Writing Tutorials

Writing Tutorial #11 does not describe you as a writer. In fact, you get cold chills considering "winging it." You need everything worked out before you start writing. This is a technique created by Frederick C. Davis that I found in The Mystery Writer's Handbook. He describes it in detail using the brainstorming of his novel Drag the Dark featuring Schuyler Cole and Lucas Speare of the Cole Detective Agency.

This is going to sound completely against everything I have told you previously in these tutorials: the story does not have to have a written outline.

"But you said write everything down!"

Everyone working on novels will be glad to hear this section deals completely with you. A novel must have at least one subplot; otherwise all you have written is a really long short story. As Levin puts it: "A novel is not only longer than a short story, it's wider." (Get That Novel Written 67)

You've got your road map for your story? Now you're ready to start planning conflicts, and from conflicts build scenes. I think in scenes when plotting out my stories; brainstorming until the entire work plays like a movie in my head. It happens almost automatically now, so if I miss something or have made things more confusing trying to explain, please let me know.

First I would like to apologize for the lateness of this tutorial. The New Orleans Saints football team (American football) won their first Superbowl, and I got caught up in the revelry.

Now a short review: a plot is a series of causally related events that emerge from a series of ever-intensifying conflicts and proves a premise at the end. Unlike real life, fiction has a point and once you reach that point, you feel satisfied as a reader. That's the difference between a great ending and a groaner.

Okay, so you've done the exercises and know your characters as thoroughly as you can possible know them. Now how do you get the readers to know them that well? "Show don't tell." If you haven't heard that writing rule before now, you should know that it is the oldest writing dictum around. With characters, it means you put them in action every chance you get.

Example: The tan-furred humanoid pulled off his helmet, reveling clearly the mouse stamp on his facial features. He raised his empty hands and took another step closer.

This is a technique I learned about writing Tin Man: Pirates of the Nonestic. I noticed other writers had created cast lists of who would portray their OCs if the fanfic was filmed and decided to try it out. My guess as to why I never had before is so much of what I have written is cartoon-based. Casting those are handled completely differently.

"Back up a minute. My main character is new. I don't know its eye color much less its goal in life." Don't panic. You probably have a better grasp on your new characters than you think you do. You just need the framework to organize the ideas. And just like there are many ways to organize your brainstorming, there are many ways to help you organize your brainstorming on your characters.

By now you should have brainstormed enough to realize who is in your cast of characters for this story. Characters are the most important aspect of a story. Everything else hinges upon the people inside. "Character is the destiny of the novel," is how Donna Levin puts it (Get That Novel Written! 5) and it applies to short stories too. Characters influence the plot, and the actions and conflicts show off the characters. And if you don't write about interesting characters, no one is going to read.

There’s no right or wrong way to write a story. Some authors only work on the weekends, some work any free second they get. The majority sets the same time or go by a daily word count goal to reach. Me, I’m a daily scribbler. I get out of sorts if I don’t write, so I don’t like to skip a day in my daily writing.