THE SHAPE OF YOUR STORY (Cash Anthony)

A writer sits at the keyboard with a great idea for a story. The characters live in his imagination. The world of the story has become clear. The opening hook is perfect. The core narrative’s basic conflict has been decided, though the sequences of action may not be fully in mind; but the writer knows how it’s going to end, and he’s certain that the part in the middle will spring onto the page as his fingers move and the words appear, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence. He may even have put together an outline to guide him.

The one thing that he may not have created is—a doodle.

A simple doodle, a drawing that represents the story, is a tool most writers haven’t been taught to use. The most common story shape doesn’t need it—that’s why drawing it may sound ridiculous. A story that progresses in a straight line is easy enough to envision. Putting a vertical line, or a horizontal line if you prefer, on paper to connect A to B to C (by causality) isn’t especially valuable.

But stories don’t have to be told like that. A simple doodle is one way to get out of the box, to open the writer’s mind so that a reader has a unique, entertaining experience on this particular journey through fictional time.

What other shape might a story take, if it’s not told in a straight line? Here are a few. It might be a spiral. It might be a circle. It could be a series of boxes, each one attached to the previous one and getting bigger or smaller as they go. It could be a number of boxes inside each other like Russian Matryoshka dolls. Concentric circles would have that same shape. It could start on a flat plain and rise to a mountain peak before it suddenly falls, dropping precipitously back to where it began. It could be crenelated, like the wall of an ancient castle, with segments that are high alternating with ones that are lower, the highs contrasting with the lower again and again. It could look like a spoon falling into a dish of pudding! Yes, the story starts when the spoon hits the surface and ends when the bowl has been scraped clean. Turn the dish of pudding on its side, and it becomes a locked door. The main character runs into it full tilt and falls flat. Now he must seek another way past it. The straight line might have branches that split off and then meet again to continue in a single line. The circle might have smaller circles that grow out of it with each one fixed at its base, like petals on a daisy.

Really? Yes, these are all available to a writer. Let’s see what each one has to offer to enlarge the writer’s mental constructs before he starts writing.

The spiral: the story starts on the outer edge, at a distance from the central conflict. The main character identifies and responds to the essential problem without solving it. But it arises at more and more frequent intervals, with greater severity and increased tension. Each time around, that pattern is emphasized more. Hamlet’s obsessive self-doubt grows with each setback, each failure to act until he succumbs characteristically to the tragic circumstances of his life.

The circle: the main character starts out on a journey, meets obstacles and opportunities as he goes, experiences a kind of ultimate test or brush with death, and comes back to the starting point—changed in some essential way, yes, but victorious. He brings the lessons he’s learned home to the waiting community he left. This is the basic warrior’s story—the hero’s journey.

The progressively larger or smaller boxes: the main character struggles to escape from one “locked room” of problems but immediately finds himself in another one in a different environment. The way he succeeded in the previous one provides clues about what he must do in the next one, but the problems are not the same. One early computer game, Myst, was designed this way.

The mountain climb: the first part of the story shows the main character’s weaknesses or flaws, but at each stage of higher tension, those characteristics turn out to be assets until he reaches the highest peak. These stories rarely end positively, though—they often end with a great fall back to the starting point. Many TV series are designed this way so that by the last episode, it becomes obvious that nothing’s really changed.

The concentric circles:  the main character meets someone who once faced the same problem and who tells his own story of how he solved it, based on a story he was told by someone else who had faced that same problem, and so on. A story-within-a-story structure, these embedded tales center around the same idea or theme. The Canterbury Tales and Watership Down are examples of this.

The crenelated wall:  one thought is presented, followed by its contrast. Then a second idea is introduced and contrasted with its opposite. A series of these proposals takes the reader’s emotions from low to high, from despair to hope, again and again. The “I Have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. illustrates how this works.

The bowl of pudding: the narrative starts when a problem or opportunity is dropped into the ordinary world of the main character “out of the blue.” From that point on, he must swim out of the situation until he reaches a safe harbor or perishes. The story of the disaster on Mount McKinley in 1967 is an example, told most recently in Denali’s Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America’s Wildest Peak. This is sometimes called in media res (in the middle of things).[A college student invites unrelated mountain climbers to undertake the ascent of the country’s highest mountain with him. Six men accept, believing they have adequate experience and equipment. They begin the ascent expecting clear weather throughout the expedition, but most start to suffer from altitude sickness, which leads them to make poor decisions. They split up into smaller groups trying to climb to the peak, some succeeding, others turning back. They lose contact with each other. Then a blizzard hits, and descent is impossible in the whiteout. Winds near the summit were later estimated to have reached 300 mph…and they all freeze to death. The remains of only three were located the next year, but they were left because no equipment existed to bring them down. Eventually, an attempt was made to find them and bury them, but by then they had disappeared. None of the seven climbers’ remains were ever recovered.]

The straight line with branches that join the line again: a straight-line story doesn’t have to stay straight. Middle branches that go off in different directions represent a problem with several potential solutions. All the characters try to find their own at the same time, then re-assemble and decide on a path forward. The story of Steve Jobs’ role at Apple is an example of this. By the time he’d been fired and returned to Apple to become its CEO, he knew the value of collaboration, but he personally determined the company’s direction with complete confidence. He focused on what he was good at while team members like Tim Cook took the then-current problem to their own divisions. When they had worked out their separate solutions, they met again and synthesized what they had learned.

The line that smacks into a door:  Actors and singers, athletes and writers—among others—know what it’s like to start in one direction and run into an insurmountable problem. Instead of beating their heads against a locked door, they back up and study the problem from another angle, then figure out how to go around it. They may decide that getting through that door isn’t even desirable anymore, because the path they really want to follow is a different one altogether, or they may find a parallel path that takes them to the same destination. In story terms, this is sometimes called a “false start.” It gets the audience’s attention quickly and goes in a seemingly predictable direction, but suddenly their expectations are disrupted. The challenge to their sense of security keeps them engaged to see what’s going to happen next.  F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote One Hundred False Starts about his own process of creating fiction. Your characters may find themselves in the same situation.

The flower petal: Here, a series of mini-stories or scenarios are each complete in themselves but end with the same conclusion. They have multiple characters who meet similar obstacles and challenges, but each story is told to the end before another one starts. (The “petals” may overlap by having one story introduce the next.) This is useful if several stories are unconnected but relate to the same theme. This gives weight to the theme by repeatedly showing how important it is.

If the writer intends only to produce a short story, the straight-line method may be the most efficient technique to use, as the opportunity to choose a different shape may not arise in that format. But before starting a longer work, drawing a doodle can help you decide the best way to write it—and serves as a reminder if the story begins to go off-track.

Visualizing these ten classic storytelling shapes is one technique that can spur a writer’s creativity. Many resources are available online to show how to use each one.

WRITE A BELIEVABLE VILLAIN(Regina Olson)

We are all familiar with villains. Most of the time they are easy to spot, especially in comic books and movies that feature super-heroes. They laugh gleefully as they deliberately create problems over which the hero must triumph in order to save the day, the world, or even the universe. They know exactly what their goal is: beat the good guy.

But not all villains are this bipolar. Some are even likable until you cross them. So how do you hide a villain in plain sight?

Examine yourself for a minute. What do you like about your friends or the people you interact with? Let’s say they are friendly, helpful, and supportive. So, give your villain these qualities–with a twist. The villain is friendly, so he can lure you in. He is lovable and easy-going, so what’s not to like about him? He is helpful, so you are indebted and obligated to him. He is supportive, not because he likes you, but because he is accumulating a fan base. And he exudes these positive traits as long as you play nice and don’t question or disagree with him. Cross this villain and he will turn on your main character faster than a glass of milk left outside on a hot day. His curdled personality reveals his sour nature as he works to shatter your main character’s sense of well-being and turn him or her into the villain.

Consider the narcissist. People with this personality type do not believe they are doing anything wrong; they feel justified in pointing out all your main character’s flaws and mistakes—to everyone. Constantly critical “for your own good,” the narcissist is masterful as a villain. His destructive acts and character assassinations are expertly disguised in a smile. The narcissist truly believes he is always in the right, and nothing can convince him otherwise. He is egotistical, over-confident, and never wrong.

At the first hint of trouble, the narcissist goes on the offensive. He preemptively makes your main character, or your main character’s actions, look bad. Then, that character is left to defend her- or himself, thus appearing weak. The more your protagonist tries to mitigate the damage, the more negative publicity is generated, and the worse it gets. Your main character can’t negotiate with or reason with a narcissist; it only makes the narcissist renew his efforts to prove that character wrong. The character arc for your protagonist begins at the point of a normal existence and moves in a perpetual downward spiral from which he can’t recover. Every attempt to defend himself is met with a twisted attack that condemns or hurts him personally. And behind the scenes, to friends and family, the narcissist claims he did nothing wrong and doesn’t understand why your main character is persecuting him.

That leaves plenty of room for tension, conflict, and anguish. You can almost literally drag your main character through Hades as he is abandoned by friends and possibly by family. You can unjustly ruin his career, his reputation, and his self-esteem. As an author, you can take him to the brink of suicide through bullying, isolation, and character assassination. Your main character will reach that brink of self-destruction and become as broken as Humpty Dumpty… except that there are no King’s men to put him back together again. There are only more cracks in his self-confidence and self-esteem. Make his or her plight as miserable as possible to gain the reader’s sympathy.

Then the main character grapples with the realization of what he has lost: friends, social standing, and perhaps a bit of his sanity. There must be no win for your protagonist, only more perceived loss. As an author, you must help him see the futility of the situation and thus make the tough choice to walk away, sever relationships, and start a new life. Your protagonist can do this on his own or have a secondary, undervalued character who rises to the occasion. Or perhaps a hero, someone who finally believes in that character, can walk into his life and rescue him. But whatever you do, in the end, you must give your main character hope for a happily ever after, so you do not disappoint your reader. Sometimes a character with a warm and friendly or even a loving and nurturing face can make the best villain, working behind the scenes to destroy reputations. This is a villain your protagonist won’t see coming until it’s too late, but one that is all too believable.

Author Bio:
Regina Olson grew up as the oldest sister in a family of seven. In this sometimes-chaotic life she escaped to books and poetry. As a teenager, she had several poems published in a Christian periodical. This small success encouraged her. She married, raised two children, and worked as the Operations Manager for a major university while finishing her MBA, then spent two years in a PhD program. Nowretired and enjoying life with her husband and three dogs, she has the time to indulge in her passion. Regina is a past member of the Write Minded critique group as well as a present member of the L. Gwinn Writers critique group, The Houston Writers Guild, and The Final Twist Writers Society. Her short stories are included in Every Beast has A Secret and Released from Reality.

Growing Your *Literary* Garden (Tasha Storfer)

When you write often…

Not every story will come out the way you envision or hope. That’s just life. There are many stories the world never sees because they were vetoed by the author, publisher, or market. Now that more people are self-publishing, authors are put in the “gate-keeper” position that historically went to agents and editors.

A side note about Branding

Before I get into too much detail. I want to mention that a lot of this information is based on an author that is interested in branding themselves. If you don’t have an interest in branding, then this information may not work for you. The other audience that might have an interest is writers that have a goal of an agent/publisher. The market is changing, and it helps to have more than a book to pitch. But then you delve into deciding to keep a platform/brand you create yourself or sell it, and that’s a whole new can of worms and a different fishing hole.

Weed it

You’ve written something. It’s been edited and taken to a critique group. Edited it again. Sent it out for beta reading. Edited it again. You have heard from a group of people you trust to tell you if it’s gold or brass. You’ve sent it to agents and publishers. If you adore it, but the overwhelming feedback is a resounding “meh” –  not just from agents and publishers but from your critique group and beta readers – weed it.

That does not make it unmeaningful. Those words helped you grow as a writer. Look at them. Be your own critic to unlock the puzzle of your best writing and move on. And if you love it, you might discover the key to unlocking its potential. Shelf it, and its time might come later.

Personally, I like short stories for writing growth. The end result is quicker and I can repeat the process and learn at a faster pace than when writing a novel. I can explore and develop characters, refine the setting, and expand the world in small parts before diving into a longer project. But I have a lot left to learn and grow. I expect a lot of weeding before my garden is the way I envision it.

or Feed it?..

What if you don’t hear back from agents and publishers, but you saw your critique group cry when you read chapter 3? Did they glow when they finished reading the last chapter? Did your beta reader call back after binge-reading it with a list of their favorite parts and a manuscript full of smiley faces? – then you have something worth feeding.

Did you love writing it? Do you want to write in a similar way over and over and over? Not the same plot, but the same genre or a series with the same characters and location. Then you might think about establishing a brand as an author based on that story.

When we pick up books by certain authors, we have expectations based on their prior writing. This is something true across the arts. It is linked to voice. But it’s more. It can be writing in a certain genre or style. Creating a brand as an author sets a foundation of expectation. If it is a style of story that you would like to explore multiple times, consider the option of turning one story into a garden.

I hope your writing blooms into something magnificent!

Tasha

Interested in more? My safehouse for book junkies everywhere is found at www.tashastorfer.wordpress.com

Use Constraints to Structure Your Fiction (Mark H. Phillips)

Pantsers need structure too. Constraint is the rigid steel pistol. Creativity is the explosion. Together they produce aimed power and dramatic results. In the tension between unpredictable innovation and self-imposed limitation arises the structure pantsers need. You have something you need to say. Staring at an empty page does no good. Where to start?

Start with constraints:

1. Bind your story within the margins of a detailed historical event. A Gestapo agent with a pathetic remnant of a prewar conscience barely flickering in his breast, suspects that an SS officer is murdering his colleagues and making it look like the work of partisans. Weave your story into the fabric of the final days of the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto with a three-way dénouement between the killer, the doomed but heroic militant Polish Jews, and the Gestapo agent in the sewers beneath the city. Thorough research will provide most of the structure you need.
2. Bind your story within the biographical details of real people. My short story, “Conduct Unbecoming,” uses the teenage Bernard Hermann (future composer of cinematic scores such as Psycho) and his friend Abraham Polonsky (future blacklisted film noir director) in a murder mystery at Carnegie Hall. The story relies on getting their distinctive personalities, characters, and foreshadowed destinies to drive the plot.
3. Bind your story within the formulas and tropes of genre and pastiche (I use “pastiche” to mean a faithful attempt to duplicate the style of the original rather than a disrespectful parody of the original). Andrew Kahn defines genre fiction as that which, “offers readers more or less what they would expect upon the basis of having read similar books before.” The same definition applies to genuine pastiches. To get a story going, you could choose the subgenre of the inverted detective story; you start knowing who done it, with the crime laid out in detail, then watch the detective try to detect the villain’s inevitable tiny mistake. Every Colombo follows this pattern.

Pastiche is even more constrained and therefore yields more structural guidance. To successfully write a Star Trek novel you must follow a detailed “bible” provided by Paramount and Pocket Books. The active supervision by a fiercely protective franchise overseer will make sure you do no harm to their valuable franchise. You must weave your story into a future history that
includes every detail of the TV shows, movies, cartoons, and several hundred other novels by dozens of other writers. You are expected to make your characters conform to the speech patterns of the actors who played those characters, know those characters’ entire life stories, and not cause continuity issues with dozens of ongoing and future works. You must abide by all the established scientific norms already in place. All stories have to be in third person with the inner thoughts of the main characters revealed. You must write a classic A, B, C interleaved plot where each thread is thematically linked. The novel must conform to Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic and moral vision.

Want to write a new Perry Mason novel? Better use Erle Stanley Gardner’s invariable formula for all 84 of his novels: Mason takes the case of an innocent accused of a crime. The cops and DA build a devastating case. Mason, his detective, Paul Drake, and his secretary, Della Street, investigate. Mason usually risks his career and/or his life in finding, or manufacturing, an alternate explanation. During the trial, Mason flips the damning evidence into a new configuration, often prompting the real culprit to confess.

What happens when you fail to follow the formulas or change the personalities of the characters from established canon? You anger and alienate your most devoted audience. No genuine Dark Shadows fan will ever forgive Timothy Burton for spitting on their desire for a serious film. The major plot twist of the first Mission Impossible movie still pisses me off.

4. Bind your story with what Joss Whedon calls backshadowing. Put a plot teaser in just because it’s cool, play with it a little more over time, and then, if it becomes interesting enough, work it into the main plot. In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, “The Wish,” Cordelia wishes for a world without Buffy. In this evil alternate reality, Willow confronts a vicious vampire version of herself who is also unambiguously gay. This was well in advance of Whedon’s decision to make Willow a lesbian. In retrospect, it makes Whedon look like a long-range plotter and master of foreshadowing, when in fact it was a bit of backshadowing.

Other examples of this kind of constraint would be Erle Stanley Gardner’s famous four cardboard spin wheels: a wheel of complicating circumstances, a wheel of false trails, a wheel of hostile minor characters, and a wheel of solutions. To keep things varied, Gardner would just spin a wheel; the card constrained what came next. Here’s the wheel of false trails:

1. Witness lies.
2. A document is forged.
3. A witness is planted.
4. A client conceals something.
5. A client misrepresents something.
6. A friend pretends to betray the hero.
7. The villains assistant pretends to betray the hero.
8. A vital witness refuses to talk.
9. False confessions.
10. Genuine mistakes.
11. A witness takes flight.
12. A witness is kidnapped.
13. A witness commits suicide.
14. A witness sells out.
15. Planted clues.
16. Impossible statements.

In the golden age of pulp, the cover art of a magazine was often produced before the stories were written. It wasn’t unusual for an editor to hand a picture of a BEM (Bug-Eyed Monster) attacking a scantily clad space babe to a writer and tell him to write up a story to fit the image by next Tuesday. Our writing group has done something similar to this with our fantasy image writing prompt sessions.

I often write under the constraint of a set piece confrontation I’ve dreamed up, and then I must figure out how to plausibly get there. This can take the form of another kind of backshadowing- as-extreme-in-media-res as with the famous opening scene of Sunset Boulevard when the protagonist is shot dead and falls into a swimming pool; the rest of the story explains how he came to such an end.

Constraint is the focusing mechanism that gets your story going in a given direction. It structures the story, aims it, forces it along. But there has to be the initial impetus. Constraints without the exploding core of the story is like an unloaded revolver. The powder in this simile is theme. You have to want to actually say something. It doesn’t have to be earth-shakingly profound. It can be
as simple as, “The world’s a better place if a dedicated lawyer prevents a miscarriage of justice and exposes the real criminal.” It can be as complex as Tolkein’s theme in The Lord of the Rings: To fight evil requires power, but accepting power risks corrupting oneself into the next evil.

Of course, too much constraint can be bad. Many writers constrain themselves so effectively that they write themselves into a corner. The protagonist’s options dwindle to none, the story becomes impossible to maintain without internal contradiction, and the writer has to resort to desperate deus ex machina solutions. Characters are forced to act in ways contrary to everything that has previously occurred. I refer you to Lost, X-Files, and How to Get Away with Murder. There are two solutions to this pitfall: give up being a pantser and plan things seven years in advance like a Joss Whedon (aside from whimsical acts of backshadowing), or stay a pantser but go back in revision and insert foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is the safety valve for over- constraint. If you later have to have your prim librarian protagonist escape a prison cell by expertly picking the lock, you’re going to have to go back and slip in clues that she has acquired such a skill well in advance of her needing it. Suppose the Gestapo agent discovers that the serial
killer he’s been tracking is actually a Jewish imposter, assassinating those officers bent on the destruction of his people. Suppose the Gestapo agent ends up helping the Jews escape the ghetto and ends up teaming with the serial killer to kill yet another fellow German officer to aid in that escape. We need to have examples of his conscience struggling to throw off the brutal confines of his role and undermine his patriotism well in advance of his apparent volte-face, or it will seem completely improbable. The right foreshadowing can make a sudden turn seem, in 20-20 hindsight is almost inevitable.

Following a formula too rigidly could make your narrative formulaic or cliché-ridden. A reader of new Star Trek, Mike Hammer, or Doc Savage novels wants both a product indistinguishable from a canonic entry by the original creators and to be surprised with something completely new. Impossible task or difficult challenge worthy of your best efforts? I’ve been immersed for the last several months in reading Star Trek novels, and I’m amazed at the quality of the writing, the respect for the integrity of Roddenberry’s vision, and the new depths of characterization brought to supposedly familiar characters.

Although I don’t want to ruin anyone’s experience of any films through revealing spoilers, I heartily recommend watching She-Hulk, Attorney at Law. Shakespeare it’s not, but by breaking the fourth wall, by treating the sometimes rabidly misogynistic Marvel fanboys as integral to the storyline, and the self-referential criticism of the MCU’s (Marvel Cinematic Universe) reliance
on overdone plot clichés, the writers have come up with something relatively new and fresh. As for the possibility of being overly constrained by strict adherence to historical facts, I refer you to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino uses historical constraint for the structure he wants, and then blithely ignores it when he chooses to.

Poets and fiction writers have been subjecting themselves to severe constraints for millennia as a way to focus creativity with structure. Writing haiku or sonnets uses syllabic or metric constraints to impose a structure. Writing a novel that never uses the letter “e,” such as Ernest Vincent Wright’s Gadsby or George Perec’s La Disparition are extreme cases of self- imposed constraint. For the pantser looking for an organizing structure without a formal outline, I suggest using historical context, biographical detail, genre and pastiche formulas, and various kinds of backshadowing to channel your inchoate creativity into powerful, structurally coherent works.

Sources:
Karen Woodward: https://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/nanowrimo-erle-stanley-gardner-
perry-mason-plot-
wheels.html#:~:text=Erle%20Stanley%20Gardner’s%20Plot%20Wheels,the%20wheel%20of%2
0complicating%20circumstances.
K. B. Owen: https://kbowenmysteries.com/posts/mystery-monday-a-plot-wheel-for-perry-mason/
Jay Sennett: https://authorselectric.blogspot.com/2018/11/erle-stanley-gardner-or-how-to-write-
12.html
Crusoe: https://www.crusoe.la/structure-your-plot-a-b-and-c-stories/
Eric Diaz: https://nerdist.com/article/star-trek-series-bibles-tng-ds9-voyager-enterprise-available-
read/
Jeff Greenwald: https://www.wired.com/1996/01/trek-script/
Trek Writers’ Guild: http://www.twguild.com/resources/starting3.html

https://www.bu.edu/clarion/guides/Star_Trek_Writers_Guide.pdf
Slap Happy Larry: https://www.slaphappylarry.com/types-of-literary-shadowing/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrained_writing
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason
Dale Andrews: https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/02/constrained-writing.html
Jeremey Thomas Fuller: http://www.jeremythomasfuller.com/backshadowing-foreshadowing-in-
reverse/
TV Tropes: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Foreshadowing/BuffyTheVampireSlayer

Character Profiling—How Much is Enough?

By Jack Strandburg

Many fiction writing “experts” stress the need to know your characters (at least the protagonist
and antagonist and perhaps one or two other major characters) as good as you know yourself.
The question arises—when do you get to know your characters? Before or during the writing of
the story. Some say before, some say during, others insist it’s a “mix.”

So goes the elusive topic of profiling.

If you Google “character profiles” you’ll get over 500,000 hits.
– What’s an author to do?
– How do you decide which one works for you?
– Do you look at a few and come up with your own template?
– What form of template do you use for character profiling? A questionnaire, perhaps using the
Marcel Proust model of 35 questions on character?

If you endeavor to fill out a comprehensive character profile template, it’s easy to become
overwhelmed.

Consider the components of a character profile:
– Name
– Physical description
– Birth and birthplace
– Wants and goals
– Family background
– Manner of speaking, laughing, eating, etc.
– Real property assets
– Education
– Hobbies
– Occupation
– Favorites (newspaper, color, food, etc.)
– Friends
– Enemies
– Co-workers
– Geographical data
– Sociological data
– Psychological data
– Military service
– Positive traits
– Negative traits

Years ago, I compiled a template (which I no longer use) based on the above categories. The
result was a spreadsheet containing over 250 rows of data. (which is precisely why I don’t use it
anymore)

Given this process, one could spend literally months answering the questions, and become
frustrated and get bogged down and feel as though the story will never get started, let alone
finished.

The question becomes (and I’m sure most of you have asked) is—what is necessary for a
workable character profile before you can start writing the story?

I submitted a survey to members of The Final Twist Writer’s Society for insight into their
character profiling process, using the following questions as a guide. For the sake of clarity, I
italicized their responses.

* Do you have your own profiling template / process, or do you use an existing template?

Most members either use a bare minimum profile, figuring out character as the story
progresses, or use no template at all.

* Do you use the Archetype and / or Enneagram template?
The members use these tools for major works (novels) only.

*How much detail do you feel is necessary for a major character before you can start
writing the story? Is there a standard or do you just “sense” it’s time to write the story?
Does it vary between stories? Is it different for a pantser, plotter, or plantser?

The members were generally in agreement here and offered good advice.
I want to know the physical description as a minimum to describe how their hair falls,
how their eyes change when the sun hits them, and their height as compared to objects or
other characters. Knowing every detail of a character is too confining, and to quote
Stephen King, “if I know how the story ends, what’s the fun in writing it?”
Knowing the key traits of the character should facilitate that character to undergo a
change at the end of the story. Too many traits can cause the reader to lose focus and
prevent them from emotionally engaging with the character.
Physical description, what they want, and obstacles in their way to getting what they
want—ergo, the conflict. This normally pertains only to the protagonist and antagonist.

*How do you decide on a character trait—whether they are agreeable or argumentative? Is
it based on their wants and goals? Do the events and the situations in the story dictate
their actions and reactions?

Use traits from other people, (actors / actresses) then throw their characters into
situations that challenge who they are and what they believe in. If, during the story, they
decide they want to head west instead of east, let them go.
Traits are based on wants and goals, and the events in the story will shape them into the
person they’ll become at the end.
Deciding what will create the most conflict in the story helps to define a character, and at
least two traits should contradict in order to create a complex character—someone the
reader will become engaged with.

*Does the amount of detail for characters differ whether it’s a novel or a short story?

Yes, for obvious reasons. Short stories are more in the moment, whereas in longer works
more details and interplay occur between characters. Also, in longer works, it might be
advisable or even necessary to keep track of character details for consistency. For
instance, to ensure age is in line with the story timeline and physical description doesn’t
change significantly, at least without a reason.

*How do you determine character background? Can you decide your protagonist is from
the Midwest and was abused as opposed to just being a spoiled brat from the West Coast?

The context of the events and the conflict / action between characters will often dictate
the character’s background. For instance, a protagonist who is a tough and grizzled
character might have grown up on a farm and worked with his hands, and maybe got into
several scrapes during his young adult years.

*Do pantsers, who write “from the seat of their pants” bother with a character profile?

Even pantsers need enough of a character profile in order to ensure the key
characteristics come to light when they confront their obstacles and engage in conflict.

In fact, if a pantser has only a vague idea of who their character is, how that character
reacts when faced with their first conflict will say a lot about them and give the writer
clues about how to use them in the story—or give the writer insight into what kind of
character they need to use in their place. Sometimes a minor character will steal the
show from a major character, which is always hilarious and/or surprising. Even the
narrator can talk their way into a minor part in the story.

Houston K-9 Academy Outing

Authors, especially mystery writers, often have interesting browser histories. We also get to meet the most interesting people. Most recently, The Final Twist writers of Houston spent time at the Houston K-9 Academy where we met Yaz Stanze, learned the history of the academy and some of its most famous graduates, and witnessed a fascinating field demonstration of the dogs’ skills. We also learned much about Yaz. She has a fascinating history and we hope she writes a memoir.

Successful Authors Share Big Changes

by Cash Anthony

This spring and summer, I discovered several authors whose books were compelling to me. Three recently began to write crime novels placed in Scotland and northern England. Each of these writers created a series with recurring main characters who meet new challenges in each book. As a result, they have built large audiences during the pandemic while writing in a genre different from their previous work. They have also adopted new publishing methods, then seen each series make the best-seller list.

The three authors whose work I like best are J.D. Kirk, who writes a series about Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan; Alex Smith, whose series features Detective Chief Inspector Robert Kett: and David J. Gatward, who’s created Detective Chief Inspector Harry Grimm.

Although I zipped through all the books by one author before I moved on to the next, I was reading one of the later Alex Smith books when I came across a reference to Harry Grimm. I looked at the name twice and thought, “That’s not his character—Grimm was created by Gatward! What’s Grimm doing in a Smith novel?”

This question led me to a YouTube interview of Smith and Gatward conducted by Kirk, who was asked to do this by the UK Crime Book Club. I found that Smith and Gatward are good friends, and the reference to Grimm in Smith’s novel was probably meant to illustrate their cooperative relationship—and to amuse the readers they share, I suspect.

The interview was a delightful, informative, and encouraging 44 minutes which I would recommend highly to any writer of crime fiction—and any other kind of genre fiction. The audience does have to suffer (or enjoy) Kirk’s heavily accented Scots dialect, but after listening for a few minutes, it becomes more intelligible.

What made this interview so special?

First, Kirk didn’t really “interview” the other two. He tells us that in an ideal world, he would have prepared a list of questions for them; but he chose not to do that. Instead, they all joined in a conversation—       “a bit of a chat,” Kirk says.

Second, they all come from a traditional publishing background and have established reputations. Kirk is an award-winning author, screenwriter, and creator of comics but started out writing horror for children. (He uses a nom de plume but is actually Barry Hutchison.) When the lockdown began in the UK, he’d been writing comedy science fiction for adults. At an Amazon event for their writers, he discussed an idea for a crime series with two friends. They encouraged him so much that he wanted to be sure he’d acted on that idea the next time they met, so he wrote three chapters to prove to them he had appreciated their input. After that, he immersed himself in the new genre and wrote twelve novels featuring Jack Logan in a little over a year.

Smith took his inspiration from Kirk. He’d been writing horror for teenagers for years but wanted to write something in which the main character had three young children, like him. His idea was to write a series of cozies, but the horror influence kept creeping in, and he decided to go with it. The crimes that his hero solves are quite brutal, but he feels that his crime and even his horror stories are really intended to inspire hope. To date, he’s released six novels in his Robert Kett series.

Prior to last year, Gatward typically wrote military horror and children’s books. Kirk and Smith inspired him to give crime novels a try—“badgered him into it,” he says—so he created a police detective who had been a soldier in order to continue to satisfy his interest in weapons and war. He also wanted to put the stories in a part of the UK that he knew and loved, so he set them in the area where he grew up, The Dales. He says he didn’t realize the books would be so character-driven or that he could write about “genuinely nice people,” but now his fans tell him it’s like reading about old friends when they pick up any Harry Grimm novel among the six he’s written since 2020.

So, all three started out with A-list publishers like Harper Collins, Random House, Doubleday, Puffin, Hatchette, and others for their children’s books. When the pandemic arrived in the UK., they all chose crime fiction as a completely new genre to explore while they had the time and were limited in where they could go. And they each decided to self-publish.

Third, in this “interview” they discuss their past relationships with those publishing houses at length and why they prefer their new situation. This is one of the most interesting parts of the video. Their crime novels have sold much better than their earlier books (even though those had been well-received and sold in respectable numbers), and the revenue they’ve generated as royalties has increased their income so much that they have decided never to go back to the traditional publishing route. Kirk describes the liberated feeling he’s gotten from self-publishing—and the higher revenue stream—as “literally life-changing.”

By publishing their books themselves, they have also developed a contingent of fans who contribute to each new book in their series via their letters. Their fans make suggestions and express opinions that the authors have taken to heart; and these exchanges have become a source of great pride and pleasure for them. Having frequent two-way communication with their fans is a whole new experience—and receiving a 70% royalty from Amazon has increased his income so much, Kirk said, that for the first time he was able to go to a banker and get a loan to buy his family a house. This interview is not only informative, it’s also fun. These men are collegial enough to reveal a personal side of their lives as well as their work habits as writers. If you have a few minutes to invest in discovering how three well-known authors became even more successful when they changed their attitude about self-publishing after they chose to write in a new genre, go to YouTube and watch this conversation in a Zoom meeting. You’ll find it here:  (70) JD Kirk interviews Alex Smith and David J. Gatward – YouTube .

Where the Action is (Cash Anthony)

Writing the dialogue for a screenplay, my favorite medium, has much in common with writing passages of dialogue in popular mainstream fiction. It’s sparser, and the layout is different, but the basic characteristics are the same — except in one important regard.

In both cases, the writer’s aim in dialogue is to illustrate character traits, or to trigger emotional responses, or to entertain, usually all three.

Note: it isn’t to convey information about a character’s backstory and relationships or to lecture the audience/reader with exposition that ought to come in gradually, elsewhere. Dialogue that departs from the present moment in the characters’ lives — where it steps outside that moment to tell the story, as if the speakers are aware of those looking in through the “fourth wall”, and they need to explain it all to them — that can be an real irritation. It amounts to talking to down to the audience/reader; and it bespeaks a writer who hasn’t taken the time find a subtle and imaginative way to get the same information across, if it’s even necessary to know it.

In today’s popular fiction, as in today’s screenplays, the idea is to show in the actions and reactions of the characters what they want, what they value, where the story is going and what the dialogue means.

In order to keep the tension going, the opposite approach is also useful: not to show or say what would be expected, as when a character fails to react. A trope of the horror genre is to give the audience information about the monster that makes it far more dangerous than previously known, information unknown to the hero or heroine–then to send the sympathetic characters on a maneuver certain to engage the monster at its worst. Patrons in movie theaters often shout a warning to them, so engaged are they in already knowing what could happen and hoping it won’t. When the audience knows, or wants to know, more about a character or situation than the world of the story reveals, this multi-layered subtext enhances the experience of the audience/reader as long as they can discover it for themselves. For the writer, it raises the quality of the work, holds attention, and keeps curiosity high about the next page.

Subtext permeates material written for a camera’s perspective, and it also colors popular fiction. Especially in comedy, it’s part of the game, part of the fun, to suss out clues to the hidden meanings and subtle dynamics of interchanges between characters. These clues often come in the form of body language, voice volume, personal “codes”, unconscious gestures, spatial positioning, and facial expressions.  And the nonverbal signals can work together, combining to repeat and emphasize or to shade and modify what is meant; or they can totally contradict the verbal message being sent.

Because the camera focuses so much on an actor’s face these days, writers who frequently watch contemporary movies have the benefit of seeing many different faces in extreme close-up. One can look back at the last fifty years of films and see that the camera has gotten ever closer to its subject, where a twitch of an eyebrow or the wink of an eye conveys something beneath the surface.  The best actors are masters of this, filling every moment they’re on screen with fascinating nuanced expressions. If these signals are supposed to be part of the “message” of a scene, the unspoken dialogue, one would think that a script would tell the director and actor to be sure it’s performed and captured correctly, yes?  Not so.

The important difference between popular prose fiction and screenplays is this: describing telltale nonverbal expressions and gestures belongs in the work of the fiction writer. But it must be eliminated from the work of the screenwriter!

“Don’t direct!” is a rule cited frequently to screenwriters. “Directing” here means stating exactly how a segment of dialogue is to be spoken, what the actor’s expression and gestures should be, and how the hearer is supposed to react. It can also mean saying where the camera is supposed to be and how the actors move.

In a screenplay where an actor, a studio gatekeeper or other in-house reader is expected to read and rate it, the writer can suggest attitudes and emotions in movements meant to show subtext underlying the characters’ behavior and expressions, but it must be done with an extremely light touch. Too much, and it steps on the toes of the director and the actors. They are all professionals, they have imagination and insights, and they will collaborate about how to play a scene, about what the writer’s words mean. They may even find a meaning the writer didn’t realize was there in the words on the page. Script readers are very sensitive to this.

Fiction writers get to ignore that rule. For them, the question becomes how to enrich and deepen passages of important dialogue by doing just that: directing the reader’s attention to the unspoken communication that helps them see and understand the scene.

Inserting a description of a character’s facial expressions is one way to suggest emotions and reactions, as well as to enhance the pacing of “talky” scenes. To break away from the face to a character’s movements or body language can detract from the intensity of some conversations; it can also read as “stagey” and artificial in the middle of an argument. How many times have we read scenes where conflict comes to the surface and one character “slams his hand down” on something, or “storms out of a room” or “slams a door”? But putting in a brief reference to a character’s facial movements keeps the intensity up.

Another reason to include facial expressions in passages of fictitious dialogue is that they can cure a problematic scene, if nothing else works, and even improve it. When a string of dialogue sans attribution threatens to get the reader confused, that confusion could be cleared up with “He said” and “She said.”  But it can also be erased by describing something about the face of the character who is speaking that is completely different from others in that scene.

In addition to the expressions that pass across a character’s face, writers can use the observation that people touch their faces unconsciously all the time. How and how often varies according to culture and age, providing the opportunity for comedy again. These movements can also hint that something lies below the surface, beneath the apparent dynamics of a situation that is not what it seems.

Scientists working with facial recognition software, law enforcement agencies like the FBI, and artists like painters or sculptors all see a face in its parts as well as in its totality. The eyebrows can distort a face into a scowl, or they can lift with delight. The nose can wrinkle with distaste or disgust (two different emotions) as well as moving to lift one nostril only, as part of a sneer. Without changing anything else on a “neutral” facial palette, one zone of expression can express a wide range of meanings via subtle changes in muscle tension and shape.

This gives a fiction writer a huge number of options. Descriptions of characters need not be dumped into an introductory paragraph, all at once, but can be teased out via all the nonverbal communication that ensues naturally in a scene, including facial expressions.

For the screenwriter, the script has to be so good that the reader’s emotional responses can be predicted, so good that the pleasure of reading this particular script begins at once and doesn’t stop until “Fade Out”, with the reader happily imagining how the lines will sound and perhaps even imagining how specific actors will play the best roles.

Screenwriters and writers of popular fiction would both do well to remember how, with a camera so close to the actor’s face, it becomes a tapestry of movement. It’s really where the action is now.

Cash Anthony is an award-winning Houston screenwriter, author, editor, and director for stage and film. Her short stories have appeared in A Death in Texas, Dead and Breakfast, A Box of Texas Chocolates, Twisted Tales of Texas Landmarks,Underground Texas, and Deadly Diversions. She holds a B.A. in Plan II and a J.D. from The University of Texas at Austin.

Why Are Some Book Reviews More Useful Than Others? (Mark and Charlotte Phillips)

The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing

by Mayra Calvani and Anne K. Edwards

Twilight Times Books

Copyright: 2008

ISBN: 1933353228

Format: ebook, paperback

Non-Fiction/How to

Have you ever puzzled over a book review and wondered if the reviewer was a personal friend of the author? Perhaps you’ve read a review and wondered what took place between reviewer and author to prompt such a vicious collection of words. Anyone who reads book reviews is sure to have come across one of he increasing number of lazy reviews – the ones that make you wonder if the reviewer read the book, or just read the back cover.

When I first started writing reviews, I studied work from different professional sources and found examples of all three of these fairly useless review types mixed in with many examples of excellent reviews that delivered the straight forward information I sought. I wanted the reviews I wrote to fall into this latter category. Unfortunately, my honest opinion of my own work was that it was a clumsy imitation of the useful reviews. I needed help.

That’s when Mayra Calvani and Anne K. Edwards came to my rescue with their fantastic guide, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing. I count my lucky stars this book was published in the same year I started writing reviews. This straight forward, easy to follow guide contains four parts:

• The Art of Reviewing explains how to be a good reviewer, defines a book review, teaches the reviewer what it means to read critically, different types of reviews, and much more, including how to start your own review site
• The Influence of Book Reviews discusses the different institutions that use or depend on book reviews – readers, libraries, authors, publishers, etc.
• Resources is chock full of great resource information for book review writers
• The appendix contains a sample press release

The stated aim of the book is “to offer some guidelines in a clear manner supported with targeted examples of how to write and publish thoughtful, well-written reviews…” The certainly meet that goal.

The pages of The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing are full of great advice that is backed up by examples. The reviewer is gently, but firmly, reminded book reviews should be written for the reader. The reviewer has an obligation to read the book, to provide an honest opinion of the book, and to support that opinion with examples from the book under review.

Hints and examples of ways to keep your reviews on the professional level are provided throughout. Following is one example on the subject of tact:

“Stating your thoughts tactfully and eloquently while offering examples to support your evaluation will keep the negative review from sounding harsh, mean, or insulting. Your aim is not to offend or humiliate the author, but clearly explain to the reader why this particular book is not worth reading.”

“Avoid statements like, ‘This is a terrible book’ … the harsh phrases mentioned above can be replaced by, ‘This book didn’t live up to its full potential because…”

Using the advice and guidance in this book improved my reviews to the point that strangers began following my reviews in places like GoodReads.

In case there is any doubt, let me say I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to write professional reviews. Others may also find value, such as reviewers seeking new outlets for their work and readers who would like to develop a deeper understanding of the professional reviews.

—

Mark and Charlotte Phillips

Novels:

         Eva Baum Mysteries – Hacksaw, The Case of the Golden Key

         The Resqueth Revolution (sci-fi)

Short stories included in:

Deadly Diversions (2012)

Underground Texas (2011)

Twisted Tales of Texas Landmarks (2010)

A Box of Texas Chocolates (2009)

A Death in Texas (2008)

Demented (2011)

Sleeping with the Undead

Erotic Dreamspell

Finding Time (Debra Black)

It is easy to say “I’m too busy right now.” or “I will sit down and write that in a few hours.”  However, the challenge to take up the proverbial gauntlet and actually let the creative ideas pour forth has yet to be answered.  Perhaps you only have a few short lines that may evolve into a poem.  Maybe you want to get started on a novella that touches a subject close to your heart.  Possibly the idea of scaring your friends with a good old fashioned horror story makes you snicker.

Finding the right time to place the words somewhere concrete can be a daunting task.  Daily life can take up a significant chunk of our attention span.  I wake up, go to work, squeeze in a lunch break if I can manage it, drive to the gym, work out, drive home, shower, dress, and head over to hang out with my friends on any given evening.  We spend the time talking about work, eating dinner, working our way through video games, watching movies, or settling in for a commentary on various subjects to be found on YouTube.  Sometimes we discuss our writing, or lack therein of.  This doesn’t even take into account the various tasks like shopping and laundry that eat up precious moments we would rather spend doing something more entertaining.

Here is the point.  If you are reading this I assume you want to write, but to be successful we are going to need to change our habits.  This may require giving up something else, such as some of that video-game mania (I don’t wanna!).  It could also be accomplished by waking up a bit earlier, or going to sleep a bit later, and dedicating that time to sitting in front of a preferred writing device.  Another idea would be to invite someone else who enjoys writing to sit with you at a chosen time during the week. They could work on something for themselves while you simply enjoy each other’s company (or use each other as sounding boards if you feel like it).

There are so many things we all do in a given week.  My challenge to myself is to pick one day a week to start.  On this day, I will dedicate one hour to writing.  I will not make it some hour squeezed out of a hectic flurry of events.  I will sit somewhere I feel comfortable, and I will make a concerted effort to take the time I have previously taken for granted and do something for myself that will make me feel accomplished and let me have some fun with my imagination.

For those of you who have conquered the time management of writing to the degree that one hour seems ludicrously short, I have a further challenge for you.  November is National Novel Writing Month. During this month (or any other month if you find yourself inspired) you can undertake the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.  Log onto http://nanowrimo.org/ and feel free try your hand at being ridiculously over-productive while the rest of us find the gumption to stumble through our first paragraphs.

A final bit of advice… If you find yourself looking at the time and thinking of your assigned hour for writing with dismay… stop.  Don’t force yourself to do something that should be fun.  Find your own time and your own way to express your imagination.  A story that you dread writing will most likely be as painful to read as it was to produce.