a bit about an American Indian in 1614 who was stolen as a slave, taken to Spain, got his freedom, went to England and then back home.

I interviewed two women in a music box shop and worker in a Thomas Kindcade art gallery. The gallery gal was blonde and rode Harleys. Had tattoos. What in the world was she doing in a THOMAS KINCADE gallery?

I used the Elizabeth Smart poster (abducted girl) and an empty music box as my curious things.

I worked from 5PM until 9PM on the ideas and never really got anything. Went up on a hike up Rock Canyon still thinking about it. Saw a cave; evening came; the canyon was beautiful. Marvelous. Almost stepped in a snake. Worked and worked on the music box idea and the kidnapping idea. More on the music box.

No ideas really pulled me.

Next morning I woke at 6 AM and started thinking. Decided I had no time AND I WOULD HAVE TO FOLLOW NELLIE’S [my wife] ADVICE and simply go with what I had. I made a decision and go with it even though I didn’t really feel it inside.

During class, someone else talked about bone magic. It was cool! I stole the bone magic idea and crossed it with the Iroquois stuff I’d looked at and suddenly started liking my story a whole lot more. Decided the tribe that lost their only bone breaker (that’s how the magic was obtained) in a raid (he was sold to the French as a slave) and sent out a woman who knew French and a warrior to retrieve him.

The next day I was supposed to write the story. I found I didn’t really want to write that one. Spent all day at the library reading juveniles and encyclopedias on Iroquois and Eastern Indians. Read for 5 hours then began to try to write.

Now, let me stop here.

Through my directed research I had collected gobs of zing. There were Indian names like “Handsome Lake” and “He Who Keeps Them Awake,” the fact that the Iroquois had a peace sachem (leader) and a war leader. The peace leader was a woman and chose the male war leader. I had stories about abducted Whites and Indians being sold into slavery and escaping. I read about men purchasing Indian wives. I added tidbits I knew from the Netherlands and Bible. It went on and on and on.

I had TONS of cool material to work with because I’d actively gone on the hunt for it.

If you look back as the example I shared about the golem story in the previous post, you’ll see I researched golems and Croatia and found TONS of cool material. I added to that other tidbits I already had. And the result was massive zing.

So what happened with that Iroquois story?

Well, I finished it, and it went on to sell multiple times. It’s called “Bright Waters”. Here’s how it starts. But the thing to remember is that it all started with the directed hunting for zing.

Bright Waters

In the spring of 1718 Jan van Doorn returned to his log house with a load of molasses, flour, and a fine green dress for his new wife. He found she had run out on him and taken half of his goods with her.

She was the second wife he’d bought. And the second one to run away before a season was out.

Her name was Woman With Turtle Eyes, an older Huron of 23 years. He had thought an older woman would be more stable than the girl he purchased the first time. Besides, she said she wanted him to buy her.

Jan didn’t understand how the men in the settlements courted and kept their women. And it couldn’t be because he was ugly. He’d seen plenty of ugly men marry. The only ones that seemed to have any interest in him were the whores at Fort Montreal, and when he’d given in to his urges that one cursed time, they took far more from him than his money.

There was nothing to do about Woman With Turtle Eyes. If he hunted her down, she’d just run away again. He could beat her, but she’d run nevertheless. Besides, her theft meant he’d have to start working his old claim, and there were precious few weeks before the beavers began to shed their winter coats. No, there was nothing to do but fold up the dress and put it in the cedar chest.

He looked down upon the dress for a few moments admiring the fine, shimmering cloth. Then he closed the lid.

That night Jan cooked himself a meal of kale and old potatoes. When he finished, he rubbed deer urine onto his traps to prepare them for the morrow. Then he went to bed.

Remember: zings are almost always small. Don’t be looking for the ONE killer idea. Usually the killer story is made up of a bunch of smaller zings.

“What generally happens is that I’ll be reading up on some topic just for entertainment — spies, pirates, the Romantic poets, mountain-climbing — and I’ll notice a few indications that the situation might do as the basis for a novel. At that point I declare that this isn’t recreation anymore, it’s research. So I start reading lots of books and articles on the subject, even if they’re not entertaining. And I follow any side-paths that show up — for one book, Tarot led to Poker which led to Las Vegas which led to famous gangsters. And while I’m reading all this, I’m looking for bits that are “too cool not to use.” When I’ve got a dozen or so things that are too cool not to use, then I’ve got — obviously — a dozen elements of the eventual novel.” ~ Tim Powers

Your Zing, Not Mine

Again, you don’t want any old idea. You want good ones. So how do you recognize a good idea?

YOU FEEL IT!

Good ideas carry current, they spark your interest, they tug your heart strings, they turn you on. This is what I’ve learned: a good idea is like an electric jolt. Sometimes it’s very small, sometimes it’s overpowering. It’s the feeling of “cool,” “whoa,” or “oh, boy, this has possibilities.”

But notice I said they spark your interest.

You’re not looking for what turns me on. For you to write a story, you have to follow your zing, not mine or your friend’s or your mentor’s.

The trick is finding your zing and then sharing your zing with people who have similar tastes.

Where to find zing

There are a few places where I seem to find TONS of zing. Maybe they’ll be productive for you.

Source 1: Other stories

I get an unlimited supply of ideas from other stories. Here are a number of sources.

  • The news
  • History
  • Friends and acquaintances
  • My past
  • Strangers
  • Scripture
  • Gossip
  • Fairy tales
  • Poems
  • Movies
  • TV programs (fiction and non-fiction)
  • Summaries of actual court cases
  • Novels
  • Magazines
  • Biography
  • Interviewing a relative or friend for their life story

Source 2: Snippets of life

Every week I run across interesting conversations, lines, facts, events, images, and people. These things aren’t stories but they can be used to enhance or generate one. In fact, part of the joy of writing is finding ways to incorporate the cool things I encounter into the current story. There are many places where I find these snippets of life:

  • People I know or talk to
  • Science
  • History
  • Poetry
  • The Discovery Channel and its many cousins
  • How-to books, videos, tapes
  • Current or historical issues
  • Books on how people used to live
  • Photographs of other lands and cultures
  • People I see (The hero of my Writer’s of the Future story was based on a transient I picked up one night who lived in a storage space at the town’s used bicycle shop)
  • Learning about other people’s professions
  • Trying new things

Source 3: Research

This is just another way of coming across stories, facts, events, people, and trying new things, but it’s more directed.

  • Do it
  • Visit it
  • Talk to those who have done it or been there
  • Watch movies about it
  • Read about it, starting with Juveniles & Encyclopedias and then moving to thicker texts

When I moved up into the hinterlands of Utah, I found out they had an annual local testical festival. As a regular joe I might have gagged and moved on. As a zing hunter, I couldn’t afford to do that.

No, they do not taste like chicken.

They do taste like something many people find delicious. But I’ll let you identify what that is with a little research of your own.

When you get a chance to try something new–try it. You get marvelous details, wonderful ideas. And you just might find you enjoy life a little bit more. Or at least be grateful you’re not trapped in a coffin.

I was writing a scene for one of my books, where a secondary character accidentally locks himself in a casket. Not having experienced such a tragedy, I began winging that thread on imagination alone. But the scene simply wouldn’t jell. When I finally finished the first draft and read it, it felt two-dimensional. So I wrote it again. It still stank. By the third draft my frustration level had peaked, and I shoved my chair away from the computer, knowing there was only one solution to this two-dimensional problem. I would have to experience it. Now you would think a logical person would take into consideration that the number of readers who’d actually been trapped in a casket was minimal enough to make the whole issue moot. Then again, we’re talking about a rational person…I’ll tell you, I’ve pulled some crazy stunts before, all in the name of research, but this one ranks in the top three.  ~Deborah LeBlanc

Nobody can copyright an idea or technique

Don’t worry about stealing ideas from someone else or using a technique you find in another story. Don’t worry that something’s already been done. What you want to avoid is copying the writing. But take any idea or technique and run with it–in your own direction. Remember: The Terminator & Back to the Future have the same premise but are two totally different stories. So go wild.

Be a hunter.

Capture the zing.

Start gathering your writing material today.

For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas

Artist Dixon Leavitt does Hunger

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Dixon Leavitt is an amazing artist. He recently emailed me saying: “Sometimes I just start sketching with no plan in mind. This just popped out. Thought you’d like to see it.” It’s Hunger from Servant of a Dark God.

 

Duuuuuuuuuuuude!

Dixon explains the step by step of the creation of this painting at dixondoodles.blogspot.com.  You’ll want to noodle around that blog to see the other artwork he’s done.

 

Generating Story 4: The Story Setup

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Okay, I lied. I was going to get into idea generation techniques, but decided to do one more short post on development objectives. Actually, I suppose this is a technique.

In the last post, I said one of the main objectives of your initial story development is to have the story to come to life in your mind. I explained that the best method I’ve come across up to this point for making that happen was to focus on developing the 6 core parts. Then I explained in general what I’m shooting for when developing those parts at the outset of a new project.

You can use a number of different types of documents to capture your thoughts on those 6 core parts. You might end up with a rough two-page sketch of the story. You might write brief character bios of some sort. You might bullet the general steps of the plot. Maybe you create a map. There are a lot of types of documents you can use to capture what you’ve developed. And often the creation of those documents not only captures what you’ve developed, but helps you develop the parts in the first place.

I want to suggest a “document” that will help you capture and develop the essence of your story setup.

This is ONE tool.  It is not THE tool. There are many ways to capture the essence of your story. There are many tools that can help you clarify your thinking. But I think this is a good one because it forces you to get right to the core of your story and clarify it in a compact manner.

An idea that’s core and compact has great power because it focuses the mind.

There are so many things to juggle when writing a story that it’s easy to get lost in the weeds.  I’ve found I become so much more productive when I know the core situation that’s driving the story.

There are a lot of things that drive reader and author interest. There might be a thematic question, fascinating characters, genre stuff (chase scenes, romantic scenes, scare the soup out of you scenes), humor. One of the main things that rivet readers to the page are the hopes and fears they have for our characters.

A reader’s hopes and fears are driven by presenting:

  • An event that causes
  • An interesting and likeable character to
  • Face a compelling and concrete problem—a threat/danger, lack/hardship, opportunity, or mystery.
  • The character decides he must try to solve the problem (which results in the character goal the story revolves around)
  • And struggles against significant opposition.

That’s the core of the story setup. As David Howard puts it: “there is one basic dramatic circumstance: somebody wants something badly and is having difficulty getting it.”

Of course, stories provide a lot of delights that require you to do more than define the person and the thing they want. But the setup is at the heart of a lot of what readers go to story for. Part of the initial development of a story should focus on helping you clarify this central dramatic situation.

So here’s a tool to help you do that. I read about it years ago in Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, which was written in 1965. Swain calls it the “Starting Line-up.” I read about another version of the same thing more recently in Dan Decker’s Anatomy of a Screenplay written in 1998. He calls it the “Story Line.” The hugely published romance writer Leigh Michaels calls it a “Framework” in her On Writing Romance: how to craft a novel that sells. The agent Donald Maass calls it the “premise of a novel” in an interview published in Agents, Editors, and You by Michelle Howry.  Jim Butcher calls it a “Story Skeleton.” Let’s look at each of these variations.

Swain’s “Starting Line-up”

Swain asks you to include five elements:

  1. Focal character
  2. Situation
  3. Objective
  4. Opponent
  5. Threatening Disaster

 These are to be cast into two sentences.

  • Sentence 1 is a statement that establishes character, situation, and objective.
  • Sentence 2 is a question that includes the opponent and disaster and can always be answered in a clear yes or no

 Here are his examples.

 John Storm

Sentence One

  • When humans suddenly begin to grow to twelve-foot height [situation],
  • John Storm [character]
  • tries to find out why [objective].

Sentence Two

  • But can he defeat the traitors in high places [opposition]
  • who want to kill him [threatening disaster] in order to make the change appear to be the result of an extraterrestrial plot?

 Irene Boone

Sentence One

  • Lonely, frustrated, and tired of living in a home where she’s treated as an unpaid servant [situation],
  • widowed Irene Boone [character]
  • wants to marry widower Frank Dawes [objective].

Sentence Two

  • Will she lose this chance for happiness [threatening disaster]
  • because her selfish sanctimonious daughter, Connie [opponent] accuses her of immorality?

Dale Boulton

Sentence One

  • Sick of the conformity and hypocrisy that go with his highpaid job, and with a modest life income assured [situation],
  • Dale Boulton [character]
  • decides to retire ten years early, to go live on a shanty-boat and poke through crumbling river ghost-towns, in fulfillment of a boyhood dream [objective]. 

Sentence Two

  • Can he make the break successfully, when his hostile wife, Sandra [opponent],
  • fights him all the way and, finally, threatens to have him declared incompetent [threatening disaster]? 

Decker’s “Story Line”

Decker requires three components:

  1. The main character described by an adjective
  2. The inciting event or decision that propels the character into the story
  3. The main character’s objective, stated in concrete terms

You can add other components—other characters described by an adjective or other important events or decisions. He prefers you start with a “when.”

Here’s an example.

When a booksmart savings and loan bailout accountant takes over the business he is assigned, he discovers it is a bordello and teams up with the Madame using his business skills to fend off a hostile take over and save the business.

 Another.

When a blood thirsty killer and his gang are coming to kill him, a strong-willed, decent cop must fight them over the objections of his pacifist bride who will leave him if he does.

 Another.

When he is given a factory full of doomed Jewish workers, a greedy, opportunistic Nazi deceives his taskmasters to save them.

 Another.

After a tornado carries her off to a strange land, a spunky teenaged girl must face a series of challenges to get home.

 More.

When his blundering uncle throws their building and loan company into insolvency, a despairing small town banker with low self-esteem has to find a way to save the bank.

Leigh Michael’s “Framework”

Michaels suggests four elements in her framework, although she doesn’t stipulate a specific form.

 This definition summarizes the four crucial basics that make up a romance novel:

  1. A hero and heroine to fall in love
  2. A problem that creates conflict and tension between them and threatens to keep them apart
  3. A developing love that is so special it comes about only once in a lifetime
  4. A resolution in which the problem is solved and the couple is united

 She then lists a number of questions to help an author think about those four elements. The document that could capture this is a summary of the answers to those questions.

Donald Maass’ “Story Premise”

Donald Maass was asked what he looks for in a query or pitch. Like Michaels, he doesn’t specify a form, but does include some basic elements.

 I’ll tell you exactly what I need, and I can get this information after just a few questions.

First of all: What type of novel are we dealing with here? Mystery? Mainstream? Young adult?

Second thing: Where and when is it set? Contemporary? Historical? Magical place? A real place?

Third: Who is the main character?

And lastly: What is the basic problem that the character faces?

Those things wrapped up together are the premise of a novel, and I know right away if it’s the kind of work I handle, if the idea sounds original, if the main character is sympathetic, and whether I care about the problem. That’s all i need. If all those things are a go, then I want to read the work. It’s as simple as that.

Most authors might perceive this as additional pressure. It’s exactly the opposite. What is means is that their job is much, much easier than they think.

 If you think about a query, this is something that should be contained in a few short paragraphs.

Jim Butcher’s “Story Skeleton”

A reader drew my attention to a short essay Jim Butcher wrote on this subject. I thought it was excellent. Here’s Butcher:

The story skeleton is a description of the main plot of your book, broken down into its simplest elements. . . The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:

*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?

For instance, look at Storm Front. (Yes, I’ll use my own books as examples, because I’m just that way. 😉 Also, I’m more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.) Storm Front’s story question:

****************************
When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago, wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer. But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard, a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police Department?
****************************

See! It’s oh-so-simple! Almost to the point of looking ridiculous–and I have no doubt that some of the people reading this article will think that it *is* ridiculous. They’re wrong. 🙂 This is a fundamental description of the core conflict in your tale–and stories are all about conflict.

Go read his whole essay.

My Version: “The Story Setup”

Did you notice any similarities in the examples above? Character, inciting event, problem, goal, opposition. Let’s go back to the core of story I listed.

  1. An event causes
  2. An interesting and likeable character to
  3. Face a compelling and concrete problem—a threat/danger, lack/hardship, opportunity, or mystery.
  4. The character decides he must solve the problem (which results in the character goal the story revolves around)
  5. And struggles against significant opposition.

 Written even more succinctly:

  1. Character
  2. Inciting event
  3. Problem
  4. Goal
  5. Opposition

I like the idea from Swain and Butcher of projecting us forward using a question. I like the idea from Decker and Butcher to use “when” to state the inciting incident. I also like adding in the character adjectives. I like Michael’s and Maass’ focus on problem. But I also like flexibility. My version uses key elements of the others as guidelines, keeping it simple and core by limiting the statement to 90 words.

 Here’s one for The Incredibles.

Bob is a frustrated retired superhero, living a boring life as an insurance claim processor. When he gets an offer to do illegal superhero work on the sly, he decides to take it and pursue a double life, even though he’s forced to lie to his wife about it. But his dream job employer is actually trying to settle and old score and kill him.  Will he lose his family when he’s drawn into a showdown with a super villain that has him outmatched?

In many longer works there are often more than one story running. Sometimes the main character has an external conflict and an internal one. Or maybe a related subplot. Sometimes other characters have related B, C, D, and E story lines. In Curse of a Dark God, for example, I have at least eight story lines that I have to braid into each other. To keep them all straight, I found it very helpful to list out the five elements for each. The goal isn’t to make these into slick marketing tools: they’re to help me focus my efforts. However, I find that when they include all the elements, they have great power to pique my interest.

 Here’s one of the “inner” conflicts of Curse.

Talen has escaped the clutches of the Mother, but something is growing inside of him. When he begins to hunger after the Fire and soul of those around him, he realizes he’s not all human. Will he be able to resist the growing and overpowering desires, or will he become the very thing he’s fighting against?

Here’s one of the related “outer” conflicts.

The Mother of Mokad wants Talen—to make him into a thrall or devour him. He escapes the first attempt to capture him, but will he be able to shake the Mother’s powerful hunter and his dreadmen now that he and his sister are on their own?

 Here’s a third story line in the book, the big external plot.

Argoth is trying to build up an army of sleth that can free mankind. But the Mother of Mokad sends her Guardian to exterminate every last one of them. Will Argoth be able to defeat Mokad’s vastly superior army, especially when the Guardian has infiltrated his ranks?

 But Argoth has another plot line for the reader to worry about.

Argoth damaged his son. Nettle’s condition is growing worse. A foreign Divine offers to heal Nettle in exchange for Argoth’s allegiance. Will Argoth betray those around him and save Nettle? Or will he let his son die and lose him to the perils in the world of the dead?

Here’s one of Sugar’s.

When Sugar sneaks behind enemy lines to retrieve some items her mother left for her, she’s given the opportunity to learn a powerful lore and use it to scout for Argoth’s army in the world of the dead. But each time she uses it, she comes closer and closer to death herself. Will she be able to survive as she’s asked to serve in more and more dangerous situations?

Here’s her inner conflict. I wanted to develop a moment of dilemma for her just as I did Argoth.

Sugar wants to keep her brother Legs safe. But as Mokad’s army arrives, it becomes apparent Argoth doesn’t have a chance. She and her brother might not survive. Sugar’s been learning the lore with a handsome and battle-hardy loremaster who saves lore users who have become true sleth. When he asks her to sail with him and his crew before it’s too late, Sugar has to decide if she will flee and abandon her friends or stay and fight and risk losing everything in this world and the next.

Now you see why it’s virtually impossible to write such a book with so many story lines in the normal 100,000 words. And why I question my sanity in trying to write it.

Anyway, there’s much more to writing a fascinating and compelling story than capturing a story setup, but I’ve found that working on stating the simple core of the story clarifies many things for me and makes me much more productive. I developed a short statement of all my story setups early on in the writing.

There are a number of ways to capture the story setup. Let me suggest you give one a try. And if you aren’t to the point where you have enough material to capture a story setup yet, that’s fine. That’s what development is for.

One last note. If you want to read an expanded description of how one writer develops story ideas, read Write Away by New York Times Bestselling author Elizabeth George. I loved the book.

Bonus: Miss Snark Happy Hooker Examples

Miss Snark was the pseudonym of an agent who I believe was Janet Reid of the JetReid Literary Agency.  When she was incognito, Snark had a blog. On her blog she’d often invite people to submit their story statements used in queries to hook editors and agents to ask for more.  These entries were called “Happy Hookers.”  Snark would rate them on her crap-o-meter, sometimes giving comments and suggestions.  Let me suggest you read 50 or 100 of those hooks.

As you’re reading, look at Mrs. Snark’s comments. But more importantly, note the hooks that excite you and the ones that don’t. Because, frankly, Snark is just one person with one person’s tastes. In this exercise, you’re not trying to figure out what she likes. You’re trying to see what story elements work for you. So don’t be dissuaded by her tastes. Identify the hooks that interest you and the ones that don’t. Ask yourself where they were unclear, unbelievable, or boring. After you’ve done a few, you’ll start to see story patterns and ways to capture your own story setup that will be useful to you. 

For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas

Halfway finished with 10% trim of CURSE

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I’m at the 51% mark with my trim and have cut 10,000 words. Right on target. And I haven’t cut any story, just flab in the writing. Usually when I revise, I add words. I thought I wrote lean, but that’s clearly not the case.  Strangely enough, I have to say that I’ve enjoyed every hour of this. I’m loving this edit,  improving the flow and immediacy, cutting out redundancies and superflous lines. Who would have thunk?

For those of you who are numbers geeks, here’s a peek at the spreadsheet I’m using to track my trim goals and actuals. “Var” means variance. “CTarget” is the target to cut from the chapter.