Happy Valentine's Day! If
romance has an official holiday, it's this one. That's why February
is the perfect month to celebrate the accomplishments of our
chapter's published authors. We've got a diverse group of very
talented and highly respected authors here at SFA-RWA, like Barbara
Freethy, Alice Brilmayer/Chambers/Gaines, Diana Dempsey,
Susan Grant, Candice Hern, Carolyn Jewel, Kate Moore, Brenda
Novak… just to name
a few! Last year's event was tremendous fun for all involved. I
hope to see you at the party this year.
I've been studying the craft of writing for several
years now, and after seeing the comments from our chapter questionnaire
(if you weren't able to attend the January meeting, a questionnaire
will be sent to you or you can pick one up at the February meeting),
I've noticed that we have a few common concerns we'd like to work
on. The one most frequently mentioned: plot. It's
a noun, it's a verb… it's at best a mystery for most of us, and
at worst a sticky mess.
I love books on writing, so here are a few that
have helped me sort out the finer points of plot structure and
development.
Story by
Robert McKee. This book is huge, and a little
bit daunting. As they say in the movie Beetlejuice,
it “reads like stereo instructions.” But it's very worthwhile,
and he uses examples from movies to show how to develop a story
based on the basic building blocks of “beats,” scenes, and
classic three-act structure. The one most valuable piece
of advice I gleaned from this book is: each scene must
increase in intensity of conflict. That means every scene. If you've got a “sagging middle” in your
story, look to see what the conflict is. Is it a repetition
of a previous scene? For example, if your conflict is
“hero is afraid heroine will leave him,” is that the same thing
he was worried about a chapter ago? He has to take an
action, and it has to make things worse. How can you up the ante?
Scene & Structure by
Jack Bickham. Another dense book, but once
you get it down, it's extremely valuable if you want to work
on your plotting. In a nutshell, there are two kinds of scenes:
one where something happens, and one where characters internalize
what just happened, make a decision, and take a new action
as a result. When you're creating your scenes, think about
this: whose scene is it, what is his/her goal for the scene
(should tie in with overarching goal character has in story),
what is the conflict, and (here's the payoff)… what's the disaster at
the end of the scene? If your character wants something and
then gets it, you've just lost conflict. It should either
end with the character getting what he wants but with
a catch that worsens his situation; a flat-out “no;” or a “no,
and furthermore,” which not only denies the character his goal,
but makes things even more dire.
The Weekend Novelist by
Robert J. Ray. This is a fun book. It breaks
down a book section by section over 52 weeks. It also has great
character-sketch information for you to fill out, and yet again
a description of three-act structure. It's easier to
process than the first two. The most valuable thing I got from
it was figuring out how to incorporate character into plot.
There are many more, but these are a great start. Happy
writing!
First published in the SFA-RWA
newsletter, February 2003. For more information on SFA-RWA, click here.
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