Can You "Just Write"?

When I first decided to seriously pursue writing, I didn't think much about what I needed to do to prepare for a career as a writer. I just decided to do it, sat down, and started.

Why is that?

Can you imagine starting any other career that way? You wouldn't say "I'm gonna be a fireman!" and start running into burning buildings. You wouldn't say "I'm gonna be a stockbroker!" and start...actually, I don't even know what you would start doing. Go to a stock exchange and start shouting?

Anyway, I find it odd that writing is a career that people think they can just do. I mean, in a sense it's true; there's no national writing organization whose dispensation you need, no training you must complete. There are organizations and schools you can go to, but nobody is going to make you. If you want to be a writer, nobody is going to stop you.

But just because you can jump in head first, doesn't mean you should. Most writers agree that writing well is hard. No matter how good a communicator you are, there's a lot to learn when it comes to crafting fiction.

Writing fiction is like coding. Your manuscript is your coding environment--a blank text file, or the HTML template of a blog like this one. And the mind of the reader is like a web browser; it reads and interprets the code. Whatever you do in your manuscript has an effect in the mind of the reader. Sometimes it's the one you want. Sometimes it doesn't matter if it looks exactly the same to everyone, so long as it's close enough. And sometimes, if your code is faulty, the browser simply can't understand it.

You wouldn't say "I'm gonna be a web designer!" and start writing websites without learning HTML. You might do what I did and get set up with a platform like Blogger or Tumblr, but you wouldn't go tinkering with the site's template unless you at least knew HTML and CSS. Hell, this website's template still intimidates me a little, and I've learned a lot in the last year.

The point is that writing, for whatever reason, seems to be one of the few careers that people think they can jump into without learning anything new. What is it about fiction that makes us feel like we can start messing around without learning the language first?

My best guess is that we think we already know the language because we speak in our native tongue every day. But it's important to realize that everyday speech is a completely different language.

A language is more than words and their dictionary meanings. Ask any linguist. A language is a complex system of rule-based information exchange. Language can exist in any of the five senses, and often it exists in more than one at a time. English is a language we hear and see, but when we talk to each other we also receive signals with our other senses. When someone smelly comes up and talks to us, it colors our perception of their words. If we still have the taste of our partner's lips on our tongue, it changes the way we hear their words. If someone says something while caressing your inner thigh, you're liable to interpret it differently than if they said it while punching your face.

In everyday speech, we have the entire lexicon of human body language supplementing what we hear (or see, if you're using ASL). A speaker's posture and gestures give subtlety and nuance to their words. Depending on the speaker's face, the same sentence might sound true, sarcastic, dishonest, or exaggerated.

In writing, however, words are all we have. There are a handful of tricks like italics to add emphasis, and punctuation to organize things, but we don't have anything as intuitive as body language to help transfer meaning.

Therefore, when we write, we must choose our words much more carefully than we do when speaking--and not just because we have fewer channels open. When we speak to each other, the words themselves are ephemeral. We rarely recall the exact words we say, or that were said to us, we recall their meaning. Not even that, we recall our own interpretation of their meaning, whether or not that was their intended meaning. All but the most profound words disappear like smoke in the wind once they're spoken.

One of my all time favorite quotes about writing actually comes from the 1982 Jim Henson masterpiece The Dark Crystal. When the main character is asked what writing is, he gives the best definition I've ever heard: "Words that stay."

Writing stays. Writing is permanent (or at least semi-permanent). A writer must make sure she wants her words to stay. She must make sure they deserve to stay. Which is not to say they must be some James Joyce-esque outpouring of the eternal human soul, but they must create the correct effect in the mind of the reader, or they don't deserve to stay. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

Many of us write every day, even if it's just a grocery list, or our name at the bottom of a receipt. We fill out forms, write emails, and post sticky notes. It's writing, but it's still a different language than fiction, because the information they transfer seldom requires much imagination. Fiction invites the reader to imagine things which don't exist, and may never exist. There's room for interpretation, but if you want to write fiction, you have to know the code.

Maybe you think you can "just write". Maybe you think your editor will just "fix it". I did, when I started out. But I was constantly frustrated by people misunderstanding or not understanding my stories. Eventually I had to accept that the burden of clarity was on me. So I learned the code.

Think you can make it as a writer without learning grammar and storycraft? Let's have an argument in the comments! Gimme your best shot!

3 ways to Plot a Short Story

Many (if not most) fiction authors begin their careers writing short stories before moving into novels. For most of the 20th century, it was almost a requirement to start out this way; write and publish enough short stories to build a name for yourself, then move on to longer books and a publishing contract.

The system works a little differently now. Big magazines don't publish as much fiction as they used to, and fiction-focused periodicals are fewer in number, and their readerships are smaller Anthologies are everywhere, but again, the readership isn't huge. You're not likely to see a themed anthology in the top ten any time soon.

But there's still a big niche for short stories today. The simplicity and affordability of online self-publishing makes it easy to send your short story out into the world. It also means the fiction market is saturated with poorly-conceived, poorly-executed material.

So how do you stand out from the crowd? How do you win the hearts of readers? How do you edge out the competition when submitting to a magazine or anthology?

There's no secret sauce, of course. It's the same as anything else: success is a lot of hard work, and a little luck.

For me, hard work has always taken the form of learning and applying technique. I love books about the craft, but I've found there's a shortage of writing advice on the short story form in particular. Recently, I read Let's Write a Short Story by Joe Bunting of the website The Write Practice. It wasn't a bad book, but I was a bit disappointed. I went in hoping for a detailed breakdown of how short story structure differs from novel structure, and how to approach plotting and editing a short. Instead, I found the same old advice about submitting, self-editing, and staying on task. It was good advice, but I've heard it all before (and written about it too).

Luckily, I've had some ideas about short story structure churning in my head for a while, and my disappointment with Let's Write a Short Story has motivated me to share them.

Why bother plotting a short story at all?

I mean, it's short, right? Why go to the extra effort?

Well, if you're like me, plotting is as much a habit as it is deliberate practice. It's hard for me not to plot. But even if that isn't true for you, any story, no matter how short, is worth sketching out in advance. I firmly believe that good stories are like icebergs: the reader only sees the tip, but there's a vast framework beneath. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

And as I've said before, it's easier to work out kinks in an outline than in a story. Your first idea is rarely your best, so when you're approaching a story it pays to sketch it out first and revise a few times before committing anything to the page.

So how should short stories be structured? I've thought about it, and I'm pretty sure there are three general ways to do it.

Compressed Four-Act Structure

If you haven't read my series on story structure, this might not be familiar to you. Please go read it, it's awesome and everything I say is 100% right, because I'm super smart.

Anyway, traditional story structure can be compressed down to a shorter format. When plotting out signpost scenes and major turning points, you try to express what you need to as simply as possible. Instead of an entire scene or series of events at Turning Point One, you write just a single moment that changes the game. Instead of a whole Save-a-Cat scene, you write one moment, maybe just one line of dialogue that will engender sympathy for your protagonist.

I tried this strategy when I wrote my short story Deep (available from major retailers!). The story began with a couple bickering, and to create sympathy, I had the main character apologize to an android that overheard the argument. Apologizing to a robot is meaningless, of course, but it showed that she was embarrassed, and embarrassment is sympathetic. That was the idea, anyway. Buy it, and let me know if it worked!

Compressed story structure can work on a surprisingly small scale. With Deep, I crammed my entire four-act structure into about 5000 words. Four act structure is more about proportion than amount. As long as the important turning points are spaced right, it doesn't really matter how much story they contain. The resulting rhythm will still feel familiar.

The Vignette

A popular form with literary fiction authors and art house filmmakers, the vignette isn't really a story in the technical sense. It's really just a single scene intended to highlight a particular theme, emotion, setting, or character.

Vignettes can be done well, but they are often misused. Sometimes, authors will write vignettes as a way of exploring a setting or character, but nothing interesting happens in the resulting story. The writer merely describes a person or place, and perhaps gives us some interesting bit of backstory or exposition, but there is no narrative present. Vignettes like that are useful to write, but not very interesting to read. They're notes, really, not proper writing.

Remember; the key to good fiction is conflict. To keep readers interested, something has to be wrong, and it has to be wrong now, not in the murky, shapeless past. If you can't find the conflict, you're writing notes, not a story.

Good vignettes will paint a detailed picture of a theme or emotion. In Coffee and Cigarettes, Jim Jarmusch uses the vignette to explore the theme of awkward, tenuous conversations. The scenes he presents vary widely in tone, but at the heart of all of them there is some form of uncertainty, and that provides the conflict.

Vignettes can be extremely short, or relatively long. The thing that makes them vignettes is that they happen in a single time and place. A long vignette can be a riveting slow burn if you lay the tension on thick enough. Think of the opening scene in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. That scene would probably make an amazing short story.

The key to using a vignette effectively is to keep the tension in focus. Even in the longest vignette, there's really no room for exposition. Get to the conflict, and let the reader stew in it until the scene comes to its close. Afterwards, the emotion you developed will still be ringing in their ears.

Sequence Structure

If you haven't read my article on sequence structure, here's a brief summary:

A Sequence is a group of related scenes. It consists of two phases, Action, and Reaction.

The Action Phase has three parts: A Goal, some kind of Conflict that impedes the character's progress toward that goal, and some Outcome (usually bad) that results from the conflict.

The Reaction Phase also has three parts: An emotional Reaction to the outcome, a period of Deliberation on what to do next, and a final Decision, which provides the next goal.

For more, read my article, or check out K.M. Weiland's series on this topic (I think my terminology is easier than hers, but the idea is the same...because I stole it from her).

Sequence structure as a short story plotting framework is new for me. I haven't actually written anything I've plotted this way (I've plotted, but I haven't actually written). But knowing how well this framework translates into novels, it stands to reason that it's a good way to write a short story. Gripping stories all have that domino-effect feeling, whether they're short or long.

In a novel, you typically have several main sequences linked up by smaller ones. The smaller ones can be cut short or interrupted, but the main ones should usually proceed unhindered. In a short story, I think you probably just need one, or one and a half. Let me explain.

The beginning of any story needs some kind of hook. Something has to be wrong right away or the reader isn't likely to get interested. To me, either a goal or an emotional reaction can provide this.

A goal is a desire with a plan. It can be established quickly, and then you move right into conflict. A goal in itself is already something wrong: wanting something means you don't already have it. Depending on what your character wants, that can be enough right there. Imagine a story starting off with one character wanting to kill another. That's conflict!

In sequence structure, the emotional reaction is a direct result of the preceding outcome. If the outcome is usually bad, that means the reaction is already fraught with conflict. You could open on a character fuming with frustration, buried under anguish, or blinded by rage. If you paint a good picture of what this person is like when they're frustrated, depressed, or enraged, you will supply a vivid portrait of the character (which is good to do early on), and you'll be starting with internal conflict that a reader can sympathize with.

Whether you start on Action or Reaction, all you need to do from there is proceed in the natural order. In a short story, I don't think it's a good idea to interrupt the flow of sequence structure. That might work in novels, because you have plenty of time to tie up any loose ends you leave dangling. But even meaty short stories need to be relatively compact. If you feel the need to interrupt or break sequence structure, maybe what you're writing would work better as a compressed four-act structure, or even a full novel.

Wherever you begin, I feel it's probably best to end on an outcome. This seems natural, because an outcome is more or less a synonym for an ending. You could end on a decision, but you'll want it to be one of those momentous, life-changing decisions that portends great or terrible things. Executed properly, a decision can create a resonant ending, which you always want. In general, though, I'm willing to bet readers will prefer ending on some kind of result.

So if you want to start with the Reaction Phase, your outline might look something like this:

• Reaction: Bob is angry at Sheila for sleeping with Dave.
• Deliberation: Bob goes back and forth about whether or not to kill one or both of them.
• Decision: Bob decides to kill them both.
• Goal: Bob wants to kill Dave and Sheila, so he goes to buy a gun.
• Conflict: The gun store owner knows Bob, and is suspicious about his motives for buying a gun.  
• Outcome: Bob takes his anger out on the store owner, and winds up getting arrested.

If you want to start with the Action Phase, your outline might look something like this:

• Goal: Bob wants to Kill Dave and Sheila, so he goes to buy a gun.
• Conflict: The gun store owner knows Bob, and is suspicious about his motives for buying a gun.  
• Outcome: The owner refuses to sell Bob a gun.
• Reaction: Bob's anger intensifies.
• Deliberation: He thinks of other ways to kill Dave and Sheila.
• Decision: Bob takes a knife from his kitchen and waits for Sheila to come home.
• Goal: Bob wants to kill Sheila.
• Conflict: Sheila returns home with their kids.
• Outcome: Bob can't kill her in front of the kids. He buries his anger, and we're left with the sense that life from then on will be very different.

Okay, maybe those aren't really great stories, but they illustrate my point. Sequence structure is an adaptable framework that allows you to create a domino effect of any length. This makes it perfect for short stories, because their length varies.

***

I've thought a lot about short stories. I'm a lifelong fan of story cycles like Bradybury's Martian Chronicles and Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (which is actually a collection of related short stories). But for whatever reason, there just isn't much material out there about how to write and structure them. There are hundreds of books about how to write a novel, but the only book I found on writing short stories had more to say about the publication process than the task itself.

These three structures are all I can come up with. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but when I plot short stories, it's always in one of these ways.

How about you? How do you plot short stories, if you do it at all? Can you think of any other structural frameworks I could include? Comment and let me know!

The Three Stages of Editing

Editing is the most daunting, frustrating, and labor-intensive part of being a writer. I often say that writing is just prep-work, and editing is the real writing.

If you've read any of my articles about plotting, you know I like a well-defined task, and editing is no exception. I don't just muddle my way through, reading my manuscript over and over, blindly feeling my way towards a stronger story. I break it down into three distinct stages, working the various issues from largest to smallest.

Developmental Edits

The big picture stuff is first. Once I finish a draft, I take some time to read the whole thing cover to cover. I usually convert the manuscript into an ebook (using Calibre), and read it on my phone. This takes me out of the writer's mindset; it makes it impossible to tinker and get distracted as I go. I have Google Keep or a blank Google Doc open, and I jot down everything that comes to mind as I read.

Mostly, I try to focus on big-picture issues like showing and telling, story structure, proportion, and how my characters are coming across. I do my best to ignore typos and grammatical errors because A) I will fix those over the next two stages, and B) the issues I find during the developmental stage usually require extensive rewrites, so a lot of what I read will end up getting cut out or rewritten anyway. It's a waste of time to tinker with the grammar in a paragraph I'll be cutting out later.

As a self-editor, this stage usually lasts the longest. Depending on the complexity of the novel, I might end up doing two rounds of developmental edits, because the more new material I write, the more new issues pop up during rewrites. This is one of the reasons I'm so heavily in favor of plotting. If a sequence of events clashes with a character's motivations, or if a particular chain of causality doesn't work, it's much easier to rework in the plotting phase. But, try as I might, sometimes I can't see the flaws until the manuscript is written, so there are always rewrites in the developmental stage.

Once developmental edits are done, I usually send the manuscript out to beta readers. It's essential to get another pair of eyes on your work, to catch what you can't. As a writer, you'll always know what you were trying to say, and sometimes that makes it hard to see what you did say. Beta readers cut through all that mess, and give you ammo for the next stage.

Line Edits

Once I'm sure the story is structured and proportioned the way I want it, I dive into the words themselves. Line edits are best done with tunnel vision; you want to ignore the story as much as possible, and focus on how well the sentences work. I look at paragraphing, word choice, dialogue mechanics, character voice, and a whole host of other issues. This can involve multiple passes, but usually by this point I know where my strongest and weakest scenes are, so I try to focus my energy where it's needed most. 

The hardest part about line editing is knowing when to stop. There is never a point where I can read a sentence and not imagine another way of saying it. Even if I'm satisfied with something one day, the day will eventually come when it sounds like garbage to me. I fully believe this is a fundamental law of writing. If you never stop learning, you never stop improving. If you never stop improving, the gap between your current understanding and your previous work is always growing, and that means your old writing will always look worse every time you revisit it.

So at some point, you just have to stop. Do it arbitrarily if you must, but for me there's always a point where I take a step back and realize I've tried a sentence or a passage five or six different ways, and I'm beginning to retrace my steps. That's when I stop.

Proofreading

Once I realize I'm torturing myself, the only thing that remains to be done is make sure I don't look like an idiot. Even nit-pickers like me make typos (I'm sure there are dozens on this site), but I do my damnedest to keep them out of published fiction.

Unfortunately, I fail as often as I succeed, which is why I like to use a program like ProWritingAid to help me clean up the mess. Editing software will always fall short of a human editor, but it has its advantages. Software doesn't get fatigued or distracted. Software isn't replaying highlights from last night's game while its eyes tumble over a mess of letters without comprehension. And software is fast. The burden still lies firmly on the writer, but the writer can do more with a little help from a machine.

Once I've dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's, I have myself a finished, polished story. And then it's time to send it out into the world, and risk starting it all over again.

But hey, that's the job.

Admonitions for Pantsers

Writers are defined by their approach to the task.  On one end of the spectrum, you have Plotters (thanks to James Scott Bell for introducing me this distinction), who range from people who write a simple, hand-drawn idea webs, to obsessive-compulsive people like me, who have quasi-romantic feelings for charts, spreadsheets and bullet lists.

On the other hand, you have the Pantsers, who sit down to a blank page and just go.  They let the ideas flow, and worry about arranging them into a coherent order later.  Sounds like the easy alternative, right?

Not if you ask me.

If you've ever talked to someone who wrote a novel, and they told you "It's a mess..." chances are you were talking to a Pantser.  If you ever wrote something, then looked at it after the heat of creation had cooled, and thought "God this is awful," then chances are you Pantsed your way through it without a plan.

In case it's not apparent, I'm not a big fan of this strategy.  I think refusing to plan ahead is disrespectful to the task of writing a novel.

But the aggravating fact is, a lot of good writers are Pantsers.  Stephen King, whom I all but worship, is a Pantser (though he doesn't use the term when he discusses his methods in On Writing).  And to me, that's maddening.  How Pantsers manage to wrangle bloated, festering novels filled with irrelevant scenes into readable books is beyond me.  But people do it.

Most of the Pantsers I've encountered, however, are what they are because they don't know anything else.  And I can't blame them for that.  They're simply stuck in the first of the Four Stages of Competence. And there's no shame in that.

The thing is, you don't apply to Novelist Incorporated when you decide to become a novelist.  There's no predetermined course of training (alright, there are creative writing degrees, but you know what I mean).  There's nobody to tell you you must learn story structure before you attempt a novel.  I'd be willing to bet that most novelists start as Pantsers.  Even I, loudest herald of the Plotters, started as a Pantser.

But if you're aware of the distinction, and you choose to remain a Pantser, there are some things I think you should come to terms with, or you'll find your writing life an unhappy one.

Above all, you MUST accept the reality that you will delete 4-5 times as much as you you keep. It's the price of "letting ideas flow".

In this world, most ideas are bad. If you don't accept that early, you're in for a world of heartache.

This is the job. This is what you signed up for. When writers talk about killing your darlings, this is what they mean.

Another thing to realize now is that the burden of editing lies on you first.  Unless you have an ongoing relationship with a professional editor, you can't just write any old drivel and expect someone else to "fix it".  Even with a professional editor, it's rarely that simple.  Writing is hard work, but editing is what makes writing readable. If you're not participating in the editing process, you don't deserve the credit for the final draft.

The last thing to realize is that the defining emotion of your writer's journey is going to be frustration.  You are going to hit road blocks, and you're not going to have a map around them.  You're going to write scenes that go nowhere.  You're going to put characters in situations where they don't belong.  You're going to foreshadow some turn of events and then forget about it by the time it should come to fruition.  You are going to make massive story revisions and practically rewrite your books from the ground up.  In short, your rough drafts are going to be really...

...bad.  And 90% of the work you do as a writer will not be "letting ideas flow", it will be fixing the jumble of ideas that spilled out of you.

If you're willing to spend 90% of your time fixing what you wrote, then my hat is off to you.  As negative as I sound about Pantsing, I applaud the hardy souls who are able to work this way.  I don't have the emotional fortitude for it.  But if you do, then go forth with my blessing.

If this post scared you away from Pantsing, check out my Plotter's Manifesto and my series on Story Structure

The Plotter's Manifesto

Writers are defined by their approach to the task.  On one end of the spectrum, you have the Pantsers (thanks to James Scott Bell for introducing me this distinction), who sit down to a blank page and just go.  Sounds easy, right?  I don't think so, but the reasons why are the subject of another post.

On the other end, you have Plotters, who range from people who write simple, hand-drawn idea webs, to people like me, who spend months devising detailed spreadsheets, building templates, writing mini-scenes to develop characters, and generally making themselves look crazy to any outside observer.

Figuring out whether you are a Pantser or a Plotter--or somewhere in between--is one of the first tasks you should undertake when you start your journey as a writer.

I highly recommend becoming a Plotter. You don't have to be as obsessive as me, but plotting saves you great hulking slabs of time, effort, and indecision. 

Wait, plotting saves you time?  How can that be?

Alright, the truth is plotting does put more distance between you and actually writing your story, but it's worth it. When you start from a suitable plan, your first draft will be better, which means you'll delete less, and spend less time reworking pages that fall short.  In the long run, you'll write more, because you won't spend so much damn time wrestling with a slithering mess of a novel.

Even a relatively straightforward novel can be a convoluted, multifaceted, byzantine thing when you're creating it.  When you're in the thick of it, ideas are firing off in your brain at random; you get ideas in the shower, ideas in bed, ideas when you're out to dinner.  Character motivations are gradually refined, plot turns are tested and rejected, locations are changed.  Think about it; would it be easier to do all that shuffling around in a novel, or an outline?

True, even the best plotted novel will go through some unexpected transformations after being written.  That's part of the process.  But the first ideas are seldom the best, and I find it's better to get those worked out in bullet list form.  A professional Pantser might take a book through seven complete drafts before it's ready to see the light of day.  Plotting can potentially cut off two or three of those drafts, and cut down on developmental edits.

If you're ready to begin your journey as a Plotter, check out my series on Story Structure.

How to Structure Scenes

Last week I took a little break from my regular posting schedule, because I've been working on a very exciting project. More news to follow. In any case, I'm back now, and I decided to take the next few weeks to feature some resources from the site. Most of what you'll be seeing over the next few weeks is permanently hosted here, but I'm going to feature a few selections that cover some of the most important issues I've encountered.

***

If you've read my series on Story Structure, hopefully you feel confident about the types of scenes you can and should include in your story.

But what about structuring the scenes themselves? If there's a macro-structure to a story, surely there must be a micro-structure?

Thankfully, there is. Traditionally, what I'm about to discuss is known as Scene and Sequel, but I've always disliked that term.  K.M. Weiland did a series on this concept, and in it she differentiated between two definitions of scene: Scene, being the first phase of the Scene-Sequel model, and scene being what we commonly refer to as scenes, I.E. a series of related events that take place in a single specific setting.

Are you confused yet? Because I was. (No offense to Weiland, it's not her terminology!)

Despite the messy terminology, the Scene and Sequel model has enormous advantages. It helps you craft a story where each moment is a link in a causal chain. Great stories feel like they're going to keep moving with or without us, so we pay attention because we don't want to miss anything.

So let's redefine some terms. I'm a stickler for terminology, and any time I see a single term with two different meanings, I go hunting for a superior synonym to regain some clarity. I'm pretty sure I developed this habit as a result of reading the chapter on repetition in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

For me, I like the little-s definition of scenes, because when I use the word in everyday parlance, that's what I mean. In my model, a scene is whatever happens in a single time and place. If the time, place, or point of view changes, a new scene has begun.

But Scene and Sequel comprises a group of related scenes, so what to call the whole model? Luckily, I paid attention in Film 101, so I remember that a group of related scenes is called a Sequence.

For the purposes of this model, a Sequence consists of two phases: the Action Phase (Scene), and the Reaction Phase (Sequel).

Sigh.

Now that we have our terminology out of the way, let's get into Sequence Structure. We'll look at the Action Phase first.

The Action Phase begins with a character that has some kind of goal. It could be as simple as getting a bagel at the local coffee shop, or it could be as complex as talking a room of government heavyweights into declaring war. Whatever it is, the first task in any Sequence is to demonstrate a goal.

Next, there will be some conflict that prevents the character from achieving that goal. Something happens to block their efforts, be it the actions of another character, a physical or social barrier, or their own incompetence.

And if there's going to be conflict, it's going to have some kind of outcome. If you want to keep the tension high, this outcome should almost always be bad. The character needs to encounter constant setbacks and diversions, whether minor or major. Occasionally, for whatever reason, the character will need to succeed in some goal, but if they do, you should always try to include some kind of secondary outcome that is a setback. This pattern should hold true right up to the end of your Final Showdown.

So that's the Action Phase:

• Goal
• Conflict
• Outcome

The Reaction Phase begins with--what else?--a reaction. This is some kind of emotional response from the character. If they encountered a setback, maybe they're frustrated or angry. If they achieved some goal, maybe they're elated. These are the moments that will help readers identify wiht your characters.

Sometimes, the reaction will be implicit in the outcome of the Action Phase. And if the reaction is obvious, you don't always have to spend page time on it. But you should know what it is, just to make sure it's involved in whatever you do write. Color your character's thoughts and actions with this emotion. If they're angry, don't show them sniffing daisies and sipping herbal tea.

After the reaction, you have some kind of deliberation. The character reflects on the outcome, and examines their options on where to go next. Sometimes this deliberation will take the form of an internal struggle, sometimes it will be an argument with the character's allies.

Whatever it consists of, the deliberation will eventually reach some kind of decision, which in turn provides a new goal. In this way, the Reaction Phase lights the fuse on the next action phase.

The point is to create a domino effect, where every scene has a causal relationship with the next. This provides that feeling of momentum, and keeps the reader hooked.

So that's the Reaction Phase:

• Reaction
• Deliberation
• Decision

In structuring a Sequence, each of the six items (goal-conflict-outcome, reaction-deliberation-decision) could be its own scene. It might feel a little choppy that way, but it's totally possible.

It's also possible for the entire Action-Reaction Sequence to take place within the space of a single scene. It might feel a little slow, but if you keep the stakes high, it can provide delicious tension. Quentin Tarantino is the undisputed master of slow, tense Sequences.

But typically, the Action Phase will be a single scene, and the Reaction phase will be a single scene. To return to an earlier example, the Midpoint Sequence of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows presents itself as two scenes.  The Action Phase happens at the Lovegood house:

• Harry and co enter the Lovegood house with the goal of learning more about the strange symbol they've been seeing.
• They encounter conflict when Xenophilius seems distracted and inhospitable toward with them.
• The outcome of this is that Xenophilius has betrayed them and is stalling, and Harry and co must make a daring escape.

The Reaction Phase follows when they finally get back to their tent:

• The group reacts by being distraught over what happened and disagreeing hotly about the importance of the Hallows.
• They deliberate over what their next move is, and because of the disagreement, they cannot decide whether to look for the Hallows or continue hunting Horcruxes.
• But eventually, Harry reaches the decision that the Hallows are of paramount importance, and acquiring them becomes his new goal, even though the others aren't on board.

Then, however, something odd happens. Rather than move forward with his decision, Harry is taken into captivity along with his compatriots and several others. A new Sequence has interrupted the flow of decision-to-goal, and Harry's overall goal of acquiring the Hallows is supplanted by the more immediate goal of keeping his identity hidden from the Snatchers.

This brings up an important point: Sequences do not always need to unfold unimpeded. One can interrupt another--in fact they should. The domino effect can survive a little chaos. Sometimes the outcome of an Action Phase should be a disaster that begins a new Action Phase right away, and the following Reaction Phase can do double duty.

Split streams every now and then, and have one Sequence crash into another. So long as everything flows into the same river by each of the three Turning Points, you're free to do whatever you want. At each of the Turning Points, a full Sequence should go uninterrupted.

A Sequence should nearly always straddle the Act One-Act Two transition. Act One should probably end with an Action Phase, and Act Two should begin with the corresponding Reaction Phase.

The Midpoint Sequence is one of the most important parts of your story, and should not be interrupted either.

Turning Point Three should also be a complete Sequence. The Low Point, Mounting Forces and Hero Gets a Boost scenes should make up the Reaction Phase of the Turning Point Three Sequence.

The last point where you should have an uninterrupted Sequence is at the very end. The Final Showdown should be an Action Phase, and the Denouement should be the corresponding Reaction Phase.

With these major Sequences in place, the most important points of your plot will be sound. Beyond that, Sequence structure is a wild and crazy business, and I advise you to make the most of it.

The Ten Commanments of Fiction Writing, Part Ten

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

-----

Commandment Ten: Thou shalt write what thou knowest, and know all thou mayest.

I think I might have gotten the "Olde English" wrong in the title. Wanna fight about it?

ANYWAY...

This last commandment is one you're sick of hearing: write what you know. It means you should share your experiences in your stories. It means you should create characters you understand. It also means that if you're a middle-class white guy like me, you don't try to write from the point of view of a poor black single mother during the civil rights movement. Wittgenstein put it best; "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

But there's another side to this old adage, and it's this: as a writer, it is your business to learn and experience everything you possibly can.

Direct experience is best. Every experience available to the human mind has its own secrets. People don't always talk about all the emotional subtleties, and as a writer you can make the experience more real for your readers by exposing them. But sometimes direct experience isn't a wise option. You shouldn't try heroin so you can write about being a junkie. You shouldn't murder someone so you can capture the mind of a killer more accurately.

In those cases, the best resource we have is other stories. Books, movies, and quality TV shows have a lot to share, and they have one additional advantage that direct experience doesn't: they're already structured into stories. Art imitates life, but it is not equal to life. Life is messy. Stories, in order to be comprehensible, should be much more orderly. So it behooves the writer to experience as many stories as he or she can.

But as long as you're living, you might as well try to have some life experiences too. They don't necessarily have to be the big, earth-shaking ones. Every day doesn't need to be a passion play. But the world is subtle and complex, despite its humdrum appearance. There is poetry all around you; from regional dialects, to the unique flavor of a particular coffee, to the unexpected struggles of your fellow humans.

If you've taken my advice about taking notes, you know what I'm talking about. Writers should be keen observers of everything around them, particularly human nature. Watch the people who come through your life. Listen to the way they talk. Study their body language. See the face they present to the world, and try to guess what's behind it.

Never turn down an opportunity to learn about something. Be curious about the things you don't see in your everyday life; from the secret pain of a depressed person, to the daily routine of your local garbage man.

Even the most menial things like the floors you walk on contain hundreds of things you never think about. You never know what might spark an idea. Open yourself to the physical world around you. Pay close attention to all five of your senses, and always be on the lookout for details that aren't obvious. 

I remember the exact moment I started doing this myself. I was in a subway station in LA. Other than the years I spent there, I've never lived anywhere with a subway system. I had been on the NY subway when I was younger, but my senses weren't as keen then. This particular day in LA, I happened to notice the rush of air that proceeds the arrival of a train. You can feel it even before you hear the squeal of the train's brakes. This detail isn't particularly life-changing, but it gave me pause. It makes perfect sense why it happens; the air is being displaced by the train just as water is displaced when you slip into the bathtub. But I had never heard anyone mention it before. And its exactly those kind of details that make a setting real.

Details like that exist for all the five senses, and they cover the entire spectrum of human interaction. If you tune in to them, they will begin to populate your writing even without deliberate effort. The mere act of observing them plants them in your subconscious, and they begin to naturally emerge in your work.

Being open to the world around you is one of the most important habits a writer can develop. If we're to write what we know without writing exclusively about ourselves, we'd better know everything we can. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Nine

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

-----

Commandment Nine: Thou shalt edit thyself, and allow thyself to be edited

This one shouldn't come as a surprise coming from me. But I firmly believe that all writing deserves to be subjected to brutal, merciless editing.

And not just polishing as you re-read. No. I mean tough editing from someone who knows grammar, punctuation, and the principles of fiction. Someone who won't pull any punches. Someone who will tell you flat out that your story sucks, if that is, in fact, the case.

I've met writers and editors that believe that editing should be done with a light touch, in order to preserve the writer's voice. But I don't agree.

For one thing, if a writer's voice is so fragile that it can be undone by suggesting some more sentence variety, or asking them to avoid over-abundant alliteration, then that writer needs to accept that their voice may not be fully developed yet. If you're afraid an editor will strip your voice out of your work, you must not trust your voice. If it's there at all, it will survive even the harshest edits.

The deeper issue is that too often (arguably most of the time) authors use this amorphous, ineffable thing we call "Voice" as an excuse to avoid editing. Once you invoke the divine mystery of Voice, all meaningful analysis comes to a screeching halt. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!) After all, Voice is nearly synonymous with a writer's taste in words, and as the old maxim says, "in matters of taste, there can be no disputes." (If I encounter this argument an editor, it usually signifies to me that the writer is in the First Stage of competence, and will not benefit from my participation)

Appealing to voice is the same logical fallacy that occurs when someone invokes the divine to avoid being proven wrong. It's a cop-out. I'm a believer myself, but if you ever catch me saying "because God says so" when you're critiquing my opinions, you have my permission to slap me. Gimme a good rap on the beak, set me straight.

When a good editor critiques a piece of writing, they should be prepared to defend each note with logic (I'd say the same for any time anyone tells another person to change in any way). Every change the editor suggests requires a reason, and I will be the first to admit that if their only reasoning is personal preference, you should feel free to disregard that particular note. That's not to say you should dismiss it out of hand, though. If you respect the editor at all, you should at least consider their opinion, because it's likely based on experience. And if you still disagree, no good editor will insist you take their suggestion anyway.

The thing to remember is that editing is a mostly thankless job. Editors don't get royalties. You don't see famous editors walking red carpets. Nobody gets rich editing books. In the majority of situations, editors don't even get credit. Pick a novel off your bookshelf, and scan the front matter for the editor's name. Unless the author thanks them in a dedication, I'm betting it's not there.

Editors exist to serve writers. Unless the editor is an idiot, every decision they make has the same goal: to make the book easier to read. Any editor who tries to take over another person's story is an idiot, because they're not going to get credit for it. And remember what I say about the path of least resistance. Readers, by and large, only read books that are easy to read.

One final point: writers must learn to self-edit, at least to some extent. You can't just vomit all over your computer screen and expect some superhero to swoop in and make it a bestseller. If you put that much of the burden on your editor, you don't really deserve the credit, do you?

Expecting your editor to just fix everything is the same as a musician who can't sing expecting the recording engineer to just autotune all the wrong notes. The end result feels fake. Cognitive dissonance is built into the final product, and the audience can sense that something is off, even if they can't quite say what. Some of them won't care, but do you really want to bank your whole career and reputation on people not caring that your work is shoddy?

Writing is a creative endeavor, to be sure, but the writers who attain sales and recognition do so by working hard. You can't expect to dance around like a woodland nymph, surviving on inspirational Pinterest quotes, and then suddenly have Peter Pan the literary agent sweep you off your feet and carry you to the land of success.

You better work, bitch.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part One

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

-----

Commandment One: The Story is thy highest goal, thou shalt not have any goals before it

When I first decided to pursue writing seriously, I had a lot of reasons and goals motivating me, but honestly it boiled down to one of each: 

• Reason: I thought I was pretty good at writing. 
• Goal: To achieve some level of recognition beyond my friends and family.

Both of those are still true (otherwise what the hell would I be doing this for?), but as I've studied my craft, a more important goal became my driving force, and that was simply to tell stories. 

When it comes down to it, the desire to tell a story is the only pure motivation to set yourself to the task of writing. It's the only pure goal you can strive for. Any other driving force inevitably clouds the story, and the story is what the readers come for. 

It's important to be humble, and not let your ego cloud your judgement. Ego is the driving force behind purple prose, confusing narrative, condescending tone, and a whole host of other problems that drive people away from books. It's important to remember why people read. 

People read books because they like stories. 

Sure, there are a host of subtler reasons augmenting that, but at the heart, that's all people want. If a story makes them think, or takes them on flights of poetic fancy, that's just a bonus. They come for the story, they stay for the rest.

So in writing, you have to put the story first. Every decision should be made by asking "Does it make the story easier or harder to experience?" (it's the Path of Least Resistance again). Anything that creates more work between the reader and the story leads them to put the book down. Even dedicated bookworms are subconsciously looking for reasons to put a book down. 

You can't expect readers to make excuses for you (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). You can't expect readers to assume that slogging through your overwrought, byzantine prose will somehow prove worthwhile. You can't expect readers to follow a haphazard, confusing narrative because it means something to you. Of course it means something to you. But have you ever read a book because the author deserved it? I sure haven't. I only read books because I want to. 

There are exceptions, sure. After all, people read David Foster Wallace, and he's the most arrogant, condescending writer to ever walk the Earth. But don't be so naive as to think that a book must be challenging in order to make people think, or garner critical praise. It's just not true. If you're involved with the reading community, you'll find that popular fiction has provoked more thoughts in more people than any piece of literary fiction ever has. Sure, they're not teaching The Hunger Games in college literature classes (not yet, anyway), and Suzanne Collins may not be James Joyce, but when you measure the effect on the world, it's hard to argue that The Hunger Games didn't matter, or didn't affect the way people feel and think. 

Let me illustrate this with an analogy. People don't listen to music to be impressed. People listen to music because they like they way it makes them feel. If the artist is technically accomplished, that's great. If not, it doesn't really matter, so long as the music makes people feel the way they want to feel. If music listeners were driven primarily by technical ability, artists like Yngwie Malmsteen would be the best-selling and most critically praised in the world: 

Did any of you watch that video past the one minute mark? I'm betting you didn't. You heard him start wailing, and you were like "okay, I get it", and then you hit pause. Or you let it play, but resumed reading this article. Doesn't that prove my point?

Luckily, it's possible to be technically accomplished and keep the focus on the story. In fact, if you want to be widely read and highly regarded, you've got to have it both ways. You have to find a way to craft a story that people don't have to fight their way into, and you have to let the story do the teaching, not you. 

Don't stand in the way of your story by stopping it in its tracks to deliver a lecture about how 19th-century English society is organized. Don't lecture to readers about the genealogy of every character's horses. Don't indulge your poetic side describing a sunset while we're waiting to see what someone will do. Because in the end, readers don't remember that stuff. Readers remember characters doing things.

Don't write a book just to make some political or philosophical argument. While its true that narrative is an excellent way to put ideas across (because it shows those ideas in action, rather than just telling them), if your whole story is just an excuse to get on the soap box, readers are going to feel lied to. Readers open a book because they think you want to tell them a story. But if all you really want to do is influence their thoughts, they'll know it. Stories can change the way people think, but you have to let the story do the teaching, not you.

And this last bit should go without saying, but don't write a book to get rich and famous. Don't write a book out of some vain hope that it will get made into a movie. That's working backwards from an imaginary future. Sound like a healthy M.O.? 

If wealth and fame is all you're after, you're in the wrong business. There are maybe a dozen people who get rich and famous off of writing in a given decade (actually, I think that figure is pretty generous). The odds are hilariously stacked against you, so making that your main goal is a recipe for bitterness. But that doesn't mean the trade isn't worthwhile for other reasons. Writing should be its own reward, just as experiencing a story should. Anything that gets in the way of that is unfair to the reader, and torturous to the writer. 

So just tell a story, and let the chips fall where they may. You'll be happier for it.

A Writer's Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens

If you're breathing at the moment, you've heard the buzz about Star Wars, Episode VII. Matter of fact, you've probably already seen it. If you haven't, you can't really complain about the spoilers that follow. Get off your ass and see the movie.

Consider yourself warned.

In my lifetime, there has never been a movie like this. Every year sees a handful of hotly anticipated movies; some sequels to successful blockbusters, others high-minded Oscar hopefuls, still others adaptations of already well-known works. But if you added up all the anticipation for every movie that's come out since I was born, it wouldn't even come close to the buildup for Episode VII.

And that, in itself, made it possibly the greatest writing challenge I've ever witnessed. The prequels were big news, sure, but once that first one hit theaters, we were all rolling our eyes for the remaining two. Star Wars has been big business since day one, but those movies--even before we knew they sucked--didn't have the kind of energy around them that Episode VII does. It was like "Hey, they're finally making a new Star Wars. Cool!", and that was about as excited as any 'normal' person got.

But after the travesty that was Episodes I-III, the stakes done got raised. On the one hand, you had what was arguably the most beloved and world-changing media franchise of all time, and on the other, you had a flaccid, blatantly commercial prequel trilogy that just took a massive Cleveland steamer on the whole thing. Never has the ache for redemption been so strong.

I got my hopes up when I heard the important players from the original cast were coming back. That was the first sign, to me. If they had made another Star Wars without Harrison Ford, I would have seen it out of a nerdy sense of duty, not genuine desire. But the cast did come back.

The next worry I had was "Who's writing it?". Perhaps it's professional bias, but to me, the writer is more important than the director (ideally, they're the same person, but I knew this project was going to be a team effort). As long as a director is professional, and doesn't get up his own ass with technique-y gimmicks (I.E. Alejandro González Iñárritu), most directing styles are tolerable to me. Even, mood permitting, that of the much-maligned Michael Bay.

When I watch a movie, I can't help seeing right past the veneer of characterization, exposition, setting, etc, right to the narrative structure. I like stories that display symmetry, minimalism, and a clear causality. I like my stories to have everything they need, and nothing they don't. So I was happy when I learned that J.J. Abrams was in charge, along with help from George Lucas's old pal Lawrence Kasdan, and Pixar alum Michael Arndt. That is a satisfying meeting of minds, and I think it produced a winning script.

The Force Awakens has been criticized for being too similar to A New Hope, and I think that's a somewhat valid note. We have a lonely youngster on a desert planet, with tenuous ties to a family they hardly know getting swept up in an interstellar conflict; a Big Bad in black who will do anything to squash the emerging threat to his power; an adorable droid sidekick who needs to get to his master; a somewhat grizzled mentor character who convinces the hero the force is real...I could go on. We even begin the same way: resistance hero gets in a sticky situation and has to hide a crucial piece of information by giving it to a droid, who runs off and fortuitously meets up with our protagonist. And the climax is the same too: A ragtag group of rebels, spurred on by the cruel display of the badguys' power, locate and exploit the one weakness of the weapon that created said display.

I could go on.  For a long while.

It's true that a lot of things will look too familiar to some. But to me, these things are more about narrative symmetry and paying homage than they are about being derivative. Taking notes from Episode IV was a sound strategy to ensure a higher quality story. I would have done the same. In fact, that's all I know how to do: take inspirations, beats, and elements from high-quality source material, mix them up, and add a few new things. I'm a big believer in the old saying that there's nothing new under the sun, but it doesn't bother me, because shuffling familiar elements has a way of producing sound, likable stories, and the forces of chaos ensure just enough new, fresh material to keep things interesting. So I'm glad that Episode VII took more than a few notes from Episode IV. Anyone who has a problem with something reliably good is a masochist.

The visual element was important to me too. One of the biggest problems with Episodes I-III was that all the CGI was so shiny and fresh looking, it broke the fourth wall. All I could see was special effects. I couldn't see the characters at the heart of it. But it would seem that we've finally entered an era where technology has caught up with the goals of the filmmakers that use it. I can still tell what's CGI in Episode VII, but only because I know what's possible and what's not. just to look at it, the seams don't show at all, and that kept me in the movie.

Structurally, the movie is rock solid. Its characters have the vibrant, timeless quality that made the original engaging. Rey is a great hero; I'm a sucker for a tough chick that can hold her own in a fight; something that Star Wars has always been known for (I.E. Leia). Klyo Ren has been lampooned for being too 'emo', but I actually like that about him. I think his volatility makes him more dangerous, and it keeps him from being just a clone of Vader. His voice under the helmet even makes me think of Tom Hardy's Bane, but at a Teen Titans age.

I was sad to see Han go, but again, I probably would have done the same. Someone had to die to lend credibility to Kylo Ren's villainy, and if you're gonna kill somebody in a story, you've got to make it hurt the audience as much as possible. I can't imagine any Star Wars death that would affect fans more.

The most intriguing things about Episode VII were our two new mysteries: the identity of Supreme Leader Snoke, and the identity of Rey's family. Personally, I think Rey's situation is obvious to anyone who was paying attention. She's a Kenobi, through and through. My money is that she's Obi-Wan's granddaughter. They dress the same, they have the same self-possessed confidence, and when I saw Rey climbing around an area of Starkiller Base that was very reminiscent of the first Death Star, it clicked. And it made the end of the movie all the more poignant: once again, we have a calm, wise Kenobi handing a troubled Skywalker his weapon, beckoning him back into the fray.

Snoke bugs me though. Andy Serkis, who portrayed him in the movie, assured us that Snoke is a completely new character, but I find that unlikely. First of all, it strains against believability; that someone hitherto unknown in the Star Wars universe had the motive, means, and opportunity to attempt to rebuild the Galactic Empire seems crazy to me. How does he have the resources? How does he have the connections? Why does he even want to?

It seems more likely to me that either Snoke is someone we already know, or he has a connection to someone we know. Otherwise, the stakes just aren't high enough. Emperor Palpatine was a mighty, thoroughly intimidating villain who held the galaxy in an iron fist for six movies. He was damn hard to defeat; if it wasn't for Anakin Skywalker's last-second conversion, he probably wouldn't have been. It was one of the narrowest victories ever. And Snoke has to top that, otherwise the third trilogy will actually lower the stakes. I just don't think that a total unknown can come onstage and be more evil and manipulative than the Emperor. Palpatine is up there with Satan when it comes to embodiments of evil. He's so evil, he's a metaphor for evil. So Snoke better have some serious chops, or it will subtly ruin the new trilogy for me.

That said, my hopes are high. J.J. Abrams knows how to spin a web of lies and confusion in order to keep the audience guessing. Lawrence Kasdan knows how to honor the movies that came before, and make use of the best elements in them. And Michael Arndt knows story structure, and has a knack for creating bright, engaging, sympathetic characters. As long as those minds are involved--or at least minds of similar quality--the forthcoming movies will be great.