|
mary rosenblum
|
Hello all...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I hope you had a great
weekend.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Hard to believe that Labor Day
is coming up this weekend.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Where did the summer go?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I'll be up in Seattle at
Cascadia Con this long weekend...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
this is a big SF/fantasy
convention. Lots of publishers and editors there...I'll see if I can't snag
some interesting guests.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
This is the Tuesday Forum with
me, Mary Rosenblum, LR Web Editor, fiction and nonfiction writer and we're
talking about plot. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on
the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question
mark at the top of the screen, or use the ask a question icon in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! You can also type
/ask in front of your question to reach me.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I wanted to talk about plot in
general today.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
We haven't discussed it in
some time, and I find a lot of new LR students have a hard time with the
archetecture of their first story or two...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and when you get into novel
length work, it becomes even more complex as you balance main plot with
subplots or work with parallel plot construction.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Plot is the skeleton of story,
in a way.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Generally, it is based on a
conflict and a resolution.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The MC has a problem and by
the end of the story, he/she has tried to solve that problem and either
succeeded or failed to do so.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Character change is an
important part of plotting.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
How is the character different
at the end of the story? How has he/she changed?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
A lot of novice writers create
what I call a 'reactive' plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The MC faces external dangers
and is forced to deal with them.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
He crashes in the jungle and
has to survive. She is stranded in an enemy country and has to find her way
back to safe territory.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Each case presents an obvious
conflict...a threat to the MC.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
They can have many dramatic
encounters as they return to safety...but they are REACTING to the external
pressures of those dangers.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If they don't change
internally, the plot will tend to feel thin to readers.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
What is missing here is the
internal conflict and resolution.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Each of these characters has
an internal conflict...a problem, a flaw...and in the course of surviving
those external pressures...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
each of those characters will
come to a realization, a personal insight, something...that makes them a
slightly different person at the end of the adventure.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That coupling of an external
pressure with an internal pressure makes for a MUCH stronger plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
This is the Tuesday Forum with
me, Mary Rosenblum, LR Web Editor, fiction and nonfiction writer and we're
talking about plot. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on
the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question
mark at the top of the screen, or use the ask a question icon in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! You can also type
/ask in front of your question to reach me.
|
|
yoda
|
i'm new to lrwg and am signing
on here for the first time.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Hi, Yoda. You're doing just
fine, and welcome. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That internal plot is what gives
most novice writers trouble...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
it's less obvious than the
attacking jaguar or enemies in the street.
|
|
lore alley
|
Unless you mean for your
character to merely react because that is all he/she is capable of doing.
Russian literature deals with a lot of characters like that. They don't
change because they CAN'T.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
But in those cases, there is
that realization that they cannot change....those stories tend to be driven
by their internal plots...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
as the characters
struggle...and fail...to overcome the flaws that drive them to their
destinies.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And they are coupled with
external conflicts and resolutions, too.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Don't forget...failure to
succeed in solving the problem is just as much a valid resolution as
success.
|
|
yoda
|
how do i send a question, jsut
curious
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You just did, yoda. :-)
|
|
janecj333
|
Do you find the kind of plot,
where the characters are actively seeking a remedy to a problem (like the
orig. Star Trek), the much better alternative than characters running from
danger or desperate to return home (Star Trek Voyager)? I always thought
this was a fatal flaw of Voyager
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Depends on the reader, janec,
but what you find in the second type of external plot you mentioned is that
is highly reactive...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
your characters have no choice
but to deal with the plot pressures or they die.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
They are forced to react.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If they choose to become
involved, they had the choice not to.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Both types of plot are valid.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You can have the person who
chooses to go to a war zone with Doctors Without Borders and then gets in
trouble...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and you can have the family
caught in a disaster that struggles to survive.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
They both work.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
In each case, you can have the
external plot, and you have also the internal plot...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
the MC and his/her flaw or
problem that will create a second dramatic arc as it comes to a climax and
is resolved...or not resolved as the case may be.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You can create four very
different stories with that pair of examples, simply by varying the
importance of each conflict/resolution.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The disaster struggle that is
powered by the internal conflict will be different from the same story
powered by the external plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Generally one or the other
will be the stronger of the two.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
We tend to call the stories
where the external plot is stronger 'plot driven' stories...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and those where the internal
plot is stronger 'character driven' stories...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
but they are, of course, both
driven by 'plot'. :-) So that's a bit misleading
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
But then, terms in the
universe of writing are a bit fluid.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
When you have a story idea and
you are thinking about coming up with a story...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
think 'problem'.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
What problem will my MC
confront? And what is broken in him/her that needs fixing? How can the
resolution of my external plot fix it?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If you can answer all three
questions, you should have a nice, solid plot with a good internal/external
balance.
|
|
lore alley
|
How do you balance subplots with
your main plot? Does your main plot have to be stronger? In my accident
story, the accident and resulting injuries is a subplot but I present it in
the first couple scenes. The main plot (which is internal) doesn't get
presented till later.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Yes, your main plot, by
definition, should be stronger...ie more important to the story.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And if you're talking a long
piece of work...novelette, novella, novel...you need to look at the whole
in order to determine what the central conflict is.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And that's the determining
factor...what is the conflict that is the most powerful to your MC? What
has the greatest consequence?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That is your main plot.
|
|
janecj333
|
I hate to use films as a main
example, but the same holds true, I think, for the plots of Alien and
Aliens, also Terminator and Terminator 2; the first is a protag. caught up
in circumstances and a weaker movie. The second is a character determined
to save someone/solve a problem, and a much stronger film
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
In this case they are good
examples, jane... and if you think about it...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
what do we admire more?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The person who escapes from
the fire, or the person who rushes in to save the old man in the back
bedroom?
|
|
lore alley
|
I guess I should have asked, How
do you make your main plot stronger? :-)
|
|
gwanny
|
Mary, my MC is middle of the
road, so to speak. It is the strong forces too the right and left of her
that pulll her in two...her resolve remains in tact...it is the 2 secondary
characters that change the most...is that do-able?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I posted these two questions
together because they work nicely in tandem here.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That is a good question and
it's not always obvious when you're starting out.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Let's take gwanny's example
here. We have a character who doesn't seem to have much of a serious
conflict here on the face of it...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
she remains the same while
others change around her.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
BUT...does that mean it's a
weak internal plot?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Not at all.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The strength of that
plot...the internal plot in this case...depends on what the MC has at
stake.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If she just goes about her
business and doesn't change because it's just a lot of effort to change...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
or she is just too dumb or
stubborn to see any other way to behave...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
it's probably not a strong
internal plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
But if she has a lot to lose
by NOT changing...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
she risks her lover, her
physical self, her friends...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and she doesn't change because
her beliefs matter...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
then this non-change is
strong. She may not outwardly change...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
but she has reaffirmed that
her beliefs are as important as she thought...even when seriously
challenged.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
So we do have character change
in a sense...she has been tested and decided yep, I DO believe this, and I
will not yield.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
It is what is at stake that
makes the main plot the main plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And also, btw, determines the
main character.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Scout is the narrator in To
Kill a Mockingbird but not the main character.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Her brother has much more at
stake in that story than she does.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
So if your main plot seems
week...find a way to make success or failure a much bigger issue for your
main character, lore.
|
|
bengalrose
|
What about Forest Gump? Everyone
else changes while the MC remains more or less unchanged...and yet we are
moved by what happens around Forest. He unwhittingily changes everyone he
meets.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Movies do not tend to make
good examples for prose fiction, bengal.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And since I never watched FG,
I can't help you out here. :-)
|
|
lore alley
|
So if I show that the character
has more at stake in relation to the internal conflict than to the external
conflict, the internal conflict will automatically be stronger?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Yes, Lore.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Although some of that depends
on the nature of your external plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If you have a very powerful
external drama, it may simply carry the story and the internal plot will
support it.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Nothing wrong with a story
where the external plot is more powerful...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
It just feels flat if you ONLY
have one or the other.
|
|
seigfried007
|
what about this: the honorable
leader of a large group must decide to what depths he's willing to stoop to
meet their material needs (internal) after those resources are stripped
from his people (external)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That is a classic plot and has
worked over and over again in many forms, seig...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
you have the ruler who has to
compromise his/her personal values in order to do the best for the group
he/she leads...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and that can power a very
strong internal plot AND create a villain we cannot love but cannot hate
either.
|
|
fiction_scribe
|
Mary, btw Forrest Gump was a
novel before it was a movie
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Could be.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Didn't read it. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Can't help you.
|
|
janecj333
|
So much of fiction seems to
depend on the MC sort of getting what she wants, a revised success, or
adapting to meet the reality that she will not get what she wants.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
It does, jane.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Those are the accepted
dramatic forms and readers like them so writers write them. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
We like to see our beloved POV
if not live happily ever after, at least seem to have a positive future...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and we are reassured to find
out that people who don't get everything they want can still do fine (since
we rarely get everything WE want).
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Does that mean you should DO
that only? No.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Some of the most enduring
books don't follow that.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Look at To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lord of the Flies.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Many others.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The MC fails to forstall that
destiny...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
the good end doesn't happy.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
happen...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The book is disturbing, but
hard to forget.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Fiction does many many
things...not just one.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
It entertains, it educates, it
warns, it forces us to look at dark places inside of us we'd really rather
not see.
|
|
lore alley
|
all Shakespearean tragedy
doesn't follow the happy ending formula, at least not for the MC!
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
No kidding! LOL
|
|
bengalrose
|
I remember a short-lived TV
series called "Nowhere Man" with a great external conflict. The
MC was a photographer who apparently captured some images that weren't
supposed be be captured. So one night at a resteraunt he goes to the
bathroom and when he comes out his wife is gone and no one recognises him.
When he gets home the locks have been changed and another man claiming to
be him answers the door. And his wife claims not to recognize him. He has
been erased from society. Why? He must piece the clues together and figure
out who has done this to him.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I remember that series
vaguely, bengal...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and like another series...The
Prisoner..was an endless search for clues...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And of course mystery is like
that.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Rarely does the MC undergo a
major personality change ...at least in the series books.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Those ARE driven by the
external plot to a great degree...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and while the MC can grow and
change and does in many series, it is secondary to the whodunnit plot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
This is the Tuesday Forum with
me, Mary Rosenblum, LR Web Editor, fiction and nonfiction writer and we're
talking about plot. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on
the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question
mark at the top of the screen, or use the ask a question icon in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! You can also type
/ask in front of your question to reach me.
|
|
wolf122
|
Plot where MC internally fights
against external events (i.e. a retired fighter dragged back to battle,
etc.)--good internal conflict or overused plot scheme?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Well, you still have twin
internal and external plot lines, wolff... where your external plot is the
'dragged back into the ring' and your internal is his/her personal
reaactions to that pressure.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
-) And it's been done many
times. Overused? Only if your version seems like a copy. There's a reason
it has been done many times. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Oops...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Did that pink thing again. :-)
|
|
fiction_scribe
|
so how do you keep a mystery
plot from being flat, espeically in a series
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That is a real challenge in a
long running series, fiction.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Many of the good writers,
James Lee Burke, Robert Parker, give their books overarching character
plots...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The MC falls in love, breaks
up, becomes a parent, loses a friend, questions his/her beliefs...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
what have you. But the
individual external plot needs to be fresh and gripping. It's hard!
|
|
gwanny
|
Of Mice and Men is a great
example of both internal and externally driven plot that ends tragically.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Most of Steinbeck fits that,
gwanny. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Tragic ends can be immensely
powerful, but a common misconception by novice writers...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
is that if you throw in a
suicide or a death, your readers will eat out of your hand.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Hardly!
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
It is much harder to create a
powerful tragic ending than a strong happy end.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Readers won't buy it and don't
like having their chains jerked.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That tragedy has to derive
from the character...this is his destiny, he/she has tried to escape
it...and for good reasons, he/she cannot.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I see a lot of novice stories
with that dramatic suicide or death at the end, but without enough reality
to make them work.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
This is the Tuesday Forum with
me, Mary Rosenblum, LR Web Editor, fiction and nonfiction writer and we're
talking about plot. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on
the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question
mark at the top of the screen, or use the ask a question icon in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! You can also type
/ask in front of your question to reach me.
|
|
janecj333
|
You mentioned the problem that
needs to be 'fixed' in the protag. and I wonder if that should be at least
as compelling a plot fixture as what needs to be 'fixed' in the
villain/antagonist
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That's an interesting
question, jane...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Remember...the villain is a
villain partly because it does NOT get fixed, and he/she doesn't try to fix
it.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Let's look at our leader who
has to behave as a monster in order to do good for the general
population...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and look at two ways to plot a
story for him.
|
|
seigfried007
|
personally, i think villians
oughtta be just as interesting as the MC--internal plotlines and all
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Well, seig, if they are not as
real as your MC and friends...and they often are not nearly as real...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
then they are cardboard.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If we see someone we might
conceivably meet in the grocery store...that's scary.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If we see someone who is not
like any human we have ever met...that's cardboard.
|
|
seigfried007
|
it's easy to label them as bad
guys and 'monsters', but they have feelings and dreams otherwise they
wouldn't be compelling bad guys
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And that's what you need to
reveal while still making them villains.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
So let's look at our leader.
We'll suppose that this is a stranded colony on another world. (I AM a SF
writer after all)...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and the world is dangerous.
Our leader has to enforce very very strict rules...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
to keep the majority of the
people alive long enough for rescue.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And for various external
reasons, there is no room for leniency...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
so he ends up killing
dissenters and controlling his group by force.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And he knows why, but lots of
the others sure don't.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You could do it from his
POV...so that we get to know him, identify with him even if we don't
completely agree with him...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and share his distress over
what he has to do...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
In this case, he is a tragic
hero. He is destroying himself internally to do the right thing for the
group.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Put us into the POV of one of
the oppressed and we can come to understand waht that leader is up to...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
but we have a much stronger
awareness of the suffering inflicted by him on the group. Our POV's little
brother died horribly because of the leader's agenda...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
and in this one, our leader is
the villain. The POV (and we) gain some understanding of his motives and
maybe his personal feelings...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
as he reveals that pain to our
POV. But then he kills that little brother anyway.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Here, that leader is the
villain. A three dimensional villain we can respect...but we still want him
dead along with the POV.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Plot changes a lot depending
on who you POV is.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Next time you can't get one to
work, try a new POV character.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You may find that another
character has more at stake.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
This is the Tuesday Forum with
me, Mary Rosenblum, LR Web Editor, fiction and nonfiction writer and we're
talking about plot. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on
the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark
at the top of the screen, or use the ask a question icon in order to ask a
question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! You can also type /ask in
front of your question to reach me.
|
|
thymebug
|
what are some of the worst plot
cliches to stay away from?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
don't worry about it too much,
thyme.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Every plot you come up with
has been done multiple times. It's only a cliche if you make it a cliche.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And that means it's the same
form as say, Romeo and Juliet, and nothing really makes it different.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
But if your Romeo and Juliet
characters are different...say Puerto Rican gang members...wowoo...you have
West Side Story and not a cliche.
|
|
fiction_scribe
|
what do you do when your villian
is a sadistic sociopath? How do you add dimensions
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
YOu don't.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
How can you? Have you ever met
one? Do you have a clue what his/her mind works like?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Me neither.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Your best guess may seem
silly, unlikely, trivial, or stupid to me...and then he becomes a
charicature.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If you want to create a
villain that extreme...then you either need to create a really believable
one...a Hannibal Lecter...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
or back way off and let each
reader fill in what he/she thinks that character is like.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Fiction is full of extreme
villains...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
the evil being who only enjoys
murder and mayhem and they are very hard to believe in...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
because we have never (most of
us) gotten to know anyone like that.
|
|
bengalrose
|
Read Silence of the Lambs.
Shiver. 'nuff said. LOL
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And that's it. He did a great
job with Hannibal Lecter.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
But that is VERY very rare.
|
|
fiction_scribe
|
so that type is just flat?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Tends to be. They're a dime a
dozen and about as real as a life-size cut out of Darth Vader or the
Emperor from Star Wars.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The person who is recognizable
as a real person and who does evil is MUCH scarier because we CAN imagine
meeting that person.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I personally think the best
horror Steven King did was 'The Body', the novella that became Stand By Me,
the movie. That novella has all the quiet horror small town...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
opression and bullying. It's
VERY dark.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And that is because it's quite
real.
|
|
drowningmermaid
|
Stephen King said fear is based
in the imagination.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Ah, but imagination is based
on reality...his stuff is scary because...like that clown...we have met
these things...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
in the real world. We know
they CAN exist.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
An extreme we don't really
believe in.
|
|
fiction_scribe
|
Like the BTK guy in Kansas City?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
YOu want the guy next door who
waters the lawn and loans you his rake and has a basement full of bodies.
|
|
drowningmermaid
|
The more you tell, the less
scary they are.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That's very true..and it's
true in sex scenes, too, unless you're doing porn or erotica. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
But don't mistake telling less
and making your character unrealistic.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
YOu want a very few realistic
details that provide the reality and then let the reader fill in the other
details he/she think belong there.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Don't forget...your reader
creates the story WITH you.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Your story will never be
exactly the story I read, and they will differ from the story my neighbor
reads.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The important aspects won't
differ...but a lot of details will and they'll vary because of our
different experiences and world views.
|
|
gwanny
|
or for a general idea of what
makes them tick, look the diagnosis up in the DSM-IV
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Be careful though. Clinical is
clinical to a reader and out of place if your POV is not a doc.
|
|
janecj333
|
In my mind everyone knows what's
wrong with the antag., but only the protag. and the reader know what's
eating a hole in the protag. as she goes about trying to save the world. We
wonder how she will save herself, her soul, at the same time. Should this struggle
be overt or better, implied?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That's it exactly, jane. And
we 're much more interested in that protag, too, or course. :-) Generally
you are much better off implying. .
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
The reason is this...nobody
TELLS us what is going on in the real world.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
We figure it out from what we
absorb through our five senses.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If you provide enough clues
that your reader figures it out through what your POV sees, hears, thinks,
etc, you have successfully mimicked real life.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And the story seems real.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
If you insert a lot of
narrative to tell us in great detail what your POV is suffering through...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
this is clearly you telling us
a story. We are not living it with the character.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Give the readers enough so
they can figure it out and then LET THEM.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Don't be too controlling. You
can tell a lot more than you can show, but your story will be stronger if
you show.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
As long as they get the
general idea, you're fine.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You and your reader are a
team.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
You are BOTH creating that
story.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
(You're just doing more of the
work).
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
So when you sit down to
plot...ask yourself...what does my character have at stake here?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
What will happen if he/she
fails?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And ask yourself...what is
broken inside him/her? How does he/she need to change in order to become a
whole person? Or have a better life in the future?
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
And if your plot just seems
flat...try giving the story to another character.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
That person may have more at
stake here.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Well, this has been another
fun Oregon hour. :-)
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I'll be doing the Friday Forum
from Cascadia Con in Seattle.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
Do drop in tomorrow morning
for our regular casual chat...
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
where we talk about
everything.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
It's a lot of fun and a great
way to meet other writers.
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
See you all then!
|
|
mary rosenblum
|
I'll post this in the regular
place: Writing Craft: Forum Transcripts
|