Or, You've Come a Long Way, KidYesterday I dug up my very first unfinished novel manuscript, and I was floored. I've come so far since 2008. Am I anywhere near perfect now? No. Have I learned a ton? Yes. Some of these learnings are so easy to apply that I wanted to share them with the world. In a three-part segment, I'll detail the three biggest rookie writing mistakes I made in my first novel and how you can avoid them. Part one, below! No Want, Obstacle, & Action in each scene This is first on the list for a reason: without it, your book faces certain death. Have you ever come across a scene in a book where your eyes start to skim the words? It's probably a scene without the holy trinity: Want, Obstacle, & Action. Start with the "want". Some authors say that your protagonist must want something on every page, even if it's just a glass of water. Ideally, this page-by-page desire should have higher stakes than a glass of water, but that saying illustrates that even in the most mundane seeming moments, your character should want something. If your character doesn't care, your reader will not care. A Harry Potter example, for good measure: Harry wants to stop the Philosopher's stone from being stolen. If he didn't want it, badly, then there wouldn't be much of a book. Now, the obstacle. If your character can reach out and grab the thing he wants, the book ends there. The obstacle needs to be at least as significant as the want. If either want or obstacle is weak, then the conflict is dull, and again, certain death. In HP1, the trio have only one chance to stop the stone from being stolen and given to Voldemort, and the Philosopher's stone is being guarded by Fluffy (among other traps). Definitely no shortage of obstacles! And finally, if there is a significant desire, a worthy obstacle, but your character doesn't do anything about it–action–then your book isn't going anywhere. Alternate HP1 ending: though Harry is worried about the Philosopher's stone being stolen, he chickens out and decides to get a good night's sleep instead. Laughable, right? I wrote this exact type of story. The protagonist in my 2008 book did not want anything, and if she did, nothing stood in her way. Here's an excruciating example from my book of what not to do: "Her eyes met the piano again. Maybe I should play the piano after all; it can’t be that terrible, she rationalized. Lena walked over to the instrument and opened the bench, looking for sheet music. Something easy, that wouldn’t cause her too much frustration based on missed notes...She began flipping through and stopped on the fourth page. Ah, Ivan Sings, that melancholy but simple tune. Lena propped the book up on the stand and sat down. Okay, E flat minor. Left hand, first b and d. She quickly scanned the rest of the notes to see the general direction of the first few lines. She knew the melody by heart so that helped, at least. With resolve, she struck the first notes. So loud! She calmed the next three in the measure down and cherished the minor chords. She brought in the right hand, slowing down her playing to avoid making as few mistakes as possible." *Cringeville* But the point here is not to beat myself up. What is wrong with this scene? Lena doesn't want anything. There are no stakes. She wants to play the piano for no reason other than the piano is there. She even finds a piece that she can play. There's no obstacle stopping her, so she plays it. And she's decent at it. How would I fix this, if I wanted to keep the piano scene? -First, playing the piano should mean something to her character beyond simply passing time. She should have been a brilliant pianist in the past. (Setting up high-stakes want) -I'd have her sit down at the piano for a specific reason: maybe someone who means a lot to her asked if she could play a high-profile charity piano show, and she agreed. If she doesn't perform at the show, it should spell social humiliation. Now she has a good reason for sitting down at the piano. There's a lot more at stake, and both Lena and the reader should be holding their breath about how her playing is going to turn out. (Want, with stakes). -She agreed to play a difficult piece for the show. I'd have her practice it and be awful. When her fingers don’t cooperate, she should feel shame and rising panic, and so will the reader (Obstacle). -And...I'd have someone who knew how good she was in the past overhear her playing. What does she do now? Does she cancel the charity show? Tell her friend the truth about her lack of talent? And now she has to deal with the friend who overheard her. (Action set-up). Not a perfect scene but way. more. interesting. She has a clear desire, obstacle, and there's room for an interesting follow-up action with more conflict mixed in. Application to your writing: Examine the Want, Obstacle, & Action in all your scenes. I created a spreadsheet that included each scene in my latest novel and spelled out the Want, Obstacle, & Action for every scene. It took a while, but it was worth it. I highlighted a number of scenes that didn't have clear desires, obstacles, or actions. The spreadsheet is huge, but here are two mini examples, put side-by-side for comparison. Below, the scene in Chapter 9 passed the test and the scene in Chapter 15 didn't: I did add "lol"s when it was painfully obvious that I was missing something. In Chapter 15, the "want" was not strong enough, and since there was no obstacle to her desire, no action needed to be taken. I had cut out the very real stakes from this scene. My story is a "forbidden" romance, so I included the love interest (V) asking about whether or not the protag's family knew about the date. The answer was no. Instead of this scene being pick-me-up-and-take-me-there, it instead served as a harsh reminder of the central want & obstacle: my protag wants this woman, badly, but also doesn't want to be disowned by her family, just as badly. The dialogue made all the stakes present. This isn't just any date; it's a date that could change the course of her life. Then, the action showed that my protag pressed on in the face of her fears–it turned into an active choice. I even upped the obstacles in Chapter 9–I added dialogue embarrassing my protagonist for not knowing what Snapchat was, which was an obstacle to her desire to fit in with her co-workers. With only seven lines or so, I increased the stakes, made my character more sympathetic, and added to the overall fun of the book. If you want to learn more about Want, Obstacle, & Action, I suggest reading Jerry Cleaver's Book, Immediate Fiction. Check out Part 2: Too Many Flashbacks & Info Dumps, here.
1 Comment
Anna
8/10/2017 01:26:05 pm
Helpful, especially the spreadsheet idea. Gonne try it out tonight.
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AuthorWynn Bishop is a sometime-resident of San Francisco. She's a lover of extra-dark chocolate, indie electronica, minimalism, and a damn good book. ArchivesCategories |