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writercisesOriginal posting 18 Dec 2007
Tricking out with Plot and Structure (27)
All right! Just in time for the holidays, when you may be off watching movies, talking to stranger-than-fiction folks, and doing other odds and ends, Chapter 14 in Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell looks at tips and tools. But probably the key here is to realize that you can and should collect your own. Watch for how things are done, talked about, written; think about whether it works for you or not and how you would do it; and add another little wrench to your tool chest.
Some starters for your kit? Sure. All borrowed from Bell's chapter, go right to the source for the actual explanations in depth.
First off, take that old saying about show, don't tell. Put it in your own words. Think of some good examples. Take a piece of your writing and redo it, replacing each bit that tells the reader something with a bit that shows them the something.
Oh. Bell says showing is like watching a scene in a movie, what the characters say or do reveals all. Telling, now, that's where the writer just explains it for us, summarizing and telling us what's going on inside the characters. Description versus exposition. Or in the original words, show, don't tell.
Beware the list. Bell gets this from Perry Mason books. Erle Stanley Gardner apparently got rushed from time to time, producing bits such as "Perry Mason was urbane, fair, logical, and smilingly frank to the jury." Well, yes, but how about showing us, Mr. Gardner?
Learn from soap operas. They just keep going and going, but there's an art to juggling the storylines, interlacing cliffhanger after cliffhanger, questions, and so forth. Pot boiling? Don't resolve so soon, leave readers dangling. Cut away from one scene that has just dangled a cliffhanger in front of us to another scene, then do it again. Braid those plots!
Plot journal. This seems to be a common practice among better writers, of spending at least part of their writing time talking to themself in journal form about the plot and the writing. Kind of encourages you to take a bit of a step back and think about what you're doing.
Raymond Chandler's provocation. If the story is starting to drag, send some guy with a gun into the scene. It's a surprise, everyone has to react and it gets the story moving again. A telegram arrives, the fire alarm goes off, there is a power outage or whatever, toss in something unexpected and see how your characters handle it.
Start with chapter two. Fairly often we fill chapter one with setup, and it is boring. Chapter two, then, is where the action starts, so skip that setup and start with chapter two.
Step back. Go ahead and write act I or some major chunk with passion. Then set it aside. Come back in awhile, and read it as a first-time reader.
Bell calls it unanticipated. I call it a quota of alternatives. Whatever you call it, learn to stop at the cliches and make a list of alternatives, then pick the one that no one expects. Like the Spanish Inquisition!
Analyze plots. Bell gives us a heavy duty version involving 6 books at the same time, but the basic idea is to take a book of the type you want to write. Read it, and spend at least a day thinking about it. Next, make a set of index cards, one per scene. Number the cards, and fill in the setting, point-of-view character, 2 line summary, and scene type (action, reaction, setup, deepen, etc.) Next, read through your cards, running through the plot in your head. Finally, lay out the pack in three acts, looking for the beats and doorways that make it up. As Bell put it, actually taking the time to learn six or so plots like this puts you a big step ahead of those who are waiting for inspiration.
Invert the rifle rule. Chekhov told us that if we put a rifle over the fireplace in Act 1, then somewhere in the play we need to pull the trigger. Bell points out that as writers (or maybe rewriters) part of the trick is making sure that when a character pulls the trigger later in the novel, we go back and plant that gun under the seat early on.
A notebook. What an old-fashioned idea? And yet . . . You might want somewhere to keep plot ideas, character notes (including name lists, odd sketches, and what not), research, a clean plot summary, and questions. Or whatever headings help you -- this is your notebook after all!
So, that's the main part of this chapter. Bell's got some notes and tips about genres, and if we're lucky, we'll get to those next week. But in the meantime, think about what you might glean out of the family gatherings, office parties and other seasonal delights. Who was that character in the black fur? How did the N'yarker talk? Why did that action movie put everyone to sleep, while the cartoon about the little kitten and the great dane made everyone sniffle?
And just think, we'll be doing 6x6 soon. So tuck those tales away!
T(h)ink
(enjoying the quirkiness of "Batteries Not Included," showing now on Japanese TV for the holidays. "I think we got elves." Good line!)
Tricking out with Plot and Structure (27)
All right! Just in time for the holidays, when you may be off watching movies, talking to stranger-than-fiction folks, and doing other odds and ends, Chapter 14 in Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell looks at tips and tools. But probably the key here is to realize that you can and should collect your own. Watch for how things are done, talked about, written; think about whether it works for you or not and how you would do it; and add another little wrench to your tool chest.
Some starters for your kit? Sure. All borrowed from Bell's chapter, go right to the source for the actual explanations in depth.
First off, take that old saying about show, don't tell. Put it in your own words. Think of some good examples. Take a piece of your writing and redo it, replacing each bit that tells the reader something with a bit that shows them the something.
Oh. Bell says showing is like watching a scene in a movie, what the characters say or do reveals all. Telling, now, that's where the writer just explains it for us, summarizing and telling us what's going on inside the characters. Description versus exposition. Or in the original words, show, don't tell.
Beware the list. Bell gets this from Perry Mason books. Erle Stanley Gardner apparently got rushed from time to time, producing bits such as "Perry Mason was urbane, fair, logical, and smilingly frank to the jury." Well, yes, but how about showing us, Mr. Gardner?
Learn from soap operas. They just keep going and going, but there's an art to juggling the storylines, interlacing cliffhanger after cliffhanger, questions, and so forth. Pot boiling? Don't resolve so soon, leave readers dangling. Cut away from one scene that has just dangled a cliffhanger in front of us to another scene, then do it again. Braid those plots!
Plot journal. This seems to be a common practice among better writers, of spending at least part of their writing time talking to themself in journal form about the plot and the writing. Kind of encourages you to take a bit of a step back and think about what you're doing.
Raymond Chandler's provocation. If the story is starting to drag, send some guy with a gun into the scene. It's a surprise, everyone has to react and it gets the story moving again. A telegram arrives, the fire alarm goes off, there is a power outage or whatever, toss in something unexpected and see how your characters handle it.
Start with chapter two. Fairly often we fill chapter one with setup, and it is boring. Chapter two, then, is where the action starts, so skip that setup and start with chapter two.
Step back. Go ahead and write act I or some major chunk with passion. Then set it aside. Come back in awhile, and read it as a first-time reader.
Bell calls it unanticipated. I call it a quota of alternatives. Whatever you call it, learn to stop at the cliches and make a list of alternatives, then pick the one that no one expects. Like the Spanish Inquisition!
Analyze plots. Bell gives us a heavy duty version involving 6 books at the same time, but the basic idea is to take a book of the type you want to write. Read it, and spend at least a day thinking about it. Next, make a set of index cards, one per scene. Number the cards, and fill in the setting, point-of-view character, 2 line summary, and scene type (action, reaction, setup, deepen, etc.) Next, read through your cards, running through the plot in your head. Finally, lay out the pack in three acts, looking for the beats and doorways that make it up. As Bell put it, actually taking the time to learn six or so plots like this puts you a big step ahead of those who are waiting for inspiration.
Invert the rifle rule. Chekhov told us that if we put a rifle over the fireplace in Act 1, then somewhere in the play we need to pull the trigger. Bell points out that as writers (or maybe rewriters) part of the trick is making sure that when a character pulls the trigger later in the novel, we go back and plant that gun under the seat early on.
A notebook. What an old-fashioned idea? And yet . . . You might want somewhere to keep plot ideas, character notes (including name lists, odd sketches, and what not), research, a clean plot summary, and questions. Or whatever headings help you -- this is your notebook after all!
So, that's the main part of this chapter. Bell's got some notes and tips about genres, and if we're lucky, we'll get to those next week. But in the meantime, think about what you might glean out of the family gatherings, office parties and other seasonal delights. Who was that character in the black fur? How did the N'yarker talk? Why did that action movie put everyone to sleep, while the cartoon about the little kitten and the great dane made everyone sniffle?
And just think, we'll be doing 6x6 soon. So tuck those tales away!
T(h)ink
(enjoying the quirkiness of "Batteries Not Included," showing now on Japanese TV for the holidays. "I think we got elves." Good line!)
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