CRAFT: Lists from writing courses
Jan. 18th, 2008 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaIn the midst of all this, I'm in two online courses that I signed up for a while back. I'm keeping up with them as best I can. There are some really useful discussions going on. (These are courses that you pay for, held online via a mailing list. You never know how good or not-good these sessions will be. These two turned out pretty well.) I thought I'd share some of the collective wisdom. Can't post anything from the lectures directly, but here are things from the class discussions.
It's not enough to have a "hook" in the opening lines of your novel. You need to keep them reading in several key areas, including the end of the third page (where bookstore browsers and agents usually stop reading if it's not grabbing them), chapter openings, and chapter endings (cliffhangers or spread-overs.) You must work and perfect your opening sentence, opening paragraph, end of the first page, end of the third page, end of the third chapter (where it's tempting to just lay the book down and go off to do something else--also, this is often the end of a requested partial), chapter endings/openings, and that all-important last sentence. The last sentence of the book will make the reader feel fulfilled or justified in having read the whole novel--that they Got Something Out of it, or that it was worthwhile--or can make them feel ripped off, that you just trailed off instead of wrapping things up and referring back to the themes from the opening.
Part of what people sense as pacing has to do with whether these "continue reading" enticements are in place, says the instructor. Perhaps if you have had people cavil at your pacing being slow, this is the problem--you don't have these in place. Or they're misplaced.
We don't want to go to the extreme of linking together one "wring 'em out" relentless zappity scene after another, with heroes lurching from one car crash or falling piano to the next, and calling it an "action-packed thriller." We need to provide an emotionally satisfying read without exhausting a reader or making things "meaninglessly active." (My term for the movies that just have boom, bang, boom, but then when they're over, you think, "But what was the POINT? What was it ABOUT?")
These are lists that the class came up with.
What to avoid? We already know about:
· Backstory
· Introspection
· Information dumps
· A boring voice that seems monotonous
· Repetition and reiteration as in saying the same thing over and over and over again with dialogue AND action
· Thinking in the middle of action
· Too much or not enough description of important elements
What your book's opening scene should have/do, in no particular order:
1. Establish main conflict or as close to the main conflict as possible.
2. Introduce main protagonist and (with any luck) main antagonist, or at least refer to antanonist.
3. Establish empathy with protagonist; establish animosity towards antagonist. (Obviously with some measure of softness if the antagonist is the hero.)
4. Ground the reader with a sense of setting -- time, place, rules of the story. Contemporary? Historical? Magical? Fantasy? Space opera?
5. This goes with four, but if it's genre, probably the conventions of the genre wouldn't be bad to keep in mind.
6. Avoid backstory and infodumps. Keep a story question raised.
7. Pique reader's interest by putting the protagonist(s) into an intriguing situation.
8. Make the protagonist "worthy" by making him or her interesting and appealing, but not a goody-two-shoes or a Mary Sue. "I might feel sorry for somebody but still not be too interested in how they came out unless they
were interesting," said one writer. "He or she doesn't have to be perfect, but we should believe he or she has an interesting soul," said another.
The instructor of one class emphasized that at each of the "put the book down" junctures, there must be a new hook to keep readers reading. She feels that the strongest hooks raise questions or reactions in a reader. Here's the list that Donald Maass puts into his how-to books:
HOOKS
1) The totally unexpected
2) Introduction of a unique character
3) Shocking or clever dialogue
4) Foreshadowing
5) A classic tale or theme
6) A surprise situation
7) Danger or Action
8) Setting that evokes mood or a theme
9) Overpowering emotion
10)A question directly raised
The instructor mentions that hooks must create an emotional response from a reader as well as raise a new story question. I thought this was worth mentioning, as sometimes I don't feel involved AT ALL with scenes in books that I read, and it's because I haven't been brought in to care about the situation and am viewing it in I-Am-A-Camera mode.
Things to think about. Comments? Ideas?
It's not enough to have a "hook" in the opening lines of your novel. You need to keep them reading in several key areas, including the end of the third page (where bookstore browsers and agents usually stop reading if it's not grabbing them), chapter openings, and chapter endings (cliffhangers or spread-overs.) You must work and perfect your opening sentence, opening paragraph, end of the first page, end of the third page, end of the third chapter (where it's tempting to just lay the book down and go off to do something else--also, this is often the end of a requested partial), chapter endings/openings, and that all-important last sentence. The last sentence of the book will make the reader feel fulfilled or justified in having read the whole novel--that they Got Something Out of it, or that it was worthwhile--or can make them feel ripped off, that you just trailed off instead of wrapping things up and referring back to the themes from the opening.
Part of what people sense as pacing has to do with whether these "continue reading" enticements are in place, says the instructor. Perhaps if you have had people cavil at your pacing being slow, this is the problem--you don't have these in place. Or they're misplaced.
We don't want to go to the extreme of linking together one "wring 'em out" relentless zappity scene after another, with heroes lurching from one car crash or falling piano to the next, and calling it an "action-packed thriller." We need to provide an emotionally satisfying read without exhausting a reader or making things "meaninglessly active." (My term for the movies that just have boom, bang, boom, but then when they're over, you think, "But what was the POINT? What was it ABOUT?")
These are lists that the class came up with.
What to avoid? We already know about:
· Backstory
· Introspection
· Information dumps
· A boring voice that seems monotonous
· Repetition and reiteration as in saying the same thing over and over and over again with dialogue AND action
· Thinking in the middle of action
· Too much or not enough description of important elements
What your book's opening scene should have/do, in no particular order:
1. Establish main conflict or as close to the main conflict as possible.
2. Introduce main protagonist and (with any luck) main antagonist, or at least refer to antanonist.
3. Establish empathy with protagonist; establish animosity towards antagonist. (Obviously with some measure of softness if the antagonist is the hero.)
4. Ground the reader with a sense of setting -- time, place, rules of the story. Contemporary? Historical? Magical? Fantasy? Space opera?
5. This goes with four, but if it's genre, probably the conventions of the genre wouldn't be bad to keep in mind.
6. Avoid backstory and infodumps. Keep a story question raised.
7. Pique reader's interest by putting the protagonist(s) into an intriguing situation.
8. Make the protagonist "worthy" by making him or her interesting and appealing, but not a goody-two-shoes or a Mary Sue. "I might feel sorry for somebody but still not be too interested in how they came out unless they
were interesting," said one writer. "He or she doesn't have to be perfect, but we should believe he or she has an interesting soul," said another.
The instructor of one class emphasized that at each of the "put the book down" junctures, there must be a new hook to keep readers reading. She feels that the strongest hooks raise questions or reactions in a reader. Here's the list that Donald Maass puts into his how-to books:
HOOKS
1) The totally unexpected
2) Introduction of a unique character
3) Shocking or clever dialogue
4) Foreshadowing
5) A classic tale or theme
6) A surprise situation
7) Danger or Action
8) Setting that evokes mood or a theme
9) Overpowering emotion
10)A question directly raised
The instructor mentions that hooks must create an emotional response from a reader as well as raise a new story question. I thought this was worth mentioning, as sometimes I don't feel involved AT ALL with scenes in books that I read, and it's because I haven't been brought in to care about the situation and am viewing it in I-Am-A-Camera mode.
Things to think about. Comments? Ideas?
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