Karen S. Wiesner: Arrested Development

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner 

Arrested Development 

Based on CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships} by Karen S. Wiesner 

Character Plot Relationship Developmental Signs of Life 

Animated

Evidence of functionality, breathing, heartbeat, the spark of life. 

Living

Not simply existing and going through the motions but possessing fully developed external and internal conflicts. 

Interacting

Dynamic, realistic, and believable relationships. 

Vitality and Voice

Three-dimensional character attributes. 

Engaged

Definable objective and purpose of being along with goals and motivations. 

"I misjudged you. You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development." ~Harvey to Cohn in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 

In the field of medicine and psychology, the term "arrested development" means a premature stoppage of physical or psychological development, or the cessation of one or more phases of the developmental process resulting in a lack of completion that may produce potential anomalies. Arrested development can be applied to many situations, including writing. It's something that happens often in fiction with the three core elements of every story--Characters, Plots, and Relationships (CPR)--becoming arrested in their development.

We live in a publishing era that can easily be viewed with growing concern given that the absolute requirement of developing CPR in a story is being sorely neglected in books made available for purchase. In the ideal, a reader wants to immerse himself in a glorious story that pulls him into a fictional world so realistic and populated with three-dimensional characters, plots, and relationships he never wants to leave. He's paid for that, after all, so why shouldn't he get it? Instead, he's saddled with a story that starts bad and only seems to be getting worse. Why would anyone keep reading? The author obviously didn't care to do it right. Despite the time and money invested in this endeavor, it's just easier to walk away. Whether subpar writing is done out of laziness, a lack of skill in crafting, or simple ignorance, having a reader drop a bad book and never come back to it (or to the creator) is the last thing an author should want or allow.

USING CPR {DEVELOPMENT} ON DEAD OR LIFELESS FICTION 

Deep, multifaceted development of characters, plots, and relationships can only be achieved through three-dimensional writing, something I've written in-depth about in my writing reference Three-Dimensional Fiction Writing (formerly titled Bring Your Fiction to Life: Crafting Three-Dimensional Stories with Depth and Complexity). All of those concepts are crucial to character, plot, and relationship (which I'll call CPR often from this point on) development.

What makes a person alive? According to WebMD, the three organs that are so crucial to life that you'll die if they stop working are the lungs (breath), heart (blood and oxygen), and brain (functionality). The three work together and without them (or life support), a person is either comatose or deceased.

I would add a fourth component that may not bring around true death to live without: A person needs a soul to live and do more than simply exist--and that means there's an objective or purpose in being. Arguably, a lack of soul can steal all the joy out of living and/or never provide the "spark" that exemplifies life.

If you noticed the CPR Signs of Life Acronym Chart I included at the beginning of this article, we can certainly say that it's possible to see the animation in a character that provides evidence of functionality, breathing, heartbeat, and the spark of life. To truly be living, characters aren't simply existing and going through the motions. They possess fully developed external and internal conflicts. They're interacting in dynamic, realistic, and believable relationships. They have three-dimensional character attributes that give them both vitality and voice. Finally, they're engaged in what makes life worthwhile with definable goals and motivations.

Characters, plots, and relationships need to be breathing, blood and oxygen flowing through their veins in order to function, or they're in a vegetative state or just plain dead. The soul of the character is what turns an ordinary paper doll into a vibrant, memorable personality.

In fiction, the potential for zombies is only too common, and I don't simply mean zombie characters. Plots and relationships can be just as zombie-like. Who wants to read about something that's alive (i.e., not dead) but not really living either? Even in books about zombies, it's the heart-beating, breathing, functional characters, plots, and relationships that make the story come to life. (By the way, if your zombie is living--as in iZombie style--and not simply alive, it's not a true zombie by definition.) As we said, a soul--providing unforgettable character traits, conflicts, and interactions with a very definite "life spark" that makes a reader care and immerse himself in a story--is imperative to make the characters, plots, and relationships compelling.

CPR development is a two-step process:

1) Establishing: Foundation begins in plotting and planting the seeds of development for the CPR process right from the very first scene in a book. You wouldn't just plunk down a plant you want to flourish in an area where it won't get sun, rain, or the nutrients it needs to survive, would you? Plotting and planting are all about properly setting up before setting out, anchoring and orienting readers before leading them with purpose through your story landscape. That's something that needs to be done in every single scene of a book with the basic grasp of setup. The longer it takes for a reader to figure out where he is and what he's doing there, the less chance he'll engage with the story and agree to go along for the journey.

2) Progressing: The one thing a story can't and should never be is static. Development isn't something that stops with the foundational introduction or establishment of threads. Development keeps happening throughout a story. Every single scene that follows the first must show a strong purpose in developing, revealing and advancing characters, plots and relationships in a wide variety of facets. Progress must be made to push past the point of plotting and planting seeds to cultivating the core element "blooms" that pop up into the landscape in every scene. The only way to achieve three-dimensional development of characters, plots, and relationships is to actively take each opportunity to establish and advance the elements that--if properly sketched--should appear in an organic way along the path to telling the story. 

If your characters, plots, and relationships that make up each scene in your story are truly three-dimensional and properly developed and advanced, your book will be so vivid, readers will be haunted by the unforgettable, vibrant world conveyed through your words even after they finish reading.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 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: Deep, Multi-Faceted Development and Progression of Romantic Relationships

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner 

Deep, Multi-Faceted Development and Progression of Romantic Relationships

Based on CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}  

"Character is not created in isolation or repose; it’s forged through interaction with others and the world." ~The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV by David Corbett 

Human beings tend to live in groups, whether because one person has the limited ability to live by himself or because we like to be dependent on each other--and of course we like and care about each other as well. This is how societies, communities, and relationships are born.           

All relationships must have purpose in the story or there’s no reason to include them and, quite frankly, what's the purpose in even writing a story without relationships? While there are interesting stories about hermits, survivalists or loners who have little or no contact with other human beings (Island of the Blue Dolphins, Hatchet, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!), most characters are social people in some degree--and that's where things get really interesting because there are rules in in a society that simply don't exist in isolation. People need people more often than not, and nearly all stories need incredible relationships that are completely cohesive with the characters and conflicts. What purpose do the relationships have in light of the plot?

Writing a Romantic Relationship 

Writing a romance story is the hardest category that exists. Nothing can convince me otherwise. Let me tell you why. First, I'm not a romantic in any sense of the word. That's true, and I'd be the first person to tell you that. But I do write deep, rich, realistic love stories. Realism is the most important thing to me as a writer. If it doesn't feel real, like I could step into someone's lives with these characters and their relationship, it doesn’t interest me. I want the down-and-dirty, gritty, excruciating pain and joy that could be actually lead to blood flow or shouts of exhilaration, the so-deep-I-can-feel-and-hear-the-heartbeat, so intense I can't breathe and my hands are actually shaking, I can't gulp because I'm paralyzed waiting restlessly for the next move. That's romance at its best, most ideal. That's what I want with every story that categorizes itself as a romance. 

I'm a strong believer that the things two people who become lovers go through together right from the start to the bitter end need to develop unbreakable affection and commonality, one step after the other, leading to an iron bond. I call them links in the chain of romantic relationships. Especially in a romance story, you can't rush ahead, skipping links, without leaving the reader behind, wondering what's going on and just not feeling anything between the two people you want to bring together romantically. 

Unless she's extremely talented, most romance writers can't hurtle from a couple's first meeting or meeting again (where they may already seem to be falling in love instead of simply being attracted to each other) to the middle of what's generally considered a romance (in which expectations are already in place and both want and need each other--too much, too soon). This forces a romance to never feel quite well setup enough to come off as justified, warranted, believable, and realistic. It also assumes the supernatural is in control, which is sappy and silly. Build each link in the chain steadily, providing the proper setup for every development. Readers won't accept anything forced or unprecedented. 

Mystical developments in a fictional relationship are nothing more than cheating. Basically, nothing has been set up in advance to produce a compelling reason for the characters to feel the way they suddenly (i.e., one minute it doesn't exist, the next it's there and in spades) do about each other, but they'll go from barely knowing each other to feeling strong affection or love in the course of two back-to-back scenes. Maybe some people believe that something magical happens when two people who are destined to fall in love and spend the rest of their lives together meet (those are the kinds of romance novels that make me and those with strong aversions to the genre as a whole want to puke!) but in fiction and I believe in real life, something has to warrant development in a relationship (any relationship--romance or otherwise and if you take the sexual component out of it, the chain of romantic relationship development links can be used for any relationship in your story) to make it authentic and believable. Usually, this amounts to a steady progression of things that help the two people to get to know each other better and actually develop strong feelings for each other. Again, links in the chain. Without steady development of one link after the other, the reader might never be brought to the place where she feels ready for anything overt that happens between a couple, or she'll feel frustrated and even disgusted, maybe even actively hoping they'll break up.

In a romance novel, romantic/sexual tension is essential, although novels in other genres may also develop the same tension between romantic interests. It’s like cake and frosting. Take away one, and what’s the point? This kind of tension refers to anything that brings the romance to the fever pitch of anticipation for the reader. It’s also been described as an exaggerated awareness between the hero and the heroine. You want to start this tension as early in the story as you possibly can. If you don’t start the suspense promptly and keep it intense, the reader will be disappointed--or worse, embarrassed--during moments she should be temporarily relieved or exalted. Just as with plot tension, a romance novel without romantic/sexual tension leaves the reader uninvolved and unemotional toward the focal relationship happening.

A romance story has to have a specific chain of development that can't be rushed, and it doesn’t matter in the least what genre of romance it is. The steady progression of sexual tension, emotional culmination, and physical demonstration is required to bring the couple to the place where they've believably fall in love and can justify declarations of monogamous love, sex, along with a commitment of forever. Even in a Christian or "clean" romance, sexual tension and physical romantic development are required and vital to making the romance genuine and believable. In the sweet romances, how strong or sensual the tension and romantic developments are may be somewhat muted with any heavy intimacy taking place off-screen.

What your characters are experiencing is what your reader should experience. But if the characters are chagrined or want to escape, that's what your reader will want to do, too. The point of writing a romance is to make the reader fall in love (an emotional and physical reaction) with your characters one scene to the next, escalating into the payoff you've promised, and experiencing bliss and joy at the culmination. Readers may even shed tears. I'll tell you this, if you've gotten a reader to weep, she'll never forget the story, the characters and their romance for as long as she lives, and she'll read that story over and over again in her lifetime. A romance author wants that scenario. Otherwise, what's the point of writing a romance story? No point. And that's why I believe writing romance is the hardest genre on the planet. Because, if you write a bad romance, it's not worth having told the story at all. It's failed on all levels instead of simply on one.

Only with the steady establishment and buildup of sexual tension and romance development--fully meshed with a logical resolution--will allow your reader be left satisfied and smiling upon closing the book.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 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

Depiction Part 23 - Guest Post By Carol Buchanan

Depiction

Part 23

Guest Post By Carol Buchanan

Depicting Relationships

Here is the index post to previous entries in the Depiction series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Today, Carol Buchanan has provided a Guest Post on for my series on Depiction, she has titled Depicting Relationships. Here it is, below.

Last week I reviewed Carol Buchanan's 4th novel in her Vigilantes series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/reviews-30-ghost-at-beaverhead-rock-by.html

Carol Buchanan has depicted the formation of the States of the United States out of raw land - a wilderness rich with gold and searing cold winters.  No setting is more appropriate for Romance, and Science Fiction (science of mining, politics of the science of mining, life in constant confrontation with "the unknown" and "unknowable" (thus the murder-mystery theme fits perfectly into the Romance of Science Fiction)).

I recommended that writers of Alien Romance study what Carol Buchanan has done in this tetralogy to reformulate stacks of original-source documentation into real-life-living-full-color story of human beings struggling with their personal issues and still creating a new order -- the United States, -- all these states distinctly different, under different laws (and good reasons why laws had to be different) yet united.

The Vigilante series depicts the period when paper money was first being promulgated and valuated, when gold dust and coin was "real money" that you dug out of the ground.

The series speaks to the issues we've explored in the series on Astrology Just For Writers and on Tarot Just For Writers -- the innate problem of the Individual vs The Group (1st House vs 7th House).

Index to 10 posts on Suit of Swords:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

Index to 10 posts on Suit of Pentacles;
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

All 5 Kindle volumes on Tarot are collected here (free on Kindle Unlimited):
https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

Index to posts on Astrology:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The essence of story is Conflict.  Depicting Conflict is so hard that much of what you read today substitutes fist-fights, space battles, explosions, and chase scenes for "conflict" because writers (and many readers) do not know what conflict actually is.

So our modern entertainment industry has gone for the Visual Depiction of conflict, using symbolism even the youngest children can understand. BOOM!!! BAM!!!

In Romance and Mysteries, we divide novels into sub-categories: Sweet, Steamy, Cozy, Dark, Hard Bitten (Sam Spade), Gritty, etc. In science fiction it is Nuts-n-Bolts vs Sociological and a large variety of other sub-genres.  What survives today is mostly the Space Battles variety of science fiction that makes the concept of Science Fiction Romance seem odd.

But nothing could be farther from the truth of the matter.  Romance, Mystery, Science Fiction, and Westerns -- all of them, even the ones with a Conflict of Man Vs. Nature, are about Relationships, and very little other than Relationships.

Yet, in publishing we do discuss "The" Relationship-driven Plot, as if it were distinct from everything else.  It is not. All fiction is about Relationship, and all conflicts somehow involve Relationships -- even when the Main Character is a prisoner in solitary confinement relating only to himself and his/her imagination.

How a human relates to him/herself deep in the unconscious mind configures how that individual will relate to other people.  We all play out what is inside us, creating the drama of our lives.

The story writer's job is to reveal that fact in a way the targeted readership can absorb and understand in a non-verbal way.

Carol Buchanan has hit on a way of understanding that intangible fact about what the Relationship driven Plot really is.

Her previous Guest Posts on this blog are:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ghost-on-horseback-guest-post-by.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/carol-buchanan-on-writing-tricks-and.html

So here is her new Guest Post, Depicting Relationships, that may be of great use to Romance writers, especially those writing Paranormal or Alien Romance novels.

-----------GUEST POST BY CAROL BUCHANAN-----------

The Space Between: 

Depicting Relationships The Ghost at Beaverhead Rock

 At the core of a relationship between you and your other(s) lies the unspoken – the thoughts, the wishes, the desires known perhaps only to you, that are quite aside from overt speech or action. 

Likewise for the other.

In the space between you and the other person is the core of your relationship, the subliminal meeting neither of you may understand in the moment, no matter how long you know each other. Each of you conveys some of your inner life to others without being conscious of it.

In this space neither speaks, but only acts. The rhythm of breathing changes. One of you raises a wineglass, arches an eyebrow. A different tone colors a word.

Body language. There are whole books about that form of silent communication, but if I succeed in saying what I mean in this article, that’s not exactly what I’m talking about, although body language is a part of it.

The core of a relationship lies in the space between you and one or more others. The raised eyebrow may communicate an attitude or a feeling, but something happens between you and the other that is not brought to the surface. Neither of you speaks of it, but somehow you know there’s a difference on the other side of that space.

That’s where the relationship happens: In the spaces. In the nebulous area that holds the pauses in what is said, as a sudden silence falls on a party.

The partners in the relationship blink and ask themselves what happened.

The core of a relationship is subliminal.

The Subliminal Core of Relationships in The Vigilante Quartet

In the series I’ve titled The Vigilante Quartet, I make use of the subliminal core when Dan Stark, the hero of all four historical Western novels, encounters not only danger and violence but the direct opposite, love.

The first book of the series, GOD’S THUNDERBOLT: THEVIGILANTES OF MONTANA, 

takes place in what is now southwest Montana. Historically, in 1863, it was a region where ruffians ruled and murder was tolerated. When a group of men form the Vigilance Committee (as they did in the history), Dan Stark becomes its prosecutor.

I brought the McDowell family into the novel as a foil for the violence around them – the gunfights, the vandalism, the terrorizing of decent people.

Martha McDowell’s determination to give her children a better life counters her husband’s aggression. Everything she does, from secretly learning to read against his wishes, to holding onto her faith in God, opposes his violence. She takes in two boarders. Dan Stark and Deputy Sheriff Jack Gallagher, a friend of her husband’s. Dan suspects Gallagher is secretly one of outlaws.

At supper one evening, McDowell and Gallagher challenge Dan, who they think threatens their rule by intimidation. (They’re right.)

At the same time, Dan and Martha recognize their feeling for each other. For their own safety, they must not let the other two suspect what happens between them. Their mutual knowledge comes by way of a change in how they see each other.

It occurs amidst covert threats against Dan from McDowell and Gallagher. With McDowell’s wife and children present, they can’t threaten Dan openly. The reader understands the threat because of three elements:

§  Gallagher and Dan have had increasingly hostile encounters earlier in the book.

§  Dan senses the threat as a snake’s rattling.

§  He is afraid for Martha and her young daughter sitting in a dark place beyond the candlelight.

Danger surrounds him, and he is afraid, but in the midst of this dark fear he catches Martha looking at him in a way he thinks of a “luminous.”

A light shines in the darkness.

In the space between them.

THE GHOST AT BEAVERHEAD ROCK  

In my latest and final book of The Vigilante Quartet, a new relationship of a different order comes into the story of Daniel Stark’s evolution as a Vigilante.

The ghost of a hanged man haunts him.

Dan has married Martha following his return from New York City to pay his father’s debts. He is a prominent Vigilante, who has put the noose around the neck of more than one man. He first notices the ghost when it boards the stagecoach he is on at Beaverhead Rock (a landmark mentioned in the journals of Lewis and Clark.)

The ghost carries with it the stench of death, and takes the shape of a hanged man who carries a revolver in its hand.

The specter appears sometimes as a thickening of a shadow, a shimmering, a shudder where there can be no movement because shadows do not more on their own. It has no substance and makes no sound.

Dan thinks to himself, I do not believe in ghosts. But as a rational man, a lawyer, he cannot deny the evidence of his senses of sight and smell. If it doesn’t exist, how does he see it? Smell it?

That’s my challenge to readers. Is it a symbol of Dan’s sense of guilt? Is it one of the hanged men come back to accuse him of murder? Does it even exist?

Ghost and man never overcome the space between them..

How I Learned about the Space Between

Dan and the Ghost are in a relationship between human and nonhuman. Their entire relationship lies in the space between them.

I learned about the space between from an odd instructor named Gus.

Gus was a horse. My horse for a decade, until he colicked and I had to have him put down to end his suffering. 

One cold grey October day I went into the pasture at the equine sanctuary where I volunteered. I thought Gus had something that appealed to me, but I’d only known him for a couple of weeks. If he didn’t acknowledge me, I thought, I would concentrate on another horse. Sure enough, he stood grazing apart, a few yards away from the other horses that gathered around me for treats.

He raised his head, looked at me, and planted a tentative hoof in my direction, as though was uncertain what coming closer might bring him.

I thought, You’re my horse.

With him, I didn’t have the modes of communication I was accustomed to. A horse’s face are hide over bone, so they don’t have the facial mobility we humans read in each other.

Communications methods we learn from pets are useless with them. They don’t wag their tails as dogs do, for example. They don’t hiss, meow, or yowl as cats do.

But dogs and cats – and humans – are predators. Predators have monocular vision, with both eyes in the front of their faces, which gives depth perception and helps to judge striking distance. Perhaps predators have an innate sense of each other.

The horse is prey. And he knows it. He has binocular vision, with his eyes on opposite sides of his head. This gives him a nearly 360 field of vision, very good for spotting predators. He cannot see directly in front close up, nor directly behind.

It makes him very acute in sensing predatory intentions, in reading people. He “gets the vibes,” as they said in the Sixties.

From Gus I learned to listen for the vibes.

Sure, there were plenty of overt signals I learned. His vocal range would have done an opera singer proud, from soft rumbles in his throat to earsplitting bugles. I paid attention to the warning in a lifted hind hoof, and to the positions of his ears.

As time went on, we communicated almost by telepathy. I say “almost” because I’m hedging my bets. On our last trail ride before he got sick, I felt he was not happy, that the enclosing forest made him nervous. I thought, He won’t put up with this till the end.

Did I signal him somehow when I thought that? Did I mirror his nervousness back to him? Maybe. Probably. Horses are telepathic.

At any rate, awhile later, he turned back the way we had come. He was going home. I lost the discussion, but when he wanted to run home, I held him to a walk all the way back.

In the Space Between

Writers and writing books talk a lot about dialogue in terms of words spoken, gestures made. But I think there’s room for us to explore what is not said, what is not done in relationships.

To consider the space between.

To “Be still and know that I am God.” Yes, that relationship, too.

Carol Buchanan

http://carol-buchanan.com

http://facebook.com/carolbuchananauthor

http://twitter.com/CarolBuchananMT
--------END GUEST POST BY CAROL BUCHANAN-----------

Learning how we "relate" to the animals of Earth might be a big help in First Contact with non-humans from elsewhere.

We now know that monkeys, dolphins and whales speak to each other.  We humans have a lot to learn about Relationships.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg