I’ve been working on-and-off on this outline for over a year and a half now. I could go down the list of excuses and reasons why it took so long. – And it’s still not “finished” yet, but I can’t stand it anymore, so I’ve started on the “zero-draft.”

I’d like to share with you my outline for the novel, and some stories around it, how I’m using my process on this novel. I’m hoping this will give you some ideas or inspirations for the story you’re working on.

The Summary

The process I follow starts with a one-sentence summary of the story, as many writers do. My original sentence went like this:

A newlywed bride, at a romantic, seaside cottage on her first wedding anniversary, as the onset of economic depression threatens to tear her marriage apart, finds joy.

I didn’t really like that. Too vague. Too blasé. Too blech. But it was enough to keep me focused on what I wanted the story to be about.

However, I revamped the sentence when I started the zero-draft. Here’s how it stands now:

A devoted newlywed wife struggles with her marriage when a recession threatens her husband’s career, and finds an unexpected source of strength.

Better, eh? Partially because I’ve better defined the characters and focus of the story, partially because of changes in the way I formulate my one-sentence summaries since a year and a half ago. I didn’t mention the setting, although it’s a key part of the story, but instead alluded to the story’s message of hope. The main character now is “devoted [to her husband]“— Please don’t judge her; she doesn’t know what she’s doing (yet). And when a recession threatens her husband’s life and identity, it affects their marriage, throwing her own life into turmoil.

The Characters

I started with bulleted lists of notes on the characters. For Devon, the main character, I added more details in paragraph form. But her husband David, I didn’t feel I needed to flesh him out any more. Why not? Because he’s going through a deep depression, and depressed characters are incredibly one-dimensional and full of surprises (because of common myths people hold regarding depression). Don’t get me wrong; he has a past, and his past will come into play in the story, but I think I can make it up as I go along. I’ll probably end up going back to his character and fleshing it out more, as I draft his part of the story.

David Richardson

• Nickname: Skeeter (or “Skeet” for short). Wants to be called “David.”
• Associates his nickname with the factors that caused him lose his job. (He got laid off, but he still blames himself for not being “indispensable” to his employer.)
• Needs to feel secure, and he depends on the perception of a firm financial footing to meet that need.
• Needs to feel useful, and he depends on having a regular job to meet that need.
• 23 years old
• His previous employer handled the layoffs poorly, announcing them at a company meeting. Some of the employees started shouting back during the meeting. Memories of the hurtful shouts haunt him.
• He runs into an old girlfriend at the mall, begins talking to her.
• They have negative value in their home, and they have a mortgage and expenses.
• Everything reminds him of his situation, pulling him deeper into depression, because of the perspective he puts on everything he perceives.

Devon Richardson

• 21 years old
• thinks poorly of her own value
• afraid that her husband might leave her
• wants to talk to her husband about all that they are facing (but he doesn’t want to)
• avoids talking about her marriage with friends (Why?)
• has always been “good” (but at root—unknown to her—not for religious reason; rather, because she has been afraid of taking risks in her relationships), and feels God “owes” her
• has a spiritual awakening, which begins when she admits that she’s afraid of losing the things that money can buy — a divine revelation? through an experience that she attributes to God?
• begins to act out because of the stress
• abuses her checkbook, going antiquing etc., when she feels her husband isn’t connecting with her
• wants to tell her husband what’s on her mind, because she needs that connection
• Devon’s sister is critically injured in a car accident. She’s worried, but David doesn’t even want to hear about it.
• [Someone] looks at her, touches her arm, hugs her, in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable.

Devon seeks stability and trust in relationships, because it boosts her self-esteem. So she needs self-esteem, and she pursues it by seeking signals of esteem from others. She invests her self-esteem in the esteem of others, which she perceives in the stability of her relationships. This is why, for example, she fears that her husband may leave her, if things between them get bad enough.

She also enjoys collecting antiques and restoring her old house, because the oldness she associates with stability. Devon first developed an interest in antiques when her grandmother gave her an old knickknack, which reminded her of her grandmother.

She finds self-esteem in possessing old things, and when she perceives her relationships shaking, she goes antiquing. This is especially true when circumstances make her feel she’s losing control, because shopping gives her a way to assert control over those needs.

Devon’s father threatened to withhold his love from her, unless she was “good.” But in reality, it was his perception of her that was “good” or “bad,” and she perceived this as closeness between them. This set up a pattern, that she perceived love and self-worth when things were going well in her relationships, especially with the opposite sex. (This has not made her a wuss, because she learned to put on airs of confidence in order to gain her parents’ approval; but she does tend to adopt views that she thinks will increase the closeness she perceives.)

She frequently second-guesses (and cares about) others’ impressions of her. Devon also assumes that if someone doesn’t respond positively to her, that it’s her fault (even though most people respond to circumstances, not to those around them).

She works at a Build-a-Bear Workshop retail location.

Devon loves kids and is good with them. She treats them differently than her parents treated her and promises to raise her kids with different values (even though she and her husband have no immediate plans to start a family).

The Plot

When plotting, I start by defining a number of story threads, each of which thickens as the story progresses, each of which interacts with the others in various scenes.

Then I number out the scenes and describe them each briefly. This is a short novel, so I only have 40-50 scenes, each of which will average 1000-1250 words (4-5 manuscript pages) in the final rendition of the story. As you can see, I haven’t really thought through every scene yet, so I’ll need to go back to this summary and expand it as the shape of the plot becomes clearer. I’m also not too happy with some of these scenes, as they currently stand, so I’ll no doubt be modifying them as I write up the zero-draft (which contains 100-200 words per scene, or 4K-10K words—just enough detail to tell me whether I’m on the right track or not).

Story Threads

• (a) Devon wrestles with her need for self-esteem, finally finding it in a belief that God loves her unconditionally.
• • (1) Devon grew up learning to find her value in the things she possesses, including the people in her life (as possessions).
• (b) David wrestles with depression following the loss of his job.
• • (1) David has always tended to respond negatively when things don’t go well for him.
• (c) Devon and David wrestle with their marriage: Devon fears David will leave her, acts out by antiquing, which angers David, because she is wasting money they don’t have.
• (d) Devon and David wrestle with making ends meet financially.

Scene Summaries

Note: Present-time scenes are written in third-person omniscient (but only WRT David’s & Devon’s thoughts), while past-time scenes are written in first-person subjective from the perspective of a given character (David or Devon).

Each scene is identified by the story threads it affects. Scenes marked with ✮ are major plot points.

1. (a) (b) (d) David, laid off and suffering from depression, arrives at an Ardor Point cottage with his wife Devon, on their one-year wedding anniversary, a trip they had booked before he had lost his job.

2. (a) (c) David wants to lay on the couch and watch DVDs, but Devon badgers him into a romantic walk with her to the beach.

3. (b)(1) (POV David) A go-get-’em up-and-comer, he lost his job as the result of a bitter political split within the company.

4. (b) (c) Mistakenly leading him the wrong way (away from the beach), they come to the playground, kids playing, mothers gabbing, and Devon immediately joins in, while David stands by and stews at the inane conversation, itching to escape, finally walking off and leaving her there.

5. (a) Devon chats with the others about antique shops, hears that there are some great “bargains” available in such-and-such a store.

6. (a)(1) (POV Devon) [a memory about her grandmother & their antiques, contrast the connection Devon had with her grandmother against her relationships with others, including her husband]

7. (c) David begins to watch a movie and falls asleep on the couch. [The movie he chooses and his interpretation of it reflects his perceptions of their marriage.]

8. (b)(1) (POV David) David and Devon meet, and David flaunts his family background and education, and Devon swoons.

9. (b) David wakes up, alone with his thoughts. Can’t do anything right. Even the DVD fails to play correctly, and he can’t fix it, and can’t handle it, and takes it personally.

10. ✮ (a) (b) (c) Devon tries to seduce David, but in his depressed state, David is not interested, which Devon interprets as a message that he’s getting fed up with her and their relationship. She mentions the last time they had sex, weeks ago. (“What an awful thing to say!” moment, but it should be clear that David is acting out and blaming himself, and that Devon’s perception is colored by her own needs.)

11. (a) David and Devon spend a rainy afternoon at Mr. and Mrs. Potter’s. Mrs. Potter, like a mind-reader, begins to hit on issues that have been bothering Devon, which wigs her out. (Mr. & Mrs. Potter also mention in passing the church they attend while they’re staying at the point, St. Matthew’s, in town.)

12. (a)(1) (POV Devon) []

13. (b) David begins to open up to Mr. Potter about how he feels. Devon walks in and redirects the conversation, embarrassed that David is sharing their personal business with strangers.

14. (d) Devon suspects that she might be pregnant, when she starts experiencing headaches, nausea, and other symptoms. But she’s afraid to tell her husband about her pregnancy, because she’s afraid of his wildly shifting moods.

15. (b)(1) (POV David) [something about his old girlfriend]

16. (a) While in town at Walmart with Devon, David runs into an old girlfriend, who moved to the Brunswick area. (Devon also notices a pregnancy test while shopping there.) David’s ex is touchy-feely with him, and David seems happier chewing over old times with her than he does with Devon.

17. ✮ (b) (c) David’s thoughts advise him to leave Devon. “She’s not good for you.” List all the reasons why. (“She’s out of control. She’s always trying to manipulate you. She’s not interested in you, just in your money. She has emotional problems, over-controlling, over-demanding. You can never satisfy her. It would be better if you had never gotten married, better for her, better for both of you. It would be better if you were not there to make her life miserable.” He even blames himself for her now constant nausea.)

18. (c) (d) Devon makes some excuse, escapes to the store to buy a pregnancy test. Ends up passing an antique place, stops in and ends up buying an item.

19. (c) David just frowns, that angry scowl, when he discovers Devon’s antique purchase. She wants to talk to him about the pregnancy test, but she doesn’t, because of his mood. (David watches TV all the time.)

20. (a) (d) As Devon waits for the test, she considers the option of abortion, to ease the pressure on David, but she doesn’t feel very good about that possibility, because she likes kids and wants to have a family. The test comes out positive.

21. (a)(1) (POV Devon) []

22. (b) Devon receives a phone call telling her that her sister was critically injured in a car accident. David doesn’t even want to hear about it (because he’s already overloaded with his own worries, but that’s not how Devon takes his reaction).

23. (a) Devon comes out to her hubby, admitting her fear that he might leave her, telling him that she no longer cares, because she has “something better now.” [Talking about the baby.] David is annoyed that she would think he would leave her. Doesn’t she know she’s not the only person on the planet!?

24. (a)(1) (POV David) []

25. (c) David loses his temper when Devon calls him “Skeet” once too often. Pained, she relents, carefully.

26. (a) (c) Devon talks to her newfound friends at the point about her marriage. They theorize that David may be suffering a delayed reaction from a concussion. [source? college sports?]

27. ✮ (a) (b) (c) After Devon macho-flashes the idea to David, they decide to separate. (black moment) [breakfast scene]

28. (a) Devon stops at a coffee shop in a book store and encounters numerous young women with small children, talking about their kids, comparing names, ages, developmental milestones, schools & preschools, daily routines, &c. She blames herself for not being more patient with David; after all, it’s “not his fault.”

29. (b) David walks out to the dock, and he thinks about jumping in and swimming out into the abyss, like Esther Greenwood. Except that he’d actually succeed in not coming back. [Reasons why ending his life would be a solution to his perceived problems.]

30. (a) Devon stops alongside the road, trying to find St. Matthew’s on her GPS. Someone asks her for money. She forgets (then later remembers) that she had shoved some cash into her pocket. Then he asks if she has a phone he could borrow to call. In the grips of sudden fear, she lies and says, “No.”

31. (b) David visits Mr. Potter, who tells stories of similar situations in his life. [Family?]

32. (a) (b) David figures out that Devon is pregnant, and his mood brightens.

33. (a) Devon finds herself at St. Matthew’s, talking to Father Reilly.

34. (b) David’s depression lifts, as he awakens with a new hope and vigor, seeing all kinds of possibilities in his future.

35. ✮ (a) (b) (c) [turn the corner: David begins to woo Devon, who is still reeling from the fight and still pondering Father Reilly’s words]

36. [Devon’s sister]

37. []

38. [how are they going to afford a family?]

39. []

40. []

41. [finale]

Yeah, I know. Info-dumps suck.

But I’m actually looking forward to how this story is coming along.

For one of the story’s themes, I started with a quote attributed to Jim Laffoon: “If you have been reduced to God being your only hope, you are in a good place.” Hope stands as the important word in that sentence, for this story, because hope is what pushes us forward, even when all around our lives seem to be lost. And I wanted to push my characters to the point where their entire world seemed to be falling apart, each in her own way.

But I couldn’t figure out what that quote really means. How is that “a good place”? I’m still not certain of the answer. But I’m hoping I’ll discover it as I finish this story.

Keep writing!
-TimK

Photo © 2009 Thomas Heyman CC BY-NC 2.0
Click here for the original image.

Let’s say you’re writing a scene in your story, a scene that takes place in a beauty salon. Now, if you yourself have spent 20 years working in beauty salons, maybe you can write that scene off the top your head. But if you’re like most of us, you have only passing exposure to life in a beauty salon. And if you’re like me, you’ve never actually gone inside one.

The classic way out of this, of course, is to “write what you know.” So if you don’t know beauty salons, don’t write them…

Yeah, right. <sarcastic sneer and rolls eyes>

Don’t get me wrong: it’s nice when you can write in a field in which you have some expertise. But if you plan to write more than one or two stories, you’ll need to get into the details of many fields and situations, settings and cultures, in which you have little or no direct knowledge. To some extent, this is always true of a fiction author, because you’re writing events that never actually occurred, in places that may not exist, in cultures that you may have made up, using technology that may never be developed, in times that have not even happened yet. How, pray tell, in the nature of reality do they expect you to “write what you know”?!

The best that we can hope for is to get it as close to plausible as we can.

One way we can accomplish this is by researching areas we’re unfamiliar with, then describing and explaining them to our readers. The problem is that we tend to assume we “know” things we don’t.

For example, this may come in handy the next time you have to write a drowning scene: Neil Shurley posted on Facebook a fascinating article explaining that real-life drowning doesn’t look like movie drowning. Who would’a thunk it? Our widespread popular misperceptions of what a drowning person looks like and acts like— You could be swimming, and your kid could be drowning only a few feet from you, and you would never know it, much less how to save him. So how would your fictional scene play out? What would your average, everyday character see and perceive? But a lifeguard character would know what drowning looks like, because he’s been trained. And if you needed to describe the scene from the drowning character’s perspective, you’d need to understand the realities of drowning, what happens to the human body and mind.

Never assume you know how something looks, or acts, or what the rules are. Because our perceptions have usually been distorted by popular television and movies (and novels, too), for dramatic effect. If you’re a Mythbusters fan, you’ve seen them tear apart numerous movie myths, documenting the reality of each situation. Why these movie dramatics seem plausible in the context of the original fiction, that’s a topic for a different post. But if the unrealistic dramatics can be made to seem plausible, how much more so the reality?

The first time I wrote a scene that involved a gun, I was proud to have gotten the details right. Just a little research, on gun technology, types of guns, real-world best practices, things that anyone who has taken an introductory gun course would know. And integrating this knowledge into the scene did not compromise the integrity or drama of the scene; in fact, it enhanced it.

Even if you decide you want to stick with the dramatic myths, you should at least know what the truth is. Because this research can uncover related information that you can use to improve your story. When I was writing “The Widow’s Granddaughter,” my first idea for the hero character, Jeffrey, was to make him a repo man. But the only reason he’d be in a job like that was to be successful, and when was the last time you heard of a “successful” repo man? So I made him a bank executive instead. He hired the repo man. That worked for a while. I got several manuscript pages into the story, and then I needed to look up a detail about repossession. So I asked Google, read some stuff, and ran across a piece of advice written by the owner of a small dealership that self-finances many of its sales. That means the owner himself has to repossess some of the cars he finances. That’s it! I thought. That’s the perfect job for my character. It had an aspect of success, as well as a hands-on aspect that was perfect for my story. So I changed Jeffrey’s career once again. I’m still happy with the way the story ultimately turned out.

When it comes to research for my stories, Google is my friend. Whenever I realize that I need details on a setting, profession, activity, or situation, I pull up my web browser and start typing queries into my favorite search engine.

I’ve also found Holly Lisle’s “33 Mistakes” series of ebooks invaluable for broader subject areas. These ebooks aren’t actually written by Holly, but by authors, experts each in his subject area, whom she’s signed to share their knowledge. Each ebook in the series lists 33 common mistakes fiction authors make when it comes to disappearing in the U.S., blindness, camping, guns, hostels, ballet, construction, San Francisco, or whatever.

Now, don’t go research-crazy. You don’t have to become an expert in every field you write fiction in. We’ve all gotten into research mode, where we keep studying a topic, delving deeper and deeper into it, like there’s gonna be a test on it later. One reason we do this is that it feels good to discover new truths about realities we previously didn’t know about. And that’s cool, and I think every author should allocate time in his schedule to study non-fiction, and to study people.

(As I write this, I’m half-eavesdropping on a pair of obviously successful businesswomen—one of whom apparently owns several Starbucks franchises, if I understood correctly, and the other who is wearing an engagement ring the size of the Pink Panther. They’re hobnobbing loudly at the next table, chatting about their histories, experiences, business values, best management practices, organizing techniques, and so forth. They’re talking at 90 miles an hour, moving from topic to topic at lightning speed. Someday, I’m going to have to write a character based on them.)

So, reading non-fiction is fun. Watching documentaries is also fun. Watching people, way fun, if you can get away with it. But when you’re writing a story, you need to focus on getting the story written. That means, you research until you know enough to write or revise the part of the story you’re currently working on. Then you put the research back up on the shelf and…

Keep writing!
-TimK

As of May 1st, prices are going up on Holly Lisle’s online career-survival course for novelists.

Update: I’m just going through the first couple of walkthroughs Holly has so far added to How to Think Sideways. And all I can say is, “Wow!”

Two important announcements that Holly Lisle posted on her blog last week: one about a new book, and the other about how she’s going about getting it written.

As you may recall, the Little One and I both loved The Ruby Key, Holly Lisle’s first Moon & Sun book. Our paperback copy got so tattered, from reading and lending out, I snatched up a NOS hardcover I saw listed at Amazon. We also liked the second book, The Silver Door, a lot, though I didn’t post a review. Unfortunately, The Silver Door left off before Genna the heroine conquered the villain and saved the universe. To be continued?

But the story never was continued… until now.

Says Holly, “More than a month after I intended to start, (due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control™), today I’m beginning The Last Moon & Sun…which is not the title of the book, but I have to call it something until I have a real title.”

And as soon as I read these words, I told my Little One “Guess what?!” and she said “Yay!”

From what Holly says on her blog about this new title, it sounds like exactly what we’ve been waiting for.

And the way she’s funding it sounds like what I might do in her situation:

I have a huge risk going into this. I don’t have (or want) a contract. I want to be able to do this the way it needs to be done, and that means I don’t want an advance that has to be paid back hanging over my head if the publisher doesn’t like the story I come up with, or doesn’t like the length of the book and wants me to rip out half of it and remove one of the two main characters, for example (because, gee, THAT’s never happened to me before), or wants me to change the story in ways I don’t like.

She’s alluding to the story behind Hawkspar, whose ending made me cry, because it was one of the best endings I’ve ever read, and whose story earned the novel a place in my list of all-time favorite books. Hawkspar almost never made it to print, because of the way the book industry works.

So to help fund this book, she’s releasing a major upgrade to her How to Think Sideways online career-survival course for novelists, which I myself got into early and for which I am a proud affiliate… But I’ll get to that part of the story in a moment.

Says Holly about the upgrade:

I’m going to be adding mostly-weekly demonstrations on how I apply the techniques of How To Think Sideways to my own work to the course.

As happens with every book I write, I’ll make some discoveries on how to write better, more richly, more efficiently, more passionately, and more deeply while I’m doing this book. Anything I discover, I’ll pass on to you. Any tools I come up with, any worksheets I create for my own use, any techniques…you’ll get them as I figure them out.

I’ll make time to be on the boards to answer a few questions, to ask a few questions, and to set up some specific discussion topics.

And I’m adding one other thing. Each week that I post my own Walkthrough, I’ll also be offering a one-hour brainstorming session to one student. I’ll record that session and include it in the course so you can see not just how that week’s techniques work for me, and how they might work for you, but how another student can apply them to his or her work—getting that third perspective can be enormously helpful when you’re facing situations you hadn’t anticipated.

I was lucky enough to get into How to Think Sideways as a beta tester, 2½ years ago, and it gave me so much food for thought, I still don’t feel I’ve really made best use of it all. Instead, the course materials have become one of my go-to writing resources. As soon as Holly opened the course to the public, I posted a link on my sites. And when she set up an affiliate program for it, I immediately signed up, because I was certain that every novelist in the world would need this course.

The course was originally supposed to span four months, but the amount of material she included ended up stretching across seven. (I know the feeling. It’s exactly what I’ve been encountering with Character Fiction 101. I’m up to 114 pages of a planned 100-page ebook, and I’m not even half-way through yet.)

I haven’t even made regular use of the HTTS forums—which have apparently grown into a professional writers’ online community.

Then she added the How NOT To Write A Series (And Why You Don’t Want To) mini-course, as a graduation bonus. (Only “mini” compared to the size of HTTS.) (Which will be invaluable when I pick up Abe’s Turn again.)

Through all the additions, ever since Holly first released this course 2½ years ago, she has maintained the debut price.

But only for a few more weeks.

With this new, major upgrade, she’s raising the price. But through the end of April, you can still get into the class for $25/month for 12 months or $47/month for six months— That’s the original price for the upgraded course. When you join at that price, you’re grandfathered in at that price, and as long as you don’t quit, you stay at that price all the way through to the end of the course, and through all the upgrades.

May 1st, though, prices are going up.

Even if you wonder how much use you’ll make of it, at least check out How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers, because you can try it risk-free with Holly’s refund policy. (If it turns out not to be as useful for you as it has been for me, you can always cancel for a full or partial refund.)

And whatever you do…

Keep writing!
-TimK

Photo © 2008 Wermibug CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In a famous display of writer’s integrity, guts, and stupidity, Harlan Ellison joined a street gang to research his first novel.

Yikes. Talk about writing what you know. Would you be willing to die just so you could write about what’s it’s like to be dead?

Not even Deborah Coonts is quite that bold. But her guest post “Writing Can Kill You,” over at Seekerville, reminded me of that Ellison account. She tells some amusing anecdotes.

The moment I met [my character], I decided to kill her. But how?

Well, I’ve always liked sharks. And yes, you got it, once again, I knew very little about sharks, but, this time, I knew right where to go…

I approached the guard at the shark tank and casually asked, “If I threw a dead body in there, would the sharks eat it?”

… I could hear him asking himself, “Should I call security? Or 911? Security? 911?”

Definitely 911. Just keep her calm until the men in white coats arrive.

Me, I could never do research using that method. I take a different tack.

To answer my questions, I start by asking Google. People love to share their stories, online as well as in real life. I search out pages, blogs, forum posts, and so forth, personal anecdotes from the front lines of my topic area. That provides fodder for the raw ideas that eventually become specific story-lines.

When I was writing “The Widow’s Granddaughter,” the male lead originally worked as a banker. But my online research revealed that small, used-car shops sometimes handle financing directly, instead of referring customers to a third-party lender. And that clicked: I realized that this character would do much better as a used-car salesman than as a banker.

In online forums, I may also meet industry insiders that can answer specific questions or check a scene for accuracy. There’s one particular scene in From the Ashes of Courage, set at Boston University— And I’ve never even walked through Boston University, even though it’s just a jot down from where I live. I wrote that scene completely from online research, then via an online writers’ forum, I ran it by someone who had actually studied there. He confirmed that I had gotten the layout and facts correct, and suggested a couple of insider phrases.

Similarly, also with the Ashes of Courage book, at some sort of celebratory luncheon, someone told me that the sister of a friend, whom I had met through another friend, worked in the same field as Gail, my female lead. And she just happened to be there at the same luncheon. So I got myself introduced, asked if she could help me with accuracy in my novel. She lit up at the idea. So I contacted her online and asked her to look over a couple scenes, with Gail at work. I had already done loads of online research for those scenes. And she confirmed that I had gotten the facts basically right, and suggested a couple additional elements that I could add.

So, I could never just walk up to a security guard and ask about dumping a body into the shark tank. That takes balls I just don’t got. (And I’m a big enough man to admit it!) No, I would have started by searching for similar cases online: maybe someone’s actually tried it before. Then I would try to get in contact with a marine biologist or other marine expert who could tell me in more detail how real-life sharks would react in that situation.

What do you think? How do you research?

Keep writing!
-TimK

Photo © 2006 Vrede van Utrecht CC 2.0 BY NC ND

Some time ago, I ran across a post on the Society of Cartographer’s email list— What I was doing there, I don’t remember. I’m not a cartographer. I know little about cartography. However, this post enumerated five principles of map design. And it provided insight into other areas and activities, including writing stories. The post began:

We all know that there are good maps and bad maps. The problem is defining which is which. The reason for this is that whenever we discuss the principles of map design, we have to admit that we don’t know what they are.

The following principles were presented to the recent British Cartographic Society Design Group meeting at Glasgow University. They did not go unchallenged.

What does that have to do with being a novelist or short-story author? Replace “map” with “story,” and the same five principles still apply. And in writing circles, they too have and will continue to be challenged.

Based on these five principles of mapmaking, here is my version of…

The Five Principles of Storytelling

1. Concept before Compilation

Once you know what your story is about, you can focus its parts on that concept. Otherwise, the story will flounder, directionless, distracting the reader with an abundance of gimmicks but little substance.

Like a map, plan the whole story before writing its parts. Understand the concept and the story requirements, then add appropriate details to bring that concept to life.

Plan once, write, plan again.

Reader first, reader last. What does the reader want from this story? What can the reader get from this story? Is that what he wants?

If a story were a building, it shouldn’t fall over.

2. Hierarchy with Harmony

Important characters and other elements must dominate, and the most important should take center stage.

“They also serve who only stand and wait.” Lesser elements also have their place, but they should complement the important.

Tell stories from the whole to the part, and all the parts contributing to the whole.

Parallel elements are metaphors of each other, and all the story elements must work together. Harmony has to do with the whole story being happy with itself. Successful harmony leads to repose. Perfect harmony of elements leads to a neutral bloom. Harmony is subliminal.

3. Simplicity from Sacrifice

Great storytelling tends towards simplicity. It’s not what you put in that makes a great story, but what you take out. Your work is complete when you can edit nothing else out.

If you run a film of an explosion backwards, all the pieces rush to one point. This is the storyteller’s skill, to bring many possibilities together into one point, the right point.

Content may determine number of words, or number of words may determine content, but each determines the level of generalization and sacrifice.

4. Maximum Information at Minimum Cost

How much information can be gained from this story, at a skim?

Theme: how well the story is suited to its goals. Not plot: what the story actually does. Storytelling makes plot meaningful.

All stories are a compromise, just as a new born baby is a compromise between its father and mother. The spark which makes a story special often only comes when all revisions are complete.

5. Engage the Emotion to Engage the Understanding

Tell your stories with emotion to engage the reader’s emotions. Only by feeling what the reader feels can we read what the reader reads.

Good storytellers use metaphor, analogy, and symbolism to tell a story. All of these have emotive impact. Show; don’t tell.

Good storytelling is a result of the tension between the story elements and the writer.

Only when the reader engages the emotion, the desire, will they be receptive to the story’s message.

Storytelling uses aesthetics, but the principles of aesthetics are not those of storytelling. We are not just prettying stories up. The philosophy is simple: beauty focuses the attention, and focusing the attention is the purpose of storytelling.

Keep writing!
-TimK

I usually start a novel with at least a working title. Not this time. However, I am starting with a working cover design.

This is in preparation for my next novel-writing month, which is February—FebNoWriMo?—part of my New Year’s resolution to publish 4 original books during the next year. (UPDATE: Obviously, that didn’t happen. Instead, I picked up a software-development contract over the summer and most of the autumn. I’m still working on this project, however.)

You can see a cover template over at the right, for the novel, the next in the Ardor Point series (Ardor Point #2). This is based on the only stock image that I could find that I thought represented the feeling I wanted to communicate. (And you’ll never believe, if you search for “romance sea,” how many beach sunset photos you’ll get.) I found this particular image by looking for young couples on a pier. I may search at more, different sites in hopes of finding another candidate image. Then I can do some market-testing using different cover designs.

Most publishers (and even indie and self-publishing authors) put off the cover design until after the manuscript is finished, but by that time there’s not enough time to do any significant market testing of it. I’ve been trying to choose the title and design the cover earlier in the process, as you can see here. These should be done first (not last), because from a marketing perspective, these make the most difference in getting prospective readers’ attention.

Next, I need to come up with a few prospective titles. In order to generate prospective titles, however, I need to know at least what the story will be about. And for this, I need The Sentence (a technique I stole from Holly Lisle’s Think Sideways course).

The Sentence sums up important elements of a story idea in a compact form. For Ardor Point #2, I’ve constructed the following Sentence:

A newlywed bride, at a romantic, seaside cottage on her first wedding anniversary, as the onset of economic depression threatens to tear her marriage apart, finds joy.

I still need to reduce this even further into title form. I’ll hit my thesaurus and other word tools, and look for words related to the primary concepts in the novel: newlywed, anniversary, summer, depression, poverty, marriage, joy, etc. Then I’ll play with those words, alone and in combination, using title templates like:

• [The] [noun's] [adjective] noun
• [The] noun of/in/from/for/and [the] [adjective] noun
• verbing [the] [noun's] [adjective] noun

I haven’t actually gone through the exercise yet, but doing so should easily produce a number of possible book titles, which I will whittle down to my top 3, which I will then market-test. (At least that’s the plan.)

For the time being, I’ve begun writing up character sketches for the main character, Devon Richardson, and her new hubby, David.

Yeah, I know. I should have picked names of different lengths that began with different letters—Devon and David and David and Devon… That’s not confusing! But they were minor characters that appeared in From the Ashes of Courage, and now I’m locked into those names. Doh! Lesson learned: When choosing names, even for walk-on characters, consider what would happen if you later want to make them stars of their own novel. Would the names still work?

Oh well. Maybe I can give him a nickname, like “Dave” or “Digger” or “Numchucks.”

Even so, I’m learning a lot about them, such as that she collects and restores antiques, in order to connect with the past, as replacement for inadequacies in her relationships. Taken to the extreme, which the coming year will do, this bad habit could become a fateful addiction. And unfortunately, there’s no Betty Ford Clinic for Compulsive Antiquers.

-TimK

When you’re designing a piece of custom software, in theory, your client tells you what he wants, and then you go and tell the computer how to give it to him. In reality, your client will never tell you what he actually wants, usually because he himself doesn’t actually know. But that’s okay, because he will most assuredly change his mind anyhow, as soon as you figure out how to do what you thought he asked for in the first place.

In other words, you’re trying to write something that you really don’t understand and that keeps changing from under your feet… kind of like writing a novel.

Now, some software developers try to deal with the volatility of their profession by conducting long, protracted negotiations with clients and marketing people, the result of which negotiations is a treaty document—called “the spec”—which each party will sign in blood. This process can take months, or even years. But after “the spec” has been signed, any requests for further changes can be considered an act of war, thereby guaranteeing that the developer will design software that is completely useless to solve any real-world problem (unless the project gets canceled first).

I am not one of those software developers.

Other developers just dive in and write software without any planning whatsoever. They reason that the client doesn’t know what he wants anyhow, and so he can probably be convinced to accept whatever it is you end up writing for him. If not, you can always fix it all after the fact, even if that means rewriting large swaths of your manuscript— er, I mean, software program.

I am also not one of those software developers.

I subscribe to a philosophy called “Agile Software Development.” In Agile Software Development, you start by accepting that change happens— Deal with it! You deal with it by building your software in tiny pieces, the most valuable parts first. At each step, you have something that you can show the client. That way the client can help you correct your mistakes, piece by piece.

Now, when you’re writing a novel, your “client” is actually a part of you yourself, it’s the “editor” or “critic” part of you. When you write, you’re writing to satisfy your inner editor. When you edit, you’re correcting what your inner writer wrote. So why not do it in small steps, so that you can correct big problems early, quickly, cheaply?

That’s Agile Storytelling.

Here’s the process I use in brief:

1. Write brief character sketches for each of the main, viewpoint characters.

2. Describe each character arc and story thread, in a sentence each.

3. Expand these to scenes, a sentence or two per scene. (You can do this using plot cards, if you’re more comfortable working with them.)

4. Write each scene in 100-300 words. This is “draft zero.” By the end of this, you should be able to see your story having taken form. You should be able to see whether it works, and whether it will be about the right size to hit your word goals. You will also have enough detail planned so that you can track word targets and target dates in writing your first draft.

5. Rewrite the story, expanding each scene to its full length, producing a first draft. Where necessary, insert additional scenes, split scenes into multiples, combine scenes, rearrange scenes, and redefine scenes.

6. Revise the manuscript.

7. Final line editing.

At each step, you can review what you have so far and fix any problems. In particular, by doing a zero-draft, you can see the whole story, though abbreviated, in its entirety. This way, I find it’s easier to catch bigger problems earlier in the process. The first draft is almost like a revision of the zero-draft, even though it’s actually a rewrite, and most of the big plot problems get patched up in this phase, and events get put into their correct order. When I get to revising the manuscript, I’m patching up descriptions to make them more consistent, for example, but there are no plot holes and very few scenes that don’t fit or need to be rewritten—there were exactly two in From the Ashes of Courage.

-TimK