Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure (26 page)

Chapter 4:
At home, Sam yells at his wife and daughter. His wife drinks.

Chapter 5:
A newspaper reporter corners Sam about the witness incident. Sam is assigned the case with a partner, Art Lopez.

Chapter 6:
The killer's point of view: watching the news on TV.

And so on. This part of your outlining can take a long time, and it should. Give yourself a realistic deadline and strive to meet it.

Lay out your plot on index cards or in some other form so you can get the big picture. Give yourself some time away and then come back to your plot once more for fine-tuning. Maybe you're going to want to add or subtract scenes. In fact, you should.

[7] Do full chapter summaries.
Expand your chapter lines into short summaries of the scenes you are going to write. Put down the locations, times, and characters involved.
See chapter seven on scene writing.

Strive to keep these summaries to less than 250 words. For example:

Chapter 1

We meet Sam Jones as he is in the middle of questioning a Korean store owner who witnessed a shooting outside his store. The perpetrator was black and the victim apparently white, though the storeowner is unclear about who was who. This neighborhood has been the scene of racial tensions, and Sam feels the need to get a quick solution. Sam is also a little on edge, thinking about his wife and daughter at home. Things have not been going well there lately, and it is affecting his work. Sam is resentful about that. But he keeps his attention on the store owner, a middle-aged man who is full of fear. Sam knows that this witness is withholding information because he is afraid of retaliation. Despite Sam's assurances that he will be safe, the storeowner resists. Sam has had it and starts yelling at the store owner that he better be worried about what Sam will do if he doesn't cooperate. The store owner freaks out and starts screaming. He runs out of his store where he is nicked by a kid on a bike. This freaks him out even more and he starts threatening, “Lawsuit! Lawsuit!” Sam rolls his eyes. Another wonderful night as a New York cop.

[8] Take a breather.
You deserve it.

[9] Write your novel.
Follow the chapter summaries, step by step, as you write your book. If you come to a place where you're absolutely compelled to deviate from your outline, pause and think about it, and if need be, change the outline from that point forward. Yes, it involves work and new chapter summaries. But you are an OP, and you love this.

[10] Revise your novel.
See the next chapter.

Answer the following questions quickly, recording your first response:

[A]
When you go to a party, you most look forward to:

1. Seeing old friends

2. Meeting new people

[B]
If you had to choose which music to listen to, you would choose:

1. Classical

2. Rock

[C]
What subject were you better at in school:

1. Math

2. Art

[D]
How would your closest friend place you between:

1. Control freak

2. Wild child

[E]
Whom would you rather spend an hour with:

1. William F. Buckley

2. Jack Black

[F]
You most like:

1. Security

2. Surprises

[G]
You would be happier as a:

1. Software developer

2. Poet

All right, this was a little unscientific. But honestly, if you have mostly ones, you probably fall on the OP side of the continuum. If you have mostly twos, you might very well be a NOP. Choose a system that fits your “profile” and give it a try.

Make a list of your favorite novels. Put down at least ten titles. Now look at the list. Is there a similarity to them? Are they heavy on plot and action, or do you prefer more character-driven books? Or is there a mix?

There are more NOPs on the literary/character-driven side, and more Ops on the commercial/plot-driven side. Take this into account in choosing a system. You should be writing the type of novel you most like to read.

Let your characters have their way. Let your secret life be lived. Then at your leisure, in the succeeding weeks, months or years, you let the story cool off and then, instead of rewriting, you relive it.

— Ray Bradbury

We've all heard that writing is rewriting. True. But
how
do you rewrite? What do you work on first? What do you decide to keep and what do you toss?

This chapter is an attempt to give you a systematic approach to revision. Whether you are a NOP or an OP, left-brained or a righty, your plot will only get stronger if you give it some cool, rational attention.

Ernest Hemingway had a rather personal way to describe first drafts. To paraphrase, he said all of them are like, ahem, biological waste.

I don't think I'd go quite that far. Hemingway, after all, ran with the bulls, so he knew how to fling it. There is some truth in what he said, however. The first draft exists to be rewritten.

You've got to have something to revise, so rule number one is finish that first draft!

What's the best way to do that?

Follow one of the systems in this book (
see chapter ten
). Then write it as quickly as you comfortably can.

This means you don't spend hours, Proust-like, laboring over pages and words. You can do that later. Oh, you can linger a little, looking for just the right style, but keep pushing ahead. Set a good-sized word quota for each day, and then write on through to the end. This is the “what's happening” draft.

The reason you press on is that your heart will be eager to take your imagination in hand and explore fictional possibilities. If you stop and get too technical, too concerned with getting it exactly right, you may never find the most original parts of your story. A promising road or rivulet may lie forever undiscovered! Even if you're an OP, be a little like Lewis and Clark on that first draft. Try things.

You can edit your previous day's work before moving on, but that's it. Fight the temptation to go back and do more.

You can also use the step-back technique
see chapter fourteen
) but only to make sure you have your bearings — use the LOCK system to analyze your story so far.

Keep writing. Get to the end. Don't allow yourself to abandon the project. You must finish what you write.

But what, you ask, if I have a chaotic mess at the end?

Celebrate. This is the way it usually is, even for veteran novelists. Stephen King describes seeing his first draft as “an alien relic bought at a junk-shop or yard sale where you can hardly remember stopping.”

You Ops may feel you've got things pretty well in hand at the end of the first draft. If you have followed your outline, the LOCK system, and the three-act structure, chances are it will indeed have a solid foundation.

But now's your chance to change things for the better. Here are the steps in the revision process.

Your first draft needs a cooling-off period. So forget all about your novel and do something else. You might try some different forms of writing during this period, just to stretch and grow. Write some poems, essays, or op-ed pieces. Or begin work on your
next
novel. You're a
writer
, not someone who has written a book.

All the while, your first draft is cooling in the recesses of your brain, where a lot of good stuff happens, unnoticed.

After two or three weeks you're ready for the revision process to really kick in.

Writers vary in their embrace of revision. “I don't like writing,” some say. “I like having written.”

For others, the rewriting process is like getting to take the final exam over again. And again. And each time your grade gets better.

Whatever camp you fall into, do some things to get mentally ready for revision. And by that I mean try to get pumped about it.

Tell yourself these things before you sit down with the manuscript and red pencil:

• Rewriting strategically is only going to strengthen my book.
  
• Rewriting strategically is fun because I know what to do for each step.
  
• Rewriting is what separates the real pros from the wannabes.
  
• I don't wannabe a wannabe. I wannabe a pro.
  

With all that in mind, get ready to work on your plot.

Print a fresh copy of your novel. Yes, on paper. You want to re-create the conditions a reader will be in when she reads your book.

Take this copy to a quiet spot and read. If you can read it all the way through in one long sitting, great. If not, make time to get through it as quickly as you can. Do not get bogged down in details at this point. What you want is the big picture, the overall impression. You can take very brief notes if you wish, but try not to slow down for any considerable period.

You should work from the big issues down through the small ones. Sol Stein calls this the
triage
method, which the
American Heritage Dictionary
defines as:
A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment. Triage is used on the battlefield, at disaster sites, and in hospital emergency rooms when limited medical resources must be allocated.

Got it? View your first draft as a disaster (does wonders for your ego, doesn't it?). Actually, just understand your first draft needs attention. Using
triage
, get to the most important questions first.

The first big question to ask is,
What is the story I'm trying to tell
?

Wait! Shouldn't I know by this time what my story is? Maybe. But there might be a deeper story trying to get out, something you were writing even though you weren't fully aware of it yet.

Stephen King has a nice metaphor for this. He refers to the
boys in the basement
, the writer's mind working down below. Now's the time to take a peek at what they've been doing.

So analyze your story, asking the following questions:

• Are there places that surprised you as you read the draft? Why do you suppose that is? Is there material there you'd like to expand?
  
• What are the characters really doing in this story? Might they have issues you haven't explored fully yet?
  
• Look to the places that drag. These might be scenes where you have avoided dealing with something deeper. What are the characters
  really
  thinking in these places? What are their passions, frustrations, and desires?
  
• Imagine alternative plotlines. How might your plot be different if it headed off on another tangent from various points in the story? You don't have to follow them, but they might suggest other streams that can flow into the main plot.
  

If any of the answers resonate with you, try writing a summary of your plot, but with the additional plot material the above questions have suggested. Write a two- or three-page synopsis, then rework it, adding new thoughts, characters, and themes. Think of this as getting closer to the story you really want to tell.

Next, think about structure:

• Does your story play out naturally in three acts?
  
• Is there an immediate disturbance to the Lead's world?
  
• Does the first doorway of no return occur before the one-fifth mark?
  
• Are the stakes being raised sufficiently?
  
• Does the second doorway of no return put the Lead on the path to the climax?
  
• Does the rhythm of the story match your intent? If this is an action novel, does the plot move relentlessly forward? If this is a character-driven novel, do the scenes delve deeply enough?
  
• Are there strongly motivated characters?
  
• Have coincidences been established?
  
• Is something happening immediately at the beginning? Did you establish a person in a setting with a problem, confronted with
  change
  or
  threat
  ?
  
• Is the timeline logical?
  
• Is the story too predictable in terms of sequence? Should it be rearranged?
  

All of this thinking is guaranteed to make your basic plot stronger. Now you're ready to consider the other big questions. Be sure to take notes as you answer these questions:

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR LEAD CHARACTER

• Is the character memorable? Compelling? Enough to carry a reader all the way through the plot? A lead character has to jump off the page. Does yours?
  
• Does this character avoid clichés? Is he capable of surprising us? What's unique about the character?
  
• Is the character's objective strong enough?
  
• How does the character grow over the course of the story?
  
• How does the character demonstrate inner strength?
  

QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR OPPOSITION

• Is your opposing character interesting?
  
• Is he fully realized, not just a cardboard cutout?
  
• Is he justified (at least in his own mind) in his actions?
  
• Is he believable?
  
• Is he as strong as or stronger than the Lead?