TECH: Short Story Blueprint, Step Two: Setting Up Your Story (moldy oldie B)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 26 August 2011

All right! You've got the answers to that list of questions, and you're ready...
oh, yeah. Time to check the answers. Right...

Writer's Digest, February 1992, pages 23 to 26 have the second step by Jack Bickham. Setting up your story... Planning the story. 19 questions to help you think through your story, before you start writing. And here's the points to check about your answers.

( Checkpoint! )

So. Answer the questions. And in the next segment, Jack's going to talk about making main characters vivid and interesting, and filling out the cast.

EXERCISE: What do you like?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 26 August 2011

Hum...

Here's an interesting question. Let me come at it a couple of different ways.

First, imagine that it's Saturday afternoon. You've had a hard week, but there's a couple of hours of quiet time ahead. What kind of book do you pick up to read? What are you looking for at that point? What kind of genre, characters, plot? What do you want out of that book?

Second, imagine that a friend said, "Hey, I've run out of stuff to read. What would you recommend I try next?" Again, what kind of book would you suggest? Note that your friend looks suspiciously like yourself in a mirror, okay?

Third, try this one. You've just gotten a book certificate to the Dream Amazon, good for one book of your choice. So you log on, hit the "Find My Perfect Book" button, and up pops... the book! What is it? Why does it fit what you like so well? What makes it your dream book?

The question, of course, is what kind of book -- genre, characters, plot, theme -- do you genuinely like? What do you want to read?

Turned inside out, this becomes what kind of book you should probably try to write. But for today, let's pause and contemplate what kind of book you really, truly, honestly like.

Go ahead. Tell us about it.

TECH: Short Story Blueprint, Step Three: Your Story People (moldy oldie)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 3 Sept 2011

Okay. So in step one, you identified traits that you admire or detest, along with some concrete examples of each. You also looked at whether you prefer conflicts with goals, difficult character decisions, or those elusive discoveries as a broad type of tale. And to relax, you collected some fun dialogue bits and pieces. Right?

In step two, you did some hard thinking about what you wanted to write. What kind of story, setting, and... the main character, the opposition, and other characters. The beginning, and the end of the tale. Oh, and what viewpoint? You remember, a little list of 19 questions? Plus the followup commentary to check your own work?

Right! So now it's time for part three... where we fine tune the people a bit more. Character building! Ready?

Writer's Digest, March 1992, p. 28-31, have the article by Jack Bickham. Jack starts by noting that the question of whether to start with plot or character when developing a story is really confusing, because plot ideas suggest people while characters almost always have plot problems plaguing them. "Good plots involve vivid characters, and good characters are always involved in a plot.

Or to put it another way, it really doesn't matter where you start, you have to look at all of the pieces anyway.

So what are we going to do here? We'll start with whatever notes you made in step two about the hero, villain, and secondary characters. We're going to turn those notes into action tags. You've already done some of these, taking abstract or generic traits and adding concrete examples. Now we'll expand on that.

First, go through the characters you picked for your story, hero, villian, and others, and make sure every one has at least a dominant trait, with a tag showing that trait. Now, review those and consider whether or not this is the character's true dominant trait, or most important trait. Feel free to change those that need it. Also, you may want to add additional traits for a character, along with action tags.

Now take time to check these four points:

1. Are the dominant traits for your set of characters different?
2. Are the action tags different?
3. Do you have strong, specific tags? Is there anything about how they talk or dress that can help identify them?
4. Do you have a name for each of your characters?

Next, you want to go over your list of characters and consider the following information. Notice that you may not want to spend as much time on bit players as main characters. So stop when you think you've reached the right depth.

1. Name, age, brief background.
2. Single dominant trait and at least three action tags for your story.
3. Goal, problem, or feeling that motivates him/her
4. Action, event, or place where the character is introduced into the story.
5. Action, event, or place where the character is left at the end.
6. Brief physical description of the character.

Jack talks about ranking your characters next. The hero is number one, the villain is number two, and then things get complicated. I think identifying roles for all of your characters in your story may be more important. What is each of the people going to do? Some of them may be false suspects, side complications, sidekicks, and so forth. Go ahead and make up your own labels, but you should know what each and every person is going to do. Why are they in the story?

For at least the key characters -- hero, villain, main secondary characters -- you're also going to want to identify their self-concept. Who are they and what do they want? What are the activities and possessions that go with that?

After you've gone over your characters for this step, you should:

1. Have most of the key information for every major character.
2. Know the characters names, backgrounds, traits and tags, self-concept, role in the story, motivation, and when they walk on stage and off in your story.
3. Have some bits of action, dialogue, or description about some of the characters.
4. Know who is the most important in your story.
5. Have some idea of how your major characters are going to interact, and why.

Okay? The key here is to take some time and think about your characters. Who are they, how do they fit into the story, and what are they going to do?

In step four, we'll take a look at the plot, the other half of this. Now you've got your characters, what are events that will try them?

Traits that you admire or detest, answering a list of questions, now building characters? And next, we'll be plotting?

When do we get to the writing, again?