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Feb 17 2012
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censored opinions, Entertainment, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: World Building

Ever look at one of these, these, these or these?

Fantasy writers perfect cartography. We have Tolkien to think for that, for he coined the phrase “cartographic writing” – writing from the map. You create the world, the mythology of the world and then you write with a character inside that world. Unfortunately, many fantasy writers focus so long on the what and the where that they neglect the who and the why questions. Good answers to these questions create great stories. Today, we turn to the fantasy writers to teach us about trade, authority, ceremony, and ethics.

Trade

What can your characters do to make a living? Awhile back on Twitter, I asked people to list out medieval professions. Piper, Karl, Matt and I came up with the following list:

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Feb 10 2012
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censored opinions, film, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Antagonize

When I was young, my brother and I could get one another into trouble if we needed attention or if life bored us. My brother would steal stuff and hide it, I would give him wedgies or worse. I laugh now because I strive to lead a peaceful home, strive to keep my cool and strive to plant gentleness and joy and ultimately fun wherever I go. But that’s not always the case.

Unfortunately sometimes, just like then, I get bored or need attention or need to feel heard or ache for respect and honor. When I was a kid, I’d give my little brother a wedgie or hide a bag full of his year-old Halloween candy and call it good. Mom’s response?

Quit antagonizing your brother!

She meant, “Quit escalating things, Lance. Quit stirring crap up. Quit harassing him – especially since the tone of our household was peaceful/fun/creative/controlled/kind a moment ago. Antagonism escalates things at home, in interpersonal conversation, in the world and basically everywhere else. But what antagonism achieves is integrity. I’m using “integrity” broader than normal. Normally I mean  integrated, whole, uncompromising, good. For the characters in your novel I mean consistent. The framework. Integrity, for our purposes here, means what lies at the core. Want to see consistently what kind of man I am? Look at what I chose to do when my brother or best friend or wife or father or school antagonized me and opposed what I wanted most. That’s the measure of my integrity – my choices when faced with antagonism.

Your protagonist is only as good as your antagonist.

Continue reading →

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Feb 03 2012
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censored opinions, Entertainment, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Emotional Structure

Our stories breed three species of emotion.

These three species unearth the temperament of our stories and life perspective as we write. One species, the Cynic, rides the downward trend of the world. The Cynic sees everything ending stoic and stark. Another, the Visionary, envisions an uphill battle. There’s a hill to charge. Once we take it and stand on top, we shall all be kings. The last species, the Paradoxical, trusts neither in hope nor revels in despair but meditates on the fascinating contradiction called “life.” He thinks you can get your true love, but only if you die for her. You might achieve success in the financial world, but only after you sell your soul. You could earn honor for your family by submitting yourself to public disgrace.

These three species (The Cynic, The Visionary, The Paradoxical) influence every realm of story: novels, screenplays, plays, documentaries, old radio, commercials, TV series, the miniseries and narrative performance art. They “prove” their ideas through subtle swelling swings in emotion:

Whatever drives your current work, whatever thought you aspire to smuggle into your audience’s mind, start on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. Your story will swing wider and deeper, back and forth between the positive and negative ends of your story spectrum until climax. Some stories end up, some end down and some end with the bittersweetness of real life – both beautiful and grotesque, wonderful and awful. Continue reading →

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Jan 27 2012
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censored opinions, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Protagonist

Ever watch a fat soprano shatter a wine glass with her voice?

It’s called resonant frequency – the pitch at which something vibrates. Everything has it – the table I’m typing on, the car keys hanging from my carribeaner and the engine block on my car that, judging by the smell of burning rubber, may or may not need a check up.

Friggin’ serpentine belts…

Vocal chords vibrate a column of air to its resonant frequency, allowing the sound to fill your mouth with song and then enter the world by leaving your sound hole. I wonder if musical mothers ever use that phrase in vain? “Shut your sound hole!” If the frequency exiting your sound hole matches the exact resonant frequency of, say, a glass? BUM-CHINSH go shards and wine all over your table.

The glass says “that sounds like me” and explodes in an emotional encounter. Protagonists are the songs we writers sing, the notes that resonate deep in the caverns of our readership’s soul. Each of us is a glass begging to find something that “sounds like me.”

Protagonists come good or bad, evil or righteous, living right or dead wrong. They can be rich or poor, powerful or weak, accepted or rejected. Regardless of looks, they must resonate. They must sound like us often enough that when their story finds the breaking point at climax, we too shatter. Analysts dub that phenomenon “catharsis” – our human desire to discharge emotion in one satisfying purge.

I offer four solid words to describe protagonists: volition, ambition, predisposition, qualification, and fortune. Continue reading →

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Jan 20 2012
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censored opinions, Entertainment, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Research

All good stories start like all good speeches – in the hard chair. You know the kind: wooden, no thoracic support on your back, flat on your butt. You will shift in this chair once every twelve minutes. If you don’t shift in this chair once every twelve minutes, it’s because we’re talking about two entirely different chairs.

Hard chairs seldom occupy our living rooms and dens. They hide out in libraries, coffee shops, and offices. In the hard chair, we dig through slush piles of info, hoping to find diamonds in the rough. In the hard chair, we prep for the soft chairs.

Here’s the thing: I used to believe in writer’s block. Then Rothfuss said, “Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block,” and I started to think, “Well yeah, but…”

Aspiring writers say, “I have nothing to write about.” Maxwell recounts how people come up to him declaring their aspirations to write. He asks them what they’ve written and they typically answer, “nothing yet, but I’ve got a lot of ideas.” Maxwell’s response?

Writers write. Painters paint. Leaders lead. You want to be a writer? Then write.

Yeah, but what about? Whether from fear of jump-starting a career or from “writer’s block,” writers eventually have nothing to write about. They have nothing to say. Research heals that festering wound. Three worlds give us material and we’ve got to travel to all three to get good research. We have to hit the books, dream it up and reminisce. Continue reading →

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