Karen S. Wiesner: Three-Dimensional Writing, Part 3

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Three-Dimensional Writing, Part 3

Based on Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing (formerly titled Bring Your Fiction to Life {Crafting Three-Dimensional Stories with Depth and Complexity})

This is the final of three posts dealing with three-dimensional fiction writing.

The word “three-dimensional” is not only easy to define as solid, realistic, rounded and lifelike, even living, but it also translates well into the craft of writing. Most writers know what is not three-dimensional writing. Simple words convey the concept: flat, cardboard, paper doll, unrealistic, unremarkable, un- or underdeveloped, dead. Writing that is three-dimensional seems to have length (the foundation of a story), width (structure), and depth (fully-fleshed-out characters, plots and settings rooted in layers of rich, textured scenes). Three-dimensional writing is what allows a reader to step through the pages of a book and enter the world created, where plot and characters are in that glorious, realistic realm that starts with little more than a line and progresses into shape and finally represents solid form. Once three-dimensionality is grasped, all things are possible: direction, motion, focus, vivid color, texture, harmony, variety in which change is attainable and value becomes concrete. But how do we translate dimensional foundations into the opening and resolution scenes we’ve written along with into the all-important bridge scenes between? That’s where three-dimensional writing gets sketchy and needs an examination of step-by-step technique. We'll explore all of these in detail in here and also provide a checklist that can be used to ensure depth and dimension as we revise.

Anatomy of a Three-Dimensional Scene

To understand what we need to add the necessary depth and dimension and fully develop each and every scene in a book, let’s explore the kinds of scenes each story needs.

There are three types of scenes: Opening, Bridge and Resolution. Opening and resolution scenes are the crucial support structures that bridge scenes are built between. Each must be well constructed with purpose, strong enough to carry the loads required of them.

Opening scenes introduce characters, plots, and settings, and where the story is going. Carefully consider and craft your hook—the opening line of your book. This pivotal sentence should either contain or suggest the end of your story. That first line should resonate throughout the book, parallel and/or reflect the resolution, and maybe even tie into the final sentence. Your opening scenes always introduce an "implicit promise" to the reader. If you don’t deliver what you've promised within your first scene by the time your story ends, you’ve stolen time, money, and even reader emotions, all with a careless shrug of purposeful neglect. Writers can take more time unpacking opening scenes than they can anywhere else in the story. If the reader doesn’t have a strong desire to invest emotionally in the characters from the very first scenes, he won't care what happens next, let alone how everything is resolved. The only difference between opening, bridge and resolution scenes is that the reader enters an opening scene knowing absolutely nothing thus far. New locations must be discovered, detailed and described in-depth at the opening of a story or when they're first introduced, but familiar locations don't require such an elaborate setup after the initial visit.

In the back of your mind, at every point in the storytelling, should be the fact that the end of your story is where you're going. You're continuously building toward the wrap-up. Your direction is crucial because, your story beginning should resonate throughout the rest of the book. It should match up with the resolution and may even tie into the final sentence. The end grounds and justifies the whole of the story. How your story ends is essentially a reward to your reader for taking the journey with you. All loose ends must be tied up adequately in your story. If the author is never going to answer a nagging question, why invest anything, especially time and passion, in the story? Leaving a story thread dangling isn’t something an author can do without making readers feel cheated, and rightly so. All story endings must be logical, with a sense of inevitability. It's the final, not always the first, impression that will bear lasting judgment. The reader should feel that every minute of his time in your world—putting off, giving up, or altogether missing other things—was well spent. While it's been said the opening sentence can make or break the book, the ending is what makes or breaks the author. Have you ever finished a story and immediately sought out everything else by that author? If that's not your ultimate goal as an author, I don't know what is. The only difference between opening, bridge and resolution scenes is that your resolution scenes are where you'll resolve all conflicts from the viewpoint of a reader who expects you to keep the promise you made when you started the story.

Hands down, the middle bridge scenes are the trickiest to develop because the majority of your story unfolds within them, and that has to happen with ideal pacing. Every bridge scene should show a realistic, vivid picture of the story landscape within the first few paragraphs and as succinctly as possible such that the reader can step into it right alongside the main character and feel informed and eager for the next plot development. Until the scene is established sufficiently, the reader can’t enter, let alone be transported there without unfortunate repercussions. The secret to writing three-dimensional bridge scenes is that all of these scenes must set up before they can set out to tell their crucial piece of the story. Each bridge scene has to meet three basic requirements:

1.      Establish the three-dimensional characters (especially the POV character) you worked so hard to develop.

2.      Advance the plot. Be clear on every character’s agenda in a scene, and the agendas in conflict. If the scene doesn't have a clear purpose in progressing the story, it needs to be questioned. Having three dimensions of character, plot, and setting are crucial to advancing a story through the middle scenes.

3.      Construct the setting. Readers must be led through the story world step by step with information that first anchors, then orients, and finally allows them to move forward with a sense of anticipation. Scenes can't really function without time and place being indicated early (and concisely) enough so your reader doesn’t become lost, looking to establish where he is, was, and where he's going.

Ensuring that all of these requirements are accomplished in each scene in a creative, non-info-dump way isn’t for the faint of heart, and one that might demand a lot of revision. But the harder readers have to work to orient themselves, the easier it becomes to set down the book, possibly for good.

The three basics to scene setup we established above aren't all that's needed, either. The secret to writing three-dimensional bridge scenes is that all must set up before they can set out to tell their crucial piece of the story. In real life, a bridge has two sides and both must be firmly anchored to something tangible in order to successfully function. But your goal isn't simply to get your characters from Point A to Point B. Scenes have to connect, join, fuse, and be secured in such an intrinsic way that they flow from start to finish, one to the next, in a natural progression. The secret to providing scenes that anchor and orient readers, and lead them with purpose throughout your story landscape, always with a whisper of what's to come, is twofold:

1.      Connect the bridge from one scene to the next seamlessly. You can use this method for all the scenes in your book, because the technique is the same from one to the next. The only difference is that in the very first scene of the book (the opening scene), you’re starting from the viewpoint of the reader knowing nothing about what came before—hence the need for more room and clever acts of brevity that introduce the story elements of character, plot, and setting. There's nothing worse than dropping a reader in the middle of nowhere in the dark of night and he isn't given enough details to figure out where he is, what's going on, and who this character running ahead of him in the darkness is. In the same way that the first step in using a microscope is to focus the lens, we need to provide the focus for characters, settings and plots in our opening scenes.

2.      Extend the bridge into the next scene. What you're doing here is foreshadowing future events (the future dimension we discussed earlier). Victoria Lynn Schmidt describes this as "making the reader wonder what could possibly happen next, without making [him] incredulous after it happens." Obviously extending the bridge toward the next scene won’t be done in the opening paragraphs but closer to the end of the scene. As we said about an opening scene, the difference with resolution scenes is that they should tie up all the story threads while leaving a satisfactory sense of finality rather than making the reader question what happens next.

Doing these two things is something that takes a lot of practice to master, since you don’t want an opening with a recap like “Last time in our story…” let alone a transitional punch in the face from recap to the current story, such as: “And that brings us to the present…” Nor do you want to leave your reader hanging, wondering if your story is actually going anywhere. The reader needs to dread/hope about future events, or he won't care to keep reading. Unfortunately, there is no magical formula that translates the five W's into wonderfully written prose, since you definitely don’t want each scene to be set up exactly like the last.

Preparation (and a worksheet) should do the trick of ensuring we get all of this sketched out early so, when it comes time to revise the story, we produce prose with an efficiency of words that's creative and innovate in transporting informed, eager readers into full-fledged dimensionality of story. A simple three-dimensional scene checklist that covers the most crucial aspects would include the following:

Depth & Dimension Scene Revision Checklist

Connecting the Bridge to this Scene from the Last Scene (When): (Establish the "when" by alluding to what's happened previously. In bridge scenes, try to do this without becoming repetitive. You want to get readers up to speed for what's about to happen in this scene. For bridge scenes, it's crucial you give a definable sense of how much time has passed since this point-of-view character's last scene)

 

Who:

·         Who is the point-of-view character in this scene? (Only one point-of-view character per scene, and this is the only character you can get inside the head of for this scene.)

·         What other characters are in this scene when it opens? (These are the only ones you need to concern yourself with in the set-up.)

What:

·         Establish what the main and other characters listed in the last section are doing physically at the time the scene opens.

Where:

·         Where are the main and other characters in the scene? Establish their location(s) in a broad sense as well as specifically.

Why:

·         What's going on in this scene in the overall unfolding of the story?

Extending the Bridge toward the Next Scene: (This will be done closer to the end of each bridge scene. Give the reader some light and anticipation for the path ahead.)

The good news is, the more you practice these techniques and identify them in the published books you read, the better your chances of mastering the fundamentals. If you have trouble doing this with your own work, try out the checklist using some of your favorite published novels.

Start by coming into each project with the necessary preparation of setting up before you set out. From there, you can translate each item on the checklist into well setup, three-dimensional scenes. All three of these steps will ensure that you’re creating a story so breathtaking it allows readers to eagerly enter the picture you’ve painted right alongside the main characters.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing

Volume 5 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: Three-Dimensional Writing, Part 2

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Three-Dimensional Writing, Part 2

Based on Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing (formerly titled Bring Your Fiction to Life {Crafting Three-Dimensional Stories with Depth and Complexity})

This is the second of three posts dealing with three-dimensional fiction writing.

In Part 1, we talked about Present and Past Self. Let's continue.

Future Self

In contrast to backstory, the future we're talking about in respect to "future dimension" is not specifically referring to actual future events of the fictional characters we create. Nor is it a "futuristic" way of looking at what's going to happen at some point in the story of this character's life. In other words, we're not trying to show the character in a setting or situation decades in the future of the current story. Instead, the future self is about projecting forward to what may come in the future, what resolution may result at the conclusion of the story, based on the ever-evolving development of current events.

            Ask yourself these questions:

·                     What does your character want in life?

·                     What will it take to get that?

·                     What might change if she gets it?

·                     Just as important, what would happen if she doesn't get it?

·                     What's at stake? 

If you don't give characters fully fleshed out situations, conflicts, and goals and motivations for the future, you've essentially left the reader with nothing to hope for or look forward to. He won't be inspired to rage when it looks like the character might not succeed in her goals, nor will he be held in suspense waiting for the worst to happen. Whispers of the best and the worst that could happen are the very things that keep the reader engaged in the story. Don't underestimate the importance of including this in each and every scene of your story. Without an undertone of what's ahead, a reader will read each page wondering Where is all this going? What's the point of this? Is it worth reading? These hints are the very things that keep the reader engaged scene by scene.

 

To show future dimension of self is a way of allowing readers something to either anticipate and/or dread in terms of where the characters and story are going, as well as project possibilities, expectations, apprehensions, and anxiety about what might happen in the future at each stage in the storytelling. You want to produce suspense and outright tension, excitement, and trepidation. Bottom line, you want to create an uncertainty of outcome in every stage without creating an illogical or unsatisfactory resolution. The future dimension anchors and deepens the context for a resolution because the reader needs to be aware from one scene to the next where this story is (or may be) going, in what the direction events are unfolding, and where it may (or may not) conclude.

Obviously this is something that is constantly evolving in response to the character's own direction throughout the story. It's often been said that the beginning of a book should resonate at the end of the story. An opening scene or scenes should include, in some capacity, a hint of the character's ideal goal, what she ultimately wishes for her future. The bridge scenes that carry the middle of a story will gradually reflect or challenge this ideal as plots develop in reaction to internal and external conflicts, and as the character's goals and motivations transform. The resolution scenes will also mirror that objective, though it's unlikely that "The End" is exactly what the character envisioned at the beginning. In fact, that initial outcome is usually undesirable by the time the last scene comes, because all writers should strive for a logical—but unpredictable—ending.

The point is, without that future dimension that looks ahead toward the possible outcomes of a story, the reader won't be grounded in knowing exactly what he should be hoping for and rooting to happen. A reader who isn’t engaged is one you’ll lose sooner or later. For that reason, future dimension is as pivotal as the present and past.

All main characters need a fully fleshed-out future dimension of a character, woven in throughout scenes. Human beings desire purpose; Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is at the heart of the reader's hope/dread response as a story is being told. We all have strengths and weaknesses, dreams and regrets, vices and virtues, failures and accomplishments, boundaries to set and hurdles to overcome. In combination, these will begin in our formative years; they will be the foundation of the person we currently are, and shape who we become in the future. Weaving this future dimension of self throughout a story is vitally important. Without it, there can be no satisfactory, logical—yet unpredictable—ending. If you can’t create a longing in readers for the main character to reach her story goal right from the start, to resolve with fierce motivation her conflicts and fulfill her goals, there’s no reason to read (or for the author to write) the book.

In the most condensed form, you'll see a main character’s three-dimensions seamlessly woven into nearly every story synopsis you read. To help you practice this, read a variety of back cover blurbs from published books and try to pinpoint which aspects are present, past and future self of the main character. Once you can identify them, try to write your own story summaries with the three dimensions in mind.

Without each of these “self” dimensions clearly defined before you start writing your story, your characters may end up two-dimensional at best—they’ll have shape without form. In the ideal, you’ll know your characters, plots and settings so well before you begin the multi-layered task of bringing the book to fruition, the groundwork for three-dimensional writing will be laid out and just waiting for you to root deeply into each scene you write.

In Part 3, we'll talk about adding depth and dimension to your story scenes.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing

Volume 5 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: Three-Dimensional Writing, Part 1

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Three-Dimensional Writing, Part 1

Based on Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing (formerly titled Bring Your Fiction to Life {Crafting Three-Dimensional Stories with Depth and Complexity})

This is the first of three posts dealing with three-dimensional fiction writing.

The word “three-dimensional” is not only easy to define as solid, realistic, rounded and lifelike, even living, but it also translates well into the craft of writing. Most writers know what is not three-dimensional writing. Simple words convey the concept: flat, cardboard, paper doll, unrealistic, unremarkable, un- or underdeveloped, dead. Writing that is three-dimensional seems to have length (the foundation of a story), width (structure), and depth (fully-fleshed-out characters, plots and settings rooted in layers of rich, textured scenes).

Three-dimensional writing is what allows a reader to step through the pages of a book and enter the world created, where plot and characters are in that glorious, realistic realm that starts with little more than a line and progresses into shape and finally represents solid form. Once three-dimensionality is grasped, all things are possible: direction, motion, focus, vivid color, texture, harmony, variety in which change is attainable and value becomes concrete. Three-dimensional writing needs to start with three-dimensional characters.

Three-Dimensional Characters

Using sketches to develop character is the technique that comes closest to reaching the 3-D goal. However, the biggest problem is that only one dimension of main character is generally sketched out on these worksheets: Namely, the “present self” character. Each main character in a book needs a present self (the person he is in the now of the active story), a past self (who this individual was before that led him into becoming who he currently is), and a future self (who he’ll be in the time ahead, refined and shaped by current situations, conflicts, other characters, and his settings). If you want three-dimensional protagonists and antagonists with heartbreakingly realistic conflicts set in a world so vivid readers can actually enter it alongside the characters, you need to have all three “self” dimensions.

Character Dimensions: Present, Past and Future

Main characters need to be three-dimensional with a past, a present and a future, or they have no purpose in the story. So a simple character sketch worksheet that covers the most crucial aspects would include the following:

Main Character: Present/Past/Future Self

Name: 

Character Role: (hero, heroine, secondary character, villain)

Physical Descriptions:

Personality Traits:

Strengths and Weaknesses:

Relationships: (parents, other important family and friends, romantic interests, enemies)

Occupation/Education/Hobbies/Interests:

Plots/Subplots for this Character:

External Conflicts:

Internal Conflicts:

Goals and Motivations:

Important Settings for this Character:

Defining characters in the 3-D sketches allows you, the author, to know main characters through and through. Remember the difference in three-dimensional writing is that you’ll have a separate sketch for each main character that includes his present, past and future self. So take the basic sketch above and duplicate it three times across a landscaped page with three columns, labeling the sketches: “Present Self”, “Past Self” and “Future Self”.

The main reason writers don’t usually do a character sketch for each dimension of self is because they don’t think much will change from one sketch to the next, but characters wouldn’t be growing and developing if they remained static. Also, think of it this way: Are you the same person you were when you were born, two months old, 16 or 25 years old? Of course not. You can be sure you won’t be exactly the same person you are now 10 years, or even one year, from today either. In the same way, in order to create layered, developing characters you have to see where they are currently, where they came from, and where they may be heading. But it is true that too much shouldn’t change from one dimension to the next. A radical change in character is possible but usually only in extreme cases and only with solid justification. Alterations between the dimensional sketches will likely be subtle but allow development and growth to flourish. Out of these sketches, your story should begin to evolve organically.

These sketches aren’t simply a setting down of facts but the why. Digging deeper, what events, situations, people and places caused this character to think and act, react and interact the way she did, the way she does currently, the way she will do in the future?

To ensure you’re getting the maximum amount of “dimension” out of each self sketch, go back over them numerous times to make all as fleshed out as you possibly can. Obviously, though, not everything you end up putting in your sketches will make it into your story. There’s good cause for not overloading a book with the sheer weight of each main characters’ three-dimensional self, but the writer’s thorough knowledge of each dimension of the character not only benefits him but will certainly be worth the work put in because three-dimensional characters are haunting, timeless and unforgettable.

Present Self

In sketching the present dimension, you're essentially starting every character in the middle of her story. However, starting your sketches with the present dimension makes the most sense. Present character is always the person she is currently and sets the focus of the story you’re writing in the here and now. The more you get to know the character through present dimension, the more development you’ll gain in sketching her past and future dimensions. After all, a character's reaction to her experiences has a direct bearing on who she is and becomes, the choices she makes, and the actions she takes all through her life.

Maybe it's true that most people do have an innate way of being, conceivably born to act in a certain way, but in a work of fiction, a genetic disposition is of limited use. Instead, we focus on the universal truth that—like real people—almost all of a character's traits in the present are the result of the coping strategies used (good, bad, and everything between) and lessons learned (again, these reflect choices that are easy, hard, and all the nuances in-between) in every situation faced and the behavior that results. These are layers of that person's entire makeup. These change subtly over time. Naturally, the deeper you go into someone's past and psyche, the more your understanding of all that's shaped her growth.

When sketching the present dimension, you're creating a character who's worth following all the way through a story to the end. A good present dimension character will convey in a creative way what she's learned in life, what matters most to her in her current situation, and how she'd like her life to change or how she fears it will change. This is probably the easiest dimension, the one few authors would leave out since there would be no true story without it.

Past Self

Detailing the present dimension of your character is only the beginning. You need to weave pieces of the past throughout a story to flesh out the character’s past dimension. You can't truly understand who someone is until you've seen her developmental years, what she’s been through, and where she’s come from. I love how K.M. Weiland describes this in Improve Your Character Instantly: Just Add a Ghost when she says that what all characters have in common are the depths of their backstories. "They arrive at the beginning of their stories with baggage already in tow." (Incidentally, the "ghost" here is something from the past that haunts the character. Brilliant!) Baggage can be another term for the past dimension, a character's backstory.

The dictionary definition of backstory for fiction is the history or background created for a character that impacts the current events of the story. Backstory is everything that occurred before the current story that directly impacts what will happen in the story. But it’s only necessary to include backstory that's relevant to current choices, decisions, or events. But, as I’ve said, the author needs to know backstory in advance in order to authentically layer his characters.

It's been said that backstory shouldn't be placed at the beginning of a story, but that's only partially true. While front-loading a story with huge chunks of backstory isn't ideal (it could get incredibly boring or hard for the reader to digest if too much comes at once), we need to enlighten and engage readers, not overwhelm and crush out any interest with overkill. The true issue is that pieces (not great chunks) of backstory are needed at all stages of a story. Fragments of backstory need to be placed carefully throughout a story from the beginning all the way through to the end. Doing this will reveal character, plot, and setting in all dimensions.

While it’s popular to crop out the past dimension to meet a limited word count, too much shearing will prove detrimental to the three-dimensionality of any story. On the other hand, there is a point where too much can be overkill and would be better placed in the notes of an annotated version of the book, should your popularity ever warrant such a thing.

In sketching the past dimension for your character, you need to consider what fits in terms of the physical descriptions, personality traits, strengths and weaknesses and skills she's acquired, relationships she’s had, the internal and external conflicts she’s faced, and the environment she grew up in. What resulting goals and motivations are in line with who this character was, is, and justifiably will become? Your character’s past dimension should inspire more development of her present, as well as the future dimension waiting in the wings.

These dimensions of self work together to form the basis for three-dimensionality. Who your character is in the present should be a direct result of many of the things in her past dimension. If she was a geeky girl teased relentlessly all through school, it wouldn’t be hard to establish that friends and romantic relationships were all but nonexistent for her past self. If her present-day character has had a dramatic appearance change, that’s cohesive with her past self because she developed her appearance as a result of her experience. Her current internal conflicts need to reflect the ones she dealt with in her past, and her goals and motivations now should be in line with her coping mechanisms then.

In Part 2 of this three-part article, we'll talk about Future Self.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing

Volume 5 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor