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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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 Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:12 pm Post subject: Storytelling Basics: An Analysis of a Story in Trouble |
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The Purpose of this Post
This is something I’m just learning and the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. Also, I’ve read some of your stories and have realized that many of you have the same problem with storytelling basics that I do. Thus, this post can be of value to a wider community. Finally and unexpectedly, this took me a long time to write. Over the course of writing it, and analyzing my work as well as coming up with example solutions, I’ve gone a long way to solving the weakness in my story.
What’s the Problem?
I’ve had a problem with finding the right focus for my longer stories. In the past I’ve written what might be termed “a day in the life” story. The protagonist wakes up, eats breakfast, goes out and has some adventure. During the adventure I’ll write filler such as having her walk across a hillside to get from one point of interest to another. Or I’ll introduce characters and situations which, while interesting, don’t contribute to the overall story. I’ve had one reader ask me, “What the heck was chapter six about?”
I’ve started studying how to write fiction and be successful at it. I’ve discovered that my past style of writing is a common beginner’s error: writing scenes, and whole chapters, that do nothing for the story while leaving out scenes that can hold a reader’s interest.
What holds a reader’s interest? Conflict.
In my second novella I have plenty of potential, but I don’t write about it directly. I simply hint at it while writing about meaningless stuff like descriptive filler and conversations, “Easter eggs,” in jokes, red herrings, and whatnot. But it’s not enough to have the potential of conflict in my story, I must realize that potential. In short, I’ve been steadily improving at the small-scale structure of writing, but my large-scale structure still stinks.
Rather than look at a past work, I’m going to analyze a novel still in the outline stage.
A Life for Rent, or alternate title: Instinct and Intellect
This started as a possible short story inspired by the Dido song Life for Rent (the song Here With Me will start playing, you’ll need to click on Life for Rent to see and hear that one). I asked myself: What kind of person would fall into this situation? What might keep them trapped in it? And how might they break free? I decided to tap into the instinctive wanderlust of the unattached male fox. The trap then becomes more than a life-time of bad habits—it’s also genetic, instinctive, and hormone-driven.
Story Background
My main character, a fox-human hybrid, is 43. Back when he was young, he had a vulpine fiancée and they planned to marry in August after they turned 18, then attend a university together. But while each was scouting possible universities, another dog-fox stole his girl’s heart and hand. Anyone who’s read the stories in this past Watchingstone Writing Contest may recognize that my fox is Paris Fabre and his lost love is the vixen Nonny, from my entry Family Matters. Paris went to Cornell University, but he could only take about two-and-a-half years in one place without a mate, and he fought hard against those instincts. Eventually he dropped out of school and started wandering. After several years of moving from place-to-place and job-to-job, he stumbled into business consulting and found a career that was perfect for a nomad. He gained a reputation, a stable of clients, and a measure of success. But in the opening of A Life for Rent he realizes he has not accomplished any of his dreams. He has money, but no one to share it with. He has no clue what to do with what he has. There’s no point in buying a home or making investments for the future, as a single male fox he has no future. This is Paris’ great failure. He wants to change but has no idea how. The primary conflict in my story is internal: the battle between instinct and intellect.
This story takes place a bit over 100 years in the future, along the southern California coastline.
A Life for Rent, Upper Levels of the Outline
I’m following Randy Ingermanson’s snowflake method:
| Step 1: one-sentence synopsis wrote: | | Trapped in a nomadic life-style by his instincts, a genetically engineered fox must use his intellect, determination, and the help of his human friends to break free. |
Before I can start writing I need a bit more detail. Edited to remove spoilers, since this is a public forum:
| Step 2: one-paragraph synopsis wrote: | | When genetically engineered fox, Paris Fabre, runs into an old college buddy he hadn’t seen in over 20 years he realizes that his nomadic life-style has kept him from accomplishing any of his dreams. Lacie, the buddy's wife, becomes determined to help him achieve at least one of his goals and introduces him to a venture capital firm—but just as it seems he'll get his funding, a senior partner at a distant office rises up to oppose him. Penny, a human woman half his age, wants him, and thinking he can find the stability he desperately needs he asks her to be his life-partner—but ********* *** *** ***** **** *** *** ******** ** ***** ***. Bridgett, his sister, comes to town on an extended vacation—but when she learns of his business plans without having the stability of a vixen at his side, and his “dangerous” relationship with a human, she begs him to return home with her. He finally has that face-to-face meeting with his nemesis at the VC firm, a vixen named Sofia, who knows the power of the wanderlust in an unattached dog-fox—but **** **** ****, *** ***** ***** * *****. |
Interesting, but look at the way Randy describes step 2 on his web page: “Take another hour and expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the book.” What I wrote does not fit this plan. What I have are relationships to the main character Paris, and some turning point in that relationship. As I tried to expand the snowflake in later steps I realized I had a problem. I couldn’t articulate more than one major disaster.
Storytelling Basics, With an Example
There is something called the three-act structure of a story. One way to think of this is the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Typically this splits the story into 25%, 50%, and 25% pieces. Tension should be established early in the first act, rise in the middle act, then peak in the final act where the story comes to a conclusion.
There’s another way to look at story construction called the three-disaster structure. This isn’t the same thing as the three-act structure, but they fit together. Now a short story may not have room for three disasters, and a long book may have more. A novel is full of disasters of all sizes, but what I’m talking about are the serious, bad, major disasters. Consider Star Wars (the original movie). We might say that Princess Leia’s capture by the Empire was the first major disaster. Not so. Her capture establishes what’s going to happen and who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The princess is important, but she’s not the main character. Luke Skywalker is the main character (even if the movies are ultimately about his father).
Disaster #1, at the transition from act 1 to act 2: The first horrible disaster is that storm troopers murder Luke’s family. This forces him to make a decision: join the fight against the Empire or hide.
Disaster #2, in the middle of act 2: The second horrible disaster is that Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan Kenobi. This puts Luke into a mental tailspin and throws doubt on the outcome of the venture. Obi-Wan was a powerful ally and now he’s gone. The purpose of having a major disaster in the middle is prop up the middle of the story.
Disaster #3, at the transition from act 2 to act 3: The Death Star is in orbit around the rebel planet’s sun and will soon destroy the planet and the rebel alliance. The rebels have the capability to destroy the Death Star, but they don’t have a choice of time or place when to try. They do it now or all is lost. A do-or-die situation is called a crucible.
Finally, act 3: The big space battle and the defeat of the death star. Yaaay! Victory. The end. We run out, grab our friends and drag them into the theater to watch this over and over. Not because it has cool special effects, 2001, a Space Odyssey had cool special effects for its day too. We love it because it has an amazing story that grips the imagination. How many people even knew what 2001, a Space Odyssey was about?
A Life for Rent, Important Characters
You’ve already met Paris Fabre. The book is about him. Above, in the one-paragraph synopsis, I mentioned a few other characters. They are critical to understanding the overall flow of the story. In the snowflake method, step 3 is creating brief outlines of each important character. I have that, but rather than dump all that information I’ll create even shorter outlines of only a few. Unless otherwise stated, all characters are human.
| Step 3: brief character synopses wrote: | Lacie Bramlett: She’s the young wife (26) of Paris’ old college buddy and becomes Paris’ landlady while he’s living in Ventura. She’s a “fixer” and when she learns of Paris’ great failure and his desire to overcome it, she decides she must help. Since she doesn’t know any vixens she can’t play matchmaker so she latches onto Paris’ dream of a business based on franchising his consulting techniques. She introduces Paris to Alex Beadle, the senior partner in charge of the LA branch of a venture capital firm. His office is devoted to nurturing promising entrepreneurs. Alex becomes Paris’ champion and mentor. Alex assigns Lynne Kottke to work with Paris. In some ways you can think of these three as one. They may have different motivations and roles, but they all help Paris toward his dream of creating a successful company.
Penny Akamatsu: She is a young (22) waitress Paris meets the first night he runs into Leo and Lacie. Quite simply, she has a “thing” for foxes and she wants Paris. She had a childhood experience with a vixen who she viewed as her “little sister” (mentioned in the final scene of Family Matters). This gives her an insight into wild fox behavior that helps her when dealing with Paris and later Bridgett. Penny is something of an expert in an unnamed martial art. By human standards she is tiny, 5 foot 1 and a bit less than 100 pounds. Penny’s role is that of co-protagonist and love interest to Paris. The key person in Penny’s family is her mother Odette Akamatsu, who Penny turns to for advice. It’s important that Odette accept Paris as a possible husband for her daughter, despite the fact they are different species.
Bridgett Fabre: She’s Paris’ twin sister. Fox society is matriarchal: property is typically owned by the female, inheritance is from mother to daughter, and the male takes the female’s name when they wed. Foxes use a system of legal contracts called domestic partnership contracts, but to simplify this discussion I’ll just say “married.” Bridgett has just ended a 25-year relationship and she’s come to Ventura to get away from all the attention she’ll receive from the male foxes living in Houston. Once her estrus cycle is complete she’ll return home. As hinted at in the one-paragraph synopsis, she doesn’t much care for Penny or for Lacie. In the story her role is to cause trouble, but that morphs into becoming Penny’s ally after Bridgett returns to Houston.
A. Sofia Archyta: She’s a vixen and a senior partner in the venture capital firm that will invest in Paris’ project. She’s in charge of an office devoted to finding investors. Normally she doesn’t get involved directly with entrepreneurs, but when she sees a preliminary copy of Paris’ business plan and realizes he’s an unmarried male fox, she puts a temporary halt to the project. She wants to know how he plans to run a multi-person company and deal with his wanderlust. She has a personal assistant named Richard, who’s competent, devoted, and a bit stuffy. |
There are a few other characters who move up in importance when I fix the plot. I’ll introduce them later.
A Life for Rent, Back to the Outline
Think about storytelling basics. Do I have acts or disasters? No. What I have are four sets of relationships that swirl around my main character Paris, although I hint at disasters. Before we can fix this we need to understand what I have now. Because timing is critical and based on the foxes’ annual estrus cycle, I’ll draw a time line:
Paris comes into town (Ventura) and needs a place to live. He answers an ad in the paper for a room for rent and discovers the homeowner is his old college buddy Leo Bramlett. Lacie, Leo’s wife, comes home and the three of them go out to dinner and the book begins (A). Their waitress is Penny (B). At dinner Paris comes to the realization he’s a loser who’s been living “a life for rent.” Penny tries to give him her vid-com number, but he declines.
Lacie is a “fixer” and she wants to fix Paris. She convinces him to try to accomplish at least one of his (recent) dreams: starting a franchise consulting business (C). Paris has a very positive meeting with the senior partner at an LA venture capital firm, which Lacie had set up for him (D).
Paris, Lacie and Leo go out to celebrate and see Penny again (E) who tries a different approach. This time Paris takes her number.
Thinking about Penny, Paris gives her a call (F). Thus, Paris starts working with the VC firm and he starts a relationship with Penny.
At Thanksgiving Paris meets Penny’s family (in Salinas) and wins over Penny’s mom Odette (G see Family Matters).
Paris’ twin sister Bridgett shows up on his doorstep and immediately takes a strong dislike to both Penny and Lacie and generally makes everyone miserable (H), but she gradually comes to respect Penny and accept Paris’ business venture.
Paris, Penny, and Bridgett go to spend Christmas with Penny’s family (I & J). The Christmas visit helps Bridgett see Penny as a person and start to like her as well as respect her.
The vixen Sofia Archyta, who manages another branch of the VC firm, has discovered a preliminary copy of Paris’ business plan. She has questions and puts a halt on his approval until she can get answers (K). Paris and the LA office don’t realize she’s not human or the nature of her questions.
Bridgett has been living at the 30th parallel (Houston, where the majority of fox-human hybrids live) and has her estrus in mid January. Once that’s past, she returns home (L).
Bridgett gone, Penny makes her move and tries to seduce Paris (M): first she tries a T-shirt dance and fails, then Thai massage and fails, finally she calls Momma (Odette) for advice and hits a home run.
Sofia is demanding some answers from Paris and insists on a face-to-face meeting at her office in Monterey (N). The meetings are postponed due to: a conflict on Sofia’s calendar, an earthquake damaging the coastal highway, and Paris having a crisis.
Penny is forced to come to grips with something she has been ignoring about Paris (O).
Because Paris has been living further north than his sister, his hormones peak near the end of the book.
I’ve drawn four threads to this time line to emphasize the four parts of the one-paragraph synopsis. But what’s really happening is that there are two interwoven threads: Paris’ business life and Paris’ personal life. The Sofia thread can be considered part of his business life and the Bridgett thread can be considered to be part of his personal life.
I should mention the crucible. A crucible is a situation that you can get into, but can’t get out of. You’re forced to see it through to the end. Lacie talks Paris into a crucible. His internal battle is between being sick and tired of 25 years of failure and being scared that he’s destined to fail at this too. He cannot start spending the VC firms money then later say, “Ahh, I was only kidding. Buh bye, see ya later,” and walk away. It would destroy his reputation in the business world and destroy his future income, plus they might sue him. His fear of failure is what gets him to consider forming a domestic partnership with Penny (F). He sees her as a way out of the crucible.
The action starts out slow then picks up in December, so I need fewer scenes from the first three months and more from the last three. Especially from mid January on. In other words, the half-way point in the book will be around New Year’s day.
Is There a Problem with This Outline?
You betcha! What this outline shows are external events. There are two types of conflict: external and internal. You can think of this outline as showing potential points of external conflict. Internal conflict rarely exists in a vacuum, it’s typically triggered by an external event.
An interesting story will often balance internal and external conflict. That is, the reader can identify more with a character when they can see that character’s frustrations and motivations (the internal) as well as the external, such as an asteroid hurtling toward earth. A story with only internal or only external conflict makes it harder for the reader to identify with a character.
The problem I have with my outline is that too many good things happen and not enough bad things. In other words, A Life for Rent will be dull as dirt if I follow this plan. Paris might feel plenty of internal conflict, but that’s not enough. Looking over my character synopses I see a lot of allies and not many enemies. Some people start out opposing Paris, but turn into allies. A novel isn’t real life, which is good because for most people real life is boring. Personally, I like boring and predictable in my life, but I don’t want to read about someone else’s boring and predictable life. As a reader I want excitement and plot twists. Also, if you look at the time line disasters, such as Bridgett showing up and Sofia asking for a temporary halt to Paris’ funding approval, they seem to be low-key.
Let’s Fix It! Techniques
Enemies. I need some enemies! First, there’s not a lot happening in Paris’ business life until Sofia pops up. Paris needs a business enemy, such as a rival consulting firm. Do they need to be evil or do illegal things? No. Business rivals who steal your best clients can be plenty devastating. Also, when Sofia does send that memo out, Paris is not sure why she’s getting involved. Could it be his arch rival knows Sofia and has something to do with it?
Second, Paris and Penny need some enemies in their personal lives. Penny has one named Lupe and Lupe has a buddy (yet unnamed) who gets involved in the badness. The problem is that I had only a vague idea about how to use Lupe until the final confrontation he has with Penny and Paris. Nor did I have a good idea when to put Lupe in the story.
| Step 3: brief character synopses wrote: | ________: He is the CEO of a small business consulting firm and the chief rival of Paris. The guy works hard to find a steady stream of clients to keep his people busy and the money flowing, but a year earlier Paris stole an important client from him and now he sees a way to win that client back.
Lupe: He is Penny’s ex-boyfriend. He can be very charming when he wants, and he fooled Penny into thinking he was an okay kinda guy. Then she figured out he was bad news. Lupe’s problem is that he’s basically a nine-year-old in a man’s body—if he doesn’t get his way things get ugly, and he has the patience and ambition of a nine-year-old. Penny dumped him when she discovered his “job” was selling drugs on the street. She had to get a restraining order against him, but he’ll ignore it when he feels like hassling her. She calls him “Lumpy.” |
Nature or other uncontrollable forces can create disasters. People can be disasters, but so can events. Currently, the second appointment Paris has with Sofia is postponed because an earthquake caused some boulders to roll down onto the highway and damage the road. I could use this technique again.
Another principle of cranking up the conflict is to combine disasters. For example, if a car crash is bad, a fiery car crash is worse. Sometimes luck seems to come in clumps. You can combine disasters by moving them around on the time line so they reinforce each other. Another technique is to put your characters through a roller coaster: good, bad, great, terrible, all within a short period of time. Wear them down first and a little problem can seem huge.
Currently, a low-key disaster is that Paris is in his room at the Bramlett’s when his sister Bridgett rings the doorbell. She doesn’t start causing problems until after she meets Penny and until after she learns that Lacie is responsible for pushing her brother into his new business venture. I could turn this low-key disaster into a major disaster with the right treatment. A little creative rearrangement of events can bring one of these conflicts, for example the Bridgett/Penny confrontation, into very sharp focus. I just need to ask myself, “From Penny’s point of view, what’s the worst possible moment Bridgett could drop into her brother’s life?”
Finally, a devastating disaster is to kill someone important to achieving the goal of the main character. We can’t really kill the main character. What we can do is find the single most important ally, the one who the main character is counting on, and kill that person. Lucas did it when Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan and Tolkien did it when the balrog killed Gandalf.... Okay, Tolkien brought Gandalf back from the dead and Lucas had Obi-Wan guide Luke from the beyond—but at the time of their deaths, it was a major blow to the surviving characters.
More Technique: What are the Stakes?
A key component of conflict is: what are the stakes? It’s not so much what happens, but what is to be gained or lost. I’ll illustrate this through example. The disaster: some vandal keys your car, a long ugly scratch down the driver’s side, from headlight to taillight. The degree of disaster depends on the stakes. Let’s say the car is 12 years old with a few dings and oxidized paint. Such low stakes produce an annoyance but it’s hardly enough to ruin your character’s day. What if it’s a brand new car and your character hasn’t even made the first payment yet? We’ve raised the stakes, but the insurance will take care of it. Let’s raise the stakes higher. The car is now a 1955 T-Bird, restored to original condition, professionally maintained, and the vandal bypassed the security system and broke into a locked garage to get to the car. We suddenly have some questions about this vandal: who would do such a thing? It also seems to be personal. Might the vandal escalate his attack to include family members next time? Can we make things worse by raising the stakes still further? Sure we can. It’s not your 1955 T-Bird. It belongs to your boss and he’s not 100% sure you’re a competent employee. You had hoped to prove him wrong when he asked you to take his prize-winning car to the rare and antique car show that weekend. That’s bad, but we can make it even worse? You bet! Your boss is a mobster.
Another key component of conflict is: how big are the stakes? This sets the size of the story. For example if the story is: boy meets girl, they fall in love and want to marry, but something keeps them apart—then the size of the conflict is small. It affects only the boy and girl and their immediate families. If the story is: boy meets girl, he’s a scientist and she’s a reporter, but they’ve no time for love because there is a giant asteroid hurtling toward earth—then the size of the story is planet-wide. Throw in some conspiracy going back centuries, secret codes, and time-travel and your story becomes gigantic—spanning the globe, the world’s political systems, and time. It’s easier for the author to get readers to care about a big story than it is for a small story. That’s not to say small stories are bad or shouldn’t be written. Romeo and Juliet is a small story and it’s considered a classic. In a small story, rather than focus on some gigantic event, the author needs to focus on the characters. When the readers strongly identify with the characters, then the characters’ stakes becomes the reader’s stakes. And overcoming the odds to marry this girl or that boy is elevated in the mind of the reader to all consuming importance—but only if your characters feel that way too. In Romeo and Juliet, the stakes were such that when they thought they could not be together, the young lovers killed themselves.
More Technique: What isn’t a Story?
A “news story” is not a story, at least not in the sense of telling a story for entertainment. First, a big news story, such as hurricane Katrina, starts off with a bang, then it just sorts of drags out, getting smaller and smaller as the weeks go by. Most people who aren’t directly involved get tired of seeing updates. They want to see something fresh. Plus, most news stories have no real resolution.
Back in Story Telling Basics I mentioned the three act structure and something worth repeating: Tension should be established early in the first act, rise in the middle act, then peak in the final act where the story comes to a conclusion. A news story does the opposite, starting out with high tension then sort of dribbling off to a non-conclusion. It’s critical to start off with a bang to grab a new reader’s interest, but we must then raise the tension and keep raising it until we come to a satisfactory conclusion. Again, consider Star Wars. It starts with a space battle and the capture of princess Leia by Darth Vader. That’s pretty exciting stuff, but it manages to get a lot more exciting before the movie comes to its conclusion.
Let’s Fix It! Three-Act, Three-Disaster Structure
After a bit of brainstorming, I now have an outline with three acts and not three, but four major disasters. Disaster #1 will be at the transition between act 1 and 2; disasters #2 and #3, about evenly spaced, will prop up the middle of act 2; and disaster #4 will be the transition between act 2 and 3. Each disaster will be progressively worse, although they will be of different types. Being co-protagonist, Penny is impacted by these disasters too.
The first major disaster will be a combination punch, Paris then Penny get hit on the same day. Paris is busy with the business plan and working with the venture capital firm, so he cuts back on the hours he consults. His old business rival takes advantage and steals an important client from Paris (1), a client who represents about 25% of his income. On the same day, Penny’s ex-boyfriend, Lupe, is released from jail. He shows up at the restaurant where she works and hassles her in front of the customers (2). Someone calls the police, but before they get there Penny uses her martial arts skills and puts Lupe down. She is fired by her boss.
Lupe keeps his harassment of Penny low-key until after Thanksgiving (G) when he notices she is dating a fox-human hybrid. He steps up the harassment and includes Paris. True to his cowardly nature he uses gorilla techniques such as egging Paris’ car and later keying it.
The second major disaster is a roller coaster: deadly then relief, oops then okay, fantastic then how dare she! All within 12 hours (3, M2, and H). That morning Paris and Penny are at the beach boardwalk and run into Lupe and his business partner. (3), where they witness a drug deal. Chase ensues and P & P are cornered. When Lupe pulls a gun Penny manages to grab his wrist and throw him, breaking his wrist. Lupe’s business partner pulls his gun and points it at Penny, but Paris gets a hold of him and in the struggle Paris bites his forearm, not letting go until the guy drops the gun, even when Paris’ teeth grind into bone. The noise attracts witnesses and when the police get there things go relatively smoothly (deadly then relief). There’s a hassle when an animal control officer shows up at the police station with a cat-carrier to pick up the fox for rabies testing, but they come to an understanding and all is well (oops then okay). Sweet victory! Fortunately, it’s Leo and Lacie’s fifth anniversary (second marriage for Leo) and they’ve gone to San Diego for the weekend, leaving Paris to watch the house. He takes Penny home and they order Chinese, light a fire in the fireplace, and open a bottle of wine. Things get relaxed and although it’s a couple of months until Paris’ hormone peak, Penny decides to make her move. To further relax him she suggests something her roommate told her about: a Thai massage (M2). The relief of a problem solved and the special attention from Penny leaves Paris feeling the time is right. It’s at this moment that Paris’ twin sister Bridgett comes to the door (fantastic then how dare she! at H). This roller coaster brings the final event—the major disaster of Bridgett showing up—into sharp focus.
Having Bridgett in town puts a lot of pressure on Penny and she is unable to find the time to try to seduce Paris (M) until after his sister leaves (L).
Major trouble spot number three: kill the ally. Alex Beadle is the senior partner in charge of the LA office of the venture capital firm who will take the lead role in funding Paris’ project. He likes Paris and wants to see him succeed so he becomes Paris’ champion and mentor. Paris still needs to invest a lot of his own time and money in starting his new business, but once he demonstrates to the VC firm that his idea is viable, they will pour millions into expanding the business. Sofia Archyta is the senior partner in charge of the Monterey office of the same VC firm. She happens to see a preliminary copy of Paris’ business plan and realizes he’s a single fox. She becomes concerned that he’ll quit as soon as his instinctive wanderlust forces him to move on, so she sends out a memo suggesting his project be put on hold until she can investigate—that is, interview Paris. This is the precise thing that Paris fears—that his wanderlust will force him to move on. It’s the reason he fought with Lacie against starting the business (back at C). Paris, Lynne, and Alex don’t know why Sofia put a halt to the project or even that she’s not human so Alex calls Sofia’s office, but she’s not in (Richard takes the call). Sofia returns Alex’s call that same day (after Paris has gone) and Alex goes home, pondering what she’s told him. At home that evening, he has a heart attack and dies later in the hospital (4). This is a big disaster for Paris. A new manager is brought in within a few days, but the new guy doesn’t give Paris any special treatment, so Paris and Lynne are on their own to finish up the business plan and deal with Sofia.
Trouble spot number three-point-one: the combination punch. Paris has been burning through his money pretty quickly to fund the first stages of his business project, but he still has a nice cushion. Then something happens: perhaps an industry-wide crash of credit unions. Suddenly a chunk of his assets are locked up until the government regulators can figure out what to do (5). Perhaps he’s been spending other classes of investments and holding back on his credit union accounts because he was using the lower yield sources first. Anyway, his cushion is all but gone. This is another setback for Paris, and because of the proximity to the death of Alex, it could be considered part of the same disaster. His human support has been removed and now his financial support.
With the halt imposed by Sofia, he’s anxious to meet her and get that part of his troubles behind him. But her office handles the investors, and with the sudden uncertainty in part of the investment market she’s fielding a lot of calls and is meeting a lot of investors. A possible windfall for the VC firm means it’s business first. She pushes their meeting back a week (N1). Then an earthquake along the coast closes transportation for a few days and keeps Paris from meeting Sofia a second time (N2).
Major trouble spot number four: ***** ***** ***** *** ** ****. Let’s just say that this leaves Paris in fetal position for a day or two (6) and causes him to miss his third appointment with Sofia (N3). Personal problems can be devastating, but this one shakes the crucible and could expose Paris as a fraud.
Paris is a fighter and with the help of his friends he battles his way through act three and to the conclusion of the story.
A Life for Rent, Upper Levels of the Outline—Revisited
Step 1 of the snowflake is still good, but step 2 needs a complete rewrite. I’ve taken my relationship-based one-paragraph synopsis and rewrote it to be disaster-based:
| Step 2: one-paragraph synopsis wrote: | | When genetically engineered fox, Paris Fabre, runs into an old college buddy he hadn’t seen in over 20 years, he realizes that his nomadic life-style has kept him from accomplishing any of his dreams. The college buddy’s wife introduces him to a venture capitol firm, which gets him started on his business dream, and he begins dating Penny, a human woman half his age—but a few weeks later a business rival steals an important client from him the same day Penny’s ex-boyfriend Lupe is released from jail, which costs her, her job. Paris gets his business plans back on track, Penny gets a new job, and he makes points with Penny’s mother—but when they run into Lupe at the beach boardwalk they have a series of ups and downs that culminates with Paris’ sister Bridgett showing up unannounced. Penny and Bridgett come to an understanding and later Bridgett convinces Paris it’s time he formalize his relationship with Penny, which he does—but Sofia, a senior partner at a distant office of the VC firm and fellow vulpes-hominis, opposes Pairs’ project; his mentor in the VC firm has a heart attack; and there is trouble in the financial markets that locks up some of Paris’ assets. As he struggles with his business life, Paris’ personal life seems to be looking up as Bridgett returns to Houston and Penny gets frisky—but **** ***** ***** ** ********** **** *** ******. With ***** **** Paris is devastated, and with the help of his friends he pulls himself together long enough to make the meeting with Sofia—but **** **** ****, *** ***** ***** * *****. |
The synopsis is now chronological, rather than jumping around. The first sentence sets up the story and reveals what the story is about. The next four sentences give the setup to each disaster and the disaster. And the final sentence tells about the resolution of the story.
It’s much easier to expand this one-paragraph synopsis into a one-page synopsis than in its previous relationship-based form.
Let’s Fix It! A Bit More Detail
More detail means more characters.
| Step 3: brief character synopses wrote: | | Jess and Darcee James: They live in the same neighborhood as the Bartletts (where Paris is renting a room). They host a home bible study, which Paris gets involved in and later he takes Penny. Other people at the bible study are: a Cajun couple and their son, the wife is pregnant and delivers in late January; a “church lady” in the classic tradition of SNL; and others. |
This creates a bit more richness in the time line.
Paris meets Jess when Paris is out jogging one morning and Jess accuses him of breaking into his rabbit hutches and stealing some rabbits (X). The evidence points to a wild fox and Darcee invites Paris to a bible study. He accepts.
Paris has this theory: when facing a problem and you have opposition, make an ally of your most vocal opponent—an enemy won is the best ally. Naturally “church lady” is uncomfortable with Paris and that he is dating Penny, and she can be very vocal. Paris asks her questions (after the meetings) such as, “Do I have a soul? Does God love me? Am I a person, or a beast of the field?” He forces her to think, and in thinking she becomes more accepting. Eventually she becomes his ally.
At Christmas (I and J) Bridgett chastises her brother in private for being indecisive about Penny—if she were a vixen and not a woman he would have asked her to marry him already. Then at a Bible study New Year’s Eve (Y) the subject is the nature of love. Paris realizes the differences between he and Penny are nothing compared to the love they have, so in front of “church lady” and everyone he declares his love and formally asks Penny to marry him. She says, “Yes!”
At his lowest point it’s Jess and Darcee and the other members of the group who help pull Paris out of his funk and get his life back on track (Z).
Let’s Fix It! I Have More to Do
I’m not done yet. The personal side of Paris’ life is in pretty good shape, but I need to flesh out the business side. I don’t even have a name for his business rival yet. I have some vague ideas for details of his consulting practice, which I need to develop. I also need to do research about venture capital, angel investors, and other forms of funding startups. I have a friend who went partway through the process with a company that was a sort of hybrid between the traditional VC firm and an angel investor—they assigned an assistant to him (part time) to help him with things like marketing and legal research. He was forced to quit when they expected him to fund almost everything himself, up to the point of completing a business plan. I need to buttonhole my friend and find out more what his experience was like, as well as doing other research.
Basically, I just keep filling in the time line: Paris and Penny’s first date and a few other, selected, dates. A character named Papain, who Paris recognizes could be either an enemy or an ally, but who needs only two scenes. Papain is necessary because through example, Paris needs to teach Penny that, “An enemy won is the best ally,” so when Bridgett shows up Penny invites her to live with her and her roommate, and ends up making an ally of Bridgett. To help establish what kind of person Sofia is, I need a scene where she is does something like invite her assistant Richard to go wild pig hunting with her and a couple of investors.
The thing I’ve not been good at in the past, and something I need to constantly keep in mind, is to plan for and select scenes that directly contribute to the story. For example I don’t need scenes of Paris driving around in his car unless something happens in the car, such as being trapped on Highway 1 by that earthquake. Also, I’ve got plenty to write about, so I don’t actually need a scene of Paris and Penny’s first date. It will be enough to show them setting up the date—then later when Paris gets home he talks with Leo and Lacie and enthuses about what an unusual (in a good way) girl Penny is. Like cut-editing in a movie, jumping directly from scene to scene.
Conclusions
Just going through this exercise, and documenting it, has been tremendously helpful to me in whipping my story into shape. I hope that at least some of my fellow writers will also find these techniques useful. But not everyone is the same; we each have our own mixture of strengths and weaknesses. Some will be very good at the large-scale issues of story creation, such as I’ve outlined here—while being poor at finding the right words, working with point of view, or grammar. Others, such as myself, struggle to put together a plot or select the scenes that will illustrate the story we have in mind.
Feel free to comment on the technique, or the examples given. Also, feel free to add your own examples.
Happy writing.
Scotty
_________________
| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
Last edited by ScottyDM on Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:42 am; edited 2 times in total |
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vladspellbinder
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Joined: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 58
Location: In the gutter..ohh my location not my minds...
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| Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:58 am Post subject: |
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I've (or should that be "I have"? ^_- *wink*) taken a few writing courses, form ones offered in schools to conventions, and I also have subscriptions to both The Writer and Writers Digest so I've heard all of this information at different times from different sources in different ways. But never before has it stuck like it does this time. Never before was it all in one place at one time written in such a way that makes it work for me.
I've never been good at the long term plans for my stories, preferring to go here or there, or when I did have a plane it was for Chapter 4 while I had just finished Chapter 1 and had no idea what to do for 2 and 3. Much the same for my on-line RPs, yet I would plane things out in details, having different plans for what my partner(s) might do, yet run into the same problem of not knowing how to reach that point because of a space of time that couldn't be "jumped over" yet had nothing of meaning to "fill them" with.
Having read this I feel the drive to go back and work on a story I have not touched in quite a while (maybe a year, if not more) but have wanted to go back and polish. The whole story could be better, and the formatting its in (on my web-site) is an atrocity to all that is good and wholesome on the web (it being my first story up, I had next to no idea how to do a web page and didn't know things such as the {br /} tag or text sizing, just the basics from Web Monkey. Luckily a call in HTML has fixed that and I'm learning more on WebPages everyday).
I'm not going to change my style, but maybe with this I can work on the way I write some and actually manage to finish a story (something I haven't done yet because I keep getting different story ideas and charge off to work on a new one instead of stay with an old one). Even if no one else gets anything form this I know its helped me.
Thanks.
_________________
Crazy Black Panther, obscur and strange as always
Don't mind the horns, they are only there to hold up the halo
Fiendly bloodsucker signing off for now 0>:)
P: retteb elttil a emit ruoy dneps |
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:19 am Post subject: |
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Hi Vlad:
Your Website
What I see is good, clean, structural XHTML that you can use as the basis to do anything. The really good news is you don't have mountains of junk tags to rip out once you learn how to make standards compliant websites that are pretty too.
I have three suggestions for you. Two you can do right away.- You should have a doctype definition on the first line of code, before the <html> tag. Since you're not using frames you can use either transitional: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> or strict: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> A doctype definition will throw IE out of "quirks" mode and into compliance mode, plus it will help all web browsers know what to expect. See section 3.1.1 of the W3C's XHTML 1.0 specification.
- Think up some better page titles. What you put between the <title> tag pair is critical. The most important aspect is that it is what is displayed on someone's favorites list when they bookmark your page. "My Web Site", while true enough, is not very descriptive when someone has hundreds of favorites to scan while looking for your site. May I suggest something like, "Vladspellbinder's Bookshelf and More" for your home page and "Vladspellbinder's ____" (customized to each page) for your other pages. The second most important use of the <title> information is that search engines weigh the title text very heavily when figuring out keywords for your page. The <meta name="keyword" content="_____" /> is a real snoozefest by comparison. Your <h1> tag text is almost as important as your <title> tag text.
- As the next step in web page coding excellence, I suggest you learn CSS. Of course you'll need to add a meta tag to call the CSS file, but the rest of your page coding is so clean it will work with no modification until you get to the point you want to start getting visually creative. Then maybe add a few <div> tag pairs here and there with different class="___" attributes set. As a CSS beginner, try playing with fonts first. You can actually lock all the browsers into the same fonts, font sizes, etc. Something the bad old <font> tag could never do.
Here's a simple page I made last year that uses XHTML and CSS. Feel free to download the CSS file and use it however you like.
Your Stories
Why don't you take that unfinished story, create a plot outline for what you have now, and then create an improved plot outline and post them both here. Mangle the end so you don't give things away, but your copy of the outline needs to have "spoilers".
This forum doesn't see a lot of action, so if it takes you a couple of weeks to get back with that, it's cool.
More About Plotting
I didn't make this stuff up. It's a synthesis of Randy Ingermanson's audio CD course Fiction 101, Sol Stein's book Stein on Writing, and Donald Maass' book Writing the Breakout Novel. The CD I bought and the two books are from my local library.
In rereading Maass's book I'm seeing that there are several working plot structures, not just the three-act, three-disaster structure. I'm defining defining "workable" as having the potential of being wildly popular.
Anyway, it might be a useful project for me to reread those chapters on alternate plot structure, digest and distill what I find, then post it here. I think the book is due the 20th so I should do something by then.
More About the Plot for A Life for Rent
Because I want to get through act 1 quickly and not get bogged down in too many details, and I want to introduce Lupe the Loser in act 1, I think I should push back the disaster of that business rival stealing one of Paris' clients until a day or two after Lupe causes Penny to lose her job.
Act 1 is events A and B through to disaster 2. I may have a scene in act 1 where the rival and his people discover that Paris is distracted by his new project and one of his clients is frustrated by not getting all the hours they want out of him. If I'm any good with small-scale writing, the reader will think, "Uh oh!"
Tweaking.
Scotty
_________________
| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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vladspellbinder
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Joined: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 58
Location: In the gutter..ohh my location not my minds...
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| Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| ScottyDM wrote: | | <snip> Since you're not using frames you can use either transitional: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> or strict: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> A doctype definition will throw IE out of "quirks" mode and into compliance mode, plus it will help all web browsers know what to expect. <snip> |
Now these I have never heard about before. I’m going to have to look into it a little more…It’s been a long time since I looked at my web-page in IE, since I’m using Firefox at home and all…Plus I just got a new computer so I have to get all my files off the old one first.
| ScottyDM wrote: | | Think up some better page titles. <snipdy> |
I have already thought of that, since I am constantly renaming my bookmarks after I make them (at least, on some sites I do) so when I (finally) get around to doing a Massive Site Overhaul (MSO) I’m going to be changing around the stuff in my <title> tags. (Also see below for something a little more)
| ScottyDM wrote: | | As the next step in web page coding excellence, I suggest you learn CSS. <snipaday> |
I actually already know how to use CSS pages and have done so quite often. In the class I took that has the majority of my Web-Site (I think all but Slave Girl From the Wild) looking all nice and spiffy I was taught and used Style Sheets (aka CSS), I just never got around to (have I mentioned I’m lazy?) adding them onto my Site.
Also if you know who Vicky Rubber Vixen is she actually sent me a large bundle of files to help with my web page. It has Style Sheets and images and all that. At the time I was being stubborn and wanted to do it myself so I didn’t take her offer, but when I decided I was going to what she gave me I never did the MSO that would be needed to do so (like I said, I’m lazy).
| ScottyDM wrote: | | Why don't you take that unfinished story, create a plot outline for what you have now, and then create an improved plot outline and post them both here. Mangle the end so you don't give things away, but your copy of the outline needs to have "spoilers". |
Right now I’m in the last few weeks of a semester and have a ton of work to do there, then next semester I have another busy schedule but after that I should be done with school for a little while (but will then need a job -_-) so in the near future I don’t think I’ll have much free time for working on my site or stories. But as always I’ll find sometime to peck away at it. And if I sit down and actually force myself to do it I can probably write out an outline, normally I keep the majority of it all in my head and only write out a few of the points that I would forget about.
Thanks for the advice, but before I can improve on the site I need to improve on myself (over coming my laziness).
_________________
Crazy Black Panther, obscur and strange as always
Don't mind the horns, they are only there to hold up the halo
Fiendly bloodsucker signing off for now 0>:)
P: retteb elttil a emit ruoy dneps |
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Fikrann
Registered User
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
Posts: 65
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 12:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Thank you, Scotty, for pointing out the Snowflake method. It's ingenious! It immediately helped me to sort through my ideas for a longer story that constantly percolates at the back of my mind. |
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ScottyDM
Registered User
Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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Fantastic, Fikrann;
When you get your outline to a point where you can share it, please do so. Of course kill the spoilers since this is an open posting.
I've been very busy with other projects and haven't had a lot of chance to work on Instinct and Intellect / A Life for Rent much in the past couple of months. I do want to get back to it soon.
One thing I've been working on is getting the Anthrofiction Network's writing contest going. Because of all the confusion surrounding the change in management, we only had four entries this season, but we did have a new writer join us, so that's exciting. Since you're a writer, check out the link and the stories. The new writing season starts June 21st. I need to produce a sample story for next season.
Sometimes it's nice to take a break from a longer project and kick out a short story.
Scotty
_________________
| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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Nadan
Registered User
Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 163
Location: Southern California, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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I have to say that I also appreciate the link. Having read through it, I believe some of the techniques will be helpful for me also. I have started going through the steps (spending plenty of time on each character). As I go, I am noticing plot holes I didn't know existed and places where I can make the disasters more, well, disasterous. Thank you.
_________________
Nadan
AKA AnthonyTiger
"Cats are mysterious beings... symbols of evil, gods of the Pharoahs. You never know if they love you or if they condescend to occupy your house. This mystery is what makes them the most attractive beast." - Paul Moore, 1978 |
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