Scene and Structure #5 - Pitfalls!

I'm on vacation this week with my daughter in sunny Florida, but I made sure to have a little something to share with you from our good friend Jack Bickham and his book SCENE & STRUCTURE.


Let's talk about our friends from last week, Jack and Jill. Now their goal was climbing a hill/mountain and we are trying to come up with conflicts for them. Be sure the conflicts you choose for your characters are not trivial. (Believe me your readers will care!) We don't want to read about how Jack and Jill don't have the proper equipment to scale their mountain. If the story is about them climbing, they sure as hell better have the proper climbing equipment. 


Now.... If the story is about them surviving in the Alaskan Tundra and they were in a plane crash and they have no equipment and they have to climb a mountain to escape a bear.... that's one thing.... but then the story goal is no longer them climbing a mountain it's about them surviving in the wilderness and readers will now expect them not to have the equipment they need.  


See how that changed everything.


Another point he makes in this chapter - don't sidetrack your characters (Pitfall #1). If Jack and Jill need money to finance their trip, don't create a thought process that says if the bank doesn't give us financing we have to rob a bank to get the money to climb the mountain.  OMG! Jack and Jill's story is about climbing a mountain, not becoming bank robbers! Be sure you don't back your characters into conflicts that distract from your story goal and possibly alter it in the process.


(Pitfall #2) - The Strongman
Don't let the characters run away with the story. Yikes! I know all my pantser friends out their are gasping. For you guys. Let the story run, but then be willing to go back and look at the scene and realize that you might not want all of it. For example, if Jack and Jill go to the bank to get financing for their climb and start a screaming match with the the bank manager... what's going to happen. What might you introduce into your story at that point that you don't want to explain to your readers? Jack says "what if the characters say they can get the money somewhere else and the bank manager sees it as a threat and calls in the loan on Jack's business... or Jack says he can just go get the money from his grandfather..." Well the reader is going to want to know why Jack didn't just go to the grandfather first. Is the grandfather part of the story, or did Jack just grab you by the ear and drag you along with him for no good reason.


I am such a pantser too and I have seen this happen in my own work from time to time. I take a step back and go 'what the hell?'. As a pantser you have to be willing to take it out and go at it again. Remind your characters to "stay on task" LOL. When this happens I usually highlight the scene, cut it and paste it at the bottom of my doc so that if I need it I can go back and and get it, but if I don't, I don't worry about it.


(Pitfall #3) - The Weakling
Don't duck your conflicts! "After the showdown with Jacob Simms, David drove directly home, feeling....." OMG! The author skipped the best part. He/she left out the showdown. 

Don't skip over conflict because you don't think you can write it well enough. "You will find that boldly going ahead into the 'impossibly difficult' conflict portion will stretch your abilities as a writer - and make you better than you thought you could ever be."

Happy Writing, Happy Reading

Krystal Shannan

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Scene and Structure #4

Well, today I was greeted by my two year old in the hallway at 6am... LOL, It's just going to be one of those days. I fed her and clothed her.  Lucky for me, she wandered off to play with her stuffed animals and I can sneak in a few moments to share what I've learned from my latest reading in Jack Bickham's SCENE & STRUCTURE. Although, I hear an approaching floor popper, so this is probably going to be quick today.

Jack is talking about overall goals today in your scenes. How to avoid the circular arguments that plague many children and non-comunicative adults..... *snicker* 

When we read a book, we don't want the characters to just argue and go back and forth at each other, we want problems, crisis, choices that must be made, action that must be taken. We want to hope and cheer on our heroes and heroines in their epic struggle to reach their goal and we want to be made to believe that they might not make it.

Remember to have your long-term story question in mind when writing each chapter all they way down to each individual scene. If the story is about Jack and Jill climbing a hill. Every scene should be their struggle to do so until they ultimately succeed. Unless something else relates to that goal and question, it is unneeded and distracting to the reader.

Authors do this successfully by placing conflicts in their characters' paths - usually a villain figure.

Now for the 'disaster' as Jack calls it. The final twist in a scene that keeps the hero/heroine from achieving their quest or attaining their goal.

'It seems clear why this should be so. If a character enters a scene, has a big struggle, and comes out with exactly what he went in for, then he is happy as a lark. Again -just as if there had been no fight at all - Jack and and Jill are happy, the reader is happy - and all story tension just went down the drain.

This is why the scene, if it is to work as a building block in your novel, must end not well, but badly. Jack and Jill can not be allowed to attain their scene goal. They must encounter a new setback. They must leave in worse shape than they were in when they went in. Any time you can build a scene which leaves your character(s) in worse shape, you have probably "made progress" in terms of your story's development!

So to recap... 

1) Start with a goal in mind

2) Plan your conflicts

3) Devise a solid disaster 

Now, go torture those characters for our pleasure and enjoyment! 

Remember it's for a good cause. You want to write a bestseller!

Happy Writing, Happy Reading.

Krystal Shannan

How do you write a scene? #2

So happy Forth of July! May everyone enjoy their BBQ and fireworks tonight! Be safe and be careful not to burn anything down. I don't know where you are, but around here everything thing is as dry as a crispy critter.

Remember what our Forth of July is actually celebrating. Independence from England. Remember the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson, yep, just in case you are a little rusty on your history that's the war I'm talking about. Our ancestors fought long and hard so we could have all the advantages that come with being a US citizen. Be sure you vote to keep our country that way.

Moving on to our topic for the day. How to START and how to END a scene. 'The point to be made here, is that 95% of the popular novels published today -whatever their general form (1st, 3rd, etc.) -depend on the structure of the scene to make them work'.

But first Jack's answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.

1) "How long should my novel be?"

Haha, personally I just write until the story ends, but I guess I could see this being a problem for some. But, his answer for you is (unless you are writing a novella for sure) assume the 60-90,000 word range.  Then depending on the publisher you are seeking, you may have to shorten or length from there.

He goes on to say that novels below 60,000 words do have a chance to be published, but is is far below the norm. In nowadays market, unless you are writing a catagory line for Harlequin, shorter novels and novellas are bought constantly by the booming epub industry. Novels over the 90,000 word range apparently jump into a more expensive category for publishers and they are wary of those as well, because they become a higher risk. Interesting.

2) "Where should my story start?"

The answer... Wherever the character is going to experience the most dramatic portion of his/her lifespan. LOL. In essence -the juiciest part.

Here's Jack Bickham's 5 things to remember about your reader.

1. They are fascinated and threatened by significant change;
2. They want the story to start with such a change;
3. They want to have a story question to worry about;
4. They want the story question answered in the story ending;
5. The will quickly lose patience with everything but material that relates to the story question.

Ok, so our stories should start with a change, lead quickly to goal, and raise a story question in the reader's mind to hook them! But how do we end...? 

Simple answer.

Answer the story question.

It may take a month of the character's life. It may take a week. For novella writers it may only take 48 hours of a character's life to pose a question and answer it. But to really hook our readers, we must make them worry for our characters and desire to know if they are going to make through our fabricated crisis or not... SO... 

Go back to your stories and ask yourself these questions from the readers' perspective. 

In the meantime, here is Jack's abridged version of the GAME PLAN.

• Consider your story materials as presently imagined. Look for and identify, in terms of days, weeks or months, that briefer period of time when the "the big stuff happens." Plan to eliminate virtually everything else.
• Think hard about your most major character and what makes him/her tick - what his/her self concept is, and what kind of life he/she has built to protect and enhance it.
• Identify or create a dramatic situation or event which will present your character (and your reader) with the significant, threatening moment of change.
• Plan your plot so that your novel will open with this event.
• Decide what intention or goal your most significant character will select to try and fix things after the threatening opening change. Note what story question this goal will put int he reader's mind.
• Devise the start of a plan formulated by your most significant character as he set out to make things right again.
• Figure out how much later - and where and how - the story question finally will be answered. You should strive to know this resolution before you start writing. Granted some things change while writing, but you should know your final destination :-)

Next week join me for Cause and Effect...

Happy Writing 

Happy Reading

Krystal Shannan

How do you write a Scene? #1

So I've decided to in addition to being a stay at home mother to a two-year-old female tyrannosaurus...ooops! I meant darling daughter, LOL.  I am working on two WIP's at the same time,  taking a writing class with Candy Havens, and I'm reading a fabulous book called Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickham.  Each Wednesday I will find a way to share with you what I learned that week about creating a strong scene! Whoooo! I hope you will enjoy my adventure into scene and structure. I know I sound like a geek. But what else is an ex-english teacher to do for fun....? No! Don't ask! *Giggle* At least wait until I've had a glass or two of wine.

CHAPTER 1 - The Structure of Modern Fiction

Haha! Don't leave. I promise to have something interesting to say.

"Structure is nothing more than a way of looking at your story material so that it's organized in a way that's both logical and dramatic."

See. This could be helpful.

As a romance writer and a confessed plotsner (half pantser-half plotter) I need some organization! I stole that from my friend Elysa Hendricks! Fabulous author by the way. I use to despise plotting, but my critique partner rubbed off on me and now I find that it is quite helpful to plot scenes. I don't necessarily plot the whole book, but I do now really enjoy planning out a scene.

Writers want their writing to make sense and hold together and readers want to go on the same adventure. Readers want us to succeed! They want books! I'm a reader and have several authors on my auto buy list. I want their stories to be fabulous and I count on them being able to deliver. That's why I buy everything they write. I can't wait to be that kind of author for readers.

We are told our stories need a "beginning, middle, and end" or "a situation, a complication, a climax, and a denouement". Short stories and novels are built on the same principals.  Bickham promises that as long as you understand the structure of building a story there will be no more staring "at your word processor with tiny droplets of blood oozing from your forehead".  Isn't that fantastic! So looking forward to this book! I hope you will join me on my adventure to building a better scene.

Happy Writing

Krystal Shannan