Active, Reactive & Reflective

In my continuing proselytising of all things structural, I come to this.

A hero (I use the term in the gender neutral sense) must always be in one (or more) of the following states:

Active
Reactive
Reflective

Grab yourself a cuppa and I'll explain.

As the story begins, it's highly likely that they are simply 'reactive', in that the story begins, we see a little of the 'normal world' they are in and not much is happening. They don't have to do much either, just show the reader around their home/work/play areas.

Do not make them reflective this early on. Reflect is where you look back. Your story hasn't even started to move forward yet, don't drag it backwards!

Then there is a 'disturbance' in the normal world and it's time to move forward through the 'Plot Catalyst' (without which, there will be no story). At this point the hero can be reactive or active. Either is fine, as long as they move forward.

The Plot Catalyst, and the 'accepting of the challenge' actively propels them into ACT 2.

There is no time for being reflective here either, as they start building allies and earning enemies. This is a very active time, and the hero must be active during this time, actively pushing the story forward rather than merely reacting to their world and being carried along.

Whaddya know? There's no time for reflection here either!

Did you realise we're half way into act two and there hasn't been any reflection?

Excellent!

The hero then has a big challenge, and it all falls to bits. This is what many call The Midpoint. The Midpoint comes in the middle of the story, and it's usually where everything blows up in the hero's face, it all seems too hard and they think  they're going to fail and fail badly.

NOW you're allowed to be reflective. O'kay? Yeah, you go be your reflective bad self, little hero, you've earned it. It's the middle of the book and you're looking death (physical, spiritual, metaphorical etc) in the face. Here is where you say, 'OK, I have to keep going, and it might kill me, but I can't go back'. The Midpoint is where your hero is past the point of no return, so he/she has to go forward. They might 'die' (actually or figuratively) and they're OK with that.

Your hero pushes on.

The 'bad guys close in' (Thank you Blake Snyder) and things go from bad to worse. The hero becomes more desperate. (Think about how desperate Scarlett O'Hara became when she was trying to get the $300 to pay the taxes on Tara).

THE CLOCK IS TICKING - (Hurry, there's no time!)
This tightens up the section from the Midpoint to the next big structural turning point, which is The Black Moment. It's all action all the way. The ticking clock is a handy device giving your hero a deadline in which they must achieve success. (Again, Scarlett needed $300 right now to pay the taxes on Tara. She couldn't wait for Rhett to remember her in his will.)

The Black Moment:
You thought the Midpoint was bad? This is as black as black can be. All is lost and love is not enough.
You're allowed to have some reflection here as well, because it's all you have. No action or reaction will save you, you've done it all, tried it all and you're as miserable as a snake with a sore tummy.

Well suck it up, because we're on our way out of Act Two with . .

MORE ACTION. MOAR, MOAR!!!!!

Time to push on into Act 3, where it will all lead to one last big showdown as we 'Storm the Castle'.
There will be a win, followed swiftly by a BIG SCARY FRIGHT THAT MAKES YOUR HERO THINK (for just a second of reflection) THEY WON'T WIN then they will reach deep inside themselves and win the day. Because they're the hero.

There is a big party.

The hero is allowed to have a little rest and reflection, and perhaps have a think about the future . . .

In a nutshell, make your hero as active as possible, for as much of the story as possible.

No new problems after the midpoint.

That sounds like a pretty hard and fast rule, but it's something that became glaringly obvious to me during revisions of Ondine 4.

Yes, I'm still revising Ondine 4. It will be ready when it's ready.

As you know, I love structure. As I was revising book 4, I knew something wasn't working, yet I couldn't really put my finger on it.

It was too loose and took far too long to get going. And then it hit me. I had created a whole new 'problem' for Ondine to solve, which was not really related to her existing issues. Nor was it a true complication of an earlier problem. It was a plot thread that would not fit in.

OK, it sort of was, but as that problem was something only mentioned in book 1, it was a problem most people wouldn't even remember.

Resurrecting that old problem into book 4, which in structure terms is the final act of the four novels, meant I was bringing in a whole new complication far, far too late in the piece.

If you think of a novel in the '3 Act' structure, the midpoint is about half way through the second act (hence its name) and from then on, there's no turning back. For example, in Gone With The Wind, there's a really good reason why they put the intermission after Scarlett comes back to Tara and declares she'll never go hungry again. This is the true mid point. Scarlett can't go 'back', the past is gone. She can only move forward, and if she has to lie or cheat or kill, yes, even if she has to kill, she'll never be hungry again.

I love that scene SO HARD!

All the problems Scarlett faces after this incredible mid point are not new. They are further complications that have continued to fester from the beginning.

I love it when my brain does me a solid.

Happy writing everyone.

Keeping Time

You know that horrible, rage-filled emotion of having wasted your time? Your precious, scarce, more valuable than gold-pressed-latinum time?

I was tweeting with a friend who'd recently seen a movie which filled her with screaming resentment. She was stuck there watching, and all she could think was, "This is a massive waste of my time. I want to get out of here. Now!"

Time. More please.

I've had a morning like that. I sat at school assembly which went on and on and ON. An hour. Yes, assembly is important, but oh please kill me now. An hour!!!

After which, I had volunteered to do a cooking demonstration, so I had to sit through assembly. But then, because the assembly went so long, people walked out and nobody came to the cooking demonstration!

Cue white-hot-rage-resentment episode.

If we'd been told assembly would take an hour, but there would be yummy biscuits (ie mine) afterwards, it could have been OK. But I felt trapped by the uncertainty of not knowing what was going on or how long it would take. That clawing "I've got to get out of here" feeling took over.

I would have been desperate to get out of there and get on with the day too.

So, after all that resentment rage, I came home, cried, cancelled the physio appointment so I could claw back some time and got on with writing.

Which led me to this epiphany. I've read books where that "I've got to get out of here" feeling came over me. But with books, all I needed to do was close it and move on to the next book on the TBR pile. I don't get "trapped" with it.

The thing is, you never want your reader to feel like they're trapped in your book and they want to get out. Because they will get out, and they might never come back.

Here again, is where structure will help you. (You knew we'd get back to structure, right?)

State the plan. 
Like a James Bond movie. Here's the villain, here's what he's up to, you have to stop him. And blow EVERYTHING up at the end like a good Bond.

Show where it's going.
Have characters openly acknowledge what they want and how they think they're going to get it.

Give it a time frame.
This adds urgency to the issue and keeps the pace tight. "If we don't solve this crime by midnight, the perp goes free." or "If Hamish doesn't get his work papers before the immigration inspectors come back next week, he'll be deported. To Scotland!"

Give it all you've got.
Above all, reward people for giving you their precious time. Write well, then write weller.

Missing Pieces

Latest epiphany about structure: You don't need all the pieces all the time.

Here I was thinking "There are 12 stages of the Hero's Journey and I only have 8 so far for this manuscript."

I'm also reading The Virgin's Promise by Kim Hudson, which has 13 stages. (It's an amazing book, I'll do a post on it)

In Hudson's analysis of several movies, she notes that one of the movies has 12 of the 13 stages of The Virgin's Journey. It's not that the movie fails because the scene is missing, it still works fine . . .

Blammo! My brain tells me it's OK to have missing stages and scenes. Because they will either come later, or the story might work fine without them. (obviously not if it's missing too many. Like a satisfying showdown at the end.) The very worst thing I can do is try to create all the scenes right now, and force the scenes to happen.

Not that I can find the actual picture of the kiss.
Come on google, do a gal a favour.
oh yeah, © Disney/Buena Vista

A forced scene that comes to mind is from the movie National Treasure, where Nic Cage, Jon Voight and Diane Kruger are underground in tunnels . . . and suddenly Nic grabs Diane and kisses her, for no reason, then simply moves on.

I can't help wondering if test screening viewers wrote "it would be nice if there was a kiss"and the studios did a quick re-shoot. From memory, Jon Voight is not in frame when the kiss happens.

My point being, forcing a scene in there to fit the structure is worse than not having the scene in there at all.

Which is another way for me to justify not having the entire plot, er, plotted out, before I start writing.

Structure. Opening Scenes and Getting Started

You don't have to begin at the beginning, by the way.
Begin with whatever scene is your favourite. You may have such a strong scene in your head, that if you began at the 'proper' beginning, you'd be writing for months before you got to writing that scene. And by then your writing may have gone off on a tangent.

Like my blog here.

Here's the thing. You need to have an opening scene.
My love of structure tells me this needs to be the scene that 'sets the scene' and shows the reader where we are . . . before departing for a new adventure.

In the first Ondine book, it was Psychic Summercamp, which Ondine then left . . . with her ferret.
In book 2 it was the train station before Ondine, Hamish and Old Col left for the Autumn Palace
In book 3 - which you haven't read yet . . . I do something similar. The normal world of the family pub, right before immigration department inspectors burst onto the scene and threaten to deport Hamish
...
You get the idea. You start with the 'normal' before launching into the abnormal. Not that anything about Brugel is normal. Which is possibly my greatest mistake.

Hey, do what I say, not what I do. You might make fewer mistakes that way.

Just about every fairy tale begins with the words 'Once upon a time'. That simple beginning shows the reader that the events about to follow happened a long while ago, and then we find out it happened to a sweet little girl who did all the right things and was rewarded for it . . .  Ugh!

Back to structure. If your first scene is not the normal world, but the middle of a battle, it might be wonderful and exciting and all Game-of-Thrones-y in your head, but the poor reader isn't going to know what's going on OR who to barrack for. (Barrack being the Australian version of the US 'root', but also, not really, but the explanation for that is NSFW)

The normal world shows you who you need to concentrate on.

This may or may not be the opening scene.
But it's 'a' scene, so it's as good a place
as any to start.

A rule which I shall be breaking in Book 4, because I have a feeling I need to begin with Vincent and Melody. I've never done Vincent's POV before (Point of View) because until now everything's been from Ondine's POV (and sometimes Hamish's). I don't want readers to be cheering Vincent on, because he's a rolled gold turd. But then again, he's such a wonderful baddie too. And he doesn't think he's bad.

Vincent is going to approach the 'old' families (his distant cousins) for loads of money. That will set the 'normal' for Slaegal.

Then things are going to get weird.

It's a great idea to write each scene down on a note, then you can shuffle and re-stick them to where they best fit. It might turn out that Vincent in Slaegal is not the opening scene after all. But it is for now . . .

You might not have all the scenes yet, but I bet you have a few floating about in your brain. Write each scene on a sticky note, then stick them on a large sheet of paper, or several. Move them around until you're happy with the order.

(Scrivener software does something similar with scene cards and a cork board. I'm still reading the tutorial.)

The important thing is, start your story where it begins. Or preferably, just before it gets going. If you start really, really early, you may have a few chapters where not much goes on but you're 'setting things up'. If you start too late, you'll be tempted to back-fill with history and lose your momentum.

If you start at the very end, you've probably written Inception, and where you're going, you don't need rules.

The important thing about The Ordinary World is it shows what a beautiful world it is, who your main protagonist is, and what they stand to lose if things go badly (which they will). Why does The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings begin in The Shire? Because The Shire is the embodiment of all that is wonderful, safe and nourishing. If Bilbo (or Frodo) don't go off on their adventures, they could lose all they hold dear to dark forces or . . . something.

Let's face it, even if none of this 'structure' makes sense, you know that book in your brain has to start somewhere, right?

Structure is my friend

Along this twisty, turny writing road I have many little moments where I really *get* something and absolutely must share it.

I hope I'll have these moments for the rest of my life. I love moments like this.

Moments like today, at my writers' guild meeting (yep, we're a guild, and we have a constitution and everything) where we talk about the discipline required for screenwriting (as opposed to novels).

The dialogue has to be absolute spare - no waffling wasted words.

Which had the rest of us feeling horridly overwaffly and determined to never write screenplays if they were than flipping difficult.

BUT - it's a discipline, like any other. You either work hard at getting better and better at it, or you step out of the way.

One of the things I love about writing novels is of course creating made up words and putting in those lovely descriptions of how a character is feeling (like a mini concrete truck pouring it's load into Ondine's stomach, instead of going with a boring old "she felt nervous".)

The structure for Ondine 4: The Spring Revolution.
Results may vary

But here's the thing. Whatever the discipline, there is structure.

Pop songs - structure
Novels - structure
TV shows - structure
Movies/screenplays - that S word again.

Structure, I have come to realise after many, MANY years or writing, is my friend.

Structure, at its most basic level, shows the reader that you know what you're doing. That you have a goal and you're leading the reader there.

Here's what I need to share with all writers today. Structure is your friend too.
Structure will show you what needs to go in a story (and what you can cut out). It will show you what's missing. See those pretty coloured post-it notes? The background notes are the main steps in "The hero's journey" and the brightly coloured ones are various scenes that are going in to the story. See how I have the first half almost blocked out, then a bit is missing, then 2 bright greens, then a gap, then a few more. Looking at this structure sheet already tells me there will be a sagging middle unless I do something in those missing places - things that keep the tension nice and tight and keep the story rolling along.

Structure is my friend, and it is your friend. I could fill this blog with elements of structure that help me with my writing, and could easily help you with yours.

In fact, I probably will do that.

Tell your friends. See you back here each week. Shall we do this every weekend? Why not.
(uh-oh, have I just given myself a job?)