Hooking Without Overwhelming

One of my publishers hosts weekly author chats. I recently read the transcript of a chat that warned against "overwhelming" the reader. Specifically, it discussed the hazard of overwhelming the reader in the opening scene of a book or story.

We know the importance of quickly hooking the agent, editor, or reader. We've heard that an agent or editor has to be reeled in with the first page or sometimes the first paragraph (depending on the giver of the advice) to avoid rejection. What pitfalls loom in that first look? By "overwhelming," the editors in the above-mentioned chat referred to inundating the reader with either unnecessary details or too many characters, especially named characters, right off the bat. The reader needs to know the setting (place and time), important details that "move the story along," and maybe a selection of secondary characters. Above all, the protagonist must be introduced in a way to make the reader care about her.

Another caution mentioned was not to plunge into an "action" scene right away. We need a reason to care what happens to the protagonist before seeing him or her in a crisis or life-threatening situation. A violent fight scene doesn't mean much if we don't know the participants or the stakes involved. The same principle applies to starting with a sex scene, unless writing erotica or erotic romance, and even then the scene will appear pointless if it doesn't reveal character and advance the story.

Before the inciting event, the big change in the protagonist's life, occurs, there should be a glimpse of her normal life, even if very brief. Especially if it's a violent or otherwise shocking event. I have slight reservations about this guideline. We could think of successful novels that deviate from it. One that leaps to mind for me is MISERY.

King's novel starts with the protagonist already injured from a car accident, waking to consciousness in the home of his "number one fan."

A big pitfall to avoid: Starting with backstory. The early pages should always move forward. Frontloading backstory is a besetting authorial sin of my own. I've read books by prominent authors that violate this one, too. A brief opening shows the hero in some dire plight. Then they answer the rhetorical question, "How did I get here?" with several chapters of backstory. Techniques like this probably shouldn't be tried until the author has attained a similar level of expertise and popularity.

One of my favorites of my own works, FROM THE DARK PLACES, originally started with the heroine's gazing at a photo of her late husband and immediately falling into a reverie that leads into a whole chapter about their meeting, their marriage, the birth of their daughter, and the husband's untimely death. Fortunately, I received and followed the advice, "Don't do that!" The book as published begins with present-day action and gradually weaves in, when appropriate, the only parts of the backstory the reader needs to know, the crisis birth and the husband's death.

My husband and I violated the "don't plunge straight into action" guideline in the second volume of our "Wild Sorceress" series by starting in the middle of a battle. In this case, I believe the problem is slightly mitigated by the fact that this is a sequel to a book any reader who buys the sequel has probably read. In the first volume, we transgressed a no-no the chat doesn't mention, starting with a dream sequence. In our defense, it's clearly a dream, not a bait-and-switch, and it has an immediate, clear bearing on what the character is now facing in real life. Still, I would probably resist doing it that way today. It also commits another alleged fault that many editors and readers detest, starting with a character waking up and preparing for her day.

One of my favorite bestselling fantasy authors begins a novel published a few years ago with a life-threatening battle that turns out to be a simulation! I'm astonished that the publisher let her get away with that blatant bait-and-switch!

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt

Plot-Character Integration Part 2 - Finding Your Opening Scene

Plot-Character Integration

Part 2

Finding Your Opening Scene

Previous Parts in Plot-Character Integration are:

Part 1 - The 3/4 Point Pivot Part 1 - The Worm Turns
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/plot-character-integration-part-1-34.html

Part 3 - The Starring Character For A Series
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/09/plot-character-integration-part-3.html

And this is Part 2 of Plot-Character Integration - Finding Your Opening Scene

Chances are you have had your sizzling Science Fiction Romance novel simmering in the back of your mind for years.  You know the Characters and you know when your Starring Character gets a grip on his life and acts to change everything.

You know these people so well, you just gibber when you try to tell someone about them and their influence on each other and on the World they live in.

It is a huge story, so you believe you have a Series of novels to write that story in.  It is an intimidating prospect - spending 20 years writing a 25 year series with many short stories, novellas, and contributions to other people's universes sandwiched in between personal appearances.  Can you handle it?  If you're not quivering at the prospect, there is something you don't understand.

I couldn't begin to guess what you, in particular, are missing about understanding yourself or the world you live in.

However, I have a long-running Series of novels now with an anthology of stories by other writers, and novels I've collaborated on written by two other writers.  The Sime~Gen novels are a series structured like a future history, and the Starring Character changes from one novel to the next (unbeknownst to the reader, there are a handful of Souls re-incarnating every few hundred years).

In between, I've sold several other universes, trilogies, and contributed to other writers' universes, shared universes, and so on.

And I've taught writing craft at workshops across the country, read a lot of beginning writers' first attempts, heard other professional writers and editors analyze why a manuscript could not be published, and learned much from all that.

One very common mistake beginning writers make is starting the manuscript with the wrong scene, at the wrong time in the Starring Character's life-arc, and usually at the END of the Star's story, not the BEGINNING.

Start at the beginning is the advice I've heard given many times, and the teary-eyed young writer stars in numb bewilderment utterly certain that they did start at the beginning.

The contact with the young writer usually ends there, so most of these earnest young people never make it to print unless they self-publish and become more bewildered about why their work doesn't click with their intended readership.

The reason new writers make this error in starting-point, and subsequent plot-errors is that they know their Starring Character and his or her entire LIFE is well known, so well known, so real, so involving, that none of the plot-alterations suggested by the editor or teacher in a workshop are acceptable.

"He wouldn't do that!" is the stock response signaling you are dealing with an amateur who will never sell anything.  "She couldn't bring herself to do this!"  "That can't happen in this world!"

The reason you can't find the "correct" (e.g. commercially salable) opening scene, thus middle and ending scenes, is that the alternate reality in which these Characters "live" and the destiny of the Characters is already known to you.  It just has to be the way you've already imagined it - because that' just plain the RIGHT story you have to tell. It's right. It just is right, and so it can't be changed.

Why have you created an entire story, a universe, which is commercially non-viable, or seems so to professionals?

It could well be that you have not spent enough time training your subconscious to recognize the shape and rhythm of real life, and how that reality becomes symbolized, condensed, and portrayed rather than related by writers creating fiction.

There is a relationship between a fictional Character's life-arc and story-arc, and the "Arc" humans live.

Lives have shapes - not everyone's life is shaped just like another's life, and even those with lives shaped very much the same will have vastly different outcomes because the PERSON living the life is unique.

Nevertheless, everyone who knows a lot of people, engages in gossip or social chit-chat, and/or reads lots of biographies, knows a lot of life-shapes that are real.

To get your reader to suspend disbelief and enter your Science Fiction Romance universe, you need to convince them (on page 1) that your made-up universe is REAL.

The writing tool that conveys that conviction is what I've called in these blogs "verisimilitude"  -- some element in your made-up world is just like the reality in the reader's real world (or what the reader of that target readership believes is reality).

One tool for injecting verisimilitude into Page 1, is Character Arc.  The Character must be moving along a trajectory and with a velocity that the reader immediately recognizes as something they have seen in reality.

Everything else in your opening scene can be purest Fantasy, utterly impossible, and definitely not-real, as long as there is one anchor point for the reader to recognize and accept.

Verisimilitude and Symbolism can be used to create that anchor point.

Here are some discussions of the use of Verisimilitude.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/index-to-theme-symbolism-integration.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-16.html

And using symbolism to explain why we cry at weddings:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

When the Starring Character's Character Arc is fully integrated with the Plot, (and I mean fully), the verisimilitude of the Character's movement from one Place in his Life-Story to another Place in his Life-Story will pull the reader into your novel.

This fully integrated Plot-Character element is often referred to as a "narrative hook" -- which, to a beginning writer, is a meaningless term. It is a meaningless term not because the writer is a beginner, but because the term doesn't actually mean anything at all -- it just sounds like it does.

You already know your Characters, the story of how they meet, how they get involved, what outside forces end the Honeymoon, who gets in what trouble and has to be rescued by whom.  You know how they embark on their Series of Potent Dramas (as Detectives for NYPD or Scientists for NASA, or CIA operatives).

You know who your people are and what story you need to tell.  So what narrative?  What quality of "hook" (twisted?  What hook?) does the term Narrative Hook refer to?

You look over the whole life-history of your characters and find nothing nothing twisted and no narrative in sight.

Anything you invent as the opening will be made-up on the spot in the workshop, and just too unreal to work for your novel.  Right there, your well known, vibrant Romance morphs into something else entirely, something unsatisfying and uninteresting to write.

The opening words, the opening sentence, the first line of your novel is just that integral to the entire rest of it.  Everything depends on the opening words. Everything.

It is so much the cornerstone of the work, contains all the rest of the words in that one single (hopefully short, declarative or interrogative sentence) that when a workshop finds a problem with the Middle or 3/4 point or even the ending, the writing teachers will tell you to rewrite THAT scene they find problematic, but nothing you can do will fix the problem they see.  Nothing!

Why? Because the problem is not in the scene they trip over.

The problem on page 312 is on page 1.

It is Page 1 that has to be rewritten, not page 312.

Trust me. It is always the case.

I thought it was a special case with my first novel, House of Zeor,

Read the "Look Inside" to see the opening I'm talking about here.

https://amazon.com/House-Zeor-Sime-Gen-Book-Sime-Gen-ebook/dp/B004N3AZJG/

House of Zeor is the foundation novel for the Sime~Gen Series which is still running.

I ended up rewriting that opening page a couple dozen times, and moving the opening scene up and down the timeline of the Plot about 5 times.  I was trying to craft a "narrative hook" -- after studying the term and its applications for many years.

It took a long time after I sold House of Zeor to Hardcover until I understood there is no such thing as a "Narrative Hook."

But that's what I learned crafting that opening - and since the novel stayed in print for 20 consecutive years, maybe I figured something out.

After that 20-year run in print, a short hiatus, and it came back into print from a publisher doing Omnibus editions - then moved to Wildside Press where it is in print as paper, audiobook, and e-book in all formats.  Something went right in that opening -- people still recommend House of Zeor as a first Sime~Gen novel even though there are 14 other volumes to choose among.

They say, "Write something interesting."  What's interesting to you isn't interesting to anyone else in this world because you are unique.  What matters to you doesn't matter to anyone else.

They say, "Write your main character in the fury of Action, make the Character MOVE."

That's good advice, but ruins everything in a "Love at First Sight" opening.  The shock of first sight paralyzes all movement, which is the tell-tale signature of the Plot Event "First Sight."

I used Character Movement as the opening line in House of Zeor, pacing impatiently, worriedly, annoyingly, but pointlessly back and forth.

Pacing doesn't really work too well as an opening, but the Starring Character who is pacing is impatient to be off on horseback to rescue his Soul Mate.  So it does the job of establishing verisimilitude.

The story I wanted to tell is about the Starring Character's future incarnations.  I had several incarnations at different points in History (from circa 1700 to 3700 level technology) after this lifetime.

The Soul's soul-lesson of the House of Zeor lifetime is about his HEA with his Soul Mate being thwarted by the torrential forces of History. His Soul's Destiny was what interested me - couldn't sell that back then.

I used pacing back and forth because movement was touted as a requirement of the Narrative Hook.  Pacing is a show-don't-tell for the invisible tension of impatience.

Pacing, and being snapped at for it by your boss, leads the reader to ask why this Character is impatient.  The reader doesn't need to be told what impatience is.  This is a Character at a point in his Character-Arc where an anticipated Event is not-happening-now.

Everyone has experienced this Situation - some pace, some snap at people, some twist paperclips. Everyone knows impatience - it is verisimilitude.

I didn't write something "interesting" -- I wrote something curious.

Science fiction is all about satisfying a scientific curiosity (which is why Spock became a Starring Character.)

So just as the term "atom" was invented to designate the smallest indivisible particle of matter, "narrative hook" was a term invented to designate the indivisible, rock solid formula opening for a story or novel.

And just as atoms have been split, and even the particles composing atoms have been split and analyzed, so too the "narrative hook" decomposes into small parts.

Atoms actually exist, but aren't indivisible.

Narrative Hooks actually exist, but aren't indivisible.

Narrative Hooks don't actually need any narrative in them at all.  And hooking is not a great idea if you respect your readers.  You want to invite your reader by displaying your sympathetic understanding of their life experience.

Thus, the Hung Hero (absolutely unsellable as science fiction) is an invitation to certain readers.  The Hung Hero is a Starring Character who has no options for acting to change the Situation.

Usually, beginning writers make a Hung Hero by choosing the wrong Character to Star in the story.

But in real life, most of us live long-long years as "hung hero" of our own story -- nothing we do seems to fix our problems. We know that feeling.  And in many well-known, famous lifetimes, we see how the hung-situation breaks only when the Hero "is forced to" do something out of character.

Many great Romance novels use the outside-forces forcing the reluctant Hero to do something -- but in Science Fiction genre, that won't work as an opening.  It often works as a Middle, which is the lowest point, or as the 3/4 Worm Turns point.

But your viewpoint characters, your Stars, have to be on the active pole, not passive. They have to want, decide, and act to achieve.

The paradigm for the Character on the Positive Pole is "Consider-Evaluate-Decide-Act."  As the Character does that sequence - the plot just happens, it just rolls on out as the Story drives the plot.  The Character Arc drives the Story.

When all these separate components are "integrated" into one single thing, the writing teachers throw up their hands and term it a "Narrative Hook."  "Once upon a time, ..." is a narrative hook.  It implies a Character in a different Time did something for a reason you need to understand.  It prompts the question, "What happened?"

"What happened?" is the hook, or more specifically, the Invitation.  Open on something that sparks curiosity in your reader. Open at the point where the Starring Character doesn't understand anything about the Life Lesson about to come smashing into his life.  Make the reader ask that question right there at the beginning sentence.  Make the Starring Character's quest for the answer into both Plot and Story -- integrated.

The opening scene presents the issue to be Considered and Evaluated by the Character whose actions will change the Situation.

Other Characters who merely influence or support the Star may have their own Stories - but those aren't the stories you are telling.  One novel - one story with one Main Plot and one crystal clear thematic statement uniting the work of Art.

Lives well lived in reality are also "works of art."  Living Well is an art form, and that is something the educated reader knows, but may not know they know.

The best open door invitation into a well built World will be fabricated from bits and pieces of what the reader knows but does not know she knows.

So how do you find the Character in your world who is crafting a work of art from his Life?

Look at real-life.  Look at life-stories of real people.  (and/or study Astrology).

Then look at the kind of fiction you prefer to read.

Sift out the Character Arc shapes.

Note the life-stages we are all familiar with.  Each stage has its specific readership you can target because they happen at 10 or 20 year intervals if you should live so long.  The HEA plateau is not notable on this list, but a phenomenon of the flat Character Arc interval.  More on that is in Part 3 of the Plot-Character Integration series.

A) Character is learning and/or being Trained

B) Character is venturing into using Training. (first solo drive, first solo piloting of a plane, first infiltration on a spy mission). First Testing.  Loss of virginity.

C) Having racked up a resume of failures, being fired, getting jailed, a lawyer who loses too many cases, Character goes on the bum, hits the skids, becomes homeless, hits bottom.

D) Character remakes himself - as arch criminal mastermind, business entrepreneur, or goes to police academy, gets other schooling, volunteers to be a pioneer settler on another world.

Science Fiction genre requires (usually, not always) a Hero on the way UP in life - deciding and acting to improve himself and others.

The downward spiral of failure is of interest in developing the Character's past - but is a series of novels in itself, and not amenable to use as Science Fiction or Romance.  A Romance for such a Character would be the turning point into another phase of existence.

The flat Character Arc - where the Character doesn't learn or change because of Plot Events - is the formula for the Starring Character in a long Series such as a Detective Series.

We discuss that flat-arc in Part 3, but for now search your fictional worlds for the Character Springboard where the Starring Character dives off a cliff or leaps to grab the skids of a rescue helicopter.

Find your Starring Character by finding the Character in the ensemble of the novel who is about to take a risk. Changing your life is a risk. Success requires a risk, but not all risks lead to success.  Both Science Fiction and Romance are about a Starring Character who achieves Success - an HEA or a scientific breakthrough that saves, heals, revives others.

Show that moment of risk evaluation, and make the reader ask what the stakes are, and what the opposing force is.

The Starring Character is the one who considers, evaluates, decides and acts -- and whose actions change the Situation.  Rate of change of situation = "Action."  Rate of change of Situation = Pacing. And pacing is an art.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/07/index-to-mysteries-of-pacing.html

Then open the door and invite your reader to explore the issues involved in why the opposing forces are opposing.

Pose the question in your opening line without actually asking the question.  Answer the question in your final line of the novel.  Then write what went between.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 23 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - Stone and a Hard Place by R. L. King

Reviews-23-by Jacqueline Lichtenberg Stone And A Hard Place by R. L. King


R. L. King is one of the writers highlighted on my page of writers who have been influenced by my writing.
http://simegen.com/jl/influencedbyJL/

I want to point you to Book 1 in R. L. King's series The Alastair Stone Chronicles,  because I truly admired the strong, disciplined structure of this novel.

It's an easy, quick read -- great kind of thing to read on an airplane but you won't toss it in the trash when you get to your destination (or delete it from your phone -- paper and Kindle versions on Amazon).

  http://amazon.com/gp/product/B00UGBEQYY

Besides being a great story about a master of Magical Craft taking on an Apprentice while dealing with a cross-dimension incursion by a genuine Monster Entity, this novel is worth any writer's time to study.

It's not a Romance, but the plot is driven by Relationships and a good, solid sexual relationship, too.

All the Characters (except the Monster) do things because of how they "relate" to the other characters.

We see what it means to hold someone in contempt.
We see what it means to think you should hold someone in high regard.
We see what it means to acquire high regard for those who supply "strokes" or good feelings, who      bolster your self-esteem whether you should have any self-esteem or not.
We see what it means to perceive an elegant devotion to Charity and  throw down in support of that  lofty goal.
We see what it means to be self-critical.

This novel creates an interlaced web of Relationships all of which contribute materially to the plot.  There's love, contempt and even embryonic hatred.

We can see all of this in one panoramic perspective because of the underlying structure of the novel.

That structure is invisible to the consumer, the casual reader, which is just as it should be.  The casual reader should swoop through the story eager for "what happens next" -- and indeed that is exactly how this book reads.

The strict, disciplined structure reminiscent of Hollywood movies or network TV shows causes the page-turner effect.

After you've read the book, check the beginning then check the ending.  Also check the middle.

Spoiler:
SPOILER
SPOILER

But the truth is the following analysis does not spoil the pure enjoyment in this novel.

There is an unexpected death near the end.  It is not foreshadowed, except poetically.  You keep asking yourself how in the world is the writer going to keep this character alive after all this -- but all indications are that the writer will keep that character alive.

But no.

Poetic Justice is served up cold.

Here's the relevant 3-part series on this blog on Poetic Justice and how to use it as a device.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_15.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_22.html

Now, given that the plot calls for that shock-scene of the death, and a huge Karmic Reveal, together with (all in a couple of paragraphs) a glimpse into the future lives of this character, and possibly the past lives of the Main Character who survives, maybe into the Relationship between them established over lifetimes, -- how can the opening of such a Paranormal Action-Mystery novel be structured so the ending makes sense, but is not telegraphed to the reader?

If the opening telegraphs to the reader too much, then the reader will become bored and stop turning pages.

Well, the genre is "Mystery" primarily (not Romance).

If it were a Romance it might be classed as Paranormal Action-Romance and the opening would be the first meeting of the two characters who would fall in love -- very likely opening on them fighting each other, maybe in Arcane Combat.

This is clearly a MYSTERY.

But it partakes of the elements of Science Fiction, too.

The mystery in question is the arcane equivalent of a science mystery -- a piece of data that doesn't fit accepted theory.

So as the author says, it is an Urban Fantasy because the setting is contemporary (sans cell phones), and the science involved is Magic.  From my NOT SO MINOR ARCANA series on Tarot:

 
I think it is much more than just Urban Fantasy -- mixing many genres seamlessly, including hints of a coming Romance.  Some major publishers still shun this type of mixture -- but of course it is my own personal favorite.

So as the novel progresses, investigation shows there are some theories that cover the observation, but no big detailed reference works to cookbook through fixing the problem.

Since paranormal mystery genre is to be the envelope, the writer chose to open the plot as you do with a mystery, and to close with the solution, and a denouement as you do with a mystery.

The typical closed-form detective novel, or TV show, starts with the discovery of the body, or a bit of evidence that a crime has been committed.  This kicks off the Plot -- but not yet the Story.

Stone and a Hard Place starts with a prologue, and a wildly gorgeous opening line.

"Adelaide Bonham was convinced that her house hated her."

The whole novel is about that House, it's hatred for Adelaide, what kind of person she is, how she manages to accept an unacceptable explanation of what she has observed, and what she does both because of that acceptance, that observation, and what she does in spite of that acceptance, and what becomes of the House because of it all.

Adelaide an old, frail, infirm woman, a widow who has inherited the house passed down to her husband by his ancestors.

She is not a typical old widow.

She's courageous, exemplary, set in her ways but willing to accept new ideas.

But she is not the Hero of this Story -- not the Main Character.

That's why her conviction that her house hates her is in a prologue, not the opening of Chapter One.

Stone And A Hard Place is not about her, not her story, not her destiny.

She, like the first character you see on a TV Series episode opening where the week's body is discovered, is part of both plot and story -- she is obstacle, goal and enabler, even perhaps Protagonist, but not Hero, not Main Character.  She both prevents and then instigates plot events.  But the novel is not her Story.

Many readers of this blog know I usually send back (mostly unread) any manuscript sent to me for evaluation that begins with a Prologue.

The art of the prologue is incredibly difficult to master.

Artistically, the prologue must be a major narrative hook -- draw the reader into the story.  But at the same time, it must not fix the reader's attention and present the reason to read this novel.

The reason to read the novel is paragraph 1 of Chapter 1 -- it is not the prologue, which as it's name indicates is the "log" (like Captain's Log) of "what came before the story" that instigates the plot.

Be advised, most readers routinely skip anything labeled prologue, so usually it's better to call it Chapter One and make it the springboard into Chapter Two.

In this case, though, what you have here is a perfect example of a novel that must have a prologue, and a perfect example of a prologue that contains nothing but prologue material.

You find perfect examples like this in Mystery and Police Procedurals -- the Event that the Main Character must investigate.

The beginning writer tends to grab at the prologue to solve a writing structure problem no other tool in that writer's toolbox seems suited for.

Usually, that is the beginning writer's up-welling urgency to write the story, shoving aside anything that would slow down the writing -- including learning new techniques necessary to tell the story in just the way that the story demands.

That is not what happened here in Stone And A Hard Place.

This prologue is a precise example of not only when to use a prologue but how and why.

This prologue is part of the formula of the Detective Story, and sets out the main problem The Detective will have to solve.

The plot has "reveals" about the way the Reluctant Detective gets sucked into solving this problem, what he discovers that's vaguely suspicious, what he learns that is definitely suspicious, what makes him very wary of the size of the problem (tip of the iceberg and he knows it) -- what and how he researches, what is known about this problem, what he thinks about what he discovers, what he decides to do about it, what happens (not as a consequence of his decision plot-wise, but as a consequence poetically, karmicly, of who and what he is).

Each bit of information about the mystery, about why this old woman thinks her house hates her, what she does about that, what the Detective ( a master Magician named Stone who is facing a very hard place in his life) does as a consequence of what the old woman does, is Revealed at exactly the correct place in the narrative all the way to The End and the epilogue.

The precision pacing is not just the order in which information is revealed, but also how many words are devoted to revealing each piece and giving the reader time to absorb and understand that information.

The information feed in this novel is perfect.

The Mystery Plot begun in the Prologue forms the backbone of the Plot.  The Mystery Formula sets the pacing.

The Story begins at the Chapter One opening.  (for a Mystery formula this is exactly the correct choice.)

Chapter One introduces our Reluctant Detective with his awareness of the karmic problem of his life, the life-stage he is passing through at this very moment.

The opening line is perfect:
"Alastair Stone suspected the Universe was conspiring against his desire to keep the two sides of his life separate."

And at the end of the novel, we see that is indeed the case -- poetic justice, karma, has overwhelmed and transformed his life, and he is complicit.

The next few paragraphs of the opening (brief, hard-punching paragraphs perfectly crafted) convey the information that Stone will now take on an Apprentice at the behest of a figure who is an Old Friend.  That figure is thought of many times throughout the novel, and then tinkers with Stone's destiny again in the Epilogue.

The epilogue is titled appropriately Chapter Forty-Six, Two Weeks Later, instead of epilogue.

Why is this not titled epilogue?  Because it does not cap the prologue with a final bit of information completing the plot begun in the prologue.

It is not an epilogue, but a denouement to the mystery, dealing with the damage left in the wake of resolving the conflict.

Chapter Forty-Six delineates the wrap-up of the Story (not the Plot) and indicates what the Reluctant Detective will choose to do next because of the losses sustained in this adventure and the scars only beginning to form on his psyche as the two parts of his life have been smashed together with the force of karma.

Within the first few paragraphs of Chapter One we also meet Stone's "magically oblivious girlfriend" -- who later figures in the story significantly, particularly in saving Stone's life.  They're sleeping together but  not living together -- lots of romantic tension that isn't yet a romance.

Then Chapter Two introduces Stone's everyday life (as a Professor of the arcane at a regular university where the topic is treated as a mythical curiosity), and his first meeting with his new Apprentice.

The main characters are all introduced in the correct order, the order of their effect on the ending.

The body of the novel is all about juggling responsibilities to train the Apprentice while dealing with the Monster In The House, and with the overcoming of the personal angst caused by Stone's inability to keep the two sides of his life separate and still keep his self-respect.

The Point of View shifts, but never wanders.  The writer does not use point of view shift because she doesn't know any other way to get the information to the reader.  She chooses Point of View Shift because it is the correct tool for this information feed at this specific point in the novel.  It is all very disciplined, very precise.

The entire composition follows the "Beats" delineated in Blake Snyder's Save The Cat! series on screenwriting.  Scene structure, climax points, each one is placed exactly where it belongs by adjusting the number of words necessary to move the story and the plot ahead.  That word-count discipline is a big factor in the page-turner effect.

Read this novel, enjoy it, then dissect it beat for beat, count paragraphs, words, and how dialogue is mixed in tempo with narrative, exposition, and description.  There is a firm hand behind this novel, and a very high precision sense of structure and pacing.

As Save The Cat! points out repeatedly, structure and pacing make the difference between an "Opens Everywhere" film and a campus Arts Playhouse showing or two.

Structure and pacing are all about audience size.  But though both structure and pacing are necessary conditions for wide distribution, they are not sufficient conditions.

This novel has the potential to reach and please a very large, very broad audience given the right kind of publicity and promotion.

In today's world, that kind of publicity and promotion is rarely possible for a work of mixed genres like this one.  Urban Fantasy is one of the labels that allows for such a mixture.

If you are writing a mixed-genre -- or perhaps think you are writing a very pure genre -- study this novel's ingredients.  It is a smoothly blended mixture of all my favorite genres.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Finding the Story Opening, Part 1, Action vs. Character

On Twitter I found a screenwriter to follow - new to twitter, veteran screenwriter:

This tweet was retweeted by @JustinWHedges
-----------------
@fieldink 12:35pm via Web
Action or Char to open ur scpt? No 1 answer. Depends on genre. Either character drives the action or action drives the character #writers
---------------

Ooops!  A long time ago someone asked me to do a blog entry on OPENINGS and I forgot until I saw that tweet.

Here's the twitter bio of @fieldink that made me follow him:

Screenwriter, Teacher, Lecturer, Author of Screenplay, The Screenwriter's Workbook, on faculty at USC's Prof Writing Program, Hall of Frame Inductee

He is on the sydfield.com website -- that's why he could explain "opening" in such a succinct way.  You have to admire that, but I wonder how many of you understand what he's talking about well enough to go, "Aha!" and then just change the way you find how to open your stories?

I've written about crafting the opening of an Action Romance in this blog entry:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/constructing-opening-of-action-romance.html

But we need to examine this "find the opening scene" process more carefully because it is mostly done subconsciously.  It's just that it usually takes years and lots of failures before the new writer trains the subconscious to formulate the opening correctly.

Take for example my novels MOLT BROTHER and its direct sequel CITY OF A MILLION LEGENDS.  Here are the links to refresh memory:

https://www.amazon.com/Molt-Brother-Lifewave-Book-1-ebook/dp/B004AYCTBA/

https://www.amazon.com/City-Million-Legends-First-Lifewave-ebook/dp/B007KPLRUU/

Paper, ebook and audiobook versions of both books are available, but Amazon isn't linking them very well for City of a Million Legends.

The idea for those novels came to me (while waking up) as a SCENE, and at the time I thought it was the opening scene.

It's a powerful scene -- but what appeared in the final published book was very different.

What was the scene?  The one where Arshel is in molt and Zref is standing outside the closed space ship cabin door where she is in anguished distress understanding what she's going through, what he should do, and what he should not do -- and then doing what he should not do because he must do it.

That's no opening scene, and it's not an ending scene either.  To me there were layers of emotional and alien-emotional conflict criss-crossing the scene, and reams of esoteric karmic drama driving Zref's decision, but it was all there in one flash of a visual scene -- the door or air-lock portal, Zref's hand raised to the door, and a telepathic vibrancy shimmering in the air. 

Notice the opening of MOLT BROTHER is a scene between Arshel and her parents -- and the parents never appear again.

Or do they?

Aren't her parents "there" inherently in every event that happens because of how the parents handle this scene where she declares herself bonded to a human -- and a male at that!  The parents aren't entirely clear on which is worse, his gender or his species! 

Scarred by that moment, trapped with no way to go home, no way out, no way back, Arshel plunges forward into life with Dennis Lakely and sticks it out longer than any of us would, until that moment when she's utterly bereft, trapped in that space ship cabin and all alone.

The second chapter opens on Zref and his bonded companion trying to lay plans for their future together, hustling tourists for cash to go to college together offworld. 

Because of things that Dennis Lakely's parents do, Zref is left without that bond. 

The reason he opens that door into Arshel's life is the same as the reason Arshel got trapped in that plight -- no way back, no way around, no way but forward.

The walls of the trap are largely emotional, but that emotion closes in from all sides because of (unrevealed until the second book) karmic connections, decisions and actions and results of long-ago lifetimes. 

But when I "had the idea" all those emotions were tangled up and layered.  Though the moment was vivid in my mind, and the drama apparent, it wasn't the story opening.

CITY OF A MILLION LEGENDS is the story I wanted to tell, and though it opens with a Kren baby hatching, it's real beginning is in that moment when Zref opens the door to Arshel's life and makes vows he isn't allowed to make. 

If you've read the book, you understand how much "worldbuilding" went into creating that moment of choice for Zref. 

How do you do that?  How do you untangle a vivid, single-scene IDEA into a linear story-line that allows you to explain worldbuilding, whole cultures, interstellar civilization, interstellar archeology, without much exposition? 

Many new writers would just start with Zref's hand on the door, then fill in 20 or more pages explaining (in exposition - years ago, this happened, then that tragedy, then he made this choice, and now he's committed to this course of action, but he wants to open this door because).  It would be so boring!  Yet it's high drama in the extreme.

That little tweet from an expert screenwriter tells you exactly how it's done.

If it's one genre - start with character. Romance, for example, is emotionally plotted but the emotion is driven by character.

If it's another genre - start with action.  Science Fiction and most Fantasy is action driven plot, so you have to leap into the ACTION with an opening scene where people do things, and then later you find out who they are and why they did this crazy things.

But what genre is MOLT BROTHER?

On the back cover of the Berkeley mass market paperback of MOLT BROTHER there's a quote from C. J. Cherryh (whose Foreigner universe novels I rave about!) 

"Jacqueline Lichtenberg has taken a new and interesting direction with this book, partly technological, partly alien cultures, in a very intriguing interrelation." 

I had forgotten that quote was there. 

It's quite clear -- this is one of the earliest Mixed Genre novels, more mixed than my later award winner, Dushau. 

There's also a quote from Andre Norton on Molt Brother:

"Imaginative and outstanding.  It captures the reader and won't let go."

THAT is what openings are supposed to do! 

But how do you do that?  What do you do with "an idea" that turns it into a "captures and won't let go" novel?

Ever seen a movie run backwards?  Ever done a rewind on a recorder - harder to understand with a DVR that skips frames on backwards, but visualize it.

That's what you do.

You take your "idea" separate it into "layers" (his story; her story) and run it backwards in your head until you get to the "right" moment.

How do you identify or recognize the "right" moment that is a "beginning" moment?

Aha, that's easy and I've talked about it here before in posts on structure and theme.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

The general formula for beginning a story is to find the moment in time when the two elements, forces, or characters who will "conflict" to generate the plot first come together.

Last week we mentioned Marion Zimmer Bradely's novel CATCH TRAP -- which opens with the first memory of one of the main characters -- the circus tent being burned.  But that's not happening in current time.  Nevertheless it works, because the novel not only starts with an emotion-laden action denoting the setting (tent-circus), but one of the themes, (an industry changing as a result of the impact of technology - a science fiction theme guaranteed to captivate any SF reader). 

That moment then unravels into the life story of the artistic vocation of this character as a circus performer.

Her first novel, SWORD OF ALDONES (later rewritten and retitled, but I love the first version best) starts with a thought, "We were outstripping the night."  I think that's the best opening line of any novel I've ever read -- ever!!! 

By comparing the opening line of each of Bradley's novels to the end-line, you can learn everything there is to know about structure. 

Sometimes an idea comes to you from the ending, or any random place -- sometimes the idea appears as a scene which does not and can not belong in the novel at all! 

Every character's life consists of a variety of intertwined conflicts that don't all run to resolution during their lifetime.  Any set of characters probably deals with a set of conflicts that are maybe the factorial of the number of characters in the set -- multiply a lot to get the number. 

As you know from my posts on Astrology just for writers, every life has cyclical affairs running like the planets -- a very complicated clock.  Every character has a conflict denoted by such a planetary cycle.

The highest drama events are denoted by Pluto -- Sexuality rather than love, car wrecks, being wounded in war, a transition Event that establishes a New Normal. 

Pluto, however, does not denote "sudden" events (that's Uranus).  You can always see a Pluto event coming -- but you never (almost never-ever) do!  You can see it in retrospect, but never in prospect.

An example would be drunk driving.  Watching a character who chronically drives drunk, you can easily expect they will get into a wreck at some point.  The character, though, even if they've wrecked a car or two, can never - ever - see that they are going to be an amputee or paralyzed or on trial for manslaughter and become a three-month wonder to the media.

Heart attacks are another kind of Pluto-event -- any onlooker can see this character's eating and exercising habits are leading to no good, but the character is shocked-surprised-offended by the event of a heart attack -- "Why me?" 

So, if your story is about a person whose chronic habits are going to produce a dramatic, life-changing Event -- you have to decide if your story lies before or after the Event.

Is this a story about misbehavior (such as bullying?) that eventually produces a comeuppance (such as losing a job and ending up in jail framed for embezzlement?).

Is this story designed to deliver a whopping sense of justification to the reader?

Or is this a story about rehabilitation, having learned a hard lesson by the Event, now a life is being rebuilt, and maybe teaching others who are making that mistake to pull back from it?  Such as a drug addict or alcoholic teaching 12-step? 

Once you know what the story is about -- by analyzing what kind of pay-load the story delivers at "the end" (how you want the reader to feel about herself and the characters at the end) -- then you can "frame" the story by nailing the beginning.

Remember the structural beats of a novel -- usually 4-act rather than the powerful 3-act structure of a screenplay. 

The usual length novel (75,000 to 100,000 words) is divided by climaxes into 4 parts or "acts." 

A) Beginning
B) 1/4 point
C) Middle
D) 3/4 point
END and/or denoument.

The quarter-points have their own specific formulas.  "Pacing" is just another term for putting the quarter point Events at the quarter-point page-number. 

When checking a book for reviewability, (as an editor checks a manuscript for publishability) the first thing I look at is the Beginning, Middle, and End by page-count. 

If the Events delineated at those points are connected in a developmental Arc that makes sense, I'll read the book.  If not, not.  If I get hooked on the Beginning and when I get to the middle, the Event on that page is not a "Middle" Event -- I might check the End event, page a little to find what goes in the Middle and if it's not anywhere near where it should be, I won't bother finishing.

Most writers think of that as a flaw.  It isn't because a book that has its pacing "off" by too much will not deliver to the readers the emotional payload they paid good money for. 

This is why finding the right beginning Event is so crucial.  Once the Beginning is determined, the Middle and End are absolutely known.  You can't fudge it.  It is what it is.  Readers who read a lot of books (the very people most likely to pay for your book) are used to finding what they pay for right where it should be. 

You wouldn't sell them a dress with the seams only basted, would you?

So don't sell them a novel with the Events in the wrong places.

You avoid that by choosing the opening point.

But the thing is, when you start writing a story, you really don't actually know the ending!  Or if you do, you probably don't know the Middle or Beginning precisely.

Just because the end-product has to be paced "just-so" does not mean the process of producing the first draft will be that clean or orderly.

Nevertheless, outlining --- writing down the beginning, quarter, middle, 3/4, end Events -- is necessary.  You have to take a guess, and try for it.

Sometimes characters insist on finding their own karmic solutions - however temporary - and you just have to go along for the ride.

In that case, you change the outline to match and test it to make sure the Events conform to reader's expectations (with surprises, of course).  If you don't keep that outline updated, you very likely will have to rewrite and you may need to junk everything you've written and start over.

To avoid putting more hours in than you can get money out, you keep the outline updated, and make sure the Events fall at the right story-points. 

Events are on the plot line, emotional peaks and valleys delineate the story going on inside the character, the internal conflict. 

You want to get the story and the plot to END in the same Event, as discussed last week.

Where the peaks and valleys occur (by page count) and where the plot Events happen (by page count) depends, as @fieldink said, depends on genre. 

If you're heading for a happy ending (an up ending) then the Middle is a DISASTER (a valley, a Pluto-driven Event) such as a maiming car wreck, so the End becomes asking the physical therapist to marry and getting a yes. 

That car-wreck scenario tells you that your opening scene is in a bar or at a party where the character who will wreck the car first gets hooked on booze or drugs or whatever behavior will impair judgement.  Most likely the Opening would involve an association with an inappropriate character -- maybe someone who then gets killed doing whatever they introduced the main character to. 

It doesn't have to be booze or drugs -- it might be the first encounter with car racing, and just plain enjoying speed and winning until the adrenalin of it becomes the drug. 

If it's a Romance, of course you start with character, displaying in show-don't-tell the character trait that makes that character the perfect mate for the Physical Therapist who enters later.

Or your character might be headed for a car-wreck that ends him up in court where he meets the Lawyer (prosecutor?) he falls in love with -- and eventually proposes to. 

You find the opening of your story by plucking apart the threads of the character's life until you can see one whole cycle of Ups and Downs leading to the ending that delivers the punch the genre readers are looking for. 

In my case, it's always the Relationships (not always sexual!).  I always look for a character whose life is malfunctioning in some regard (sometimes several regards).  My personal life-philosophy shows me how the real world functions on Relationships, and how human psychological health (and thus sane life-choices) depends on functional Relationships.

My mission as a writer is to bring that character's life up to a functional level that feels, at least to the character, as Happy. 

One very common mistake beginning writers make is to start their story too late -- when the character is already Happy, or when the character already knows that they are miserable.

The Happily Ever After ending works best  when the story starts with the character unaware of the real problem deep inside.  The story opens with the character making a decision and/or taking an action (accepting a date; accepting a particular college entry letter; quitting a job; getting fired and getting drunk over it), so that everything else that happens during the novel is a direct consequence of that opening action.

I call that plot technique "the because-line" -- because the main character did this, that happens, to which the main character responds by doing that, which causes this to happen, to which the main character responds etc, right to The End.

That's why, given impeccable story-logic, any beginning contains within it a very specific ending. 

After you've chosen the beginning, you don't get to choose just any old ending that you think would be neat.  The ending is determined by the beginning.

Or the beginning is determined by the ending you've chosen.

Beginning and Ending make the Middle obvious and irrevocable. 

There are many genres, and all kinds of Literary forms that don't use this structure.  If you don't like it, don't try to write it. 

Here's what to do.

Take a pile of your 10 most beloved novels, the ones you've read so often you can chant the lines in the shower.  Spread out ten sheets of paper, take a pen and at the top of each sheet write the TITLE and opening Event (in your own words; describe that Event that kicks off the story and plot). 

Look at the page number of the end of the last chapter or epilog, divide by two, and look at that page plus or minus 5 pages, and write down one sentence describing what happens at that point in the novel.

Look at the end Event - not the epilog, but the climax Event, and write that down. 

Study the set of sheets -- you may need to rephrase a few times to bring the elements buried in symbolism up to consciousness. 

If you can see a consistent beginning/middle/end pattern, that's the sort of book you should set out to write because it's what you most love to read.

It could be that your favorite literature doesn't have this structure.  Some very fine classics don't, but they are much harder to learn and to duplicate. 

There is a type called "stream of consciousness" - and many new writers think that means they can just write down what they are thinking and it'll be a story.  It doesn't work that way.  There is a very real, very precise skeletal structure behind these apparently formless writings.

The more formless a piece seems to be, the more heavily it relies on that internal structure for its effectiveness -- like poetry!  And its correspondingly hard to duplicate.

One way to learn "stream of consciousness" structure is to practice and internalize the Beginning/Middle/End structure.

The "formless" fictional genres are usually composed of several different structures intertwined, and the only way I know of to learn to do that is to master each of the structures separately -- learn to chew gum and walk by first walking, then chewing gum, then combining.

So again, you always find the Beginning by looking at the Ending -- and the Ending, as @fieldink said depends on the genre.

The best place to learn modern genre structure is in the screenwriting books by Blake Snyder, SAVE THE CAT! series.  These are now out in e-book, too, which is handy.

Here is Blake Snyder's Amazon page with all the formats of all the books, including 2016 releases
https://www.amazon.com/Blake-Snyder/e/B00LWI2JXA/

Here's the Book Description from STRIKES BACK:

Blake Snyder, author of Save the Cat!® and Save the Cat!® Goes to the Movies, is back with the book countless readers and students have clamored for. Inspired by questions from his workshops, lectures, and emails, Blake listened and provides new tips, tactics, and techniques to solve your writing problems and create stories that resonate:
The 7 warning signs you might have a great idea or not
2 sure-fire templates for can t-miss loglines
The difference between structure and formula
The Transformation Machine that allows you to track your hero s growth step-by-step
The 5 questions to keep your story s spine straight
The 5-Point Finale to finish any story
The Save the Cat!® Greenlight Checklist that gets to the heart of every development issue
The right way to hear notes, deal with problematic producers, and dive into the rewrite with the right attitude
Why and when an agent will appear
How to discover the potential for greatness in any story
How to avoid panic, doubt, and self-recrimination... and what it takes to succeed and dare to achieve your dreams
Get ready to face trouble like a pro... and strike back!

All of this is just another way of explaining what everyone who is selling fiction knows.  You just have to find the one explanation that hits you right.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Constructing The Opening Of Action Romance

Story openings are difficult to construct and even harder to troubleshoot once constructed.

Information must be coded, compact, subtle, "off the nose" and at the same time explain to a totally disinterested reader why they should read (or viewer why they should view) this story.

I've discussed openings and how to construct them in the context of many other posts on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com -- posts on theme, character, plot, and the other working parts of story.

Here's some posts on structure which reference the skills of constructing an opening.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html

And here's one on first chapters by Linnea Sinclair

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/first-chapter-foibles.html

And my usage of the words "story" and "plot" just to be clear about that.  Theme is what glues them together.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html


If you've been trying to apply these techniques, I now have a really great example to illustrate them. 

Here is the novel IMMORTAL by Gene Doucette - a writer I met via twitter and #scifichat #scriptchat and others.

Immortal

The structural issues make this a very borderline book, and it may not make it into my professional review column for that reason alone.  However, there is a compelling resonance here that makes this a "can't put it down" read.

The structural issues that are a put-off for me might well be the real source of interest to others.  Structure is not absolute.  There are elements of taste involved.

So I have to say that the structure chosen to tell this story seems unnecessarily involuted to me.  It's too complex for the material.

What is this structure?

The first-person narrative does hold to the POV of first person (an Immortal born so long ago language was only grunts).  So I have no complaints there.

The structure is clever. 

Each chapter is introduced by a few paragraphs set in italics that are happening while the main character is a prisoner (hung hero) in a laboratory setting where they are obviously investigating his immortality and immune system.

If the novel were told starting with his capture and going through his escape attempts until he succeeded, it would be a drag, long, boring hung-hero dealing with distractions rather than advancing the plot.

The plot is not about him escaping prison. 

The actual narrative tells the story of this Immortal discovering that someone is after him.

This "someone" is rich and powerful and hires "demons" as hit men tasked with taking him alive.

Other people, though, die all around him. 

So the straight-through plot is this Immortal being chased by humans, hit-men, demons, (actually some online gamers being used as dupes) and there are vampires, and a female who may be as old as he is (or older) he isn't sure.  There's another woman involved, too, so you have a sort of "triangle" situation which isn't made clear even at the end of this volume.  But the ending leaves us eager to read the next installment in this guy's Relationship problem. 

He's been playing tag with this Immortal woman for millennia.  (I told you this is good stuff.) And in the end of this novel, he learns some things about her, and his Relationship to the woman he meets in this novel changes substantially -- so the plot is advanced and there is a solid "ending" leading to a sequel. 

At JUST THE RIGHT POINT (I told you the structure is well done for what it is) we get to the event where he gets captured at just the point where he hatches a successful escape attempt.

All the elements (characters and tools) to create this escape have been properly introduced in prior scenes.  The possibility that he can die permanently has been made real. 

So what's "wrong" here?  This plot rumbles along like a well oiled machine.  Why is it a chore to read? This is a good writer with a solid track record.  What happened here?

There are 2 very abstract technical problems with this absolutely fascinating novel (don't worry, there's a sequel in the works that'll be better).

#1) The point in time chosen for Chapter One is wrong.

#2) The innate "character" of this character may be either badly presented or actually formulated wrong. 

OK, let's start with #1 because that's easy to fix once you understand why it doesn't work.

------SPOILER ALERT -----

As often stated in this blog, I don't believe a good story can be "spoiled" by knowing what's going to happen in it.  If it can, it's not a good book.  If you understand that, read on fearlessly.  You'll still love reading this book.  In fact you may love it more after reading this discussion.  

The first characters introduced after the main character wakes up out of a drunken stupor end up dead right away. 

It is established that this dissipated and dis-likeable main character telling the story actually holds this pair of unlikeable college men in some affection -- mostly because they enjoy getting drunk and watching ballgames on TV with him.

This is a portrayal of college students that does not "work" for me.

What rule is violated by this portrayal? 

Many 1940's SF novels elevate and laud drunkenness as a means to accessing higher consciousness or even one's innate intellectual skills.  I used to like those novels.  I know too much now to find such an attitude laudable. 

Opening a story with a guy (apparently homeless bum) crashing in a college student's apartment and supplying beer and liquor to keep them drunk just doesn't work for me.  I feel no sense of identification with this main character and couldn't care less what happens to him.

The information fed into the story-line by this opening situation is that this guy is not homeless, not poor, is capable of affection for these young men, and is -- ta-da! Immortal. 

He ended up in the apartment having been brought there to a party by a friend (not-human not-magical iifrit) who also plays dissipated drunk convincingly. That friend later returns to move the plot forward, solidly and convincingly.

So I don't like this immortal character because he gets humans (who can be harmed by drunkeness) drunk while he drinks to a stupor but can't be harmed by it.  He stays drunk for centuries just for the fun of it. 

We see a portrait of an individual blessed with long life, not invulnerable but Immortal (so far). 

I dealt with this problem of being immortal among mortals in my Dushau Trilogy, but my immortals there were aliens (I do vampires in other universes such as Those Of My Blood.)

Dushau (Dushau Trilogy)

My Dushau Immortals studiously avoid close personal relationships with mortals because they have perfect memories and too many bereavements can lead to insanity.

Doucette saw this problem as well, but handles it differently and with some intriguing twists.

In the course of the opening set-up chapters of this novel, we see this Immortal experience affection and friendship for a number of humans.  His heart opens and he bonds easily with all and sundry (even vampires). 

This makes him, to me, an irresistible character.  Could not put this book down.

But at the same time, there's the "gritty realism" that this character has murdered -- over thousands of years, for many reasons, causing death has become no great big deal.  And we see him murder mercilessly.  Maybe with some justice, but with a callous attitude. 

Now here we come to the Information Feed issue.

Go back to SAVE THE CAT! (the 3 books by Blake Snyder on screenwriting).

Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

What does the title say?

To engage your viewer INTO bonding with the main character whose story you are about to tell, you MUST first reveal something about him that will arouse viewer sympathy, empathy, identification or a yearning to become "like that."

The first thing we learn about the dingiest, dirty-harry character you want to present has to be LAUDABLE, universally laudable.

So Blake Snyder says -- show your hero SAVING THE CAT.  Taking a risk for the helpless, or otherwise revealing an admirable character trait BEFORE you reveal the gritty traits that make the 6 problems the character has to solve.

Nothing in the introduction to Doucette's Immortal is in any way "saving the cat" -- drunkenness itself which is not a real PROBLEM for the Immortal but which harms those humans he associates with is not laudable.  Bumming around among college parties with an Iffrit with dissipated habits is not laudable.  That this is done by choice because he has nothing else to do is cause for reader disinterest.

So, while there are many traits about this Immortal character that are absolute grabbers, what we learn first are put-offs.

The put-offs will eventually become the problems that establishing Relationships will solve.

But as depicted in the opening, this Immortal has no conflict (internal or external) in forming friendships. 

The first real plot event is the news that the college students who hosted him have been murdered by a demon -- and the assumption that the demon had been aiming at the Immortal while the college students just got in the way.

The structural problem with this plot event is simply that the Immortal was not in the apartment when the demon killed the students.  The event happened off stage.

The Immortal actually feels a little sad and maybe miffed that the humans he felt affection for (briefly, in passing, without depth) had been murdered because of his presence in the apartment.

If not for that feeling, he'd have just blown town.  But the murder of the humans made it more personal. He wants to fight back. 

So from there on, the story gets interesting.  The plot advances, and you begin to see where things are going with the bits at the beginning of chapters showing he's going to be captured.

The next structural innovation that is unnecessarily complicated is a shift in the narrative voice at the point where the two narratives (the chapter headings during captivity and the chapters leading up to being captured) come together.  The standard first-person past narrative suddenly becomes first person present.

This is unnecessarily jarring, a real put-off.

In a different sort of story, it wouldn't be a put-off.

In fact, the entire structure could be the best artistic choice for some stories.  Stories that involve say, time-travel, could work this way.  Or stories about known historical events -- a King Arthur legend, The French Revolution, etc. 

But in this particular narrative, the device seems like an erroneous choice because the material itself is strong enough to carry the reader straight through the plot.

So what we seem to have is a story-concept, a very intriguing character, that needed introducing to a readership.

There is a huge over-burden of background to work in.  This character is 10's of thousands of years old and his development as a human being has direct relevance to how he relates to the modern century.  He admits that at first his people were barely self-aware.  He still has long-distance running skills from running down game for days at a time.  He has trouble relating what happened to him in his life to the various calendars that have come and gone. 

There's a lot of background to work in.  A lot of information to feed.

The Immortal's story is being picked up when two women come into his life and that changes things significantly.  But that means the story has to portray how things were for him "before" so that how things become "now" and will be "after" these relationships start to affect him. 

How can you plot that when it's all information feed.

How can you avoid expository lumps? 

The story and the plot are totally stationary in this Immortal's life all through this novel. 

He's a "hung hero" on two levels -- being captured and imprisoned to be studied, and being chased down to be captured but he doesn't know by whom or why until the last third of the novel.

So the author cleverly structured the two stories against each other to give the illusion of movement.

Without the headings at the beginnings of chapters, we wouldn't anticipate him being imprisoned or why or how hard it would be to escape.  It's foreshadowing by expository lump, cleverly translated into show-don't-tell (yes the chapter headings read very well, no mistakes there).

Without the story of his being chased down and captured, the story of escaping from prison wouldn't carry the novel.

So given that you have this terrific character with a huge exposition needed to introduce him, and NOTHING HAPPENING in his life to make a story, what do you do?

The solution to clever-up the structure is actually a work of genius. 

But for me it just doesn't "work" because the story there is to tell about this Immortal does not require artsy-craftsy tricks of structure.

This Immortal's story actually begins when he meets the woman who will change his life, his self-concept, cause him to become involved in the modern world, in humanity and humanity's future by using all his past experience in the service of a greater good.

For any man, that change is always caused by a MATE - a SOUL-MATE (for most it's female, but not always). 

The element is LOVE.  The journey is from today's misery to "happily ever after." 

When that story starts to move, the novel begins.  All the rest is throat-clearing. 

The story starts where the two elements that will conflict first come together. 

So for this Immortal, that point is where he meets this human woman who will become significant forevermore.

But the story of his being captured and escaping is an incident, an excuse for action scenes, not the story, not the path to resolving the conflict.

Taking Blake Snyder's advice, the story starts where SHE sees HIM "save the cat" -- i.e. do something that endears him to her, that makes her willing to RISK something to save him.

Do you see where this is headed? 

We have a classic PASSIVE HERO - he fights, he takes action, but his decisions do not actually make a real difference.  This very clever, very skilled author has hidden this salient fact under some virtuoso writing, but the fact itself spoils everything in this novel.

What do you do to solve a PASSIVE HERO problem?  What do you do to avoid expository lumps?  What do you do to find a new opening for the novel that does not focus on a hung-hero who can't do anything about his problems and about whom the only important facts are odious to the very readers who would most enjoy the novel? 

The solution is excrutiatingly simple. Think hard. It is a tried and true classic any seasoned editor would toss at a writer who sent in a chapter and outline like this.  Why is this writer fumbling to tell this story when he obviously knows how to write novels?

See my 7 part series here on editing -- here's the 7th which has a list of links to the previous parts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html

Now, think-think-think. 

If you've read the novel now, you may see the obvious solution. 

This whole thing is not the Immortal's story.

The expository lumps cleverly avoided by having the first person narrative allude to events in past millennia (a literary device that works) are filled with information we don't need to be TOLD -- on the nose. 

And though these allusions are cleverly phrased to appear incidental, they are "on the nose" data-dumps.  The data is mostly irrelevant to the Immortal's story.

How do you avoid that?  What do you change? 

I loved reading this Immortal's "voice" -- but that didn't change the fact that the expository lumps disguised as clever narrative that carried characterization just don't "work."

Why don't they "work?"  Because the information in each memory is not something I wanted to know before I read it.  No suspense.  No revelation.  I didn't have to work for it.  I wasn't asking the question "what happened to this guy in Egypt?"  I didn't NEED TO KNOW in order to solve the mystery of who's after him. 

Because of that I didn't care who was after him or why.  He felt it was ho-hum, being chased another time -- yawn.  So it bored me.

At the opening, in the college student's apartment, this Immortal wakes up from a drunken stupor. 

If ever you are tempted to start a story (and yes, I've done it!) with the main character "waking up" in some improbable circumstance or confused -- STOP WRITING and go back to the drawing board.  Something is wrong conceptually with the structure or the character. 

The story opens where the two elements that will conflict to generate the conflict which will be resolved in the last chapter first come together.

What happens in the last chapter of this novel?

The woman the Immortal meets pretty well into this novel finally gets what she wants, positions herself where she wants to be. 

The Immortal succeeds in achieving NOT ONE THING that he SET OUT TO ACHIEVE in the opening.  He wasn't either setting out or achieving.  He was stationary in his life when SOMETHING HAPPENS TO HIM. 

The two types of plot that go with this kind of material are:

1) Johnny gets his fanny caught in a bear trap and has his adventures getting it out

2) A likeable hero struggles against seemingly overwhelming odds toward a worthwhile goal.

In the opening to this novel, the Immortal does not DO ANYTHING, decide anything, take any action, learn anything, or even pray for anything that CAUSES anything else to happen.

Thus the Immortal (Johnny) does not GET his own fanny caught.  That is he does not take an action that initiates a because-line. 
In this novel the Immortal is not introduced by any trait that is even remotely likeable by any substantial audience-demographic.  He is by any measure no hero and most importantly, he has no goal. 

All of these fatal flaws are totally hidden by the superb writing craftsmanship. 

And hereby hangs a cautionary tale.

When you are writing a story that has hold of you by the guts, a story you just have to get others to read, a compelling story -- and you find that you have to HIDE THE FLAWS, then STOP RIGHT THERE and go back to the drawing board.

Readers may not know how to tell you what's wrong, but they will sense something wrong and many of the very readers who should read the book just won't finish it.

Don't use your skills to hide flaws.  Use them to eliminate the flaws.

The flaw in the novel IMMORTAL by Gene Doucette is the very most common flaw I see in manuscripts (and even published novels in Mass Market), and I see the very readers who would enjoy the novel most putting it aside.

It's a simple flaw and it's easy to fix.  You know it's there when you face pages of utterly essential expository lumps. 

YOU ARE TELLING THE STORY FROM THE WRONG POINT OF VIEW.

Now re-imagine this novel, IMMORTAL, from the woman's point of view.

She is the online gamer.  She has an eclectic education, a vast imagination, an embracing nature.  Her story starts when she gets the first inkling that such a thing as "an Immortal male" exists.

Her goal, which she pursues as relentlessly as the Immortal once ran down game animals, is to meet a living Immortal man. 

When she meets him, her GOAL shifts to getting him into bed. 

Her goal shifts when her heart opens to embrace this Immortal as a person, not just an icon. 

Her goal shifts again when she realizes she wants this guy, she wants to be with him. 

And that final goal, at the end of this novel, seems to have been achieved.

She is the one whose life changes, by her own actions, by her own determination, by her own will, by her own heroism.  And that change is a WORTHWHILE GOAL that can be achieved only over SEEMINGLY OVERWHELMING ODDS. 

She is the likeable hero who struggles against seemingly overwhelming odds toward a worthwhile goal - one she only sees dimly when she takes that first, fateful, step. 

This novel is her story.

Here is a marvelous post by Linnea Sinclair on Point of View.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/heading-into-danger-choosing-point-of.html
Now from within her point of view, FINDING OUT, or discovering, or unfolding, or digging up the information about how The Immortal interacted with the ancient past, what his opinion of it is, and any relevant detail of his past experiences, becomes the main story-imperative.

As we sink into her point of view, we adopt her urgent need to know, and feel sparks of triumph every time we worm some new tidbit out of the Immortal.

All the expository lumps disappear and we learn his story through her eyes.  What we don't know becomes spice, incense, and erotic triggers. 

Saving him from the laboratory (which she does very cleverly) becomes the plot which culminates in conflict resolved and if not an HEA at least an "off into the sunset" ending leading to a sequel where we chase the HEA which is now suddenly possible - but maybe not going to happen.

So this opening novel, the introduction to the Immortal as a character, is not his story because his life is static at that point. 

Yet through her eyes, we can enter into his life, understand what makes him tick better than he does himself, and see what he needs to do to learn what he must learn in order to change and grow, i.e. to be alive in a real sense, not just immortal.

Sometimes a character's story can be more compelling, more dramatic, easier to write and easier to read when that character's story is seen from outside.  Remember Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. 

Always turn your material around and around, looking at it through the eyes of various characters before writing. 

Notice here the power of THE OUTLINE.  Given an outline of the plot, it would be immediately clear that the ending does not match the beginning and the middle doesn't hit the right "mid-point" tension note.

Once you see that the ending happens where one character achieves a goal, and the other character acquires a goal, you will know where the story starts.

Maybe you'll read this book and totally disagree because the character revealed in the smart-ass inner dialogue is just too interesting to lose by switching points of view.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com  

ps: in a few weeks we'll walk through the step-by-step process of stitching all these disparate techniques together and invent a world bursting with story-potential. That'll be at least a 7-part series of posts.