Crafting Your Best Story - Writing Tip #10 - Think In 45 Degree Angles

In the last post, Tackling the First Draft, we talked about how putting words on the page is like making clay—creating malleable material that you can later sculpt through revisions. It’s not important in this stage to be good, but you’ll find that the more experience you have writing first drafts, the better quality your clay becomes.

We also talked about picturing the sculpture underneath the clay. Though details and outlines up front are sometimes helpful, it’s not always the case. Story and character arcs are often revealed as you write and it’s your job to pay attention.

Another thing to pay attention to as you’re crafting your first draft is making sure you are creating tension and raising the stakes. You know how I mentioned in the last chapter that you are always asking yourself, what happens next? You don’t want to fall into the trap of this happened and then this happened and this happened.  You can’t just give us a day by day accounting of your characters life. Each event has to happen for a reason.

You also don't want to take us step by step from scene to scene, unless it's necessary to the story. If one scene ends with your main character fighting with her best friend at school, and the next scene has her at home in her room creeping her friend's facebook page you don't have to take us on the bus ride, talk to her little brother, have a snack and go to the bathroom first. Just write a transition sentence, ie: Later in my room...Afterschool, I booted up my old laptop...etc.

You’ll remember the three act structure from tip#2, The Bones It Hangs On. Here is a version of it on a 45 degree angle. 

Each scene, each plot point all way to the climax must raise the stakes for your character.

Picture your character building a snow ball while rolling it up hill. The bigger it gets, the higher the angle the more difficult life becomes for your character until ultimately, he or she gets to toss the thing off the cliff—also known as the climax.

Conflict builds tension, whether it’s inner conflict or external.

The expected thing is not the thing that should happen. To quote literary agent Donald Maass, “Tension on every page.”

Back to our example story of TWILIGHT; you’re hard pressed to find a scene that isn’t wracked with tension. Even just sitting next to a guy in a biology class has tension popping off the page. Bella is in constant threat just hanging out with Edward and his family, and the whole town is threatened (even if they don’t know it) by the arrival of the new clan of vampires. And then these two clans get into it--it’s non stop, climbing tension.

Everything happens for a reason. Each scene is necessary to propel the story forward. Life must get increasingly difficult for your protagonist.

You will probably write scenes in your first draft that don’t raise the stakes and have to be cut later on and that’s all right for now as you write your first draft. Just keep in mind that while you’re writing it, you want to go up hill.

Crafting Your Best Story - Tip #7 - Plot Point Two, The Climax, and The Beat Sheet

To wrap up the writing tips section on structure we will cover plot point two, the climax and most importantly the beat sheet.

Plot point two is very similar to plot point one. It’s a conflicting event in the story that launches the third act. At this point things are not looking very good for our protagonist at all.

In TWILIGHT the second plot point is the phone call with James in Phoenix. She's in a pickle. Lose Edward or lose her mother. When Bella decides to ditch Edward, Alice and Jasper at the airport, it thrusts the story into the third act.

In the first HARRY POTTER, the second plot point encompasses two events. Ron leads the three friends through the chest game, and then Hermione solves the riddle that gives Harry access to the chamber below. Once in the chamber we’re in act three.

In HUNGER GAMES, plot point 2 is Rue's death. Katniss experiences grief for the first time in the games and it's also the first time she kills someone. The reality and severity of her situation underscores her determination to live and to win.

The climax is the do or die scene. Everything comes to a head and it looks very dismal for our main character. We are left wondering if a happy ending is at all possible.

In TWILIGHT the climax is the fight at the dance studio. James attacks Bella and we wonder how she can ever escape his abuse and live. Then the rescuers arrive and there is an exciting fight scene. We still don’t know if the bad guy can be beaten. And then, when he is finally dead, we find that Bella has been bitten. Lots of tension here.

In HARRY POTTER, Harry has entered the chamber and finds Quirrel without his stutter and the head of Voldemort under his turban. Even in this form, Voldemort is a fearful foe and Harry has to use his wits and the stone to fight him off.

In HUNGER GAMES, Katniss and Peeta fight off the final competitor; they are the last 2 standing and the winners -- until rules changed back to only 1 victor. Now they have to make a hard choice. Instead they call the Capitol’s bluff.

One of the best craft books on structure I’ve come across is SAVE THE CAT by Blake Snyder. In it he provides a beat sheet, something they use for planning screenplays, but it’s useful for any type of fiction writing. The beats in the beat sheet will give you an idea of what you need to do to fill in your three acts.

THE BLAKE SNYDER BEAT SHEET

1. Opening Image

2.Theme stated

3.Set-up

4. Catalyst (aka Inciting Incident)

5.Debate (your character has to make an important decision)

6. Break into act two (aka Plot Point 1)

7. B story (sub-plots)

8. Fun and Games ( more stuff happens)

9. Midpoint (aka Midpoint Reversal)

10. Bad Guys Close In (doesn’t have to be actual bad guys- situation gets worse)

11. All is lost (protagonist is in a bad way)

12. Dark night of the soul (more anguish)

13. Break into act three (aka Plot Point 2)

14. Finale

15. Final Image (a reverse of the opening image) 

You have to read SAVE THE CAT to get the breakdown from Blake Snyder on all these points, but I think they are pretty self explanatory.  Keep in mind the sheet is just a guide.

Now that you have the main points plotted out for you story its time to fill it in. In the next post we'll begin with Tackling the First Draft.

Crafting Your Best Story - Writing Tip #2 - The Bones It Hangs On

Last week we talked about developing the Great Idea to the point where we have a file full of notes and an idea of the beginning, middle and end.

What's the next step? Building your structure.

Understanding structure early on in your writing process will really help you when it comes to getting other things right, like pacing and building tension.

Most of you will have heard of the three act structure commonly used for play and movie writing.  One thing I did after writing my first publishable novel was to re-write it as a screenplay. I highly recommend this as a writing practice tool.  Script writing deals primarily with action and dialogue and making the most with the least. You only have 120 pages to tell the whole story and the margins are very narrow.

At this point I look through my notes and pinpoint what my plot points are and where on the three act structure they should “hang”.   If I’m missing something vital, I see this right away before I get too heavily into it.  Especially critical is the midpoint, or what Janice Hardy coins the midpoint reversal. This is where something unexpected happens. It’s a twist that keeps the reader steadily hooked. Identifying your midpoint reversal early on will do wonders for preventing the chronic “saggy mid section”.

Since many of you are familiar with my time travel novel CLOCKWISE, I'm going to use it to illustrate.

 Act 1- Set Up: Story opens with the main character, Casey, watching a football practice with her friend Lucinda. We see that she's a teen girl with a crush and can imagine the high school setting.

Inciting Incident:  The story actually starts when Casey jumps up and catches Nate's football. If she didn't do this one thing, the story wouldn't have happened. The inciting incident happens early on in Clockwise, but it can happen a little later on, too.

Plot point I: Nate asks Casey to dance and the inevitable happens--they go back in time

Act 2 – Conflict: Casey has to convince Nate they really are back in time. Development of the subplots with Robert Willingsworth who creates a type of love triangle, and of Samuel the runaway slave

Midpoint reversal: We've spent a lot of time in the past and see how Casey and Nate's relationship is growing. She's scared but hopeful that maybe they have a future together (despite the existence of Evil Girlfriend). But when they go back to the present, everything they had forged in their new friendship collapses.

Plot Point 2:  I don't want to give this away in case some of you haven't read Clockwise, but like plot point 1, something unexpected happens to thrust us into the third act. (For those who have read it, it has something to do with Samuel.)

Act 3 - Climax and Resolution:  Again I don't want to spoil the climax, but this is where everything falls apart and then comes back together for a satisfying ending. (Again for Clockwise readers, this happens in a barn in the past and the twist happens in the present as part of the resolution on Mother's Day.)

I will delve deeper into what each of these points mean in future posts.

One exercise you can do is to go through your favorite stories and see if you can identify these seven points. If you want to learn more about developing structure, I highly recommend Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

Can you easily "hang" the plot points of your wip (work in process)?

I go a little deeper on teaching structure in this youtube video. You can see me in my very messy office and though you probably can't tell, I'm wearing my PJ's--every writer's official uniform!

Now that we've built the bones, the bones need some meat! We’ll tackle that next.

Structure Lesson Video by Elle Strauss - under 10 min

Here's a video I did a few years back. I don't have that messy office anymore and sadly, not the cat either, but the information is still worth reviewing!