3T Writing Tidbit - story structure bonus

I've been reviewing story structure lately. Despite what the pundits say, there's more than one way to tell a story! You have your 3-17 step hero's journey, your 5 plot-point, your 3 act, your 2 step scene/sequel. Let's start on the far end and work our way in.

Last month we did scene/sequel. I have one more structure that I picked up from an interview with a famous actor (I can't remember who or where, so if this sounds familiar please point me at the clip so I can give proper attribute.)

All stories boil down to this basic understanding:

• Protagonist decides to enter Special World.
• Protag acts.
• This has consequences.
  

I like this because it's super simple and super relatable. We can even apply this to our own lives! The formula works at both micro and macro levels - apply it to a scene, an act, or the whole arc of the story.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits. 

2T Repeat Peformance - the First Person

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published August 15, 2012 for Ravishing Romances

Writing a series in first person, is it difficult to switch characters each book?

Sherlock Holmes, Amelia Peabody, Kinsey Millhone—some of my favorite stories are in first person. There’s an immediacy that you get from being right in the hero’s head which works especially well with dry humor. But most of my first-person favorites are mysteries, and all of them feature one unchanging narrator. First person romance? Sequential narrators? Never saw it—until I read Lori Handeland’s Nightcreature series. I fell in love. Each heroine has a smart, kick-butt style that really shines.

I’d written some women’s fiction in first person and had great feedback. But I love romances, so I decided to try combining first person with romance myself. Bite My Fire and Biting Nixie were the result—along with my first sale J.

Making each Biting Love heroine unique is both a challenge and a joy. The challenge is creating a character different enough from the previous heroines—while still keeping her smart and strong. The joy is when, after much preliminary fumbling, the character’s unique voice finally sings through. Nixie, a punk rock musician, slings her slang. Elena, a cop, has a saltier vocabulary than shy geek Liese. To me, these are now truly different people, so in a way it’s easy to write them differently.

But there are a few helpful techniques that all writers can use. I pick a couple specific concepts for every character (not just the heroines), and use those concepts each time I reintroduce the character. Nixie wears kids clothes but swears like a Marine. Liese is wholesome as a dairy maid. Logan is insouciant and graceful. (See Jim Butcher’s Live Journal http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/ for TAGS and TRAITS). I also pick emphasis words/phrases (swearing) that fit the heroine’s lifestyle. For example, when Biting Oz heroine Gunter Marie “Junior” Stieg misses her solo entrance, she snaps, “Stuff me in a tuba and blast me into space.” Each heroine also has a different career path—my varied job history is now a good thing, LOL. Even when two women have overlapping careers (Junior and Nixie are both musicians), they approach life differently (one is all about responsibility, the other is all about individuality).

Finally, even when the characters’ voices are totally different, I tag dialog when there are more than two people in the scene (Junior said; Glynn crossed powerful arms; Nixie danced, or, being pregnant, she wobbled). In a real-life roomful of people it’s a challenge to keep track of all the conversations, so in a story, I try to make it crystal clear who’s talking, not relying on voice alone.

Biting Oz features the first ever meeting of the vampire spouses of Meiers Corners—seven smart, strong women around one table. You can judge for yourself how well I’ve done keeping them unique J .

 

3T Writing Tidbit - story structure part IV

I've been reviewing story structure lately. Despite what the pundits say, there's more than one way to tell a story! You have your 3-17 step hero's journey, your 5 plot-point, your 3 act, your 2 step scene/sequel. Let's start on the far end and work our way in.

Last month we did the 3 act. Let's do scene/sequel today. 

This structure was most famously articulated by Dwight V. Swain in Techniques of the Selling Writer. It has two parts, the scene and the sequel.

A scene is a unit of conflict. It is broken down into 3 parts, Goal, Conflict, Resolution. The resolution can be: the protagonist attains their goal; the protag does not get their goal; the protag doesn't get their goal because of a disaster.

That one's my favorite, lol.

The special sauce with this particular structure is the sequel. It explicitly adds in the tendons and muscles that make the skeleton of the plot work. 

The sequel links two scenes in this way: the protag reflects on what happened in the first scene and translate that into a goal for the next scene. In reflecting, of course they're going to go through all the emotional upheaval that might have been missed in the frenzy of the scene! So a sequel is also used to control the pace of the story.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits. 

 

2T Repeat Performance -- Spring!

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published April 19, 2012 for Guilty Pleasures' Love in Bloom

Spring! And a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of taking off...

 

His shoes!

“In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
I love spring because it’s a season of love and the time to throw off the cares of winter. I celebrate both by kicking off my shoes. How do you celebrate the coming of spring?

3T Writing Tidbit - story structure part III

I've been reviewing story structure lately. Despite what the pundits say, there's more than one way to tell a story! You have your 3-17 step hero's journey, your 5 plot-point, your 3 act, your 2 step scene/sequel. Let's start on the far end and work our way in.

Two months ago we did the 5 plot points. Let's look at the 3 act today. 

It's famously used for plays. It's the basic Beginning, Middle, End. But what happens in each of those places that gives this structure its, well, structure?

In a nutshell:

• The beginning is the setup.
• The middle is the confrontation.
• The end is the resolution.

Because each section is so large, this structure works well with the 5 plot points, which give each section its own internal shape. The setup rises toward the catalyst, after which it falls to the end of act I. In act II it rises toward the pinch, then falls to the end of act II. From there it rises to the climax, falling through the resolution of act III.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits. 

2T Repeat Performance -- Vampires and Musicals, oh my!

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published August 14, 2012 for Redheads Review It Better

Thank you, Crystal, for having me here today!

Vampires and musicals. How was this connection made?

Original Samhain Cover

Well, it wasn’t totally voluntary :) The sad fact of my life is that, when I try to plan it out, things often go drastically awry.

I once said I’ll never write vampire stories. Needles and blood make me feel faint. What are sharp-fanged vampires but giant blood sucking needles? I do love alpha males though, and vampires are the ultimate alpha. So when I got a brainstorm for a new kind of vampire, one who drinks blood for his veins instead of his stomach (just a few times a month instead of three times a night), I jumped on it. I wrote two red-hot vampire romances that became Bite My Fire and Biting Nixie.

Why musicals? Back in 2009 the first three books in the Biting Love series released, with the fourth scheduled for early 2010. I wanted to follow them up quickly (I know, slap me with a cosmic “kick me” sign) with book five, so I picked an area that I knew a lot about—music. Specifically, I had just played Reed II in the pit orchestra for a production of The Wizard of Oz. Theater is exciting, all costumes and lights and swirling action. Playing pit is tons of fun with friends and laughter, triumphs and disasters.

With so much great material to draw on, I finished the story quickly and submitted it in May of 2010.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Due to circumstances beyond our control…”? Yeah. Obstacles sprang up out of nowhere, and book five had to wait over two years to be released. 

Entangled Cover

The finished story, Biting Oz, is more than worth all the hassles. I am thrilled with how it turned out, from the dramatic cover to the excellence in editing. The story also has a few new surprises, including entr’actes from the hero’s point of view and the first ever meeting of the vampire spouses of Meiers Corners, seven smart, strong women around one table.

I’ve learned my lesson, though. I can tell you that I’m working on Beauty Bites (Book Six), but I won’t tempt fate by saying when it’ll be done :)

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