Beginner's Mind

This week I watched a video lecture on creativity delivered by Kermit the Frog. It started with a celebration of the Big Bang as the original creative act (although without references to a Deity). Kermit gave inspirational advice on ideas such as inspired craziness and thinking outside the standard rules. He speculated on why we're put in this world and declared our purpose is to be creative, for everybody is creative in some way. Here's the video in case you want to listen to it. (It's fairly long.)

Listening to a Talking Frog

One of the concepts discussed in the talk, "beginner's mind," particularly struck me.

The Beauty of Beginner's Mind

As I understand it, this means approaching experiences without being bound by preconceptions, as far as possible. The short essay on this page (a teaser to lure the visitor into deeper exploration) says the "wisdom of uncertainty frees us from. . . the thicket of views and opinions." As a result, "When we are free from views, we are willing to learn." The person in this frame of mind is compared to a child, who sees the world with fresh eyes.

That page doesn't explicitly link "beginner's mind" to the creative process, as Kermit's lecture does, but the connection is clear. An artist or inventor who embraces this mindset can hope to generate fresh, individual work not quite like anything that has gone before. The concept resonates with me because it reminds me of my creative process and emotions when I originally started writing stories. I produced my first writings, aside from class assignments and a couple of allegedly humorous science-fiction skits, at the age of thirteen. Reading DRACULA at age twelve had turned me on to vampires, horror, fantasy, and "soft" SF of all kinds. Because I was limited to the offerings of the local public library and one store that sold paperbacks, I got a solid grounding in Victorian and Edwardian classics and the vintage works of the major pulp authors before I ever read much recent speculative fiction or viewed any horror films—a circumstance I consider very fortunate. This reading inspired me to want to write my own fiction, since I couldn't afford to buy many books and the sources available to me didn't have enough of the kinds of stories I wanted—mainly relationships between human and "monstrous" characters. So I had to create them for myself.

Incidentally, my impulse to start writing didn't spring from internal drives alone. It had a technological catalyst, too: I got access to my aunt's old typewriter, left in my grandmother's house. Finding a textbook from my aunt's high-school typing class, I taught myself the rudiments of touch-typing. Whenever I stayed overnight or longer at my grandmother's, I typed stories (until my parents gave me a portable typewriter of my own, and I could compose fiction at home also without the constraint of handwriting). Similarly, the much later advent of word processing with our first computer in the early 1980s sparked my creativity anew by eliminating the necessity to retype whole pages, or even multiple pages, to correct small errors or insert minor revisions. The computer removed a barrier between my creative impulses and their concrete expression, making it possible to refine my work further. (No more qualms about whether changing a word or two was worth retyping a page.)

When I started producing stories, I had the "beginner's mind." I didn't know any of the conventional "rules" for fiction, only the basic grammar and spelling I'd learned in English classes. In fact, when I eventually submitted my first book to a publisher, I didn't know anything about publishing except that submissions had to be double-spaced on one side of the page and include a SASE. But that stage came later, of course. For the stories I wrote as a teenager, I imitated the elements I loved in the horror and speculative fiction I avidly read, while tweaking the themes and tropes in accordance with my own fantasies. Because I wasn't inhibited by knowing what I was "supposed" to do, the words flowed almost faster than I could get them onto the page. The process of writing itself enthralled me, and I spent as much time on it as I could spare from school, chores, and other obligations. My third completed piece was a single-spaced novelette over thirty pages long, in the form of the journal of a man inadvertently changing into a vampire.

Now that I know the "rules" and have more experience in recognizing flaws in my own writing (and that of others), I work slowly and laboriously. I proceed like the centipede who has trouble walking because he can't decide which foot to move first. I don't often enjoy the first-draft process very much, although I do like brainstorming, outlining, proofreading the nearly-finished outcome, and the fulfillment of "having written." I sometimes miss the "first, fine careless rapture" of my teens and early twenties. On the plus side, my work has grown far better than it was when I had no idea what I was doing. I finish novels rather than bogging down in the middle because I haven't plotted in advance. I produce fairly polished first drafts that don't elicit heavy revision requests from editors. If only one could keep the "beginner's mind" along with the benefits of learning and experience.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Targeting a Readership Part 16, Plotters, Pantsers and Game of Thrones

Targeting a Readership

Part 16

Plotters, Pantsers and Game of Thrones

Previous entries in this series are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

So now here is an article in Wired Magazine which is by an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Daniel Silvermint, and addresses the infamous 8th Season of Game of Thrones

https://www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/

-------quote-------
Long-standing threats are being dispatched too easily, and plot threads we thought would matter have been quietly dropped. More troubling still, character motivations appear to be in a state of flux, and much of the drama involves clever people committing obvious blunders and suffering reversals of fortune as a result.
-------end quote-------

All of the issues listed in that quote will always arise when a writer shifts, changes, forgets, or just plain ditches a THEME mid-writing.  A major rewrite has to be done to give the ending material the same theme as the opening material.

So the Wired article advances this idea:

-------quote------
It all comes down to how stories are crafted, and for that, we need to start with two different types of writers: plotters and pantsers. Plotters create a detailed outline before they commit a word to the page. Pantsers prefer to discover the story as they write it—flying by the seat of their pants, so to speak.
-------end quote-------

I understand both these creative styles because I was taught the craft by a pantser, though I rarely employ that method.  I suspect both these definitions miss a vital point.

My instructor worked from a detailed conceptualization of the thematic structure of the piece she was crafting, but seemed to have no conscious idea of what that theme was or what she wanted to say about it.  She followed her characters into the story to see what they'd do, and to be surprised by what they did.

Following your characters by the seat of your pants is somewhat like great conversation.  We often talk "off the cuff" without seeming to plan what to say even as the words flow out of our mouths.  We know the language, and use the knowledge of the "grammar" of language (even as children, long before studying grammar) to place words together.  We craft sentences to say what we mean without thinking about grammar, just about what we mean.

And so it is with both plotters and pantsers.  Plotters write it down, and pantsers don't -- and that's the only difference.

The writer gets inside the Character and runs into the World to see what happens next.  Those who write down detailed outlines often find the Characters take over and run in an unplanned direction.  Those who don't write anything down find the Characters just stop and look at the writer wondering what to do next.

Either way, writing is not about plotting any more than conversation is about grammar.

The process of writing a story is about communicating the theme.

If you change what you are saying, or which side of an argument you are espousing, right in the middle of dinner table conversation, you sound like a hypocrite, or maybe just an idiot.

If you change what you are saying with a story in the middle of writing it, you lose your target readership just as surely as the espouser of a Cause will lose the nodding heads at the dinner table conversation.

Again from
https://www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/
 blog entry:

--------quote--------
Martin planned to skip the story ahead five years. But he couldn't make the gap in action feel true to the characters or the world, so he eventually decided to write his way through those five years instead. Knowing the bridging material wasn't ever going to be as gripping as the central conflicts, he compensated by planting more seeds in more corners of his already complex world. And once he had them, he couldn't prune them back without their resolutions feeling abrupt or forced. Worse, some of his idle characters were taking the opportunity to grow in the wrong directions, pulling away from the ending he had in mind for them. Soon, the garden was overgrown, the projected length of the series kept expanding, and the books stopped coming.

For the next couple seasons, showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss tried to take over management of Martin's sprawling garden, simplifying and combining character arcs with mixed results.
--------end quote-------

Trust me, read that whole blog entry to glean the context while thinking in terms of THEME.

In TV, when other writers mix in, other themes get introduced.  This tussle with Characters and Seeds, and conflicts and characters growing in the wrong direction is not dozens of different problems.  It is one problem all by itself -- loss of focus on the thematic structure.  What that world is about, is what makes a statement about this world.

Theme is the fabric that holds all those disparate characters together into a world of art that satisfies.

When opposite or oblique thematic statements are introduced, different segments of the audience become agitated, dissatisfied, disinterested, or just angry.

Study thematic structure from a philosophical point of view -- what is a human being, where do we come from, how did we get created, what is the meaning of life?

These are the kinds of questions that, when answered, form the framework of a work of art.

Changing horses in mid-stream does not lead to a work of art.

Or as this blog entry
https://www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/
said:

---quote-------
That's why Game of Thrones feels different now. A show that had been about our inability to escape the past became about the spectacle of the present.
----end quote------

And later, it is stated:
-----quote-----
Organic consequences gave way to contrivance. Gone was the conflict between complicated people with incompatible goals. Grey morality turned black and white.
------end quote------

The only way organic consequences give way to contrivance is when the underlying THEMATIC STRUCTURE is weakened.  Stick to your theme and you'll never write a "contrived plot twist."

Maybe you'll want to watch the whole Game of Thrones series again, or read the books it is based on, with an eye to sussing out the theme that Martin was working with that the showrunners missed.  I've done panels with Martin, and I'm telling you he understands his material on every level, even when it is his subconscious driving the action.

He is all about the charging forth into action, about strategy and tactics, but most of all force directed.

(He's also a very nice guy.)

So this very popular and easily available series is a perfect textbook example of what we've been talking about in all these blog posts.  Theme is the glue that holds it together for the reader/viewer.  Veer away from the theme driving the opening scene, and the ending fails.

------quote------
Endings invite us to consider the story as a whole; where it started, where it went, and where it left us. And we can feel the gaps as this one comes to a close.
------end quote-----

Daniel Silvermint is absolutely correct.  Think about that as you tackle your next writing project.  What is your payload?  What are you saying?  Oh, do please read Silvermint's article in Wired.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Plot vs. Story

The moving parts of a piece of fiction are well known to every writer who has been able to sell work consistently to the larger publishers.

Every workshop I've taught in where I've watched other writers analyze student work has shown me clearly that every single writer who has perfected a system (any system -- everyone invents their own working system) for producing completed works of fiction knows these moving parts.

And most really successful writers are self-taught so they have invented terminology for what they perceive and need to manipulate in order to produce salable work.

I've seen the words Plot and Story used interchangeably, with some other word used to designate the Plot when the word "Plot" is used to designate the "story."

It can be terribly confusing for beginners, and I suspect that's why writers are mostly self-taught.

Learning to write is a process of discovery.

Recently, on LinkedIn, I answered a question about whether you write for love or for money, and I said LOVE.

You can only write for love, really, because getting money for your writing is more a gamble, like venture capital. Venture capitalists love what they're doing enough to gamble on it.

BUT -- having love igniting your need to write, your true personality shows through and you land somewhere on a spectrum from utter carelessness of maybe "well writing is an unskilled profession anyone can do" or egotistical "I can do anything without half-trying" all the way down to a choked-up, self-defeating "I don't know HOW because nobody ever taught me, and everything I produce is embarrassing trash."

Well, nobody ever will teach you. But you don't already know how to write if you haven't put in the necessary effort to teach yourself.

And if you truly love what you need to write, and truly need to have that message reach someone you don't even know, then you will be greatly moved to learn the craft of writing, and maybe even delve deeply into the art behind the craft.

Again, your true personality will show through, along with your absorbed values, in the manner in which you approach this task.

You may go to amazon and buy a lot of expensive books on the theory that they will "teach" you. (personally, I'd hit the free local library first) Or more likely today you'll Google up some instructions.

So learning "to write" is a process, and the first step in the process is learning that you don't know "how" to do it. You know how to read a novel, but you don't know how to reverse that process into writing a novel until you've really taught yourself and then practiced what you've learned.

Reading is the first step in learning to write, but it's reading that is very different from the reading that readers do. A writer reads to reverse-engineer the fiction into its moving parts, it's necessary components.

You already know all the unnecessary components of your own story that you must write for love. The unnecessary parts are the really interesting parts for a reader, and it's the payload the writer must deliver.

But the second step in learning to read like a writer is learning to be interested in the VEHICLE that delivers the payload. That vehicle has a chassis composed of these moving parts we've been discussing individually. The same chassis can carry a large number of different genre-vehicles.

Now, in response to questions asked in the comments section of these blog posts, we are going to look at how to connect the moving parts we've examined into a chassis strong enough to carry that payload which you are creating out of love of it.

Writers who muddle their way into the craft and teach themselves to get to consistent, professional (make a living at it) word production eventually discover the nature of these mechanical parts of the composition and discover how the writer manipulates these parts to produce that final, polished work.

But being self-taught, or taught by someone who was self-taught, they use different terms to refer to the parts of the chassis and the connecting links.

So, like everyone else, I've adopted some terms from my teacher, and I've sorted out the moving parts of the composition, and given them names and learned how to mold them into place.

Maybe my terminology will illuminate these interior (necessarily invisible in the finished product) moving parts for you.

So let's see if we can walk and chew gum, juggle a few plates, and spin a lug-wrench at the same time.

On http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/ which is for learning exercises for writers, back in March 2009 Ozambersand raised a question which I answered at length in the comments section of one of my posts.

http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldbuilding-trunk-ated.html

In July, I posted two explorations of Scene Structure on this Alien Romance blog which now contains over 800 posts, so here is one of the URLs

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

That's Part 2, and you'll find the link to Part 1 in there.

In the comments from Part 1 and Part 2 on Scene Structure, one of Linnea Sinclair's writing students, Kathleen McGiver and a new commenter here Sharon, asked about the difference between Plot and Story. ozambersand kindly searched out that bit that I had written in a comment, and here it is for the record excerpted from the comments on worldbuilding-trunk-ated.

-------------------

PLOT is the sequence of things that happen, EVENTS. Events must be displayed in a because-chain to make a plot.

PLOT = BECAUSE

Because Obama was elected President, Stem Cell Research will be revived, and because of the research Somebody will be cured of paralysis, and then be elected President. PLOT. EVENTS. BECAUSE.

STORY is what those events mean to the characters emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, or in life.

Story is also linked to Because and is the result or cause (motive) behind (BEHIND) Events in the Plot.

Because Obama fulfilled his lifelong dream to be President, he has discovered that he doesn't know everything and can't do everything at once. Now, he doesn't know why he can't seem to hire enough of the right people to fully staff his administration. "Oh, why are the people I admire tax cheats?" The Events leading to his discovery of the answer to that question is his STORY. The Events themselves are the PLOT.

The BACKGROUND is President and White House and Recession and Bank Crisis and Middle East. Everyone reading the story knows all that.

The FOREGROUND is winning election, choosing and hiring people, admiring people, being admired, spending political capital, making risky choices, living with the HUGE consequences.

Look at a painting, say a portrait -- Mona Lisa. The chair, the blurry sketch of buildings and hills, sky, even her dress is BACKGROUND. The FOREGROUND is her face and hands.

Take a genre - Urban Fantasy - the URBAN part is background, the FANTASY is foreground because you have to explain the laws of magic etc in that universe and to be worth explaining they have to generate plot.

STORY is the character's personal experience and responses to the things that happen - the psychological and spiritual lessons learned.

The story of a man who falls in love with a thief only to discover the folly of attempting to reform her and decides to learn her craft and join her.

The BACKSTORY is all that went on before the plot begins, the things that happened that made them what they are.

BACKSTORY - The son of an ex-Nun and a seminary student who married for Love, falls in love with a thief and learns the folly - etc.

Who his parents were is backstory -- they never appear overtly in the novel, but their presence is in every word he utters, every decision he makes whether he knows it or not. You don't have to tell the reader the BACKSTORY (often it's better if you don't -- that's why you need all these other tools, so you'll have other ways to convey the information where necessary).

But you have to know the backstory to keep everything in the novel consistent and believable.

The B-story is the story arc of a character who is a confidant or intimate-enemy of the A-story's main character.

As I pointed out previously, the B-story character is often the last invented and is a sub-set or factor of the A-story main character -- someone he/she confides in and spills his guts to. In a film, the B-story carries your THEME.

The A Story main character pours out their heart (in a few choice lines) to the B-story character, thus informing the audience what's inside the A-story character that maybe even the A-story character does not know.

--------------
The glue that holds plot and story together is the THEME. I've done a number of posts on theme here, especially in the posts on Worldbuilding.

When the THEME does not glue the Plot to the Story, or bolt it on firmly with lots of grease so it moves nicely, or weld it so it can't move, when the THEME doesn't connect the plot to the story, then the EVENTS in the plot happen, but they don't happen TO ANYONE. The events become meaningless and readers get bored.

When the STORY doesn't change the characters actions, then the EVENTS don't proceed from the story through the theme, and again readers get bored reading about a single character's angst without events that illuminate and change that angst.

A well written composition will have the plot and the story so tightly welded or so perfectly articulated and well greased, that the reader can't tell the difference between plot and story. Each event and each reaction will be both at once.

But to create that effect, the writer has to know the difference.

In addition to doing all that, the World you build to cradle your plot and story has to explicate your theme. It's rooted in your theme. And the fastest, most efficient way to build the right world for this plot and story is to build the world from the theme.

Remember, art is a selective recreation of reality, not reality itself. It's what you select to leave out that makes it art, and that communicates your theme.

Theme is a game you play with your readers.

No two writers do this process of inventing moving parts of a story the same way.

Even a given writer will invent stuff in different orders for different projects. That's called creativity. It isn't a science. It isn't reproducible by other people. It's "magic" -- and its procedures depend more on who you are at that moment than on what you're trying to accomplish.

In other words, how you go about inventing the moving parts that will form the chassis that will carry your payload to your reader depends on where you are on that spectrum I mentioned above. Remember too that you as an individual can move along that spectrum from too timid to too confident, and may in fact rattle back and forth between the extremes during the writing of a particular work. Rattling back and forth may be a sign that the writing is going well!

Yet there are rules. Creating a work of fiction is not random or chaotic. It has a system behind it. Your system. Not anyone else's. (Rattling might be part of your system, but I don't advise teaching that part.)

When your work of fiction is all done, it can be reverse engineered to expose the moving parts and their relationship to each other (glued, bolted, welded).

In fact, most of the enjoyment that a reader gets out of a novel comes from their "kitten-and-ball-of-twine" unraveling of the beautiful, polished composition you've presented to them. But keep in mind, the reader who is not a writer doesn't really want or need to win that game with the writer.

Take Mystery Writing, for example. Readers want to joust with the writer to solve the mystery before the writer reveals all. But if it's too easy, the reader doesn't enjoy the game and won't read that writer's stuff again. If it's too hard, the reader who is not a writer likewise won't enjoy the game and won't read that writer again.

Getting it just right, hiding the moving parts of your composition, is an artform, and a game you play with the readers. It has to be fun or it isn't worth it.

Reverse engineering fiction to understand the story gives one the illusion that one understands the everyday world better. And since it's magic, the illusion can become reality. Magic is done via imagination and emotion, both of which are best delivered via fiction.

The theme is what communicates most loudly to readers, the handle by which they remember the novel and your byline. That's why the title has to be the theme, so they can remember it and recommend it. A theme portrays the world as the artist's eye sees it. A theme can say the world has meaningfulness, or that life has a meaning, or that life is meaningless and futile, or that the world is merely a figment of your imagination.

Fiction that bespeaks a theme that explains a reader's reality with verisimilitude can change the way the reader sees their world, and thus change the story of their life, and thus change the plot of their life as they make choices based on this thematic insight.

Or a work of fiction can just be loads of fun to read and not affect the reader much if at all.

Which way a work affects a reader is not the writer's choice. But it is a sobering consideration when tossing off a trash novel under a pseudonym or as a work-for-hire.

So the writer has to work at inventing and arranging the moving parts and putting them together to make a picture so that the reader can take the picture apart and understand it as pieces.

How can writer and reader work together to have the most possible fun?

THEME

That's the answer to almost everything about writing craft.

Theme is the organizing principle, and it is the subject about which writer and reader are communicating.

So no matter what the sequential order in which the writer invents the moving parts of a work of fiction, at some point before finishing the composition, the writer has to step back from creativity and take a long, jaundiced look at what has been created and exercise that artistic selectivity.

Which pieces to use, which to showcase, which to emphasize, which to show and which to tell can all be determined by reference to the theme.

To find the theme of this particular piece, ask yourself "What am I trying to say, here?" What's the take-away these readers should hold onto?

Do I want to say, "The business cycle can not and SHOULD NOT be eliminated?" Or do I want to say "Recessions and Depressions are a natural part of human commerce and we just have to live with them or commerce will stop."

Either statement could become an "in your face" approach to some non-human culture that arrives in Earth Orbit ready to trade for primitive artifacts like iPods, bound books and quaint little discs called Blu-Ray. (Argsel! You won't believe this! The pictures are all flat! It's abstract primitive art! We'll make a fortune!!!)

A novel, or a series of novels set in a well built world, has to take a stand on some philosophical point, and ask and answer (even if tentatively) a set of questions about that point. A set of questions. Set. They have to go together in a chain like a movie Detective interrogates a prisoner.

So if the plot is a Romance, then the core theme has to be something akin to LOVE CONQUERS ALL. But a specific Romance could say it's a good thing or a bad thing that love conquers all.

Whether it's good or bad depends on, well, for example, if you're the King who needs his Heir to marry fellow royalty for the alliance, but love conquers your plan and the Heir runs away with a peasant, then "love conquers all" is a real bad thing.

The social and economic problems that proceed from that runaway Heir and his heirs could make for a wildly successful series of Action Romance novels. Drop a comment with series that follow this pattern if you can think of any. There are quite a few.

So in the case of the Runaway Heir and his 10 kids raised on a farm, the STORY is that the Heir tussles with his responsibility to the throne and in his final epiphany (in the first novel) wrenchingly decides that his personal revulsion for being King overrides the Kingdom's need for him to be King. And he escapes (from some trap the King created) and goes running off to rescue his Beloved.

That's the story.

Here's the Heir's Character Arc, his story. "I have to become King. I love this Peasant. I have to marry this Princess-Shrew (who's a great manager and ought to be a Queen). I don't want to become King. I would make a terrible King and probably murder that Princess-Shrew. I refuse to marry Shrew. I love Peasant Woman. I WILL NOT ACCEPT MY FATE." That's the story arc, from accepting the fate of becoming King after his father, to rejecting it.

The PLOT is the sequence of events that TELLS THAT STORY.

Now if the story is the arc from accepting fate to rejecting fate, then the THEME (underneath the Love Conquers All theme) has to be something like "Birth is not Destiny" or "I am a person who can make my own decisions" or "Fate is not decreed by God." Or maybe "God Makes Mistakes and I'm One Of Them".

Pick a theme that EXPLAINS WHY the character goes from Accept to Reject to Action.

Using that theme create the PLOT. And don't forget that all this is cast in SCENES.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

But before you break the narrative into scenes, you need the 4 cardinal points of the plot structure (unless you are a pantser today).

Say, for example:

Open - a huge gala PALACE BALL introducing Heir to Princess-Shrew, Peasant serving in the kitchen?


1/4 - Heir causes the Princess to reveal her nasty personality and hatred for the Heir's kingdom and contempt for the kingdom's King.


1/2 - Heir compares the two and chooses Peasant as the better person, tries to get Peasant qualified to become his Queen. FAILS (1/2 to a HEA ending is the FAILURE part)


3/4 - Heir arrives at his long foreshadowed epiphany about his destiny and rejects the Kingdom and his father. Princess-Shrew was right not to respect the King. 3/4 result is that Peasant is imprisoned by King to prevent contact with Heir to force or blackmail Heir into marrying Princess.


END - Heir breaks Peasant out of prison, does something definitive to thwart the ambitions of Princess-Shrew, and Heir and Peasant take a powder, riding off into the sunset to an HEA.

OPENING OF FIRST SEQUEL - the King dies, throwing the Kingdom into political chaos. Nobody knows where the Heir went. He's probably dead. The Bells Toll.

I can already plot out 3 sequels, a multigeneration series, with the original Heir dying at 95 and telling his 30 year old grandson that the grandson is actually the King of Whatever and that's why the grandson has fallen in love with the Queen of Whichever (Whatever and Whichever are your Worldbuilding elements). Royalty is best off marrying Royalty and there's no hiding the fact of Royalty. (That is, the Heir's character arc has continued full circle back to his childhood acceptance of his role in the world).

Note how the STORY is all about "I" and how I feel about things and what I want and what I reject.

Note how the PLOT is "Heir" + ACTIVE VERB

In this plot, "Heir" is the main POV character. "It" is his "story." The story arc is all about what's going on inside Heir, therefore it is his story, therefore he's the main POV character, gets the most lines of dialogue and the most face-time.

Because it's his story, it is his PLOT. The important EVENTS that change the SITUATION are all generated by his ACTION. Every other character's arc and story and plot-moves all support the Heir's story and plot.

The cast of characters has to be organized like that, in heirarchy, to create a neat composition for the reader to reverse engineer. It's easy to organize the characters once you have the themes organized as I showed you in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

Note how both the story and the plot illustrate the THEME. Maybe the theme of the first novel in this Heir And Princess series is "I won't take it any more."

If the Heir's story arcs back (at age 95) to acceptance of his Royalty, then the theme the writer is displaying to the reader, the bit of "reality" the reader "takes away" says things like there is an inherent difference between people because of their genes or the status of their birth parents. Or perhaps it says, the old Greek Myth lesson that you can't escape your destiny, all is foretold at birth. Some of us aren't people, but rather objects on the chessboard. There can be no HEA if you resist your destiny.

How the arc develops and ends bespeaks the theme.

The moving parts of any work of fiction aimed at a wide audience will always have this kind of mechanism. The best writers hide that mechanism beneath layers of flesh and blood.

The exact same mechanism can support literally thousands of tales, none of which even remotely resemble the others, but all of which will delight pretty much the same audience.


--------------

Here are 3 posts I did on THEME

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/shifting-pov.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html

Now everybody run quick and post a comment THANKING OZAMBERSAND for finding this tidbit on plot and story that I had lost.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

A puzzler

"Are you a plotter or a pantser?"

If you are a published author, how many times have you been asked that? If you are a reader, do you care whether or not an author is methodical and well organized? If you are a writer who is seeking publication, do you try to change your ways if you see a pattern and all your favorite authors are proud plotters? (Or proud pantsers?)

Or... is the question really code for something else? Does the interviewer really want to know if you write plot-driven, or character-driven stories?

According (I think) to Orson Scott Card, there are four types of stories: event (or plot) focused; character centered; idea based; or about milieu.

No one has ever asked if I write Idea, or Milieu. Among speculative fiction writers, I'd think some of us (but not me) might be more interested in an idea, or in world-building. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie) was a Milieu story.

I've digressed from the confines of being "plotter" or "pantser".

This year --I've been honored with a few interview requests-- I've seen a third option both asked, and discussed on writers' loops: that of puzzler.

Given that I'm asked the question, I like to give a thoughtful, unique, and interesting answer. Maybe I don't always succeed, but a monosyllabic response must miss the point of doing an interview, mustn't it?

Until yesterday, I often compared my own writing approach to solving a jigsaw puzzle in which the corners and outline were always in place first, but some of the pieces (including outside pieces) were identical in color and shape on at least two sides so I might not notice they started out in the wrong place until the work was almost completed.

Yesterday I attempted a chess analogy. It actually doesn't work as well as a jigsaw puzzle, unless I think of my editor --or someone else-- as an opponent in the process, which of course, I don't.

I write chess-titled Romances. I have done since 1993. It's ironic that other authors have chess covers, isn't it?

I write character-driven stories, usually centered on the hero. Plot... or a series of thrilling events... isn't my primary interest.

Comparing the beginning of a work to having a chess board before me is interesting (to me). Of course, my editor would never tolerate a cast of thirty-two: 16 good-guys and 16 baddies.

Well, I don't need the sidling Bishops, and I don't need a full complement of pawns on either side, either. Moreover, I can cut down on the Rooks (or castles) and if I think of them as the spaceships and palaces (or milieu, not characters), I'm almost down to a manageable cast.

You might (or might not!) be interested to know why I didn't have time to send Christmas cards last year. My editor needed me to write out a "Castle", an entire spaceship on which a climactic scene took place, and also two "Knights" from Knight's Fork.

She was right, of course.

Each character has its strengths, powers, and limitations. They can only move as far, and in the directions dictated by who/what they are, and what is in their way.

There are rules. Every move has consequences. There's a time limit. There are space constraints. Pawns can be transformed into more powerful pieces.

My fanciful little chess analogy ought to fail on account of the color contrast. In politics, not everyone acts as his party expects. However, I collect chess sets. I have a Cretan set, where Black is Gold and White is Silver. Once the men (chessmen) are rubbed a few times, it's hard to tell which side they're on.

With that happy thought, I'll wish you a safe and happy Labor Day.

Rowena

By the way, I heard this week that Insufficient Mating Material won the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival's Romance category.

Plots That Work

Again, riding on Cindy's coat tails here...

There is no one right way to plot a book. Like Cindy, I'm a pantser or rather, I was more of a pantser than I am now. I guess I've morphed, after several mutlibook contracts, into a plot-ser. Half plotter, half pantser. Deadlines can have that effect.

But not everyone starts out a pantser. Last summer, author Stacey "The Silver Spoon" Klemstein and I did a plotting workshop at Archon, the science fiction convention held annually just outside St. Louis. Entitled "Plots That Work" we approached the same subject from two different angles: hers and mine.

Here's the breakdown from Stacey's handout:

Stacey Sez…

*Stephen King says, “…my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course).”

*Start with a situation: create a truly difficult situation and watch your characters struggle to find a way out of it. Don’t help them and don’t manipulate the situation to get them out—just watch and write it all down. (I’m paraphrasing Stephen King here, again!) Use “what-if” to test your situation’s strength.

*“Through a mirror, darkly”—Sometimes I can’t see much beyond the initial situation. I know someone is on the run, for example, but I don’t know why. That’s where GMC (Goal, Motivation & Conflict) comes in for each of the main characters, including the antagonist. (I don’t use the word villain because every villain is the hero of his or her own story—at least, that’s the way it should be if you want your hero to have a worthy opponent.)

*Imagine your story on a continuum. Your character is a certain way and in a particular situation at the beginning. Events transpire to change both of those elements, resulting in a changed character and situation by the end.

*Christopher Vogler says there are common elements (events, if you prefer) in every hero’s journey. Changes in the hero’s external situation match up with the changes that are happening inside him or her.

Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal
Meeting w/Mentor
Limited awareness of a problem
Increased awareness
etc etc...
*
Recommended Reading:
The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler
On Writing, Stephen King
Goal, Motivation & Conflict, Debra Dixon
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

Linnea Sez…

1 – What is a plot? A plot is a series of events—both internal and external—that comprises the character(s)’s journey through the story.

2 – Plot is the power source that makes the story happen. And conflict is the energy fueling that power source.

3 – James Scott Bell (Plot & Structure) sez Plot answers the questions:
· What’s this story about?
· Is anything happening?
· Why should I keep reading?
· Why should I care?

4 – Your plot is inextricably tied to your characterization. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a plot/problem-oriented writer (let’s write a story about an evil galactic empire challenged by a small band of freedom fighters called Jedi Knights) or a character-oriented writer (let’s write a story about a young orphaned man who wants to be a Jedi Knight and help wrestle his world away from the evil galactic empire). It is the main character(s) that the reader will consciously and subconsciously relate to and identify with. Your characters provide the answer to Why should I keep reading? And Why should I care?

5 – Who, What, When, Where, Why & How:
· Who are your characters?
· What is the inciting incident and/or external conflict that launches the story?
· When does the story take place?
· Where does it take place?
· Why does the external conflict threaten your main characters?
· How will your main characters resolved the conflict?

6 – Utilize the Concept of Rising Action. Make it worse, make it worse, make it worse. “How could things get worse? And when is the worst moment for them to get worse?” –Donald Maass, Writing the Breakout Novel

7 – “Follow no rule off a cliff.” –C.J. Cherryh

*Recommended Reading:

Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell
Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight V Swain
Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass
Prescription for Plotting Popular Fiction, Carolyn Greene

Stacey's into Vogler. I follow Swain. That doesn't make Swain right and Vogler wrong. It means I follow the plotting method that sets me all a-flutter. That works for me. If it works for me, it'll work for my muse.

Follow your muse and the plotting method that sets you a-flutter. You'll be the stronger writer for it.

~Linnea
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Craft The Process

I had the great pleasure this week of reading a synopsis for a sci-fi novel that really grabbed me. I won't mention the specifics of it since it is still in the formulative stage but I will say that the concept really impressed me. But I also had to laugh because the author said "I keep adding research." My response it you can add the details in later, just write the story. But thats not how it works for this writer.

There are plotters and there are pantsers. I happen to be a pantser. I have an idea for a story, I know who the characters are in my mind and I sit down and write. Sometimes I have a vague outline. And I mean vague. I think I wrote ten books before I ever wrote a synopsis. I see a few scenes in my mind and I build my story around them. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of goal, motivation and conflict but its all in my head and I let the characters lead me. At times like these when life keeps throwing me curve balls I wish I was more organized in my writing. It would be great to have all my historical research completed before I begin writing. With the sci-fi I pretty much make it up as I go along, as long as it makes sense in my universe. Which is why my sci-fi romance is heavier on the characters than the technical. That stuff gives me a headache. I usually will just say place or thing in my manuscript and go back and add it in after I get through the story, or when I hit a mental block.

Then there are plotters. I know a writer that writes a thirty page outline. The writer who showed me his story was the same way. They are very organized and have each plot point labeled down to the exact page in the book. Plotters tend to be heavier on the plot that the character and usually go back and layer in character scenes, or what I call date scenes. These are scenes that develop the relationship between your two main characters.

As you can see from all the posts on craft we all have our different techniques. One is not better than the other (unless you are stuggling then you will bemoan the fact that you aren't the other way) Its just you know what works for you. There are all kinds of classes on plotting and development and how to write great characters. I know a writer who has to have a complete bulliten board done of her characters, down to what kind of ice cream they like and where they went on vacation when they were seven. It works for her. You have to find what works for you. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to improve it. I now at least try to have more of an outline going. And I get all caught up in following research trails and love to pick up history and picture books from the sale tables at B&N and Borders. But I also know I will always be a pantser. A what if type of writer.

The funny thing is that when a book is done well, you can't tell what technique the writer used. Because both work and work well.