WRITE FICTION THAT GRABS READERS FROM PAGE ONE BY LES EDGERTON

I hi-Jacked this article by Les Edgerton – believe me – it’s worth reading!   Rita

The Inciting Incident as a Trigger

The inciting incident is the crucial event—the trouble—that sets the whole story in motion. It triggers the initial surface problem and starts to slowly expose the protagonist’s story-worthy problem. Now, the protagonist won’t fully realize the extent of his story-worthy problem in the opening scene, so the initial surface problem has to be so compelling that it forces him to take immediate action. The protagonist’s understanding of his story-worthy problem, then, will grow clearer to him as a direct result of what he goes through in his journey to resolve it.

Also keep in mind that each of the protagonist’s attempts to resolve the initial and subsequent surface problems must end in failure. There can be partial victories, but once an action ends in success, the story is effectively over. Success, in this case, means that all the problems are resolved. That cannot happen until the final scene of the story.

So, if we were to broadly outline the shape of a publishable story—the inciting incident and all its intertwined surface and story-worthy problems—it would look something like this:

·         The inciting incident creates the character’s initial surface problem and introduces the first inklings of the story-worthy problem.

·         The protagonist takes steps to resolve the initial surface problem.

·         The outcome of the major action the protagonist takes to resolve the initial surface problem is revealed, triggering a new surface problem. The scope of the protagonist’s story-worthy problem continues to unfold.

·         The outcome of the major action the protagonist takes to resolve the additional surface problem is revealed, and yet another surface problem is created. The story-worthy problem continues to become more apparent to the protagonist, as well as to the reader.

·         Another outcome is revealed, and more surface problems are created. The story-worthy problem continues to become clearer.

·         All lingering surface problems are resolved, and the story-worthy problem is fully realized. The resolution of the story-worthy problem is represented by both a win and a loss for the protagonist.

Notice that this isn’t a point-by-point outline of a plot. Also, it isn’t like an essay outline, in which you provide the nature of the actions to be taken (that “topic sentence” thing), but rather, the outcome of those actions. Further, take note of the fact that this kind of outline provides only for the major actions (of which there are usually three) the protagonist will take to resolve the problem. That leaves room for dozens (hundreds?) of other, smaller actions he can take to achieve his goal. This outline also leaves plenty of leeway for you, as the author, to choose what actions your protagonist will take, thus allowing you the artistic freedom to get the protagonist to the outcome any way the author wants to. In short, it provides a roadmap of highways for the narrative car, but it doesn’t include the scenic routes.

An example of an inciting incident that kick-starts a novel is the one Scott Smith provided in his best-selling novel A Simple Plan, which was made into a film of the same name.

The story begins with a bit of necessary setup, giving a scrap of family history. The backstory is that the two chief characters in the story—Hank, the first-person narrator/protagonist, and his brother/antagonist, Jacob—never have anything to do with each other except once a year, when they visit their parents’ graves together. The backstory also describes their parents’ death in a car accident that was really a joint suicide. In this case, the backstory is crucial because it gives a plausible reason for Hank and Jacob to be together when the inciting incident occurs. It also works because it shows the reader the brothers’ relationship to each other, and that relationship is Hank’s story-worthy problem. This is a Cain-and-Abel story, and therefore the brothers’ history is important to the reader’s understanding of what’s about to transpire. The entire history takes a little less than three pages to detail before the narrative enters the inciting incident scene. Jacob, accompanied by his dog, Mary Beth, and by their friend Lou, picks up Hank for their annual pilgrimage. During the trip to the gravesite, a fox runs across the icy road. Jacob has a slight accident, and Mary Beth takes off after the fox. The three men go after the dog and discover a plane downed in a field. In the plane, they discover a dead pilot and a bag filled with three million dollars, and they figure out it’s probably drug money.

The initial surface problem begins with this discovery. Hank, the straight-arrow brother with the pregnant wife, college degree, and professional job, wants to do the right thing and turn in the money, but Jacob, who’s a ne’er-do-well, high school dropout alcoholic, and Lou talk him out of it. Against his better judgment, Hank accedes, and the brothers plunge into a spiral of darkness until they get to the place where Hank kills his brother.

Finding the money and the decision that the discovery forces Hank to make is the inciting incident, and it is delivered via a scene so that the reader experiences what Hank does, at the same time he does it; the reader experiences the same dilemma he does, emotionally. Hank’s surface problem is how to please his brother by keeping the money, while assuaging his conscience at the same time. Plus, he needs to avoid discovery of their crime and keep from going to jail and ruining his life. His story-worthy problem—his lifelong guilt over his good fortune in life and his brother’s wasted existence—(which is tied directly to the surface problem) has been forced to the surface by their parents’ deaths, which is why the brief backstory at the start of this story works.

The protagonist’s action in agreeing to split up the money instead of turning it in—an action he takes in order to gain his brother’s love—is a flawed action, just as was Thelma’s in agreeing with Louise to not turn themselves in after Louise kills Harlan. In each of these two stories, both instances of well-meant-but-flawed actions by the protagonist are responsible for the surface problem and are similar in nature. And, in both instances, the surface problem exists to serve as the vehicle that drives the story-worthy problem along the journey.

For more techniques on hooking your reader from the very first page, check out Hooked by Les Edgerton. You’ll find tips for avoiding the overuse of backstory, a rundown on basics like o

pening scene length and transitions, and a comprehensive analysis of more than twenty great opening lines from novels and short stories.

3 Secrets to Great Storytelling

March 7, 2011, Steven James wrote the below blog – and I’m Blog Hi-Jacking because it’s a great article I truly wanted to share.  I'll share Secret #1 and #2 and Secret #3 tomorrow.  I hope you get as much out of it as I did . . . and do!  It’s a keeper for sure!  Everything James says in this article are true – these are vital aspects of story craft.  Thanks, Mr. James!   Rita

As a novelist and writing instructor, I’ve noticed that three of the most vital aspects of story craft are left out of many writing books and workshops. Even bestselling novelists stumble over them.

But they’re not difficult to grasp. In fact, they’re easy.

And if you master these simple principles for shaping great stories, your writing will be transformed forever. Honest. Here’s how to write a story.

Secret #1:
CAUSE AND EFFECT ARE KING.

Everything in a story must be caused by the action or event that precedes it.

Now, this sounds like an almost embarrassingly obvious observation, and when I mention it in my writing seminars I don’t often see people furiously taking notes, muttering, “Man, are you getting this stuff? This is amazing!” But humor me for a few minutes. Because you might be surprised by how more careful attention to causation will improve your writing.

As a fiction writer, you want your reader to always be emotionally present in the story. But when readers are forced to guess why something happened (or didn’t happen), even for just a split second, it causes them to intellectually disengage and distances them from the story. Rather than remaining present alongside the characters, they’ll begin to analyze or question the progression of the plot. And you definitely don’t want that.

When a reader tells you that he couldn’t put a book down, often it’s because everything in the story followed logically. Stories that move forward naturally, cause to effect, keep the reader engrossed and flipping pages. If you fail to do this, it can confuse readers, kill the pace and telegraph your weaknesses as a writer.

Let’s say you’re writing a thriller and the protagonist is at home alone. You might write:

With trembling fingers she locked the door. She knew the killer was on the other side.

But, no. You wouldn’t write it like that.

Because if you did, you would fracture, just for a moment, the reader’s emotional engagement with the story as he wonders, Why did she reach out and lock the door? Then he reads on. Oh, I get it, the killer is on the other side.

If you find that one sentence is serving to explain what happened in the sentence that preceded it, you can usually improve the writing by reversing the order so that you render rather than explain the action.

It’s stronger to write the scene like this:

The killer was on the other side of the door. She reached out with a trembling hand to lock it.

Cause: The killer is on the other side of the door.
Effect: She locks it.

Think about it this way: If you’ve written a scene in which you could theoretically connect the events with the word “because,” then you can typically improve the scene by structuring it so that you could instead connect the events with the word “so.”

Take the example about the woman being chased by the killer:

She locked the door because she knew the killer was on the other side.

If written in this order, the sentence moves from effect to cause. However:

She knew the killer was on the other side of the door, so she locked it.

Here, the stimulus leads naturally to her response.

Of course, most of the time we leave out the words because and so, and these are very simplified examples—but you get the idea.

Remember in rendering more complex scenes that realizations and discoveries happen after actions, not before them. Rather than telling us what a character realizes and then telling us why she realizes it—as in, “She finally understood who the killer was when she read the letter”—write it this way: “When she read the letter, she finally understood who the killer was.” Always build on what has been said or done, rather than laying the foundation after the idea is built. Continually move the story forward, rather than forcing yourself to flip backward to give the reason something occurred.

One last example:

Greg sat bored in the writer’s workshop. He began to doodle. He’d heard all this stuff before. Suddenly he gulped and stared around the room, embarrassed, when the teacher called on him to explain cause and effect structure.

This paragraph is a mess. As it stands, at least seven events occur, and none are in their logical order. Here is the order in which they actually happened:

1. Greg sits in the workshop.
2. He realizes he’s heard all this before.
3. Boredom ensues.
4. Doodling ensues.
5. Greg gets called on.
6. Embarrassment ensues.
7. He gulps and stares around the room

Each event causes the one that follows it.

Your writing will be more effective if you show us what’s happening as it happens rather than explain to us what just happened.

With all of that said, there are three exceptions, three times when you can move from effect to cause without shattering the spell of your story.

First, in chapter or section breaks. For example, you might begin a section by writing:

“How could you do this to me?” she screamed.

Immediately, the reader will be curious who is screaming, at whom she is screaming, and why. This would make a good hook, so it’s fine (good, even!) to start that way. If this same sentence appeared in the middle of a scene in progress, though, it would be wiser to move from cause to effect:

He told her he was in love with another woman.
“How could you do this to me?” she screamed.

The second exception is when one action causes two or more simultaneous reactions. In the paragraph about Greg, he gulps and looks around the room. Because his embarrassment causes him to respond by both gulping and looking around, the order in which you tell the reader he did them could go either way.

And the final exception is when you write a scene in which your character shows his prowess by deducing something the reader hasn’t yet concluded. Think of Sherlock Holmes staring at the back of an envelope, cleaning out the drainpipe and then brushing off a nearby stick of wood and announcing that he’s solved the case. The reader is saying, “Huh? How did he do that?” Our curiosity is sparked, and later when he explains his deductive process, we see that everything followed logically from the preceding events.

Secret #2:
IF IT’S NOT BELIEVABLE, IT DOESN’T BELONG.

The narrative world is also shattered when an action, even if it’s impossible, becomes unbelievable.

In writing circles it’s common to speak about the suspension of disbelief, but that phrase bothers me because it seems to imply that the reader approaches the story wanting to disbelieve and that she needs to somehow set that attitude aside in order to engage with the story. But precisely the opposite is true. Readers approach stories wanting to believe them. Readers have both the intention and desire to enter a story in which everything that happens, within the narrative world that governs that story, is believable. As writers, then, our goal isn’t to convince the reader to suspend her disbelief, but rather to give her what she wants by continually sustaining her belief in the story.

The distinction isn’t just a matter of semantics; it’s a matter of understanding the mindset and expectations of your readers. Readers want to immerse themselves in deep belief. We need to respect them enough to keep that belief alive throughout the story.

Let’s say you create a world in which gravity doesn’t exist. OK, if you bring the world to life on the page and through your characters, the reader will accept that—but now she’ll want you to be consistent. As soon as someone’s hair doesn’t float above or around her head, or someone is able to drink a cup of coffee without the liquid floating away, the consistency of that world is shattered. The reader will begin to either lose interest and eventually stop reading, or will disengage from the story and begin to look for more inconsistencies—neither of which you want her to do.

All else being equal, as soon as readers stop believing your story, they’ll stop caring about your story. And readers stop believing stories when characters act inexplicably.

When I’m shaping a story, I continually ask myself, “What would this character naturally do in this situation?”

And then I let him do it.

Always.

Why?

Because the reader, whether he’s conscious of it or not, is asking the same question: “What would this character naturally do?”

As soon as characters act in ways that aren’t believable, either in reference to their characterizations or to the story’s progression, the reader loses faith in the writer’s ability to tell that story.

In a scene in my first novel, The Pawn, my protagonist is interviewing the governor of North Carolina, and the governor is responding oddly. Now, if my hero, who’s supposed to be one of the best investigators in the world, doesn’t notice and respond to the governor’s inexplicable behavior, the reader will be thinking, What’s wrong with this Bowers guy? There’s obviously something strange going on here. Why doesn’t he notice? He’s a moron.

So, I had Bowers think, Something wasn’t clicking. Something wasn’t right.

Then the reader will agree, Ah, good! I thought so. OK, now let’s find out what’s going on here. Rather than drive the reader away from identifying with the protagonist, this was a way of drawing the reader deeper into the story.

So when something that’s unbelievable or odd happens, don’t be afraid to let your character notice and respond: “I never expected her to say that,” “What? That just doesn’t make sense,” or, “Obviously there’s more going on here than I thought when I first found the necklace.”

If a character acts in an unbelievable way, you’ll need to give the reader a reason why—and it’d better be a good one. Remember: Always give the reader what he wants, or something better. If you don’t give the reader what he wants (believability), you must satisfy him with a twist or a moment of story escalation that satisfies him more than he ever expected.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL A PAGE TURNER – PART 1

In my next two blogs I’m sharing a very good article about creating a page turner blogged by Elizabeth Sims on January 12, 2010.  I found it a very well written article – and worth sharing with you.  J  Rita

When my father was a little boy, one of the last of the touring vaudeville companies came through his podunk town, and he got to see the show. The centerpiece was a one-act drama featuring a pretty girl in peril. The climactic scene began quietly, with her sitting next to a lamp, sewing. As the mustachioed villain sneaked onstage, the audience began to murmur in alarm. When the lovely young thing gave no sign of sensing the danger, the audience’s murmuring gained urgency and volume.

The innocent girl continued to sew her apron.

Closer crept the villain, drawing a knife from his coat.

In full voice now, the audience warned her: “Behind you. Turn around!”

When, incredibly, she bowed her vulnerable neck more deeply over her work, they rose from their seats, cupped their hands around their mouths, and shouted with the utmost diction: “Beee! hind! you! Look! beee! hind! yooooou!”

Unbearable suspense.

Ah, to be a master of it.

I used to beg my dad to tell that story, and I’d laugh maniacally every time. I fear that was what really sparked me to be a writer. The author of that playlet, subpar though it may be by today’s standards, accomplished what we all want: to hold audience members so firmly in our grasp they feel they’ve entered the story themselves.

And that, I guess, is a pretty good definition of a page turner.

Today’s best novels make readers so desperate to know what happens next that they’ll stay up reading well past midnight, blistering thumbs and all, until THE END. Then and only then will they be able to relax, their souls flooded with satisfaction, relief and peace. Only to be followed—ideally!—by a gnawing sense of unfulfillment, anxiety and a compulsion to read more books by you.

It’s our responsibility to feed their addiction.

Looking at successful authors and their polished products, you might conclude they must have some literary alchemy at their fingertips, or they really are slightly superhuman, or they’ve made a deal with the devil. (If only it were so easy!)

But no: Writing a page turner is an art and a craft. And you can learn to do it.

PLOT FROM THE GUT.
You’ve got a good idea for a story, you’ve got a few characters in your head, you’ve got some stuff that happens.

Now what?

At this point many people just start writing, hoping their book will take shape as they go.

The streets of New York are littered with queries from such authors.

To lift your work from the gum wads and pigeon merde, you need a coherent plot.

Now, you can get pretty complex with plotting. You can try to follow this or that guru’s rules, you can try to emulate this or that bestselling author. But if you do, you’ll likely find that the whole thing gets horribly complicated way too soon.

The following method for forging a compelling plot is as good as any, and simpler than all of them.

THE HCM PLOTTING METHOD:
1. List the Heart-Clutching Moments you’ve already thought of—you know, those pivotal points in your story that will evoke all the intensity of that “look behind you!” response in your readers.
2. Think of more.
3. Construct your story around them. I emphasize the difference: Don’t focus on your loosely formed story line. Focus on the key points in your story.

WHAT IS AN HCM?
• Love at first sight (Marius Pontmercy meets Cosette)
• A huge moral lapse (Judas takes the money)
• Murder (Miles Archer’s sets Sam Spade in motion)
• Death by other means (Injun Joe starves to death in the cave)
• A refusal of grace (Mayella Ewell sticks to her story in spite of taking the courtroom oath)
• Nature gone wild (shark dines on first recreational swimmer)
• Someone standing up to corruption (Shane picks up his gun again)
• A change of heart, for good or ill (Michael Corleone offers to kill Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey)
• An act of depraved violence (Bill Sykes cudgels Nancy)
• Betrayal (Sandy puts a stop to her mentor Jean Brodie)
• Forgiveness (Melanie insists Scarlett join her in the receiving line)
• A revelation (Pip’s secret benefactor is none other than … !)

HCMs can be active, whole scenes:
• A lifesaving attempt
• A chase
• A battle
• A seduction
• A caper

Make a list of Heart-Clutching Moments and put them on index cards in rough order. Then you can build an outline based on any form you desire, be it classical drama, farce or anything in between. If you get stuck, do any of the following:

• Start writing one of your HCM scenes. Immediately the scene itself should prompt ideas, perhaps for new courses of action or even new characters.
• Write deeper into an HCM scene you’ve written already. You’ll likely find yourself coming up with bridges between scenes—and thinking of more elements to enhance your story.
• Look for places to add conflict, suffering or frustration.

For example, Shakespeare wanted to take Macbeth from conquering hero to murderous traitor whose decapitation at the hands of one of his countrymen is the only possible, imaginable end.

How does he do it? Reread the play and you’ll realize that one HCM leads to the next, fast and furious: The witches’ stunning prophecies, Macbeth’s realization that he could be king, his wife’s corrupt ambition, one murder, two more murders, and more upon that, and prophesy again, and insanity, and suicide … all in the space of 98 pages!

SUPERCHARGE YOUR CAST OF CHARACTERS.
Readers get hooked on a novel when they meet a character they enjoy spending time with. Characters we love—or love to hate. How do you create them?

LET YOUR READER INSIDE THEIR HEADS. Sure, we see your characters in action, but show us their fears, their misgivings, their secret vanities. Many beginning writers expect the reader to assume too much along these lines. Let us know what your characters are thinking via inner monologues, dialogue or even unexpected action. (“Yes, dear,” he sighed, giving the cat a discreet kick.)

GIVE A CHARACTER A SECRET. Think Sophie’s Choice: You can bet William Styron, having thought of the choice first, built the whole novel backward from Sophie’s main, huge, character-defining Heart-Clutching Moment. If you bear in mind your character’s secret as you write, it will inform your whole novel, lending substance and subtlety.

BUILD IN A LOVABLE QUIRK. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is as cynical as they come—except when something charms him. Pure sincerity pierces his heart, whether it’s two nuns in a coffee shop or his naive yet sharp-witted little sister. Without that vulnerability, he’d be just another insufferable teen.

CREATE AN UNPREDICTABLE CHARACTER. Shakespeare’s witches, Boo Radley, Kurtz. A character with a screw loose, or one hidden in the shadows, will prevent your readers from ever feeling safe. What will that devil do next?

MAKE THEM SHARE. Do your research and, through your characters, share cool stuff you’ve learned about a time, place, person or pursuit. The Day of the Jackal gives specific, compelling information as to how the assassin works. In his books, retired jockey Dick Francis brings us into horse breeding and racing. Other authors give deep detail on subjects ranging from domestic arts to international terrorism.

END CHAPTERS WITH A BANG.
The most important page turns in any book are those at the ends of the chapters. Why? Because readers tell themselves, “OK, I swear I will turn out the light at the end of this chapter because I am committed to going to yoga at 6:30.”

An alarming 40 percent* of readers who put a book down before finishing it never pick it up again. Stuff gets in the way: kids, work, “Columbo” reruns, the J. Crew catalog. So you’ve simply got to keep them reading to the end.

As a novice writer, I pondered that admonition. How was I supposed to do it? I couldn’t throw in a car wreck or an assassination or a dangling hero or a miraculous cure at the end of every single chapter; that would be ridiculous. Luckily, the answer came to me in the middle of my first novel, Holy Hell: You don’t create Heart-Clutching Moments in order to end a chapter. You end a chapter when you get to a naturally occurring HCM.

More specifically, when you come to a point just before or just after an HCM, break your chapter. This works every time. Realistically, of course, you don’t have 33 true HCMs in a book; you might have five, or 10. So in the meantime, break chapters at transitions:

• A turning point (where something or someone is about to change)
• A jump in time or place
• A shift in point of view
• A settling of the action
• A ramping-up of the action

These chapter breaks tend to be quieter, but no matter, you must still give your readers a compelling reason to turn that page. It doesn’t have to be big: a pique, a hint, a whiff. More on that next.