Tag: Write-Plotting

Magical Words: Blind Trust

Erin Penn

Photo by Gun Kimm on Unsplash

On a starship, an engineer reports over the comm to the bridge. “Captain, we have a problem.” “What is it, Tools?” “I can’t describe, come down here.”

Really, what the ever-loving frig? The captain is on the bridge, that is where she should be, the center of command, gathering information from all parts of the ship. So she should drop everything and head to a DANGEROUS area by herself to eyewitness something the EXPERT in the matter cannot deal with? Every.sci-fi-TV.show.e.v.e.r.

Fantasy. Romance. Every single genre has the “no time to explain, just follow me.” Like parents telling children, “don’t ask questions, just do what I tell you.”

Misty Massey wrote a full blog (with the related responses from experienced published authors) on the subject for Magical Words on 10/18/2011 called “Blind Trust.”

I’m totally with her on this on how LAZY and UNREAL the lack of explanations is.  – the URL http://www.magicalwords.net/misty-massey/blind-trust/

G is for Give Your Characters Trouble

Erin Penn 6 Comments

Meme created by Erin Penn

During several of the Craft of Writing courses at the SAGA Writer’s Conference (sagaconference.com next one scheduled for July 2024), the Faculty describe many things to give your characters: a solid background, emotions, friends and enemies, goals. But most of all, Trouble.

When things slow down, blow up their lives. Physical and emotional bombs – mix and match appropriately to genre. “I’m pregnant.” changes everything as much as a car explosion, especially when the character saying it is male. Explosions. Obstacles. A child who is sick at school and needs to be picked up ASAP, while the hero needs to stop a vampire coven before they wake at nightfall.

Every three chapters or so stop and brainstorm five to ten things of “What is the worst thing that can happen?” Pick one or two things from the list. And give your characters a gift that keeps on giving.

Below is a previous meme I made when I was offering advice to a young writer. Since all writing is in the author’s head, making problems can be difficult for young authors. It’s like they are attacking their alter egos. Until you can distant yourself from your characters, Giving Trouble can be challenging. But Giving Trouble is absolutely necessary.

Meme created by Erin Penn

E is for Enter Late, Leave Early

Erin Penn 5 Comments

Meme created by Erin Penn

During the March 10th weekend this year, I attended the SAGA Professional Writer’s Conference in Winston-Salem NC (http://sagaconference.com/). A lot of good advice was to be had, and several of them had me making memes the minute I got home. I am a hands-on learner and making a visual memes helps things to stick.

I normally post three days a week, which leaves me twelve days to fill in for the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge for April. I’m going to post the five writing meme I made during my non-standard days complete with why the writing advice is important.

Both Dr. Hartley and Dr. Leverett, in two different presentations at the conference, gave a piece of writing advice stolen from the movie industry: Get in a scene as late as you can and leave as early as you can. Distill the action as much as possible. Obviously the advice is very important when two different people present the same information, and the advice works in different storytelling mediums.

What “Enter Late, Leave Early” means is focus the action. You don’t need the camera (or the written narrative) following the person climbing out of the car, going in the house, ringing the doorbell, getting welcomed, receiving a drink, taken into the family room, and the conversation starts. The important bit, distilled down, is when the visitor says, “The results came back with anomalies.” Heck, you can even push it back a couple of more seconds to the home owner responds with a shocked “Anomalies?”. “Yes, anomalies. I know we said it was a standard test but…”

At the other end, “Leave Early,” cut out of the scene the second the last bit of important storytelling data is presented. Only at the very end of the book, when providing closure, do you need to end a scene with all the bow-ties and swirls. Until then, push, push, push the storyline forward.

Should there be extraneous data beyond the mainplot line? Of course, there is backstory, character development, the emotional storyline, the action storyline, the series overarc seeds and advancement, and, my personal favorite, worldbuilding. All these things make a story layered like a good baklava.

But each individual scene needs to only have what is happening for that scene, and rarely does that include walking through doors.

Oh, that would be a good piece of advice too: Don’t Walk Through Doors

Magical Words: Balancing head, gut and heart

Erin Penn

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

A.J. Hartley is a best-selling author. Way back on June 22, 2012, he wrote an article for Magical Words entitled “Balancing head, gut and heart.”

The blog post deconstruct why the Doctor Who two-part episode “Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead”, works so well. And it isn’t just because of the solid sci-fi elements (time travel) bringing a reader’s HEAD into the story, or the chilling monster grabbing the GUTS, but also the emotions – the relationship between the Doctor and Donna, and the new-old archeologist straining the HEART. All three items, when in balance, make amazing fiction – whether book or visual medium.

The full URL is: http://www.magicalwords.net/really-i-mean-it/balancing-head-gut-and-heart/ … and be sure to read the comment section for additional advice.

Writing Exercise: Inciting Incident Part 2

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

My book club this month read “The Poppy War”, a grimdark fantasy novel based on Chinese history.

Its inciting incident leaped out to me and made me think about the 5/24/2022 Writing Exercise on inciting incidents. deconstructing it in my mind.

WRITING EXERCISE: Using a novel you are reading or recently read, take apart its inciting incident. (The manuscript used needs to be at least novella length and the first of the series, to give the inciting incident a reason for being.) Comment below what book you chose and why. Review the previous writing exercise for details about inciting incidents.

My attempt

As I said, The Poppy War inciting incident stood out to me … because it had so little to do with the rest of the story. It could have been removed from the book and virtually nothing would have changed … except it is the pebble that starts the avalanche. 

Quick review on what an inciting incident needs:

(One) Early in the book – check. Aside from the opening flash forward, the marriage proposal starts the book.

(Two) Disrupts the status quo – This is where the marriage proposal becomes important. While life truly is horrible for our protagonist, she is well used to it at this point. She works the shop, protects her little brother as best she can, and knows how to manipulate her adoptive mother enough to avoid the worst of the abuse. Being married even to someone in the same village, will change everything in her life, and not for the better as far as she can see. Especially at 14, to a twice divorced older male. Big disruption.

(Three) Not under the protagonist’s control – And this is where the inciting incident of the marriage proposal is different from her waiting for answers on the test she took. Rin chose to start studying for the Keju test, she arranged for her professor, she took control of her life to take the test. Even while waiting for the answer to the test, everything related to it was under her control. But the marriage proposal, nothing was under her control. Her adoptive mother wants it, the marriage maker didn’t even consult her, her possible intended never talked to her. 

Similar to the inciting incident in Harry Potter is receiving the letter. Nothing in his life ever prepared him for this. But the Sorting Hat, while seemingly not under the children’s control does listen to them and is influenced by Harry’s wish not to be Slytherin. In the Wizard of Oz, the inciting incident is the tornado. 

(Four) Forces a difficult choice – Rin chooses to take the Keju, and then further, chooses to leave home. While the leaving everything she knows behind is as disruptive to the status quo as the marriage, the difference is the protagonist chooses this “Call to Adventure”.

Oh, wow. I figured why the inciting incident bothers me so much. Usually the Inciting Incident for fantasy is a “call to adventure” – something that leads the person into the magical world. But in Rin’s case, she isn’t so much responding to a call as avoiding something unpleasant. The inciting incident so mundane, it doesn’t match the normal expected Call to Adventure or other Fantasy magic. In fact, the inciting incident is so hateful to her she twice uses it to whip herself down a path when things get rough. Anything was better than going back.

In conclusion, the inciting incident of The Poppy War stuck out like a sore thumb, different from normal fantasy and not really fitting in to the rest of the book, and yet it meets all the classic needs of the Inciting Incident – including and especially the fact the marriage proposal wasn’t under her control,