Amazon Kindle discussion

First, Thanks Ralph for providing this section.

I didn’t want to jump right in with something like, ‘I wrote this, this, and this; you can get it here, here, and here’. It seems like any venue that allows author promotions quickly gets polluted with listings of books, which seems to gradually fade into something like white noise in the background after a while. I figure if any one is interested in what I write, they’ll click on my picture and check out my body of work on my author profile.

Instead, I would rather talk about writing and story crafting.

To me these are two completely different aspects of a novel. Writing is the pros of it; the metaphors, similes, dialog, sentence structure, paragraph layout, the overall flow of focus, and yes, the spelling, grammar and editing. Story crafting is what the writing describes; setting (or “world”), character, character arch, antagonists, protagonists, plot, subplots, the sequencing of events for desired effect, what to reveal and what not to reveal and when, and lest we forget, the ending or how all these items tie together in an enjoyable and exciting reading experience.

Before beginning, I would like to close this introductory post by stating the obvious:

Creative writhing is a form of art and, as such, it is subjective. Not everyone will like or agree with my style or my viewpoints on how a story should be crafted or written. If you don’t agree, fine, speak up and tell us why. Is it a matter of personal preference, or technical execution? What are the pros and cons of various viewpoints or approaches? Likewise if you do agree and maybe have more to add, please, let us know.

I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning, which for me is always the ending of the story.

When I engineer or craft a story, I start with a premise then ask myself, “okay, but, how does it end?” It is only after I come up with an ending that I explore how the story might begin. I feel that having an ending in hand before writing begins is absolutely necessary. Everything in the story is pinned to the ending; the main plot, subplots, character arch, relationships, and the antagonists “up-commin’s” all need to converge properly at or about the ending.

When I speak of the ending, I’m referring to the pinnacle climax of the story and not necessarily the epilog following it. Epilogs are a completely different aspect of a story, which should probably be discussed in a separate post.

Consider a premise of: A hobo riding the rails. This premise could give quite a bit to work with and allows the author to go from the seedy side of congested infrastructure, to breathtaking scenery and ritzy resorts at the top of the world. Okay, but how does it end? Does the hobo get a job? Does he/she kick the bucket? What? It would certainly be disappointing to take the reader through great adventures just to arbitrarily stop the story when the train gets to Phoenix or wherever.

The ending defines the character’s need. If the story ends with the hobo getting a job, then his/her need is getting a job. If the story ends with the hobo kicking the bucket, then his/her need is survival.

With an ending in hand, I’ll decide on a point where the story should begin. This is generally pinned to the character’s need. The point where the character’s need for the main plot line is defined should occur early in the story, say no later than chapter 2 or 3; I typically shoot for the end of chapter 2. In short, establish the point where this need is defined, then back-up the character’s timeline by a chapter or two to determine where the story begins. In some cases it might be necessary to backup the timeline a little more depending on any subplots or character relationships that need to be seeded. But, be careful not to backup the timeline too far; I feel it is unsatisfying for a reader to get halfway through a book before the first hint of a plot turns up.

Take the hobo premise as an example. Define how it ends and how it begins (and in that order). Let’s say the hobo story ends with the hobo saving the free world. Then his/her need must be to stop some horrible event that will destroy the free world and, consequently, his/her life on the rails. Perhaps the hobo witnesses the sale of several suitcase nukes. Cool, there’s the character’s need; stopping the use of those nukes… How is he/she going to do that from the rails? Now define the beginning of the story by backing up the hobo’s timeline by a chapter or two to give the reader some insight into the character’s life before this need arose, as well as show the events that lead up to this need.

This approach gives the author the framework or endpoints of the story, and also provides a map, of sorts, for how other story components should fit in and where. Now subplots can be crafted, character arch designed, etc. Without at least this rough plan, the author is trying to hit a moving target and the story quality will suffer… or completely tank.

About two decades ago at a writer’s conference in Tucson, a speaker said that basically you start out with a character, flesh out the character, “then see where the character wants to go”. What? How? I decide what the character will do, not the character! The speaker implied that the author should just start writing, then after 80,000 to 100,000 words you have a novel. I’ve heard some authors say that they’ve started more books than they’ve finished – and I think this is how that happens. I have never started a story that I haven’t finished. If I don’t like the premise and ending I move on to the next idea without investing 20,000 to 40,000 words into finding out that its not going to work.

I feel that starting without an ending in hand is what leads to stories with no plots, shallow plots, unsatisfying endings, and overall disappointing stories. You don’t start building a house without a plan and you shouldn’t try to write a story without a plan.

This is very interesting. Can you tell me what is meant by character arch?

Hello Judy… thanks for dropping in!

Character arch is how a character changes as a result of their experience in the story. This is also sometimes referred to as character arc.

Here’s an example:

Consider a story where the main character is a hustler in a low-income community where life is tuff. Suppose this hustler comes across a blind man, who is incredibly easy pickings. But, as the hustler cons the blind man he begins to learn more about him. He starts to realize that his life is easy when compared to the blind man’s life. The more he learns about the blind man, the more he starts helping him rather than conning him. Soon, he starts helping other members in the community. By the end of the story he is no longer a hustler but a community activist bent on helping the less fortunate.

In the above example the character experiences a change or “arch” from one position, attitude, viewpoint, personality, etc., to another. It is a change the story made in the character.

Character arch is not present in all stories. It is a subtle, seldom discussed aspect of story telling, which I think contributes to the overall quality of a story; how can a book move a reader if it doesn’t even move the characters in the story?

Any romance or love interest in a story inevitable involves character arch; in real life, we can’t help but be changed by a romantic relationship, and it should be no different for characters in a novel.

Character arch is difficult to pull off in a series. Usually, only the first book in a series has the opportunity for pronounced character arch; after that the character is established and the only opportunity for character arch is in small steps from book to book. That is, you don’t see much change in Yoda, Captain Kirk, or Spiderman; they tend to end the story as the same character they were in the beginning of the story. I think this might contribute to the cases where people love the first book of a series, but no so much on successive books.

Another type of story that is difficult to pull off character arch in is short stories because there is simply not much space or time to do so – unless the whole point of the short story is to show how an event changes a character. I have an example of this in a free short story you can download here on GR: The Road, The load, and The Tree Toad.

If you look back on all the novels that you absolutely loved, you would probably notice that most, if not all of them, had a pronounced change in the main character from beginning to end as a direct result of the story. I’m not saying that character arch makes or breaks a story, but IMHO I feel it greatly contributes to the overall reading experience.

Thanks, Marcus . While reading your description of this, the one character that jumped out in my mind was Scarlett O"Hara in Gone With The Wind. Is that a worthy example of the kind of changes you're talking about?

Yes, I would definitely say so.

In the beginning, she wouldn’t lift a finger; in the end she had no problem working the fields or the mill. In the beginning, she really didn’t care who she stepped on or hurt, and in the end she at least realized that such actions had consequences.

Imaging how different the novel would have come across if Scarlett didn’t change!

Yet, it was apparent that the 16-year old Scarlett in the beginning was the same character as the adult Scarlett in the end. Yes, Scarlett had changed – but not so drastically that we could no longer recognize her as Scarlett.

If character arch is too drastic, then the character, and consequently the story, doesn’t come across as believable. That is, a writer can’t take a serial murderer/cannibal and elevate him/her to sainthood and paint them as an upstanding pillar of the community (imagine the reviews on that story). But even if we are not considering a drastic moral swing like this, we still want to be able to recognize the end character as the same character we identified with in the beginning regardless of how the story changed them.

It is interesting to note that Mitchell wrote the ending of Gone With The Wind first, then wrote the events that lead up to it. So, when Mitchell wrote the beginning, she not only knew how the story was going to end, but she also knew what kind of character Scarlett would become. She could then plan Scarlett’s character arch by contrasting the adult Scarlett with a younger Scarlett that didn’t have the same viewpoints and attitudes that she would eventually gain as a result of her experiences in the story.