Plot devices

You know how when you read a story and it seems like it's going in one direction, then something convenient happens and it's starts going somewhere else? For example, the characters spend forever searching for X, then they... arbitrarily find X by chance. Or, in romance, you have two love-stricken characters who are paralyzed by shyness, but something convenient happens that confines 'em together.

In both cases it's a shift of direction, but I'll start with the latter example of romance because it's simpler. Before I explain anymore, let's address something: what is a story?

Character A wants something and something is preventing him from getting it.

How is a novel structured?

inciting incident -> rising action - > CLIMAX <- falling action <- conclusion

Basically, in the beginning, you introduce a conflict. In the romance story, that conflict is shyness. A good, logical story would have the character CONFRONT and SOLVE that issue on his own--when that happens, that's the climax. Such a progression would be the natural path of the story.

(Does that path sound boring to you? It does to me. That's because the conflict is extremely weak; it could never create a strong novel on its own. But that's an issue for another day.)

Often, what happens instead of the natural path of the story--because that story is very weak--is a plot device that sends the story spiraling into another direction. Something shoves the characters together, and shyness is no longer that much of an issue. Sure, it's still there, but the characters no longer have to approach each other. In furry fiction, this is usually the point at which they get together, make perfect first-time sex, and the story ends:

weak inciting incident -> weak conflict -> plot device -> climax (pun'd)

Now, it is possible for a plot device there to instead carry the story to a really strong position:

weak inciting incident -> weak conflict -> strong plot device -> strong rising action -> ...

This is what I call discontinuity syndrome--the story starts weak with a weak conflict, then a plot device sends it spiraling into a strong, tense work of fiction. Sometimes, you can do that on purpose and use it to your advantage, and you'll know when that opportunity comes. Generally, though, that's not what we want to do.

In my opinion, if you have a story that looks like the above diagram, you're starting in the wrong place. Start with the REALLY BIG CONFLICT that everyone wants to read about. You don't have to smack everyone in the face with it on the first page, but you really should open a book at a strong point, not a weak one. Work the weak conflict into the strong one.

For example, instead of having the characters meet each other, go gaga over each other, then get forced together, open the book where they get forced together. Their feelings could now be distracting them from the plot--that's a conflict, stronger than shyness, that produces tension and helps drive the story forward. Heck, maybe when the plot's at the climax and there's about to be a BIG EPIC BATTLE, that can motivate them to get together--or as I would do, have them break off.

Basically, what we DO NOT WANT is a Plot Device that shifts the focus of the story--meaning that it solves a conflict that the characters otherwise would've had to solve on their own. Honestly, why do it for them? You're killing your own story by nuking the tension.

There's a special type of plot device called a deus ex machina that's pretty similar to what I'm talking about, and I'm sure it's familiar to just about about all readers of fan fiction.

Deus ex Machina: a writer writes himself into a corner, and the characters can't resolve the conflicts on their own, so the writer pulls a god out of his ass and it solves the conflict for them.

More technical definition:

A deus ex machina is something that resolves the plot in place of the characters; the characters never solve X problem, because some outside force does it for them.

The classic example of a deus ex machina is "It was just a dream" syndrome, where something terrible happens, except it didn't. Or maybe something terrible is about to happen the protagonist, and someone arbitrarily saves them (I'm looking at you, Tom Bombadil).

Contrary to popular belief, deux ex machinae are not *all* bad, but most of them are. One that's really good is the one at the end of Basil's "Finding Time." There's one at the end of Hamlet, too. Just stick with my definition and never let a deus ex machina solve the major conflict.

For the record, though, you are given one plot device that you are automatically allowed to use to get the story going. It's my belief that the inciting incident should come from a plot device that sets the story on a certain direction--and it should stay on that same path the whole time. Of course, the characters might not always know exactly what path they're supposed to be taken, and that's fine.


And that leads me to the good plot devices. Yes, they exist! And if you don't use them, you are silly.

Let's take the imaginary novel in which the goal is for particle physicists to discover the Higgs boson (force-carrying particle that determines objects' mass). Let's look at the natural path:

inciting incident (someone predicts the Higgs's existence) -> rising action (physicists construct the LHC, a huuuuuuuge particle accelerator, and run into all kinds of problems along the way) -> CLIMAX (They find the particle!) <- falling action (Celebrations, awards...) <- Conclusion (The results are published.)

Since we know what a bad plot device is, let's examine a few:

1.) someone else finds it first;
2.) someone else proves that it doesn't exist;
3.) the LHC appears to lack the strength to detect the particle

Now let's look back at the natural path of the story. It's not bad, but I as a writer have a problem with it: it's too linear. I ask myself, "Who'd want to read that story?" and I don't get any answer besides "physics nerds!" From the very beginning, you can pretty much tell that they're going to find the particle. End of story.

Here's a trick to writing. People do not want predictable stories. They want stories that are predictably unpredictable. You can have them find the Higgs if you want, but I might choose to take a different path.

What if the particle collisions have enough energy to force open some of space's extra six dimensions? What if it creates a "bubble" of 9D space that researchers can enter? What if inside the bubble, they find not only the Higgs, but other particles that allow them to act in unheard of ways in the existing three dimensions? What if it allows them to write the equation of the universe?

I know it's physics-nerd science fiction, but it's the basis for good physics-nerd science fiction, if you do it well enough. The researchers could all agree to keep the unlocking of the universe secret, but maybe one of them could betray the pact and try to use new-found science to make himself into God. So the researchers not only have to stop the mad scientist, but also answer reports and provide fake test results for those who funded their research.

Those are the kinds of plot devices you want to use. As cliché as the last example sounds, it's much more interesting than a boring linear story.

But aside from those kinds of things, I just really dislike plot devices. iDunno.

A Podcast on Editing!

So, today I got a pleasant surprise. While I wasn't looking, the Unsheathed podcast put out an episode on editing.

For those of you who don't know (probably a lot), Unsheathed is a furry-themed writing podcast recorded by Kyell Gold and K.M. Hirosaki. They are both amazing writers, and Gold has won more Ursa Major awards than anyone else to date and has received all kinds of awards outside of the fandom.

They've done shows on editing before, but what they do in this one is a bit more in-depth: they and a guest spend about an hour discussing revisions for a small selection of prose sent in by one of the viewers:

People from outside the tribelands feared its sharp angles and perilous heights, deadly jungles with creatures only whispered about since prehistoric times, and endless plains with not a drop of exposed water to be fond. They avoided it like a black mark on the maps, merchants and traders making half-a-thousand mile detours around its perimeter. At least one civilization, near the northern rim, had made a practice of banishing unwanteds into the tribelands, with three days worth of food and water, a knife, and their wits to accompany them.

People from inside the tribelands feared the outside world as desperately as the foreigners feared the tribes. Layered in generations of ritual and ceremony, their terror of the outside world was enshrined in their beads and feathers and the dances they danced around the fires at night, like the one that looked like a chicken but was supposed to be an eagle. They worshipped everything within their microcosm of the world just as fervently as they didn't worship anything from the outside. At least one tribe, who lived along the northern face of the labyrinth, thought that the sun and moon shone only on the Tribelands, and every once in a while, a poor, untutored soul would wander in from the outside, with three days worth of food and water, a knife, and a dazzled look on their face like they were seeing the sun and moon for the first time. The tribe would take them in, nurture them, teach them the stories of father sun and daughter moon, then free their soul to fly with the stars (who also shone only on the Tribelands) by throwing them bodily from the top of a special plateau.

If the outside world and inside tribes ever bothered to meet, they would agree on only one thing, and that would be that they should never meet again.

If you're interested, check out Unsheathed #45. I was going to post a link here, but decided against it.

A word of caution: I would not recommend the show for everyone. There's a bit of humor, but most of it is a serious discussion about writing and storytelling; if you're interested in writing and learning to write better, it will be of great help. There's also a bit of innuendo, but if you read my "Bed of Lies" and lived, you'll have no problems. (Though note that the podcast is technically rated explicit.)

And yes. If you want to be a good, successful writer, you will have to do exactly what these guys do. No exceptions. I've learned from experience that writing a draft is mostly easy; it's turning it into a story that's difficult.

On resonance and editing

Sometimes, writers get ideas for stories that happen to be very powerful. I've finished up with that pseudo-commission thing I was doing earlier, and now I'm sidling back and forth between what I should be doing (that is, not writing), writing/editing parts of "Six," and doing work on an original piece (not "Something") that I've worked on on and off for the past few months.

That original piece, I think, has a very strong story to it. It's something that I find myself thinking on often, and I keep replaying different ways to resolve the conflicts over and over in my head. It's a story that has become dear to me, and the lessons I've learned so far from writing it will stick with me forever, both in life and in pen. I'm hoping the same will be true for readers, when I eventually do post it somewhere.

That kind of story strength is often difficult to find. It comes not necessarily from the writing itself, but from the character arc the protagonist follows. It's something called "resonance;" a strong thematic strength that makes a story endearing to its readers, and often somewhat difficult to forget. "Resonance" is what gives books like The Catcher in the Rye, Cloud Atlas, and Greg Howell's Light on Shattered Water their power.

I've started editing on certain parts of that story, and I'm at the stage where I start to think, "Oh noes, this are bads," and, "Who'll ever want to read this?" That's a funny thing that tends to happen a lot once you get to the editing stage. But especially in times like these, when you know you have a good story, you just have to sit back and believe in the power of the story. It'll come out eventually, but only if you let it.

Similarly, I've spent hours and hours behind a screen composing and trying to get the synthesized results to sound musical. At first, a composition always sounds fake and bad, but if you play with it enough--and it really is just playing with it, because you have to learn something new as you go each time--it'll eventually become music. That's the exact same kind of thing that happens with writing.

tl;dr: good stories are good. Do not lose faith in good stories; sieze upon the opportunity when you are blessed with one.

Editing

So, right now I'm going through chapters of "Six" and of some other stuff I've written and trying to tidy them up for publication. I'm noticing that a lot of the stuff I thought I did well, I actually did horrible; and some of the stuff I was afraid would be bad is actually decent.

The point is: nothing is ever going to be as you think it is as you are writing it. No matter how good you are or how much experience you have, you're always going to be surprised when you go back and read through what you've written. Most of the time, the words on the page are not exactly what you'd intended to say, and you have to fix that as you go back through and read.

But that's not all editing is. Sometimes, the story, not the words, doesn't go in the right direction. Sometimes you realize that you're trying to intrude on it, force it to go where you want it to (I'm as guilty of that as anyone else). That's when editing gets hard, because you have to use your discretion to decide what needs changing.

I'm at a point in "Six" right now that I have some major plot decisions coming up, and I'm not really sure how to tackle them. Sure, I've tackled them roughly; but I can do better, and I know that the story, as it is, is not heading in a good direction. That means I'm going to be spending a good bit of time editing these next chapters to get it on track--that means getting rid of some of the stuff I'd originally felt was necessary and modifying some pretty important plot points to make the story stronger.

(Note: this is not butchering the story to make it read better to the fandom. This is undoing the butchering I've already done and returning the story to the state it should be. You have to learn the difference.)

With each scene I introduce in these next chapters, I focus on tension. The problem is that the story has enough tension as it is.

When you're writing, especially with drama and suspense, you need to ask yourself constantly, "What will make the readers want to turn the page?" (I think that's something that just about every writer has to be aware of in order to be a success.) But you also need to ask yourself, "Where is this story going?"

Right now, I have the suspense and drama building to a boiling point. What I don't have is a direction, and my task in editing for these next few days is to find it.

(For the record, I have to do things like this regularly. Nothing that I or anyone else writes will ever automatically turn to gold; writing is about work ethic as much as it is about talent.)

In music, everything one plays needs to lead somewhere, else it's just a bunch of noise. It can be good noise, but it won't be music. The same can be said with writing. Focus on fundamentals and readability all you want, but without a clear character arc (or something to follow), it is not a story.

rantrantrant

Update and advice

A quick update on my progress with "Six:" I have two and a half chapters completed ahead of schedule as of right now--but they're tentative, at best. I'm going to be doing some weird stuff in the next few chapters, so I'll have to see where it takes me before I'll feel comfortable posting any of it.

Because I am lazy and still haven't finished the stuff I'd planned to post on here (characterization, diction, scene decisions, etc.), I'm going to cop out and pull up a David Marnet article KG linked one day on his LJ. (Which is a bonus because I don't know what I'm talking about half the time, anyway; professional advice trumps anything I could say.) See it here.

It's an article from a screenwriter's perspective on how to write drama. Though not everything in it directly applies to writing, most of it does, and the understanding of several of Marnet's points are essential for good writing.

Along with said posting on LJ came these notes, which I feel obligated to reproduce because they also touch on some issues I hear about fairly often in this fandom:

My favorite excerpts (but you really need to read the whole thing):

QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?


and

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT.

YMMV, as always, but you could do a lot worse than keep the above in mind when trying to write something dramatic. For novels, the standards are a bit looser--you don't *want* every scene to be FULL OF DRAMA. You need to pace it out, build tension, and so on. I also think you can stretch the "two characters talking about a third" when the third is a dramatic figure--think about Al Capone in "The Untouchables." One of the most memorable scenes is Sean Connery telling Kevin Costner in the church "that's how you get Al Capone."

But if you're worried that your story is too flat, not gripping enough in the places where it should be, well, go back and re-read those rules. It's also possible to have a lot of STUFF happening in an action scene and still have it be boring because while it is active, there is no drama. Again, check the points above. What does the character want? What's stopping him/her from getting it?

Happy writing! Hopefully the update to six might maybe possibly perhaps be finished sometime within the next year. Or two weeks.

Six and Appearance

So, turns out I got up the latest chapter up six after all. It's kinda shortish, but oh well. Now, on to the appearance thing.

When creating a character, a common fault is to create the Cool Look you think the character should have. You like those tight, holey jeans, so give him some tight, holey jeans. You like orange, so give him an orange shirt. You like Pokémon, so give him a Pokémon-flavored shirt. An orange, Pokémon-flavored shirt. When designing the appearance of a character or a room, you have to aware of what your appearance is saying about your character, because whether you (or they) realize it or not, people are going to analyze the crap out of your character's appearance.

Consider those jeans: they're common now among the goth/emo crowd. Does your character identify with that particular group? Consider the shirt: is your character a gamer or a card-collector, or is the shirt a hand-me-down from a sibling who was one of those?

One of the best examples of characterization by appearance I've seen is from Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path."

It was December—a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out in the country there was an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods. Her name was Phoenix Jackson. She was very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella, and with this she kept tapping the frozen earth in front of her. This made a grave and persistent noise in the still air that seemed meditative, like the chirping of a solitary little bird.

She wore a dark striped dress reaching down to her shoe tops, and an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks, with a full pocket: all neat and tidy, but every time she took a step she might have fallen over her shoelaces, which dragged from her unlaced shoes. She looked straight ahead. Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles and as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead, but a golden color ran underneath, and the two knobs of her cheeks were illumined by a yellow burning under the dark. Under the red rag her hair came down on her neck in the frailest of ringlets, still black, and with an odor like copper.

There are some great details in here that you'll process without even realizing you're doing so. For example, consider her umbrella cane and sack dress. Is she poor and unable to afford a real cane or dress? She must also be resourceful to think of using those common items as utilities. There's also the rag in her hair (implying that she's too poor to have her hair done), the blue eyes (cataracts), the tree in her forehead (symbol of strength), and the golden color ("Phoenix" Jackson).

Writing like Welty is something that I believe is neither desirable nor necessary (not that she's a bad writer), especially in fan fiction, but this short passage has lessons from which almost anyone could benefit. To drastically improve your description, just remember this: when working with appearance, do not put in what you think is Cool; put in what will help to create the character the story needs.

(That's something I always come back to, it seems; the story always is and always will be more important than anything from the author's preference.)

* Also see my description mini-tutorial on Apocrypha, which has a short section on this.

Writing: disconnection

One of my biggest turn-offs when reading a story is seeing the author pop out at me, meaning that if I know the writer personally or read his profile (less so on that, though), the language there is the same as in the stories.

Stephen King's On Writing has a big section on how you should write--meaning what environment you should be in. Should you have a giant desk? Use pen and paper? Dark or light? Door open or closed? He addresses all of these topics (leaving most of them to the writer's discretion), but one of the things he asserts is that you must never come to the blank page lightly.

When I read a story where it feels like A Person and not An Author is telling the story, I feel like That Person has come to the blank page lightly.

I read Cloud Atlas recently, and one of the most amazing parts of the book was seeing the drastic shifts in style. The book uses six short stories (mirrored; it's complicated) all from different time periods (1800s to the post-apocalyptic future), and each one has a distinct, perfectly-crafted style. The first is a Brontë-esque journal, followed by a fiery series of narrative letters, a tight-knit manuscript for a suspense novel, a memoir of an arrogant publisher, an interview with a clone, and a story by an uneducated man. Following is an example passage from each different section of the novel.

After the service, the doctor & I were approached most cordially by an elder "mainmast' of that chapel, one Mr. Evans, who introduced Henry & me to his good wife (both circumvented the handicap of deafness by answering only those questions they believed had been asked & accepting only those questions they believed had been uttered--a strategem embraced by many an American advocate) & their twin sons, Keegan & Dyfedd.

Couldn't say if Ayrs felt humor, pity, nostalgia, or scorn. He left. Locked the door and climbed into bed for the third time that night. Bedroom farce, when it actually happens, is intensely sad. Jocasta seemed angry with me.

"Before I left Swannekke, I gave Garcia a present to give to you, just a dolce far niente." He tries to make the sentence sound casual.

What in God's name is he talking about?

"You hear me, Luisa? Garcia has a present for you."

A more alert quarter of Luisa's brain muscles in. Isaac Sachs left the Sixsmith Report in your VW. You mentioned the trunk didn't lock. He assumes we are being eavesdropped. "That's very kind of you, Isaac. Hope it didn't cost you too much."

A trio of teenettes, dressed like Prostitue Barbie, approached, drift-netting the width of the pavement. I stepped into the road to avoid collision. But as we drew level they tore wrappers off their lurid ice lollies and just dropped them. My sense of well-being was utterly V-2'd. I mean, we were level with a bin! Tim Cavendish the Disgusted Citizen exclaimed to the offenders: "You know, you should pick those up."

You have no rests?
Only purebloods are entitled to "rests," Archivist. For fabricants, "rests" would be an act of time theft. Until curfew at hour zero, every minute must be devoted to the service and enrichment of Papa Song.

Now you people're lookin' at a wrinkly buggah, mukelung's nibblin' my breath away, an' I won't be seein' many more winters out, nay, nay, I know it. I'm shoutin' back more'n forty long years at myself, yay, at Zachry the Niner, Oy, list'n! Times are you're weak 'gainst the world! Times are you can't do nothin'! That ain't your fault, it's this busted world's fault is all! But no matter how loud I shout, Boy Zachry, he don't hear me nor never will.

I cannot distinguish a single trace of David Mitchell in any of this. Each one of these different styles is crafted to suit the story it's trying to tell--in fact, it's almost like there are six David Mitchells, each writing his own part of it. I can definitely tell that, however many of them there are, he did not come to the page lightly. When I read this story, instead of thinking, "This author is trying to tell me a story," I just see a story. That's the way any writing should be, and if you can do it that well (among other things), you're bound for success.

tl;dr: You cannot write the way you want to write. You must write the way the story tells you to write.

"Six" and Romance

Quick update on "Six:" I just got back from the all-state clinic, and as soon as I get a handle on schoolwork, I'll update. I'll hopefully have it up soon.

Now, on to romance. This is something that's been floating around in my head for quite a bit now and has been growing as I write "Six" and a few original projects.

When dealing with romance, especially not-so-good romance, it's usually pretty simple to identify the problem: everything is perfect and happy and fluffy and everyone wants character Q to get it on with character G. Que pitfall #1--no conflict.

There's also another category of ehh romance that people are less apt to recognize. Some writers take Stories Need Conflict a bit too seriously and end up with a romantic relationship that leaves the reader asking, "Why are these two even together?" Que pitfall #2--no romance. (Having two characters kiss or sleep together does not constitute romance.)

Before moving on to my next point, I want to repeat something that I've heard countless times before: "Writing is a balance." The keen-eyed will notice that the two common pitfalls of romance, like most pitfalls in writing, are opposites. You have to find the blend that works best for your story, and no writing guide on the planet can tell you what that is.

My third point is a bit more obscure and personal. When you write something, you should write it for a reason. If you're writing a romance to get two characters together, chances are that you are writing for the wrong reason.

A trip to any local bookstore or fiction 'site reveals hundreds of stories of people getting together; in order to stand out, you have to write about something more. If you don't, your work will never surpass mediocracy. When I write, I write about how a romantic relationship changes the characters based on their life situations. I'm not saying everyone has to do that, but there should be some value to every romantic piece beyond romance, in the same way that an action piece is never only about who stabs whom. The romance should be there, and it had better be good, but if you want to succeed, it can't be the be-all end-all of your fic.

For example, the romantic subplot in Echoes is about how romance can get in the way of greater things and how Fox's attitude towards it changes throughout the story. In Redemption, it's a story about Wolf's internal conflict. In "Bed of Lies," it's about the chaos and tension it can unleash.

I had this discussion with someone a while back and figure I'd share it: with all my Star Fox fics, I usually end up writing about Fox and Wolf in some way, but the stories are never the same. Each story is a different story, a new take on a different situation. They all share the same basic romantic subplot (though Redemption is by far the most in-depth and ill-executed, falling into Pitfall Number Two), but their different foci allow for the development of much different stories.