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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  • Jennifer Nielsen and “The Rules of Personality”

    ByJohn Brown

    Jennifer Nielsen is the author of Elliot and the Goblin War, the forthcoming Elliot and the Pixie Plot (Sourcebooks, August 2011), and The False Prince (Scholastic, April 2012).  She’s also worked for many years with a troubled youth program. I recently sat in on one of her presentations on characters and personality at a writers conference and quickly found myself scribbling down insights. Later I convinced her to share some of that here. Enjoy. You can learn more about her at www.jennielsen.com.

    The Rules of Personality

    In the Mockingjay series by Suzanne Collins, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen is selected as one of the contestants for the brutal Hunger Games held by the Capitol each year. Katniss is resourceful, fierce, intelligent, and compassionate. It is these traits she uses in her attempt to survive the Hunger Games. She is joined in the games arena by Peeta Mellark, who is clever, protective, and likable. Like Katniss, Peeta’s traits help him in his fight to survive.

    These characters are excellent illustrations of the importance of character in a story. What if Suzanne Collins had not given Katniss her compassion? For those who have read the story, they know changing that single trait would have dramatically changed the plot.

    It’s for this reason that character is so important in the creation of a story. If you change the plot, the character will remain the same. But if you change a character, the plot will inevitably change with it.

    In order to create a believable human sketch, a visual artist would have to understand the physical body, muscle structure, proportions, etc. In a similar way, for a writer to create a believable character, he must understand the basic rules of personality.

    But to create a believable characterization, there are some important things for the writer to understand about personality. Personality is the traits of a person’s core self. For example, there are many different types of people who value and practice honesty (the “trait”). But personality will determine how that trait is exhibited. An extrovert is far more likely to state the blunt truth while an introvert might create an opportunity for the people to discover the truth on their own. So although the trait is the same, there is no single way in which it might be expressed.

    In other words, while the presence of a trait is important in developing character, the way it is expressed is equally important. A person’s stubbornness might be demonstrated as passive-aggressiveness or outward defiance. A person’s jealousy might be expressed in withdrawal or by vicious repercussions. It’s personality that determines the way character traits are expressed.

    There are four important things to understand about personality. The better writers understand this, the better they can understand the characters they created.

    #1 Personality is Stable.  The core of who a person is remains about the same throughout a lifetime. The way a trait is expressed may evolve or adapt as the events of life unfold, but the core self doesn’t change much.

    For example, a shy child may hide behind her mother’s legs and refuse to talk. As she grows into adulthood, she will probably learn to manage her shyness and interact in the world. But she will likely never be the outspoken, bold, center stage person.

    #2 The Intensity of the Trait Matters.  When creating character, most writers stop at listing the presence of a trait. However, that is rarely good enough because it’s really the intensity that matters. Someone who has a hard time forgiving others and holds grudges is probably fairly normal. But increase the intensity of the trait and you may create a villain who’ll go to extreme lengths for revenge.

    #3 People Rarely Behave Out of Character.  Occasionally, writers finds themselves in a position where in order to make the plot unfold the way they want it to, they must force their character into behaviors outside of anything they’d normally do. This almost always fails the believability test because in real life, people rarely act out of character.

    Consider the example of the shy woman. Is it possible that she would willingly get up in front of a crowd and speak with boldness? Of course. But is it likely? No. It’s far more likely that she would find someone else to deliver the message for her, or find another way to communicate the message.

    When I’m speaking about this issue to groups, a common response from writers who are facing writer’s block is that this is the root of their problem. They are trying to force a character into a behavior not consistent with their personality. The entire scene becomes forced as the character literally balks at the writer’s attempts.

    #4 People Tend to Rework the Same Issues Throughout Life.  Everyone has “issues.” Some are more major than others, of course, but we all have them. And whatever it is that we battle, we likely battle it throughout life, even if the way we experience that issue evolves.

    For example, the teenager who becomes explosively angry is later the man who may take out his anger on his wife or children. In later life that trait may evolve so that he turns his anger inward and develops a drinking problem. Or perhaps the man matures and mellows. Perhaps he’s learned to manage it, or perhaps he’s too tired to create the same fuss as when he was younger.

    In April 2012, I’ll release a series with Scholastic that begins with Book 1: The False Prince. The protagonist in this story is a defiant boy named Sage who must use his own cleverness, determination, and strength to survive a contest that will name the winner as the false heir to the throne.

    As the writer of this series, it was important for me to understand Sage’s personality if I was going to create a believable character. One of his core traits is his instinct to rebel. It’s a more intense than would generally be found in his peers, so I needed to respect the fact that he would rarely back down from a fight, regardless of the consequences. There is one scene in the book where Sage steals an item from his master that Sage believes was stolen from him. He refuses to tell anyone where he hid it, even though he knows the consequences will be serious. I didn’t want those consequences to happen to Sage, but he would not have had things any other way. To attempt to create a story where he gave in to the master would have cheated the character, the story, and the reader.

    Likewise, writers must understand that creating great characters begins with understanding the rules of personality. And when it’s done right, whether it’s Katniss Everdeen, or any of your favorite characters, the reader will always remember them.

    *

    JOHN SEZ: I particularly like #2 because homo-ficti need to be a little bit larger than life.  A litter more courageous. A little more finicky. A little more skilled. A little more outrageous. Exaggeration is one of the key tools for developing characters.

    The statements about the core part of personality being stable and long-lasting, and folks dealing with issues for a long time, are interesting to me as well. It seems like this is where deep motives lie. 

    Of course, I know I don’t start with personality grids when developing characters. But I do eventually try to peg my characters.  I’ve found that having a dominant impression, a type, helps a great deal when working with them, even if my characters mix or bend the types.  If I know that this one is a wise-cracking farmer, that one a quick-tempered tailor, and that one a no-nonsense baker, it makes them easier to work with.  It makes it easier to envision how they might react in a given situation.

    In fact, I think I’ve created my most enjoyable characters when I didn’t try to make them super complex. They might have had things that occured in their past that affected them greatly. They might be dealing with terrible dilemmas now.  They might have a number of interesting details about them.  But if I can peg them in my mind as this or that type of person, it seems the scenes flow more easily.  I can improvise the dialogue and their reactions much better in my mind as I write.

    Sometimes I can capture that type with a description, e.g. “scary smart farmer.” Sometimes it’s enough to get a voice or a photograph or link them to someone I know.  Sometimes I’ve linked them to animals and that gave me the center.  Very often they form as I write them. They often have to come on stage first and have me start writing them for everything to coalesce.

    Check out Nielsen’s site. I love the first line of Goblin War. I mean not only does she get all these fab illustrations for her book, but then she opens it with this: “When he was 8 years old, Elliot Penster started an inter-species war.  Don’t blame him.  As anyone who has ever started an inter-species war will tell you, it’s not that difficult to do.” Elliot is trick-or-treating at the moment, everyone thinking he is dressed up as a hobo, when in reality he’s just wearning his normal day clothes. Hum. A little homo-fictus anyone?

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  • Who Will Play in The eBook Supply Chain?

    ByJohn Brown

    I was reading this Konrath post by Barry Eisler on the “Attack of the self-publishing memes” in which he argues that there isn’t an inherent conflict of interest for agents to also help authors epub their books. This got me thinking about the steps (tasks) in the current supply chain, who was going to provide them, and where the biggest value lay.

    Here’s the process right now as I understand it from manuscript to reader. The numbers are only task identifiers and don’t represent sequential order in every case, although I did try to sort them that way.

    PAPER CHANNEL TASKS THROUGH BRICK & MORTAR OUTLETS

    SELL MANUSCRIPT TO PUBLISHER
    1. Promote manuscript to editor at publisher
    2. Negotiate contract with publisher

    EDIT MANUSCRIPT
    3. Story edit manuscript
    4. Revise for story edits
    5. Copy edit manuscript
    6. Revise for copy edits

    PREPARE BOOK
    7. Create cover design and art (a marketing/advertising function)
    8. Obtain ISBN
    9. Typeset book
    10. Print book

    MARKET BOOK TO WHOLESALERS, RETAILERS, AND LIBRARIES
    11. Establish book selling hierarchy (lead book, second lead, etc.)
    12. Obtain reviews from trade publications, newspapers, websites, authors, etc.
    13. Create sales catalog and other sales documents
    14. Contact book buyers and promote books (calls, visits, conferences, etc.)
    15. Take orders

    DISTRIBUTE BOOK
    16. Ship to retail outlets and wholesalers
    17. Warehouse book
    18. Process reader purchases & returns

    PROMOTE BOOK TO TARGET AUDIENCE
    19. Publicity, including free copies
    20. Advertising
    21. Co-op display purchases

    SELF-PUB EBOOK AND POD PAPER CHANNEL TASKS

    EDIT MANUSCRIPT
    1. Story edit manuscript
    2. Revise for story edits
    3. Copy edit manuscript
    4. Revise for copy edits

    PREPARE BOOK
    5. Create cover design and art (which you could lump under marketing)
    6. Obtain ISBN
    7. Format book for ereaders and POD services (CreateSpace etc.)

    DISTRIBUTE BOOK
    8. Upload book to retail and library outlets
    9. Warehouse the bytes
    10. Process reader purchases & returns

    MARKET BOOK TO LIBRARIES AND TARGET AUDIENCE
    11. Obtaining reviews from trade publications, newspapers, websites, authors, etc.
    12. Publicity, including free copies
    13. Advertising, including website display etc.

    AUDIO BOOK CHANNEL TASKS
    There are actually two channels here–physical audio books (CDs) and downloads (Audible, etc.).

    I would assume the physical audio would follow the marketing, distributing, and promoting aspects of the paper channel tasks and add in the audio production tasks. Downloadable audio would follow the marketing of the ebooks and add in the audio production tasks.

    THOUGHTS
    I’m sure I’m missing some key steps somewhere. Somebody please supply them if you see gaps.

    As for the future, here’s what I see. The paper channel tasks aren’t going to change much. Nor do I think the people performing the various tasks will either. For example, I just don’t think POD machines are going to catch on in stores and wipe out distributors. They may take out printers (#10) of trade and mass market paperbacks. But I haven’t seen a POD machine that can do hardbacks. Maybe the PODs will move to the retail outlets. But I don’t think so. Somebody disabuse me of the notion.

    However, I do think there will be some interesting developments in the ebook/POD channel.

    Right now a lot of authors are spending time performing tasks 6, 7, and 8. Some literary agencies are wanting to charge 15% forever for those steps with maybe a little cover design. But tasks 6-8 are the tasks that require the least amount of skill and will soon be automated.

    Formatting for ebooks now is like coding html was for webpages 10 years ago–people in the code spending hours tweaking crap. Right now it takes you about a day to learn how to format a novel for the various ebook readers. Once you know how to do it, you’ll spend a day, maybe two, formatting your novel and uploading it. Or you can pay someone else to do it–any responsible teenager will do.

    But within the next year I predict an application coming (if it’s not already here) that will hook into Word and other programs that will make the labor obsolete. Creating a Kindle document will be like creating a PDF document in Word today—you just click Save.

    Uploading could be automated as well across various sites with some application. But it’s fairly easy now.

    So for which tasks are these ebook distributors wanting to charge 15% forever? Obtaining an ISBN?

    I don’t even think they even do that.

    Amazon and the other ebook retailers have a lock on 9 & 10. It would be incredibly hard to dislodge those gorillas. So I think the place where literary agencies and others who want to play in the indie ebook/POD supply chain are going to flourish is in the other tasks that require the most skills–editing, cover art, and marketing, which I’ve marked in blue.

    Authors interested in the indie ebook/POD channel are going to want service providers who can deliver great editing, cover art, and marketing. They’re going to want folks who can help them sell into traditional domestic and foreign paper distribution channels. They’re going to want folks who can help them sell rights to other buyers–audio, film, etc.  And they’re going to want help with their contracts.

    If I were an agency, graphic artist, editor, intellectual rights lawyer, or some other entrepreneur trying to serve indie ebook/POD authors, that’s where I’d spend my time.

    Dystel & Goodrich literary agency recently announced they would do something like this . . . almost.

    Over the past months and years we’ve come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area in which we can be of service to our clients as literary agents. From authors who want to have their work available once the physical edition has gone out of print and the rights have reverted, to those whose books we believe in and feel passionately about but couldn’t sell—oftentimes, after approaching 20 or more houses—we realized that part of our job as agents in this new publishing milieu is to facilitate these works being made available as e-books and through POD and other editions.

    Right now, you’re thinking, oh, DGLM is going to be another of those agencies that has decided to become an e-publisher and charge clients whose books they can’t sell 50% of their income for the privilege of uploading their work. Some of you may be mumbling, “Uh…that’s a conflict of interest.” We get it and we understand how that can be the perception. However, we have no intention of becoming e-publishers. As we said above, we have too much respect for the work that publishers do and too much respect for the work we ourselves do to muddy the waters in such a way.

    Again, what we are going to do is to facilitate e-publishing for those of our clients who decide that they want to go this route, after consultation and strategizing about whether they should try traditional publishing first or perhaps simply set aside the current book and move on to the next. We will charge a 15% commission for our services in helping them project manage everything from choosing a cover artist to working with a copyeditor to uploading their work. We will continue to negotiate all agreements that may ensue as a result of e-publishing, try to place subsidiary rights where applicable, collect monies and review statements to make sure the author is being paid. In short, we will continue to be agents and do the myriad things that agents do.

    Our intention is to keep on trying to find books we think we can sell to traditional publishing houses, to negotiate the best deal (always), and to give our authors as many options as we can. Because we will continue to be commission-based, we will not be automatically pushing authors into e-publishing. Again, we want to give our authors options and empower them to do what they set out to do all along: have their work read by the largest possible audience

    However, from what I understand they’re not offering to perform the necessary tasks for 15% forever, only the project management of the tasks. Which means the author will still be paying for the editing and cover art and marketing.

    15% forever for project management (a list of to-do’s in this case) and a service provider contact list? Where the author still pays for the editing, cover design and art, and marketing?

    Ummmmm, no.

    Others like D&G will pop up. But the ones that indie authors will eventually go to will be those that deliver on the high-skill tasks for reasonable rates.  Those will be the ones playing in the ebook supply chain of the future.

    Many authors will contract the tasks separately themselves.  But a lot of authors won’t want to do that. They’ll want a one-stop-shop. Or one that does most of it. Some of those one-stop-shops will charge an upfront fee and will probably accept anyone who can pay. Others will make most of their money on a % of the sales to readers and libraries, footing the initial costs of the tasks, and will only work with clients they think will pay out, which if you think about it isn’t really an idie (self-pub) model at all. That’s the space traditional publishers play in right now.

    But in the ebook/POD world distribution is no longer a key barrier to entry for new competitors. And so I expect to see a whole bunch of new publishers coming to play in that space. Those that select, edit, and market well will flourish.

    Meanwhile, I don’t think most of us authors care which road we take and who we play with. Well, as long as they play nice and don’t poop in the sandbox. We just want to get our stories in to the hands of massive numbers of delighted readers.

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    The Little Secret that Propels So Many Blockbuster Plots

    ByJohn Brown

    I was invited to present a master class at the 2022 StoryMakers conference in Provo, Utah.

    We all want to develop plots that delight readers. Maybe we have ideas for the characters. Maybe we have ideas for the setting. Maybe we even have a couple of scenes.

    But a novel needs 40, 50, 60 or more scenes.

    How do you figure out what happens next, and do it in a way readers love?

    There’s one tool that can help.

    Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Da Vinci Code all had it. So did Star Wars, Raider of the Lost Ark (1, 2, and 3), Taken, James Bond, The Wheel of Time, and thousands of other stories, TV episodes, and films.

    It’s what I call the wanted object, sometimes known as the MacGuffin.

    A good MacGuffin will not only make your plotting easier, it can also inject a wow factor into your story that readers love.

    In this session, the writers learned what a MacGuffin really is and how you can use it to propel the plot and keep readers turning the page.

    Here’s a PDF of the presentation.

    2022 john brown – the secret that propels so many blockbuster plots2

    And here’s the PDF of the handout.

    2022 john brown – the secret that propels so many blockbuster plots handout

    Enjoy!

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  • When the workshop works

    ByJohn Brown

    From a workshop participant at MountainCon:

    I’m going to give a shout out to all the goodness I experienced. So if you don’t really care what happened at the con, you can stop after this paragraph and take this message away with you: Brandon Sanderson (who does Writing Excuses, has published several novels, and is the chosen one to finish Jordan’s Wheel of Time series) and John Brown (with a must buy novel coming up next year) are incredible teachers. If you ever get a chance to attend a class or workshop by any of them, don’t let it pass.

    We loves to hear these things, Precious.

    But we loves it just as much when we can make the students shiver with excitement: more here: http://www.amichopine.com/blog/?p=318

    To those who missed this run of the 3 Things You Must Learn to Write Killer Stories Workshop, know I’ll be holding it again. Check back to see when.

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  • Generating Story 5: Hunt Zing

    ByJohn Brown

    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

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  • Indie Thoughts: Resources for Indie Writers

    ByJohn Brown

    About this time last year I got the last of my rights back to the Dark God properties. I thought it would take twenty or thirty hours to figure out the whole indie publishing thing. And then the awesome John Brown story machine would kick in gear.

    Reality promptly woke me up and slapped me around a bit. This last year has been quite the learning curve. Here’s what I’ve had to pick up:

    • Designing book covers
    • Finding artists
    • Working with artists in a way that actually works
    • Copy editing
    • Formatting book interiors
    • Fonts, fonts, fonts
    • Using ISBNs
    • Using InDesign to create files for both POD books and epubs
    • eBook structure
    • Editing ebooks (okay, just get Calibre ebook editor right now. We luvs it, Precious)
    • Validating ebooks (http://validator.idpf.org/)
    • Converting epubs to Amazon’s mobi format
    • Uploading ebooks to the various ebook retailers: Amazon, NookPress, Kobo, iTunes (I upload via Draft2Digital), Smashwords
    • The pros and cons of CreateSpace vs Lightning Source
    • Using CreateSpace to publish POD books
    • Registering books with the US Copyright Office
    • Writing better book descriptions
    • Using keywords and categories on Amazon
    • Setting prices in the indie market
    • Creating an email list (I love MailChimp. They make me happy every time I go to their site)
    • Advertising and promoting as an indie

    One of the things I love about this business is that there is always more to learn. But I’m happy to be over that curve. For folks just starting out, let me share some of the resources I found super helpful with a number of the things listed above.

    Posts by a mega indie-seller Russell Blake to give you the right perspective about indie publishing. I’ve read a lot of posts the last few years about being an indie author. These are the best I’ve come across.

    Online courses to help you on the publishing side.

    • Designing Book Covers and Designing Book Interiors with Dean Wesley Smith (look for “Online Workshops”). I don’t agree with Dean on all his ideas about pricing and promotion, but these two courses helped a great deal.
    • InDesign CS6 to EPUB, Kindle, and iPad with Anne-Marie Concepción at Lynda.com. Awesome.

    The most practical and clear-headed books about indie promotion I’ve read. For other clear-headed advice, see the Russell Blake posts above.

    The most helpful book on copyright.

    The most helpful book on copy editing as well as info to put into front and back matter.

    Helpful threads on Kindle boards

    Other great resources

    Good luck!

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