EXER: Halloween horrors? How about nightmares?

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Original Posting Oct. 7, 2014

Whoops! The deadline is rapidly coming -- what, Oct. 22? That's only... 2 weeks? Write faster!

What is he talking about? Oh, the Halloween Contest! Right. Stories (under 2000 words?) and poetries (under 300) words? Two entries per person (per type? for four total?). And don't forget, send them to rainim@att.net instead of the list. Get them written, and send them along! Just 15 days (assuming it's Oct. 7 when you read this) and counting DOWN!

But, in case you are looking for an idea or ten, I took the liberty of poking at the web, looking for "nightmare themes" (since scary, horror, and so forth might just lead to nightmares, right? What do we have nightmares about, anyway?). Here's some possibilities.

First, over here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/30/emotions-nightmares-bad-dreams-themes-_n_4681274.html on Jan. 30, 2014 (Wow! Recent!) the Huffington Post reports on a recent study of nightmares and bad dreams, conducted by the University of Montreal. Several points... one, fear is not the only emotion (or the main emotion) elicited in many such dreams. Fear, confusion, disgust, sadness, and guilt all have their place in making us wake up with a cold chill. Men do tend to have bad dreams about disasters and war, while women are more likely to do the interpersonal conflict thing.

Themes? Okay, the researchers found "themes involving physical aggression and interpersonal conflicts were the most frequent, followed by failure/helplessness, health-related concerns/death, and apprehension/worry." Nightmares were most likely to have themes of physical aggression, being chased, evil forces and accidents. Bad dreams were more likely to have themes of interpersonal conflicts.

Falling, suffocation, and paralysis were actually fairly rare. Apparently such dreams stick in our memory, but they actually don't happen very often.

And, just for fun, they included one entry from a dream journal (write it down as soon as you wake up):
"I'm in a closet. A strip of white cloth is forcing me to crouch. Instead of clothes hanging, there are large and grotesquely shaped stuffed animals like cats and dogs with grimacing teeth and bulging eyes. They're hanging and wiggling towards me. I feel trapped and frightened."

If that's not enough, take a look at this one from io9 http://io9.com/what-is-the-most-common-nightmare-1461032988 They collected several lists, and provide scary pictures just to help you get in the mood.

Let's see... we've got animals, being chased, death/murder, home/family, falling, and accidents. Or maybe being chased, death of a family member or friends, falling, one's own death, animals/monsters, and war/violent crimes/natural disasters. Or perhaps you prefer a big three? Threat of physical harm, injury/death of others, and interpersonal conflicts. Aha! Falling, being chased, feeling paralyzed, being late to an important event, close persons disappearing or dying. What about physical aggressions, interpersonal conflicts, failure or helplessness, health-related concerns and death, or just apprehension/worry?

So what makes you grit your teeth, dig your fingernails into the blanket, and wake with a pounding heart and sweat dripping down your back? Oh... wanna write a story about it?

By the way, did I mention, the deadline is coming! Tick, tock, tick, tock... Only 15 more writing days, and then... we vote!

Write faster, write faster!

EXERCISE: Sometimes a viewpoint is mental?

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Original Posting Oct. 9, 2014

We often talk about switching characters to get the right viewpoint. However, sometimes a character just needs to put what they are seeing in a different framework, look at it in different terms, see the world in a different way. What do I mean? Well...

It all depends on how you look at it...

And I saw the perfect example of this, on twitter. See if you recognize the story.

Herewith, Howard Tayler's tale of a trip, in tweets. (See http://www.schlockmercenary.com/ or http://howardtayler.com/ for more of his work)

Beginning my fixed-wing skycraft trek to the lands westward. The oracular Pane of Departures promises a journey free of dragon attacks.

The skycraft's cheerful servitors exude an infectious optimism. Of course, THEY were not rifled and unshod by the port's guardian golems.

The gangplank is being hauled back, the lines cast away from their cleats. Must close the ansibular connection now.

Fewer smiles here in the skyport of King George's Atlantis. The caravans of sky whales grind these Atlantean servitors to a sad powder.

The wormbus grumbles hungrily as it hauls me to Terminus Alpha. I'm happy it's been trained to not eat passengers. It HAS been, yes?

Eschewed breaking fast at the Boar's Head or Chicken Flay. Settled on a tiny satchel of crystal sliders. Might have erred.

Everything in this satchel of sliders was boiled in oil. Including the bread, I'm afraid. The magic is not supplied by crystals, certainly.

The large ansibulars here in Atlantis are, as usual, tuned to display the frothing of fear mongers, adding to the ambient despair.

Beneficially (?!) I am now more afraid of plague than of plummeting from the sky in a failure our pilot-cleric's aerodynamomancy.

Another gangplank is pulled away, and any journaling I further do cannot be aethercast. (As if aetherichemy could fell a skywhale. Fie.)

The servitors finally convinced our skywhale and its impacted colon to disgorge us and our belongings. At long last I am home...

There!

Now, consider. Do you need a different character to change the viewpoint, or do you just need your character to look at things a bit differently?

TECH: Techniques of the Selling Writer (part 4)

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Original Posting Oct. 10, 2014

I hope you're enjoying this walk through Swain's book, Techniques of the Selling Writer. So far, we've looked at what blocks you from writing, the words that we use for writing, the basic building block of writing -- the MRU, motivation stimulus-character reaction unit. And now it's time to go on to chapter 4, Conflict and How to Build It. Just don't get in our way!

As usual, Swain starts out with a single line that is thought-provoking, to say the least. This time it's "A story is a chain of scenes and sequels."

And Swain dives right in, explaining that there are two building blocks for stories. The scene and the sequel. Now to use these, you need to learn five things. How to plan a scene, how to plan a sequel, how to write a scene, how to write a sequel, and how to mesh the two parts. That seems pretty logical -- plan, write, and put it all together. So let's get started!

What is a scene? Well, Swain defines it as a unit of conflict tied together by time and lived through by the character (and the reader, trailing along in a reader's trance). Every big moment in your story is a scene. Or, as Swain reminds us, if you want something to be a big moment, turn it into a scene.

All right. Then what's a sequel? A sequel is the unit of transition linking to scenes. It's the bridge, built out of reactions and feelings, that takes the character and the reader from one scene to the next one.

Having gotten the definitions out of the way, it's time to look at planning your scene. Swain provides examples and discussion that you really should take a look at, but here are some of the keynotes, in my opinion.

First, the skeleton of a scene. It is a unit of conflict, of struggle, lived through, moment-by-moment. A blow-by-blow account of the effort to achieve a goal despite opposition.

So what is the function of a scene? Basically, it does two things. It's interesting! Also, it moves the story forward. Why is it interesting? The focal character faces opposition. We, the reader, want to know "Will he win or lose?" How does the scene move the story forward? The scene should change the situation of the character in some way.

Now what unifies, or ties together a scene? Swain says it is time. The scene is lived minute by minute, step-by-step. I have to admit, I was also expecting him to say location, because I have a vague memory of a teacher saying something about unity of time and location. I think maybe that was from classical plays, where you didn't want to change the set. In any case, Swain focuses on time as the unifying link for a scene. If you want to, imagine a clock, ticking in the background as the scene plays out.

So what is the structure of a scene? Actually, it's very simple. Just three parts. Goal, conflict, and disaster. The focal character sets out to do something. There is conflict, complications, opposition. And the scene ends in disaster, the focal character loses.

(Elsewhere, I've seen this described as either "no, and" or "yes, but" with the no-and meaning that the character doesn't achieve their goal, and there are further complications. The yes-but means that the character achieved their goal, but there's a revelation or other complication that means the goal wasn't quite what they thought it would be. Disaster, in any case.)

At the beginning of the scene, the focal character must want something. A possession, relief, or revenge. The goal needs to be specific, concrete, and immediate. The character has to decide to act, and do something!

Conflict? Well, that's opposition. You can throw in new developments, complications, anything and everything that makes it harder for the character to achieve that goal.

The disaster is a hook. It's logical but unanticipated loss. Just when the focal character thought they had beaten down the opposition and taking care of the conflicts, the prize is snatched out of their hands.

Now Swain has a list of problems that scenes run into, along with hints about how to fix them. This is a very summarized version.

Muddled orientation. Who is the focal character?
Weak or diffuse goal. Keep the goal immediate. Make it one action that could be photographed.
A weak character. Raise the stakes, get him involved.
No urgency. Put some time pressure on. Make the goal immediate. Consider a ticking clock.
Diffuse opposition. Personalize it, make it one person.
Weak opposition. Make the villain strong. Why is he doing it?
A fragmented, trivial scene. This is caused by lack of adequate external development.
A monotonous scene. Again, make sure you have good development. Also, make your characters diverse.
The disaster isn't. Increase the loss, make it severe.
The disaster is not indigenous. Yes, the disaster should be unanticipated, but it needs to be logical. Make sure you foreshadow, and that there is a relationship to what is happening in the scene. Deus ex machina isn't good for scenes, either.

Now let's look at the skeleton of a sequel. Remember, this is the transition, the bridge, that links two scenes. Basically, this is where the focal character shows us his reaction to the completed scene -- that disaster -- and his motivation for starting the next scene.

The functions of a sequel include three different parts. First, the sequel translates the disaster of the last scene into a goal for the next scene. Second, sequels telescope reality. This is where time and space collapse, and the focal character moves us from one scene to the next. Third, sequels provide pacing, they set the tempo.

So how does a sequel turn the disaster of the last scene into a reason for the next action? Well, the sequel is where we give meaning, logic, plausibility. Sequels make sense of the action. Specifically, the sequel traces the logic of the character in deciding what to do next. Take the aftermath of the disaster, look it over, and decide what to try next.

How does a sequel telescope time and space? Well, making a decision and collecting all the information, if you did it minute-by-minute, step-by-step would take a lot of time. So instead, in a sequel, we skip it. We summarize. Instead of being unified by time, sequels are unified by topic. The topic is the reaction of the subject to the disaster. Typically, there's the reaction, followed by the dilemma of possibilities, and finished off with a decision to try one thing. Sequels often start with the state of affairs, which may be highlighted by having other characters comment, and the state of mind, which is often a monologue or similar self expression. The key question for the sequel is what do I do now? There is usually a dilemma of choices, so many different possibilities. And this is capped by the decision, I am going to...

Incidentally, Swain points out that sequels sometimes include incidents and happenings. These are basically almost scenes, but lacking the drive and detail caused by the conflict. In an incident, normally there is no conflict. George brings the will to the house and gives it to our focal character. Now the focal character knows what's in the will. But there was no conflict in that.

How about writing the scene? Well, Swain reminds us that we learned a lot in chapter 3. Orient, motivating stimulus, character reaction, and the pattern of emotion. MRU, MRU, MRU... The scene is made up of a chain of MRUs.

He does recommend three do's (do you remember a TV program with do-bees and don't- bees? I think that might be the same one that had the magic mirror where she looked through and saw us sitting in front of the TV. She even called off our names.)

Anyway, Swain's 3 do's:
Do establish time, place, circumstance, and viewpoint at the start of the scene.
Do show the character has a scene goal. Make it clear, explicit, and give it to us as early as possible. This establishes interest, and the goal sets up the conflict.
Do build towards the curtain. A final punch line isn't mandatory, but they sure are fun for the reader.

We also have three don'ts.
Don't write too small. Let your scene take as many words as it needs. Most scenes need 1000 words or more to really work.
Don't interrupt the scene with a flashback. It's unrealistic, and confusing to the reader. Save the flashback for the sequel.
Don't accidentally summarize. Avoid these: he told her that -- give us real dialogue. He hunted for the... without success. Show him doing it, don't tell us about it. Time passed -- just go to the next change, use a jump cut. They had a couple of drinks -- give us the details!

What about writing sequels? Well, you need to think about compression, transition, and credibility. How to squeeze, how to jump, and how to make it believable.

The topic -- the character's reaction -- is what unifies the sequel. So we're doing feelings and emotions. Look for one telling detail, symbolic bits, that make us understand the emotional impact. Similarly, for transition -- highlight the feelings before and after the piece you are skipping. Or at least, look for a common element and use that to get us from New York to Wichita Springs. Now credibility depends on realistic details. Especially in the sequel, you can use familiar, every day bits and pieces to make it believable. Use the sequel, and what's happening there, to push the focal character in the right direction.

The key to the sequel is that we are showing the reader the chain of logic and feelings that leads from the disaster to the next action.

How do you put this together? I mean, you've got a scene, and you've got a sequel, how do you line them up? Two big principles.

First, pacing is based on the proportion of scene and sequel. A big scene gets big interest. A long sequel has high plausibility. If your story is dragging, you probably need to punch up the scenes and the conflicts. Or you can reduce the bellybutton gazing a little bit. On the other hand, if your story is hard to believe, you may need to really delve into the sequels, show us how the character got from that last disaster to what they are up to now.

Second, scenes are what dominate the story. Deciding how big a scene should be, in part depends on where it is in the story. You want your story to build from the beginning scenes to the last scenes. You can adjust your scenes by fixing the sequels. Now sometimes when you're looking at what's happening, you may want to turn it into a scene by adding conflict. On the other hand, you may want to remove conflict and make it a sequel.

Actually, I guess there's a third principle here. Swain reminds us to be flexible. This is not intended to be a mechanical rule where you churn out one after another, identical chunks of scene-sequel, scene-sequel, little boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same. It is intended to be a guide to the underlying structure that lets you create all kinds of stories -- and that readers will enjoy!

An exercise? Probably a couple of them. First would be to take a short story or a book that you like, and look for the scene-sequel structure that Swain is describing. See if you can identify individual scenes, and the sequels tying them together. The second would be to take one of your stories. Again, start by identifying the scene-sequel structure. You may find that you need to do a little adjustment -- fill in that missing sequel, or maybe add a scene? Anyway, take a look at how the scene-sequel structure works in your story.

Of course, you could also start fresh. Draw up a scene, first planning the structure, and then writing it. Put together a sequel, planning it out, and then writing it. Then put the two pieces together.

Now, the next place we're going is chapter 5. Where we will look at the strategy of fiction.

EXER: Make Halloween Scary?

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Original Posting Oct. 12, 2014

Okay. Let's start with all those fun things that scare you! After all, your own jitters and jumps and other twitches might provide a good place to start.

But... maybe you need some ideas? Okay... for one thing, go over here to http://writercises.livejournal.com/ where I collect some of my postings from the list. Lots of exercises and odds and ends. On the left side, in the tag cloud down a little ways, there's "halloween" that will bring up some postings from previous years...

There's a rather imposing list of names of phobias with brief descriptions over here http://phobialist.com/ Or maybe a more focused list, like this one http://www.learning-mind.com/top-10-most-common-human-fears-and-phobias/ -- just the 10 most common fears?

10. Fear of getting old
9. Fear of being poisoned
8. Fear of being a coward
7. Germaphobia -- fear of bacteria and microorganisms
6. Fear of going crazy
5. Fear of intimacy
4. Fear of spiders, rats, cockroaches, snakes, airplanes, monsters, demons, mirror, high heels, etc.
3. Social phobia (fear of public speaking) and agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)
2. Fear of death
1. Fear of loneliness

Any shivers in there? Oh, well... horror tropes, urban myths, lots of good stories for telling around the campfire while the wind rises and the shadows lurk...

But! Write them up! Stories (under 2000 words) and poems (under 300). Then send them to rainim@att.net BEFORE Oct. 22.

Make Halloween your holiday!

TECH: Techniques of the Selling Writer (part 5)

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Original Posting Oct. 19, 2014

In chapter 5, Swain talks about fiction strategy. As usual, he starts out with an intriguing sentence headline.

"A story is a double-barreled attack upon your readers."

So, let's load up the shotgun. Swain says that successful stories depend on two things. First, you need to know why your reader reads. You need to understand what is the source of satisfaction with the story.

Of course, this may lead you to ask the question, "What's a story?" To which Swain answers, "actually, you cannot define story." At least not in useful, meaningful, all-inclusive terms. Why not? Well, because people -- the readers -- differ, and stories do too. Realistically, a story is not a thing, it's something that you the author does to a specific reader. You provide a motivation, a stimulus, with the goal to elicit specific reactions, feelings, emotions. The function of the story is to make a reader feel. So a story is a process, with a bag of tricks.

The point of this is that you should not try to appeal to all readers. You need to aim at a reader who shares your tastes and interests.

We do need to master story dynamics. The story is a record of how somebody deals with danger. That looks like a definition, doesn't it? But it's a rule of thumb more than a definition, okay?

Why does the reader read? Because fiction creates a pleasurable state of tension. It holds their attention. So, story is double-barreled. You need to capture and hold the reader's attention by what you offer now. You need to create immediate, continuing involvement. Seize their attention? How? Simple, tension. Otherwise known as fear. Why are people afraid? Because of danger. What danger? Some kind of change. Specifically, you need two factors. You need to perceive, to be aware of the change, and you need experiences that warn you that this change may cause harm.

So the reader really likes to worry. You make them worry by getting the hero in danger, and then keeping him there.

So, what makes the reader satisfied with the story? A story is a record of how somebody deals with danger. Definite, immediate menace to the focal character. In the beginning, you create tension. In the middle, you build and intensify that tension. And in the end, you have a climax and resolution. The climax focuses the tension. The resolution releases it.

What is it about that that satisfies the reader? The release of tension. Now, how does the hero defeat the danger? Basically, the hero demonstrates that they deserve to win.

That's the broad outline. Now let's take a look at some details.

When you release tension, you give the reader what they are looking for -- security and safety. You give them the feeling that they are in control of their destiny. You need an ending where what the hero did makes a difference. We pit the character against danger, let him demonstrate whether he deserves to win or lose, and then fit the ending to his behavior giving him poetic justice.

The beginning shows us a state of affairs that your hero thinks means happiness, and the danger that threatens to keep him from achieving or maintaining that. We express that as a story question. Will the hero achieve happiness despite . . . ?

The answer to that question is the resolution of the story. How do you make a climax? Basically, you develop a moral issue and let the hero make a choice. This is where we test the principle of the character, will they do what is right or what is expedient? In most cases, the hero does what's right, and achieves victory. They defeat temptation. The conclusion rewards the character for their virtue.

Why is it structured this way? Basically, to satisfy readers, the story needs to reaffirm their philosophy, their belief in meaning in life. There is a strong case for cause-and-effect, good deeds being rewarded both in life and fiction. But even if there wasn't, that's what we want to see in a story.

So, what are the two barrels? First, pleasurable tension all through the story. Second, ultimate satisfaction with the meaningful conclusion. So keep your reader on the edge of their seat, and then make them shout as the hero wins.

An exercise? Sure. There are three different flavors you could try. One, take this pattern sketched in this chapter and see if you can identify it at work in a favorite short story or book. Does it have that constant tension, followed by a climax and resolution that pay off? Can you see the two barrels at work? Two, take one of your stories and do the same check. Feel free to tighten up your story if you find that it helps. Third, of course, would be to create a plan for a new story using this strategy.

Actually, it's interesting that Swain calls this the strategy of fiction. Strategy is the big picture, reminding us that we need to win the war, not just the individual battles. Similarly, this notion of tension as one barrel and the final climax and reward as the second barrel seems like the kind of big picture that helps shape the whole story.

So, let's write.