Tuesday's Writer's Tip - Change and Plot #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #writing #tip #plot #change

 When plotting your story, you must make sure your character experiences a change at the beginning of the book. The change may be small or large but the greater the change, the more powerful the ending. To have the character be essentially unchanged at the book makes the action seem static.

What does this change have to be? If a charactr is weak in the beginning, the change must show strength. Think of the heroine who is afraid to trust any man. Through the story she learns to trust. Sometimes a lot of action can make this change seem unnecessary. Many times in a mystery, the detective doesn't really change other than being successful in capturing the villain. So think about how your character will change as you write your book

 

My Places

   https://twitter.com/JanetL717

 https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3?v=wall&story_f

bid=113639528680724

 http://bookswelove.net/

 http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com

https://www.pinterest.com/shadyl717/

 

Buy Mark

https://bookswelove.net/walters-janet-lane/

 

Wednesday's Writer's Tip - In the Beginning

Still gleaning tips from Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V Swain. Now that you've identified the focus character of the story, the goals, the coming problems, how do you begin? There are as many ways to begin as there are stories. I know I write the first scene many times trying out a number of ways. What I have found is the story has to begin when there is a possibility of change.

The story can begin moments before the change takes place, during the change or moments after the change has occurred.

The first kind of beginning usually involves a relaxed opening where the character or characters, the setting and any other pictures you want to create are shown to the reader. One thing with this kind of opening is to develop the tension, showing in subtle ways that something is about to happen. Establishing the mood or tone is vital to this opening to lure the reader into the story.

When the opening takes place in the middle of the action the goals and motivations must be made clear. This kind of opening can have problems. If you start with a totally chaotic scene with lots of action the problem becomes how to maintain the tension in the scenes to follow.

The third way to open is after the change has taken place and here you need to show the focus character's decision to take action.

In all openings the focus character and any other characters needed to carry the scene need to be there. Too many characters up front can confuse the reader. The setting needs to be made clear. The focus character's goals and reasons for these goals need to be established and the problems to come must be at least hinted.

I've probably used all of these openings in various stories but I find the first one is usually the way I begin. Often this part of the story is drastically cut or left out immediately.

Wednesday - Plots - Transformation

Many stories deal with transformation. Meaning that the character isn't the same when the story ends as they were in the beginning. This is a character device rather than an action device where the character may or may not change. This is often seen in stories that are "coming of age" stories. This device focuses on one time in a character's life when they are faced with choices. This type of story deals with a character moving from one stage of life to another. The nature of the change and how it effects the character is important. The character must realize the impact of the change on his life. Growth is important to the story. The ending can cobtain an element of sadness. A child becomes a man and leaves the wonder behind and must face the reality. A person who has committed some kind of act realizes what they have done is wrong. In a Transformation story, the change in a character's nature is vital. And the change must be a real one and understood by the character.

Wednesday -- On Plot -- Using Patterns

Plots often involve patterns and patterns can be repetitions. This doesn't mean using the same word over and over or showing the same seene again. We've all seen stories where some action is repeated again and again, like the eating or restaurant scened that really add nothing ot the story but seem to be there to add words. Maybe in days gone by the author was paid by the word and there could be some markets that still use this process but those kind of repetitions slow the story down. People want to see things happening.

So how can repetition of a pattern work. This can be done by choosing an article in the room where the scenes occur or a bit of dialogue that will remind the reader of what has happened before in that room. A repeated emotion also does the same thing.

Patterns are connedtions of one scene to the next. Often this means the same characters and sometimes not. There can be a pattern that's a repetition but with two different characters occurring in the same space or with the same emotions.

Many times in the repetition scene something changes. Maybe it's knowledge for the character or characters. Sometimes the repetition scene has a different outcome.

So build patterns with care and show how each scene in the story is connected to the next one by a clever use of repetition.