TECH: Beginnings!

[mbarker]

 Original Posting July 13, 2018

Over here

https://madgeniusclub.com/2018/07/12/23238/

Margaret Ball has a short piece about beginnings, that elusive hook-the-reader part of your story. Introduce the character, give us a hint of setting, and something that makes us want to keep turning the pages and find out what happens next? All in say a page or less...

She starts with a little bit from one of her books, then gives us an analogy. Starting a new book is like starting a car with a stick shift on a steep hill. Give it some gas (Why should I read this?), engage the clutch (this is what it's based on), all while avoiding crunching gears, flooding the engine, or letting the whole contraption roll downhill...

Then she delves into three openings... a fisherman watching an old lady walk into a reservoir? Wait a minute... it's a mystery, and you do wonder why she chose to walk into the water! How about a YA VIP who just wants to be treated like a normal person as she joins a trip across to another world? Or maybe... a historical novel? About Roman auxiliaries sent to Britain... "We mutinied when we reached the ocean." Ouch, what a hook!

So, Margaret reflects on why these beginnings catch our attention and keep us reading. Go on, you can read it yourself.

And I thought... slipsliding over into exercise...

What's your favorite beginning? (Okay, a favorite beginning, I know picking the favorite can be hard).

Now, step back, and tell us why that beginning grabs you. What did the author do? What is the hook (or bait, or intriguing question, or...) that is embedded in that tasty little bit of writing?

Go on, give us a little insight into beginnings.

TECH: Working with ideas... (700 words)

[mbarker]

 Original Posting July 15, 2018

Okay, so someone suggested that ideas are hard to come by, or at least, hard to turn into stories? Let's see what we can do with that...

First of all, I love frameworks. For example, the MICE quotient, suggested by Orson Scott Card, provides four basic notions. Milieu stories (or arcs? plot building blocks?) are all about setting. They start when the character enters the place, and end when you leave that place. There and back again, journeys of all sorts! Idea stories, or sometimes Ask and Answer (which makes it MACE!) are about questions, and start when someone asks a question, and end when you answer the question. Mysteries are classic idea stories. Character tales start when the character is dissatisfied with something about themselves, and end with satisfaction or reconciliation. Romance, coming of age, lots of these stories around. Finally, event stories start with something wrong with the status quo, and end with a solution. From large-scale disasters to changing a flat tire, these are really well-known. Oh, and you can imbed or mix them! So you can have an event story about the asteroid hitting the earth, with a little character story about the romance in the control center inside it, and... Like that! So these are all about promises (or premises) that kick things off, and then eventually, the fulfillment of those promises.

How can you use those four types to help with ideas or with turning ideas into stories? Well, if you have an idea, try fitting it to those four frameworks? Is it about the milieu, idea, character, or event? Could you make it fit into those? How about going the other way, start with the four frameworks, and see if you can come up with some ideas? What kind of setting or place would be interesting to go? What kind of question or problem would you like to try answering? What could your character be dissatisfied with about themselves? And, of course, what kind of events could make trouble with the status quo?

Might as well haul out another framework, the story skeleton? How about this one? "A likable character faces opposition and conflict, and through his/her own efforts, achieves a worthwhile goal." Simple, right? Likable character, opposition/conflict, his/her own efforts, and worthwhile goal. Brainstorm a few possibilities for those, crisscross with the MICE elements, and see what happens!

So what the heck do I mean? Well, let’s assume you are sitting there, staring at your blank page, and wondering what to right about (or even what to write about!). Hey, grab a sheet of paper and a pencil (I prefer paper and pencil for brainstorming, but your methods may vary). Consider this.

Where could our likable character wander off to? Well, how about Shinjuku? Or maybe diving? The lost temple of the chimpanzees? Oh, into the looking glass? Or maybe... sure, make a list of some intriguing places. Some of them may inspire you...

Not doing it yet, huh? Okay, what kind of questions or issues might get your character involved? There’s the traditional dead body... who and where? Or maybe it’s an ethical issue? Your character hears a woman screaming in the alley out back, but they have been told never, ever go out back? What should they do? What about the question of just how many angels do dance on the head of a pin? No...

Character... ah, what could our character find dissatisfying about themselves? Well, being alone is an obvious one, which can be solved by romantic overtures and other fun and games before a happily ever after comes along? Or perhaps they can’t quite stand the way they talk? Or...

Events? Now that’s where the fires, floods, rain of frogs (no, not the reign of frogs, when the French ruled, that's something else), some guy with a shotgun, a flat tire, and almost anything and everything else could happen to your hapless character. Matter of fact, it’s almost too easy to drop a wall on your character and force them to struggle with it. But these can certainly be fun to consider.

Warming up a bit? I mean, setting, issues and problems, character flaws and other internal difficulties, and all the trials and tribulations of life are just waiting to help your character fill in their story. Take a heaping handful, and write!

TECH: Story Bits 01 (400 words)

[mbarker]

 Original Posting July 21, 2018

I got a copy of Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee recently, and since I want to read it, I thought maybe I’d do it as a read along, read a bit, scribble some comments and thoughts, and then repeat. If you want to, pick up a copy at Amazon or your local book pusher, and follow along. Heck, you can even read ahead if you want to. Feel free to comment, too!

Start at the beginning, right? So... Part 1 has the title The Writer and the Art of Story. The introduction starts off with a medley of short admonitions. For example, the very first one is simple.

Story is about principles, not rules.

Then he expands on that, explaining that rules say something must be done a certain way, while principles just say this works... the difference is in whether you are just obeying rules, or whether you are mastering a form.

By the way, I’m pretty sure Story here refers to his book, although you can have some fun reading it as talking about story in stories, too.

Rules, you have to do it this way, almost invites someone to break them, and forces everything into a straight jacket, a rigid form. Principles... hey, if you do it like this, it works! If you figure out another way that works, that’s dynamite, but... feel free to try this one, because it does this...

The second one is...

Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

Hum. This time, he starts right out by labeling paradigms and foolproof story models as nonsense. Lots of successful story designs out there! But no prototype, no surefire recipe, no reheating leftovers...

Third?

Story is about archetypes, not stereotypes.

“The archetypal story unearths a universally human experience, then wraps itself inside a unique, cultural-specific expression.”

Compare that with a stereotypical story, that is poor in both content and form. A narrow, culture-specific experience dressed in stale, nonspecific generalities. Whoops!

Archetypal stories start with a world, specifics, that we do not know. The ordinary, yet extraordinary. And inside that brave new world, we find... our own reflection. We find life, we stretch our own experience, we flex our emotions!

Poof! That’s rich stuff. Principles, not rules. Forms, not formulas. And archetypes, not stereotypes.

Something to chew on, I think. For one thing, that tendency to want a rule, a surefire formula, and simple generic stories instead of having to delve so deep...

Okay? That’s page 5 of 468, according to Kindle. So about one percent down, 99 to go?

TECH: 6 Steps to a Short Story

[mbarker]

 Original Posting July 26, 2018

Over here

https://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-to-write-a-short-story/

offers a quick rundown of the short story! First, why write a short story? You can finish them quickly, you can try out lots of ideas, it's a good way to experiment with structuring viewpoint, and there are competitions! Then, the six steps…

1. Decide how long your story is going to be. 100, 800, 8000 words? 2000 is a common length, but pick your target!
2. Crank out several ideas! Brainstorming, mind mapping, writing prompts…
3. Pick some characters! Main character, maybe a sidekick or two, the villain? Short story, small cast.
4. Plan your story. What starts it, what ends it, and what's in the middle?
5. Draft. Sit down and write it. Viewpoint, tense -- 3rd person, past is ordinary, but you may want to play with this. Then crank it out! Focus, show, and dialogue.
6. Edit. Big changes, then minor tightening. Do a last polish.

There you go. Six steps, and a short story! Yay!

Write!