POV Picking and Popping POVs

Copyright questions come up often on the blog, and I happened to hear this astonishing report on the radio. Click to listen and be amazed: http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/mar/08/happy-birthday/.

The title of this post is a tongue-twister. Try saying it ten times fast.

In November two questions came in about POV. In the first, unsocialized homeschooler wrote, I’m writing a novel with a goal to get it published. It’s set in a fantasy land, and it’s in third person. However, each chapter (or half chapter or something–I don’t like writing in chapters until the end of the book) the POV switches. One chapter it will be told in one person’s point of view, the next minute another, while still in third person. How can I make each narration stand out? Both characters have very unique personalities. (Okay, okay, they’re not that unique, but they’re different from each other.) However, whenever I switched POVs, it seems like it could be narrated by the other.

I’m doing something similar in my revision of the book formerly known as Beloved Elodie now known as I-Don’t-Know-What. In my earlier drafts, I switched first-person POV back and forth from my human character Elodie to the dragon Meenore to the ogre Count Jonty Um. But I found that I wasn’t communicating the ogre clearly – he kept seeming unintelligent, which he isn’t. So I switched to third person, but not omniscient. If Elodie is in a scene, the POV belongs to her. Otherwise, it’s either Meenore or Jonty Um, all in third person, and the book is working better.

The narrative voice is the same from chapter to chapter, but the star of each is the POV character. For example, Meenore often challenges Elodie to solve the little puzzles that add up to the big one of the mystery. Usually doesn’t get the solution right away, and she feels under a lot of stress. Here’s an example:

“…Lodie, how did I conclude some calamity had befallen the Oase or the high brunka?”

Elodie felt the familiar pressure of her brain being squeezed. “Er… Masteress, you sang so that someone might hear us. Er… You knew brunkas have especially sharp ears. And a brunka came. Wasn’t that what you expected?” Her coming couldn’t mean anything! “Er… Um…”

Most of this is dialogue with only two sentences in narration. Take this one: Elodie felt the familiar pressure of her brain being squeezed. It’s a plain sentence, no particular personality coming from the narrator. But if the POV character weren’t Elodie, the narrator wouldn’t have said a word about what’s going on in her brain. I don’t mention Meenore’s feelings or the state of ITs brain when IT questions her, although I can guess what they are: pride in her abilities and mischievous pleasure in making her struggle.

Here’s another example, this one from Count Jonty Um’s POV:

A winter hare hopped across the snow to the right of the brunka’s cottage. Master Canute would warn the humans, who would flee the mountain if they could, and they’d drive their herds and flocks along with them. His Lordship clasped his hands and squeezed until they hurt. The wild beasts wouldn’t hear the warning or understand it if they heard. They’d stay here and die in pain and terror.

Again, the language of the narration is straightforward. It’s not the way he would tell it himself, because the ogre mind is different from the human mind. But the narration does reflect his concerns. The other character in this scene, whose thoughts I can’t reveal since I’m not writing from his POV, wouldn’t be thinking about the fate of the animals on this mountain.

So, sounds like you’re doing it right, unsocialized homeschooler. If you’re working in third person, the narrator’s voice should be the same throughout. If you want the voices to change, first person is the way to do it, and you might want to reread my posts on voice.

If you stick with third person, then I suggest you focus on the thoughts and feelings of the POV character in each scene, and be scrupulously careful not to stray in narration into the thoughts and feelings of anyone else. These non-POV guys can say what they’re thinking and feeling in dialogue and they can show it in action, but the narrator should never reveal their inner workings. The narrator who isn’t omniscient is allowed into only one head and heart at a time. Or possibly two heads, if you’re doing it that way, for example if you have a duo working together.

If your characters’ specialness isn’t showing through, you may not be shining your authorial spotlight on their unique ways of reacting to situations, whether or not it’s their POV turn. Meenore, for example, is always clever, and always reveals ITs cleverness in dialogue. Count Jonty Um is always shy and says little and is aloof and dignified. If I keep these traits in mind, each of them will stand out on the page, and Elodie will too by contrast.

So I’d suggest thinking about your characters’ distinguishing characteristics in every scene. If the moment belongs to your POV character, look for ways to bring the other guys in, doing what they do most, reacting as they do.

In the second question, Michelle Dyck wrote, How do you choose which character’s POV to use in a scene when more than one choice could work? I know that a good way to choose the POV is by evaluating which character’s experience in the scene would be the most crucial or interesting, but what if two characters’ POVs are that way? In the scene I’m working on right now, my two MC’s are faced with the same big decision, and although their thought patterns and emotions vary, both of their experiences are quite similar. I’m not sure which to choose.

It’s nice when you can just pick to please yourself!

That’s one option: Which will be the most fun to write? Which interests you the most?

There are other questions, too. Who has the most unexplored corners, which you can most easily investigate in his or her POV? Simply, whose turn is it? Have you been in Jack’s head a lot lately and you need to shift because the reader is getting too accustomed to being in there? Can you tip the balance in the scene so it isn’t quite so equal, and the choice will then become obvious? Can you split the scene? The first part goes to one character; then there’s some kind of natural break, and you shift to the other.

Here are two prompts:

• Your story moves from the home of one of your three characters to a museum to a row boat in the middle of a lake. The three have a common enemy, which can be anything, a former friend, a wizard, an assassin, Frankenstein, a virus, whatever you choose. And the three have different strengths and different weaknesses – different personalities. Write a scene in each location. Try it two ways, in third person alternating POVs and in first person alternating POVs. If you like you can add a fourth scene, from the POV of the antagonist if it’s a character, which you would also write in third person and in first.

• Return to the rowboat scene. One of your three characters has drowned. The remaining characters have to decide what to do next. Try it from the first-person POV of one and then the other. Then switch to third person. You are allowed to row them to dry land if the row boat is too confining.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Togetherness, writer style

I’m posting a day early because I’m traveling tomorrow and may not have a chance.

On November 7, 2012, Kate Phillips wrote, I love writing, and I have a couple of friends who I email some stories so they can give me feedback. Sometimes my friend will say that something doesn’t make sense or is weird, when I disagree. I can’t tell if this is because it really is weird, or if it’s just their opinion.

Sometimes my friends also want something to be going in a totally different direction. My friend really wants the book to say it’s by her too, but I’m not sure about that.

How can you tell when you are co-writing and when they are just giving you ideas? I feel like if we really are co-writing, and if she is really doing half the writing, that it should say it is written by her as well.

Have you ever co-written a story?

When you are just in the beginning of a story who do you consult? I know I should have a professional editor edit it before I try to get it published, but I’m not sure who I should talk to before than.

Do you have any tips about co-writing?

And Michelle Dyck wrote along the same lines, ...I second Kate Phillips’s request for tips on co-writing. My brother and I are going to coauthor a book someday soon, so any advice on that would be good.

Let’s start with co-writing, which I have never done, but which sounds appealing for the pure fun of it. Writing can feel lonely, and having a friend to share the burden is mighty attractive.

Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin’s two co-written books, P.S. Longer Letter Later and Snail Mail, No More, are epistolary novels in which one character writes to the other, so there are two POV’s. Paula Danziger wrote one, and Ann Martin wrote the other. I’d guess that the two discussed the direction of each novel before they started and as they went along, but then the actual writing was separate.

Other writing pairs I’ve spoken to also have a clear division of labor. The one who’s better at plotting writes an outline and the other fills in with deathless prose. Back to the outliner for edits and back to the writer for the polish. It’s a collaboration, but the two still write at separate desks, possibly many miles apart, and each contributes according to his or her strengths. There may be circumstances where two writers sit together and hash out every sentence, but I don’t know of them. I hope blog readers will chime in with your own co-writing experiences.

If you’re going to try co-writing, I’d suggest thinking about which tasks each of you is best at: ideas, outlining, writing great sentences, dialogue, revision. Then divide the labor. And if your relationship with your co-writer is important, I’d devise some rules for when things get heated, like time apart, like no name calling, and you may not punch your co-writer in the nose! You might decide in advance that friendship is more important than story, and you’ll abandon the story if you seem on the way to becoming enemies. There are plenty of stories out there and not an unlimited supply of friends or brothers.

As for what qualifies someone to be a co-writer, I’d say equality, meaning that you’ve both put in, relatively, the same level of effort. If your friends are just commenting from the sidelines and you’re doing all the heavy lifting, the story belongs to you, and your pals may get an acknowledgment, or, if you’re feeling kind, a dedication.

At the moment I have only one writing buddy, but my preference is for two. If they agree about an aspect of my story, I have to take that seriously. But if they disagree I need to consider both points of view and then take my pick. As I keep writing, the truth may make itself known to me anyway. The proposed direction either bears fruit or it doesn’t.

If your friends are urging you to take your story down an entirely different path than the one you had in mind, maybe they should be writing their own stories. And I don’t like it that they’re making you feel bad and lost. Writing is hard enough without hecklers. We need voices in our heads that are approving, that appreciate us, and love what we write. We also want to be able to take criticism and to be usefully self-critical, but that criticism needs to be specific and constructive.

I do consider all criticism that comes in about whatever I’m working on. No one is a perfect writer, no matter how long she’s been at it. The lot of a writer is perpetual learning, which is one of the best things about our calling: eternal growth. If a criticism surprises me and helps me see in a new way, hooray!

When I’m just starting a story, I may mention what I’m up to and some of my ideas to my editor. I may drop a word or two to friends. Then again I may not say anything to anybody. I may simply start. It’s just me and my computer at that point. It’s too early to get anyone else involved substantively. You certainly don’t need a professional editor at the beginning. Fundamentally, when we write, we have to please ourselves.

Some writers, when they’ve finished a draft and taken it as far as they can in revision, do hire a freelance editor to help make the book as good as it can be. But others rely on critique groups, which is a sort of barter system. I go over your story and you go over mine. No money changes hands. And critique groups can help all the way through a manuscript, not just at the end. I went the critique group route during the nine years it took me to get published. Plus classes and reading books about writing.

Here are three prompts:

• Sleeping Beauty is beautiful because a fairy made her so. She sings prettily, is witty, etc., because of fairy gifts. She’s defined by what the fairies gave her. They come to her christening, but she doesn’t even get a name. She doesn’t want to sleep for a hundred years and awaken to the kiss of a future prince. In your story, send her on a quest to reclaim herself, the self the fairies didn’t allow to flower, the self she never got a chance to know. In the process, she hopes to escape the long sleep.

• Sam is spending the summer with his aunt and uncle and their daughter Tulip, who is his age. Sam is there so he can go to mural camp. This year’s project is to create a mural about a local civilization that faded out a thousand years earlier. Sam’s section of mural features a native girl who helped her family make pottery. He begins having vivid and menacing dreams about this girl and his own cousin Tulip. Take it from there.

• James, Tara, and Penny form a critique group. Tara is writing away, but James is blocked, and Penny keeps revising the same chapter again and again. Write one of their meetings.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Idea overload

Before I start the post, I want to let you know I’m going to be at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival on March 16th. Details here: http://www.gailcarsonlevine.com/appears.html. I hope some of you can make it. If you come, please let me know that you read about the event on the blog. I’ll be delighted to meet you!

This is a continuation of questions from Ellie Mayerhofer that were the subject of last week’s post: Is it possible to be working on too many stories? I am working on several though there are two that I am mostly focused on (four that I am really trying to work with-there are some others but those four are what I usually work on, but there are two that I work on more than the other two). But then sometimes one of the stories I haven’t worked on in a while will pop a new idea and then there are more that I am working on. Or I will suddenly get a new idea and then leave off the others. I want to really focus on and finish some of my stories… Should I put some stories to the side and only focus on one or two? What happens if I do put everything but one or two to the side and then get another idea? Do I keep working on those, or do I work on my new idea and put off the others?

Idea overload comes up often on the blog. If I advise you to put new ideas on hold until you finish the work-in-progress, the WIP, you may not be able to. The new idea is an itch that desperately wants to be scratched.

Still, the WIP won’t ever be finished if you aren’t faithful to it. Your desire to bring a story to completion wars with the new idea. In this state, you’re a battlefield!

What I do when a new idea blasts in is to write it down in the ideas folder in my computer. I write a paragraph or so about the idea and what I might do with it and then go back to my current story, which usually takes the pressure off the itch. I suggest you try that as one strategy.

If you have more ideas than you’ll ever be able to develop and you’d like to annihilate the new one, try telling it to a friend. Explain it all, every single thing you can think of about it, all the characters, every plot point, exactly what you would do if you did write it. Rant about it. Then see what happens. For many writers, talking about a story kills off the desire to write it.

If you’re writing a blog, give any idea you don’t have time for to the world. Explain it and put it out there. If you’re interested, ask your readers to use the idea and show you the results.

It’s also possible that the new idea came along because the story you’re working on has gotten into trouble. What used to be fun and fascinating has turned into work and you’d rather dance off to something fresh.

This is a real choice. Unless you have a contract for a story, you’re not required to soldier on in misery. You can move on, and maybe the new idea will go better than the old one has. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it, too, will mire down and you’ll be gone, chasing another concept. There’s nothing wrong with this. You may need a year or two of story hopping before you figure out how to stay engaged. You’re going to learn about writing no matter whether you stick to one project or jump around.

The only true abandonment is to stop writing.

And that isn’t a tragedy either. Whether we’re kids or adults, we have a right to try things out. Writing may turn out not to be your calling. The theater may be, or particle physics, or the study of larks.

But if you really want very much to finish a story, when a new idea comes along I suggest you look at your WIP and see if your enthusiasm for it has waned. Consider what the problem might be. Are you unsure of what should come next? Are you uncertain of what your MC should do in the latest situation? Does it all seem boring?

I recommend over and over on the blog that you go to your notes and write down ideas for your current story, for how to get it moving again. I still recommend that, but maybe there’s something else you can do. When we write our subconscious involves itself and sends our upper consciousness messages in code. A new idea may be a message for our WIP. Examine the newbie side by side with the WIP. Does it solve any of the old guy’s problems? Can you use the new idea in what you’re already doing? Can you incorporate aspects of your new MC into your current MC?

Suppose you’re working on more than one story right now and you also have a list of future ideas, plus three new projects are banging on your brain – step back and look at them whole. Maybe make a chart. List all your characters from all your stories. Write down very short summaries of your plots, like “a quest to find the cure to a dread disease” or “a struggle to prove herself in a friend’s eyes” – whatever. Maybe make each story into a few frames in a comic strip, using stick figures if you need to (I would!). Let it all stew inside you for an hour, a day, a week without much conscious thought. Then look at everything. Do you see new connections? Do you see ways that your new ideas can energize your old ones?

Do you notice that you stop in a similar place in all your old unfinished stories? Can you recruit a new, new idea to get you past that point?

Going in another direction, taking a break from a WIP to try something new may just be what the WIP needs.

Here are four prompts:

• Combine elements of “Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella,” and “Aladdin” into a single story. If you think of another fairy tale that can go in too, go ahead.

• Four former winners of the lottery, each with his or her own backstory, whose lives post-lottery have not gone well, form a mutual aid society. Write what happens.

• Put these together in a story: a fairy tale prince, a despotic ruler, a fifteen year old modern girl, the killing of a unicorn in the despotic ruler’s herd, and the discovery of an ancient text. If you have a new idea, you have to put it in this story.

• Danielle has lots of friends. She’s a delight to be with, and she makes whichever friend she’s with feel like the most important, the most fascinating, the most charming person on earth. The problem is, she isn’t reliable. She’s late or doesn’t show up at all, although her apologies are irresistible works of performance art. She meets someone new, who falls for her hard. Trouble is, this new character, doesn’t know her history, is unprepared for her behavior. Put what happens in a story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Building on the legacy

On November 4, 2012, Ellie Mayerhofer wrote on my website, I was wondering if you had any advice for a story I’m writing. It’s a twist on Red Riding Hood, but I’m including at least two other fairy tales in it. I have read several versions of RRH, and seen a few too. I’m trying to write something completely original, but sometimes I feel like the story is too much like other versions of RRH. Is there any way I can be sure that it is completely original and not too much like other versions? It is based on the fairy tale, but I want it to be totally different than anything else I’ve read/seen.

Also, with Red Riding Hood (I’ve named her Rosaly), I want her to be ‘fierce’ (for lack of a better word-she’s a hunter in a really dangerous forest-the one with the wolf-to provide food, she helps defend herself and her Granny from attacks from the wolf {the wolf is NOT a werewolf}) but also funny, and when she decides she trusts someone she is really loyal and well, trusting of them. The only family she has left is her Granny, and she is strongly defensive of those she considers family/friends. However, I am having trouble showing all sides of her (complex) personality. Any advice???

Ellie had another question, too, which I’ll get to next week.

Several questions are rolled up in this one. First, originality, which I’ve discussed before on the blog (check out the old posts by clicking on the label). I doubt that complete originality is possible, but if the impossible were achieved, I further doubt complete originality would be understood by readers. Writers and readers build on what went before. We take stories in and manufacture new stories based on our experience of the ones we know. The stories we read and hear are simple when we’re very young children. Then as we mature, our idea of what’s possible expands. Oh! we discover, a story can be this, too, and that, too. Each added complexity builds on what went before.

Rather than complete originality, I’m hoping in my writing to expand the range a little, so that someone else can build on what I’ve done. We writers stand on the shoulders of our predecessors, building acrobatic writing towers.

In our search for the new, we want to avoid two pitfalls that are the reverse of originality. The first is infringing on someone’s copyright, which can happen if our plot hews too close to someone else’s or if our characters are too much like another writer’s, or, of course, if we plagiarize – copy sentences and paragraphs verbatim without mentioning the source. I’m not a copyright specialist, and copyright is complicated. My words above are vague: too close or too much like. How much is too much? How close is too close? The courts decide.

For the poor writer, unless you’re deliberately appropriating somebody else’s work, you’re probably fine. If you’re making an effort to be as original as you can, I don’t think you need to worry. But, for extra safety, when I’m using a fairy tale, I avoid reading (or watching) contemporary versions because I don’t want another writer’s take sliding into my subconscious and exiting, unnoticed, through my fingertips.

To be sure, confine your reading to fairy tale adaptations that are old. I’d say (remember, I’m not a copyright attorney) 110 years old and you’re home free. I go to the Andrew Lang fairy tale collections which are for certain in the public domain. Public domain means that they’re no longer copyright protected; they’re out in the world, and anyone can use them.

The second pitfall is being too predictable, cliched. The reader can tell what’s going to happen next because she’s read so many stories just like ours. Not that our new story violates anyone’s copyright, just that events play out according to expectation. For example, if a hard-luck child falls in with a crotchety old codger, I’d put good money down that the codger will turn out to have a heart of gold and that the two will save each other. If said codger dies at the end but the child has gained enough strength and wisdom from him to succeed in life, I win double.

As we gain story experience we start to recognize these cliche patterns and we can avoid them, either by creating stories that don’t follow the format or by going against expectation. If the codger turns out to be fundamentally horrible, the reader will be thrown off balance in a good way and our story will be energized. When, as readers, we feel that a story is original, I think it’s usually because we’re surprised. The story elements are there but they’re combined in fresh ways.

My favorite strategy for avoiding a cliched plot is to list possibilities for what can come next in my story, and I don’t settle for my first idea. Generally I write several ideas and then get stuck. I stare out my window and rush back to my desk when a couple more arrive. I write them down and get stuck again. Repeat process. Usually one of the latecomers will work in my story and surprise my readers.

Characters can be key to creating that sense of originality. In the RRH tale, an interesting Rosaly will help, but so will a grandmother who goes against type. In versions I know (including my own), authors have had a field day with the wolf, whose character is central to the tale. And in a novel, naturally, there will be others who can amaze the reader.

When we think about our characters – maybe we fill out a character questionnaire like the one I provide in Writing Magic – we may come up with a list of traits, which don’t become real until we’re writing the story and putting our character into situations. What we have from Ellie for Rosaly are these characteristics: fierce, funny, loyal, and trusting of the people who are close to her. So when we start writing we want to put her into situations that will reveal her this way.

For example, she’s out hunting, hiding on the edge of a meadow. The wind is right for her, and an unsuspecting buck starts grazing. She has a clear shot. As she nocks her arrow, she says under her breath, “Such a beautiful creature. Too bad taxidermy hasn’t been invented yet.” And she lets fly. We’ve now met her unsentimental sense of humor (and mine). If the animal she’s shooting happens to be a tiger rather than a deer and the same things happen (except for the grazing), we’ve also encountered her fierceness. She isn’t rattled in the face of a tiger, and she can even get off a joke.

Of course, the incidents that reveal Rosaly’s character also need to move the story forward. Maybe we see her courage and her humor as she saves her grandmother from both a snake and a nosy neighbor. And so forth. We look for situations that will bring her qualities to the fore. Coincidentally, they should also demonstrate the grandmother’s character. Is she burying her head under the pillow in an ineffective attempt to escape the snake, or chattering all unaware of it, or reaching for her rifle, but Rosaly gets there first?

Here are three prompts:

• I’ve laid out the cliche of the grumpy old man and the homeless child and suggested one way to write against it. Think of three more ways. Pick one and write the story.

• This is the opposite of the advice I gave above, to stay away from contemporary fairy tale adaptations when you’re thinking of doing one of your own. I hope you’ll try this anyway, just this once. The Andrew Lang books are available for free online. Here’s a link to The Blue Fairy Book, which I think has the best known tales: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/LanBlue.html. Read a fairy tale that you know in more than one version. List the major plot developments and characters for the Lang version. Then make the same list for at least one contemporary adaptation. Feel free to use “Cinderella” and Ella Enchanted if you like. Now think of a third way to go, your own take on events. List the characters and plot points. Next, naturally, write the story.

• These traits are ingrained in our MC: brainy, argumentative, kind, and impulsive. Make her the heroine of “Beauty and the Beast” or another fairy tale of your choosing and develop incidents that reveal these characteristics while also moving the story along.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Smooth

On October 31, 2012, Seawritesforfun wrote, I was wondering how can you make a book fluid? Mine is rather all over the place because I write very sporadically, (started in ’10, still not finished but very close now). I plan to do about 20 rewrites to try and fix it, but I’m not sure whether or not that will disrupt the plot.

First off, when we revise our first principle should be, must be: Everything is up for grabs to make the best book we can at this time.

I don’t mean we have to toss the first draft, because then we’ll be writing a new book, not revising. And I don’t mean that every element always has to change, only the ones that need fixing. For me, some drafts need just a little tweaking; some need much more. We work within the established framework, but we may have to move a few walls and change the furniture. We may have to add characters, drop characters, change POV, and even adjust (or disrupt) our plot. I’ve begun my revisions for my second Elodie mystery. I don’t foresee adding characters, but I’m doing everything else, and my plot is definitely changing.

If you’re young, say you’re fifteen now and you started your book when you were thirteen, of course the story feels jumpy. The you that started and the you who’s writing now are separated by eons of growth and change and learning. So I suggest that you try to go through this revision in the span of a few months, tops, because you’re still on a steep maturing slope. A year from now you may again be vastly different (although, naturally, many essentials will remain). If you start and then stop, fluidity may again elude you.

A lot of the feeling of fluidity comes from voice. Try reading a few paragraphs from page 3 and a few from pages 25, 80, 130, etc. What do you notice? What are the differences? Which do you like? Maybe one of the pages has a contemporary voice, another goes even further into slang, another is more formal, and another has a distinct old-fashioned tone. Decide which best suits your story.

Can you identify something that you can replicate to give the narration a sense of continuity? For example, in the Elodie books, when Elodie is surprised, she has a habit of saying or thinking, Lambs and calves! Just that expression helps create the sense of a single personality presenting the story. I’ve switched to third person in this revision, although I’m not sure I’ll stick with it, but in most chapters Elodie is still my POV character, and the reader still encounters her Lambs and calves!, not in every paragraph or even on every page, but often enough to remind the reader that this is Elodie’s tale.

In the past I’ve mentioned a novel for adults, or for kids high school and up, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, a fascinating mystery that switches from first-person to third, that changes tenses, and that intersperses the narrative with newspaper articles. The effect is jumpy, I guess, but the reader comes to expect the discontinuity, and the story works as a whole. The key is repetition. We can change tense or POV once right at the beginning or we can sandwich our narrative with a beginning and final shift, but if we’re going to do more, we generally need to do it frequently. If there’s just a single switch a third of the way into the story and not again, the reader is likely to be confused, but if it’s a regular thing, she’ll be prepared.

Here’s another, possibly weird solution. Think of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, which was written over several years, and which, admittedly, isn’t fiction. Anne changes in the course of the book. The youngster at the beginning and the young adult at the end are vastly different. The reader accepts this because of the time span. Maybe you can work something into your structure that accommodates the two years you spent writing your book. Maybe your book can be presented as a journal. Or, if you can’t separate the parts by time, maybe you can by distance. The first part takes place in an earth city, the next on recently colonized Venus, the next in a scientific station on the ocean floor. Or, separate them by narrator, so the voice is different in the different parts. Then, possibly, the revision won’t be so radical.

Here are four prompts:

• Use the scenario I suggested. Your three MCs are geographically apart. Earth is running out of some resource, say, fresh water. Your characters are engaged in a project to save life on the planet, but there are conflicting allegiances among them, and there’s a romance. Write the story, and make it jumpy, with different narrators, different time periods.

• Tell a story within a story within a story, like those Russian nesting dolls that fit inside each other. Your MC is writing a novel about an actor who’s in an original play. Your story includes all three: the life of the MC, chapters of the novel, and scenes from the play. Give your MC problems in her life that find expression in her novel and in the play inside the novel.

• Write a contemporary story but tell it in an old-fashioned, fairy tale sort of voice.

• Retell a fairy tale in a modern setting using a contemporary voice.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Finish Line

On October 11, 2012, E.S. Ivy wrote, As to why do I finish some (projects) and not others, and why do I fail to finish: I have found that I’m much more likely to finish a project for another person than I am for myself. For example, when I was expecting my first child, I crocheted a dress for my cousin’s baby with a similar due date, but got nothing so elaborate made for my own. :)I noticed a similarity in Lark’s situation.

My difficulty in finishing, or even progressing, in a book is the fear of not getting it “perfect.”

I know those are two of my hurdles, but I haven’t quite figured out how to gracefully sail over them yet.

Two topics here:

∙ The ease of finishing something for someone else and the difficulty when the project is just for oneself;

∙ Fear of imperfection.

These are deep-seated issues that many of us struggle with our whole lives. I do! I don’t know how to discuss either one without getting a tad psychological.

When I was little the worst criticism that could be leveled at anyone was that he or she was selfish. If you were selfish, you were evil.

In E. S. Ivy’s example, I suppose it could be called selfish to finish a dress for her own baby because, while the baby may enjoy it, the chief delight will probably belong to E. S. Ivy, in seeing how adorable the baby looks and in feeling pride for having created the effect. And for having created the baby! Mixed in (I am completely guessing here) is the amazing luck of having a healthy child. Good fortune can be hard to tolerate when other people are suffering – and other people somewhere are always suffering.

But E. S. Ivy didn’t cause anybody’s misery.

Don’t get me wrong. Making others suffer so that we can enjoy is terrible. Ignoring the troubles of others for our own comfort stinks. Real selfishness is bad. But we’re not talking about that kind of selfishness. We’re talking about pleasure that harms no one and may help some.

Let’s stick with the baby dress example, but let’s make the crocheter someone other than E. S. Ivy, maybe a character named Barbara in a story, and let’s think about the happiness Barbara’s baby’s dress, created as a selfish act, may bring other people. Barbara takes the baby – Carlie – with her when she goes shopping at the supermarket, and the sight of Carlie in her dress makes the cashier’s day. The cashier’s last customer was horrible, but Carlie wipes out the bad taste. For the whole rest of the day the image of the baby in the great dress makes the cashier smile. That night she even falls asleep with the image in her mind.

In a larger sense, someone else’s good fortune is a blessing for sufferers, a promise that things can get better, a comfort that even if matters are going very badly for me, some are thriving. Not every sufferer will be comforted. Not every sufferer will believe that his lot can improve. But some will. Some will feel the load get a little lighter because of a cute baby in a sweet dress and a happy mother.

When it comes to art the case is even stronger. Creating art for our own pleasure benefits everyone else. The major writers, artists, musicians create out of an urgency that has nothing to do with the greater good. I very much doubt that Monet, for example, painted his water lilies for the benefit of sixth graders on a class trip to an art museum. But some of those eyes are opened, and some of those children live expanded lives forever after.

When I write – when most of the writers I know write – it’s to tell myself a story or to tell a story to the child I used to be. If I tried for an altruistic purpose, to please my readers, I’d be lost. The idea is too vague. One reader likes one thing, another likes something else. So I write selfishly to please myself, and the story goes out into the world and turns out, sometimes, to be just what a reader needs.

Naturally, we have to finish our stories for that to happen, and we have to show them to at least one other person, because keeping them entirely to ourselves may be a little selfish in the bad way, because no one else is allowed to benefit from the tale we discovered.

Finishing is going to benefit someone besides you. If nothing else, the glow of accomplishment will spread cheer.

If your story is published, a wider audience will be enriched. If it isn’t, your friends and family, your teacher, your writers’ group will be the lucky ones. They’ll learn something about you. They’ll read a story the rest of the world won’t have access to, which will make it precious.

On to perfectionism, which takes me back to my childhood, too, and to my poor mother, who was criticized mercilessly by her mother and her two sisters. She became the universe’s biggest perfectionist, trying to do everything exactly right and escape judgment.

So maybe that’s the root of a lot of perfectionism, because criticism hurts!

I caught it from her. If someone comes to my house I want it to look great. Two fragments of tile are missing in my bathroom, and they bother me. When I go out, I fuss with my looks, even if I’m going to be with people who’ve known me for eons. When I’m with a group I want my every word to be clever. This is a burden, and I should get over it.

But when I write I’m not burdened, or not so much. I know the impossibility of perfection, which is what I say in Writing Magic, that there’s no such thing as a perfect book. The best I can hope for is the best I can do at this time. Maybe in a year I’ll do better.

I admit that when I’ve finished writing a scene I go back and fiddle with it before moving on, especially if it’s a good scene and I like it. It’s fun to tweak it to make it funnier or more exciting. And it’s much easier than to move forward into the next scene, which may be hard to write, which may drive me crazy with its imperfections and may even make me temporarily blocked.

Some of you aren’t like me. Some of you blaze bravely on and save the tweaking for the second draft. Good for you!

Even I move on eventually, though. Because I’m darned if the book is going to peter out. It will limp or gallop to the end so that I can start revising and start making it the best imperfect story I can.

Here are a few prompts:

• When I think of Monet, I often think of one of my favorite poems, “Monet Refuses the Operation” by Lisel Mueller. This prompt is just to read the poem and enjoy. Here’s a link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/236810. If you read it, please let me know what you think.

• The first time I made a beef-and-barley soup, I decided to go to the movies while the soup simmered. I came back to fire trucks, an apartment full of smoke, and only ashes where soup should have been. My second attempt was delicious, but my husband’s spoon made an odd, clinking sound in the bowl, and he fished out my key chain and all my keys, dripping but sterile. Use a cooking disaster of yours – or any non-cooking mishap – or borrow mine to write a story or a scene on the theme of perfectionism. If perfectionism turns out not to be the theme, don’t worry. We’re really after story.

• Develop two characters, one selfish in a way that benefits many others, and one selfish in a way that benefits no one. Put them in opposition to each other. Write what happens in a scene or a story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Awake, dead scene!

On September 28, 2012, GillyB wrote, What do you do when you have a dead scene on your hands? You know what’s meant to happen next. You even know what SHOULD happen in this scene. But it just isn’t moving. Your characters, which were alive like just a second ago, are suddenly wooden puppets. How do you rescue yourself? What if everything that follows is riding on this particular scene and it just needs to happen, for Pete’s sake?

Try this: Skip the scene. Assume the events in it have happened and write on from there. I got this idea from mystery writer Lawrence Block’s book about writing, Spider, Spin Me a Web. (I haven’t read this book in many years, so I don’t know what age level it’s appropriate for – check with a librarian. I remember the book fondly.) Mr. Block suggests that you’ve already written the scene in your head, so actually typing or penning it is too boring for your brain to accept. If this is true, you can go merrily on, finish your story and insert the scene in revision.

But if you skip the scene and your characters are still made of wood in the scene that follows, you may have a plot problem. You may be forcing your characters to act contrary to their natures as you’ve written them.

You can ask them. Interview your characters in notes. You can write, Cindy, what’s your problem? And Cindy may say, How could you make me be rude to Mr. Morris? I wouldn’t be! You know me!

In this case, you may need to go back and turn Cindy into someone who can be rude, if that will work for the rest of the story. If not, can you make events unfold so she doesn’t have to behave badly.

Or she may say, I just don’t believe we’d raid the tower when the guards are right there, and besides, even if we liberate the royal rabbit, we can’t keep her safe. It doesn’t make sense. If you make me do it, don’t expect me to be normal about it.

If that’s what she says, or something like it, consider what’s going on in the scene. Examine your premises, especially if this is a pivotal moment in your story. Is what you’re planning believable? Is it overly complicated? Can you simplify? Talk to a friend and ask for an opinion. Have her read what you’ve got and see what her take is.

It’s possible, too, that the scene is fine. Say your friend doesn’t see the woodenness, and neither does the next person you show it to. Could be you’re just picking on yourself. Keep writing, and assume you’ll be better able to judge the scene when you’ve been away from it for a while.

But if you discover that there really is a problem with the scene, you may have to rethink a lot of your story and you may be in for a big rewrite. This is disappointing, but also an opportunity. In realizing what’s wrong, in fixing it, in making your story better than ever, you’re learning to be a better writer.

Alas and hooray, I’ve had many such learning experiences.

Here’s another possibility: You’re rushing the scene and not giving your characters a chance to be their lovable and not-so-lovable selves. You have goals for what needs to be accomplished at this plot juncture, but you may be forgetting that your characters’ goals aren’t the same as yours. Make sure you’re including your POV character’s thoughts. If the situation allows for dialogue, are you giving your characters a chance to express themselves? In your notes you might try inhabiting each one in turn. Write down what it feels like to be Cindy on a moonless night, standing at the base of the tower. Is she cold? Did she forget to wear a scarf? Is her stomach churning? Is she worried about whether she’ll be up to the job? Mad at the leader of the raid for poor planning? What’s her idea of success? Maybe, right at this moment, she’s caring more about getting back to her cozy room than about the glory of saving the royal rabbit. Maybe she giggles at the thought of how much she likes rabbit stew.

Go on to the next character. How is it to be Peter here in this moment? And on to another character.

When you’re done, think about how they can be themselves and still accomplish what needs to happen. It’s possible that you have more than one scene on your hands and that, when you slow down, all will work and be exciting.

Yet another thought: Is your setting vague? Are your characters having trouble moving around in it? Is that what’s turning them to wood?

One more: Take a look at the scene before the wooden one. How is your transition? Is everything set up for what comes next?

To summarize, I’ve listed the alternatives I just suggested, some or all of which may apply to your story:

• Skip the scene and keep going.

• Ask your characters in an interview in notes what they think the problem is.

• Change a character, or more than one, so he can behave naturally in the scene.

• Examine your premises to see if what’s happening is believable.

• If necessary, revise your plot.

• Get a friend’s opinion.

• Accept the possibility that you’re being over-critical and keep writing.

• Expand the scene to give your characters more scope to be themselves, to think, speak, and act.

• Solidify your setting so your characters can move around comfortably.

• Check to see if the problem starts in the scene before the wooden one.

Here are three prompts:

∙ Pick an old story that you didn’t finish. Reread the scene where you gave up and try the approaches I suggest above. If you get re-inspired, finish your story.

∙ The assault on the tower to rescue the royal rabbit is your pivotal scene. Write up to it, assembling your company of brave bunny saviors. Write a scene in the tower where the rabbit is confined, because I’ve gotten very curious about her. Is she intelligent? Can she talk? Is she good? Or is she the villain? How big is she? Then write the assault and the ending, if you like.

∙ The pivotal scene in Little Red Riding Hood begins when Little Red opens the door to her grandmother’s cottage. Re-imagine it. Flesh out the characters of Little Red and Grandma and Big Bad. (You may have to write the beginning as well.) Write the pivotal scene and what follows. You’re not limited to the way it goes down in the fairy tale.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Thinking It Out

On September 26, 2012, Courtney Arzu wrote, I’m an extremely young author…But I would like to know how to set up a story/novel. I can begin a story but I can’t seem to finish because I haven’t thought it out. I don’t know what I’m going to do, what the main climax is going to be or how I’m going to end it. I just wanted to ask: What “outline” would be best for creating the plot? I’ve tried multiple things, but I always end up writing halfway through and get stuck at my mid point. I don’t like writing blindly but that’s the only way I seem to know how to do. I have extreme difficulty with plot, supreme extreme difficulty and was simply wondering what to do.

I’ve read your only Planning one, and I don’t seem to click with it. I’m an odd one. As I’m so young, and just trying to kick start myself into writing. I have been telling stories since I was able to talk and I love it. I read everything I could get my hands on. By nine years old, I was in adult fiction. It wasn’t enough. I started to write my own stories, yet I could never finish one because writer’s block would poise itself in the middle of a sentence somewhere.

When I’m writing, I write tons but when I’m not, I have no ideas. A story of mine has fallen into the humor category simply because I’m filling space. I’m going to go back and edit it out but I haven’t a clue how to plan ahead. It’s a bad trait of mine and I do hope I’ll figure it out but to me the light is way at the other end of the tunnel, a couple hundred miles and I can’t quite tell if I’m going to get there before a train comes barreling in my direction.

Courtney’s question spurred this response from Maia: I started loads of stories and then never finished them b/c the plots got too complicated and I couldn’t see where they were going…so before I even start writing now, I write out the entire plot using bullet points. It’s very useful – it keeps you on track but isn’t so strict that I can’t add things here and there and often stories have taken off by themselves outside the confines of their structure.

The light in the tunnel is nearer than you think, and fortunately trains don’t happen along very often.

And this from writeforfun: I always force myself to write a roughly one page summary of the story before I start writing, because once I’m writing, I have to know where I’m going. If I can’t write the whole summary, including the climax and end, then I think about it and write an idea for an ending, even if it’s a bad one, so that I have a road map for what I’m writing. Some things will change, but that helps me a lot. Just a suggestion.

These are great suggestions – planning tips for people who don’t completely outline. But if you’d like to learn one approach to really outlining, you might enjoy Walter Dean Myers’ book Just Write: Here’s How.

I don’t outline, but I usually have an idea of the ending, and I write toward it. Often the golden coin of the ending is clutched in the fist of the beginning. The beginning introduces a problem, which the ending will solve, one way or another, happily or not. In Ella Enchanted the problem of Ella’s curse is introduced in the first chapter, and the end is right there, too, the lifting of the curse, or if the book turned out to be a tragedy, the certainty that Ella would never be free. What I wrote in between were instances, as Ella’s life progresses, of the burden of the curse, her attempts to save herself, and the life she manages to live while her suffering goes on (the budding relationship with Char, her friendship with Areida, the continuing support of Mandy).

So we can look at our beginning and ask what problem it’s posing, and then what the possible solutions are. Say we start with an alien invasion. We need to ask lots of questions about the aliens until we discover what the central question is that the beginning is posing. Are these good or evil aliens? How much more advanced are they than we are? What are their intentions toward us? Let’s say they’re neither evil nor good; they’re traders, and we have something valuable that they can trade. Say it’s lumber. They want our trees, and they have marvels to give us in exchange, but we need our trees, too, and yet the marvels are tempting. Some powerful people will make enormous fortunes from the alien goods if we do trade. Now we have the problem, and the ending is sewn up inside it: whether or not Earth will be stripped of trees.

Suppose we decide that the planet will keep its trees. That’s the way we want it to come out. How are we going to get there? Who’s going to be our MC or our MCs? Who will represent the aliens? What other characters do we need? From this we can build our summary. And then we can start working out scenes.

A fascinating but disturbing tale of an alien invasion is Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, which takes the alien theme in a surprising direction. It’s a book for adults but if I remember right it should be fine for kids twelve and up. Check with a librarian to be sure.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while you know I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer. I set off without much more than a beginning and a dim idea for the end. I’m familiar with the kind of distress that Courtney describes. The difference between us is experience, which may be annoying if you’re just starting out. Sorry! I’ve gotten through getting lost before and I’m pretty sure I can do it again. I cobble a story together from the threads I follow, and then in revision I tighten and tighten. So part of the solution is tolerance for your own writing style, which may be organized or may be messy. And another part may be tolerance for imperfection. First drafts are not supposed to be good. Good comes later, in revision.

As I’ve mentioned here, I’ve been working on a book based on the blog, which I just sent off to my editor on Monday. Much of it comes from the blog, but some I wrote for the book. Below is part of a plotting chapter. Although bits may be elsewhere here on the blog, I think at least some is new, and if not new, it all bears repeating:

Try writing a short summary of each scene that you have on an index card, then spread them out and move them around, out of their original sequence. You can even bring in scenes from other unfinished stories. Edgar in your old story can turn into Garth in the new one with a few personality adjustments. When you think about the characters, do you see new threads that connect them? Does one scene suggest itself as a fresh beginning? Another as the end? If, after rearranging, your story flows except for a few scenes that stubbornly don’t fit in anywhere, you can cut them but save them in case you find a use for them when you revise or in some future project.

If you discover that the cards move you farther along but then you bog down, you can lay them out again starting with the point where you got stuck – you don’t have to go all the way back to the beginning.

And here’s a plot exercise you can do in your notes that comes from What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter (most of this book is fine for kids, but a few chapters aren’t, so before you use it, show it to a parent). You can use this technique on a new story or an old one. If this is a new story, whenever you’re not sure where to take the story next, ask yourself, What if? and write down five options for directions the story might take. Be wild. Be carefree. Anything goes in notes. Don’t even look at what you have till you’re done.

It might go like this: My MC is at a party and feeling all alone. What if she sees a framed photo of her long-lost brother on the mantelpiece? What if she starts writing on a wall of the living room where the party is happening? What if she decides the party needs livening up and starts singing? And so on.

Now look over your list. Suppose two options appeal to you. Write a paragraph about each: what it would mean for your story, how it would take place. Pick the one you like best and return to your story. When you reach the next story decision point, ask What if? again and repeat.

If you write five possibilities and none pleases you, write three more or five more.

In an old story that you’ve given up on, ask What If? after your last sentence. If that spot doesn’t yield anything interesting, go back to a point where the story was still burning in you and ask the question. When you find a new path, start writing.

If you find them helpful, use the plotting strategies above for these two prompts:

∙ Write the story about the aliens who want our trees.

∙ Write five more What if?’s about the MC who feels alone at the party. Then write the story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Ready… Set… Send

On October 31, 2012, C.L. wrote, …how many times do you edit on your own before you send your work to your editor? How long do you wait before editing a book you just finished writing? What do you do while you’re waiting to edit one book? How many edits do you tend to go through before you’ve found you absolutely can’t do anything more to a book?

For those of you who haven’t yet discovered this, it’s generally not a good idea to start revising the moment after you finish a story. For me, I tend to think everything I’ve just written is brilliant and perfect. Some writers are convinced that their new work is drivel. Neither opinion is objective. We writers need time to let us see clearly.

My answers to C.L.’s questions change as time goes on. My process also depends on the editor I’m working with. So let me answer chronologically.

Since I began writing and hoping to get published in 1987, I’ve sought outside opinion pretty early in my process. My first effort was an art appreciation book for kids, an intolerably long picture book about a desperately ill eagle who’s the king of the birds and a sparrow who thinks he’s ugly. I included pencil drawings by me of birds and reproductions of famous artwork. A published children’s book writer lived on my block. She was kind enough to read my manuscript and blunt enough to tell me I couldn’t write. Undaunted (I don’t know why not!), I showed the manuscript to a few librarians who were more encouraging. I don’t know how many times I revised that book before I sent it into the world. Probably not enough. I leaped before I looked.

When no one wanted that book I really began my children’s book writing education by taking a class. With some of the other students I formed a critique group. And I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), which I’ve mentioned many times here. Through SCBWI I learned about publishing and I started sending manuscripts out, only picture book manuscripts because at that point I hadn’t mustered the courage to try a novel. My process was to present a manuscript to my critique group. If the criticism was light I revised and started sending. In those days you could send unsolicited manuscripts directly to publishers. If the criticism was heavy, I revised and then showed the story to my critique pals again before sending out. Maybe I revised a dozen or more times. With picture books, because they’re so short, revision goes fast. When I stopped it was because I thought I’d made my story as good as it could be.

Mostly I got form rejections, which tell you nothing. Basically, they thank you for submitting and wish you luck placing the manuscript elsewhere. I’d guess that these days agents send out something similar.

Occasionally I’d get more, maybe a scribble on my cover letter suggesting how my manuscript might be improved. That kind of comment was gold. I’d revise madly and resend.

As time went on I started getting more substantive responses from editors, who became sort of extensions of my critique groups. None of them, however, loved a story enough to buy it.

Whenever I sent out a manuscript, it was because I’d made it as good as I knew how to. I didn’t torment myself about perfection. As good as I could do had to be good enough.

When I finished a first draft or a revision, I would wait a few days or even a week before looking at it again.

My process was the same with the first novel I ever wrote, which was Dave at Night. The second was Ella Enchanted. When I wrote Ella I had begun taking a new writing class, the best ever, and our teacher was willing to critique everything we wrote. Each week I handed in whatever I’d written and the next week I got back basically an editorial letter (she had been an editor) and edits right on my manuscript. I also belonged to a critique group of classmates from this class. It was my golden age of becoming a better writer.

The point is, revision for me has always been part of the writing. Many writers don’t revise as they go. They push through a first draft to get the story and the ideas down, put it aside for however long they decide, and then go back in for the revision. This is a great way to do it, just not my way.

By the time I reached the end of Ella (with a nearly 200-page detour when I got lost in the middle), it didn’t need major revision. I don’t remember how long I put it aside for but I’m sure I waited a little while before jumping back in. I know I showed the whole thing to my critique buddies at least twice. I didn’t start sending it out until I was so sick of it that just looking at the first page made me a little nauseous. A few of my books have gone out into the world in really really good shape. Ella was one of them.

My critique group shrank to just one person. We were fine for a few years until she got sick and had to stop being my writing buddy. That was hard. I wrote Ever, A Tale of Two Castles, and two of the Disney Fairies books alone, which was rough. I like feedback. I have a new critique buddy now, the wonderful kids’ book writer Karen Romano Young.

Nowadays, after I type “The End,” I don’t have to wait very long before diving back in. The reason is that, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’ve half forgotten the beginning. When I’m writing for my long-time editor at HarperCollins, I’m willing to turn in something that isn’t completely polished. She’s seen my worst and continues to work with me, and she may have ideas that will change my story significantly. If I spend a lot of time on the polish, that effort may be wasted. Maybe I go through the manuscript twice before sending it in. Maybe not even twice.

But if I’m writing for someone new, I do polish. It’s scary to submit a piece of writing. Nothing I’ve ever written – or ever will write – has been perfect. I don’t know how the editor will respond, so I go over it until I start changing words and then changing them back. That’s when I know I’m done done done.

While I’m waiting for an editor’s answer, I start something new. It’s not pleasant to sit around waiting. The waiting is hard enough, but if I’m working on a new story I feel productive and not as if everything is riding on this one thing.

Having said all this, everybody’s different. I like fresh eyes on my work early on, and I like someone else’s take to help me as I revise. It’s hard even to show my writing in its early stages to a critique buddy especially when we’re just starting out together. When I send pages to Karen they’re really rough; my story is just forming itself; I’m exposed as a bumbler who feels my way. That’s scary, but not so scary that it stops me. I’m convinced the rewards are worth it.

Some writers don’t show their pages to anyone. An editor or an agent may be the first to see. That’s fine too. These writers are probably great self-editors.

Personality may be a factor. I’m outgoing and not easily squelched. Rejection got me down, but not forever. I popped up again. And popping up again is a quality to nurture in yourselves.

Here are three prompts:

∙ Your MC has won a writing award. She’s dressing for the award dinner and can’t seem to satisfy herself about the way she looks. Write the getting dressed scene. Make the reader worry that she may never make it to the dinner.

∙ Timothy Toad is competing in a competition to be named Toad of the Year. The contest will be judged by three former Toads of the Year. Timothy Toad isn’t certain exactly what it means to be a great toad. Is he going to be judged on character or looks or hop? Write the story of the contest.

∙ The three members of a writing group find out about a short story contest. They all decide to enter stories and agree that they’re going to critique one another’s entries beforehand so they can be as good as possible. All does not go smoothly, however. There’s tension in the group, which comes out in their communication between meetings and in the meetings themselves. Perhaps not every one of them wants the others to succeed. Write a scene or a story about the process.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Mid-book crisis

Before I start, I want to let you know that a poem of mine, “Snow Fight,” was just published in the fall/winter 2012 edition of the poetry journal Sugar House Review. The poem won’t hurt you if you’re below high school age, but it was written for adults. I haven’t read the whole issue yet, so I can’t speak for the rest. I’d say high school and above is safest. If you’re interested in getting a copy, here’s the link: http://www.sugarhousereview.com/subscribe.html.

On October 3, 2012, unsocialized homeschooler wrote, I wonder about middles. I always have some sort of ending in mind when I start writing and beginnings are usually easy for me, but it’s the middle that’s the hardest. Getting from point A to point C is always rough for me, and I can’t just skip point B. Some people have told me to take a while and outline everything, but I’m not a fan of outlines, and they don’t seem to work for me. Does anyone have any tips for getting through sagging middles?

In my opinion, there are two secrets to middle for writers who don’t outline. One lies in our characters, our main character and our secondaries. We’ll start there, and I’ll get to the second later.

Let’s look at it in terms of fairy tales, stories with the simplest of structures. Here are the beginnings and the ends of a few.

Beginning: Evil queen discovers that Snow White has surpassed her in beauty and is overcome with jealous rage.

End: Evil queen dances to death in red hot shoes at the wedding of Snow White and the prince.

Beginning: Cinderella’s father marries a horrible woman with two equally horrible daughters, and she’s made the servant of this terrible troika.

End: Cinderella marries the prince and forgives her stepfamily.

Beginning: Sleeping Beauty’s parents fail to invite an unforgiving fairy to the christening of their daughter.

End: Sleeping Beauty wakes up to a kiss by her prince.

In each of these we could drive a herd of cattle, a circus, and a marching band between the beginning and the end, meaning that anything could happen. Neither the middle nor the end is made necessary by the beginning. Let’s take the most complex of the three, “Snow White.” To get to the end and to fill up the middle, the inventor of the tale in the mists of history hauled in a magic mirror, a kind-hearted hunter, seven dwarves, and a prince – and gave the queen a few witchy powers.

Seeds for the middle and the end lurk within the character of the queen. She’s furious, but she doesn’t slip into Snow White’s bedroom at midnight and bludgeon her to death. Maybe she’s afraid of being caught, or maybe even she shies away from that degree of violence. She wants the awful deed done, but she doesn’t want to do it herself – at first. Her unwillingness moves the story along.

The next seed is that she’s a bad judge of character. She doesn’t notice the hunter’s kindness or the admiring glances he bestows on Snow White.

Snow White herself isn’t much help. She’s more of a pretty chess piece who moves from place to place merely because she’s pushed. When she’s abandoned in the forest she walks, I’ll give her that. And she stumbles on the dwarves’ cottage. You know the rest. The dwarves warn Snow White of her danger, but she’s too stupid or foolish to listen. The queen overcomes her squeamishness about violence, decides to do the job herself, and finally seems to succeed. Then the dwarves’ love for Snow White causes the next plot turn when they, weirdly, put her in a glass coffin. Finally we have a prince who, weirdly again, falls for a seemingly dead maiden.

The point is, the story moves forward through the middle because of the characters.

Let’s look at my version, Fairest, which also progresses because of the characters. Behind the scenes are the parents who abandon Aza and set her story in motion. And there are the innkeepers who take her in and mold her into a character who, although insecure, knows she’s loved and has solid values. We also have: the duchess, who can’t go to a wedding without a servant; a prince who has an eye for the exotic (Aza); a king who loves his wife; a queen who is phenomenally insecure and jealous; an evil magic mirror; and, way behind the scenes, a crazy fairy. They all, directly or indirectly, rub against Aza and, because of their complexity, create the scenes that make the plot seem to rattle along but actually slow the story’s progression with interesting moments and surprises – a satisfying middle.

Here’s the second secret, which has to do with endings. What we need to do when we enter our middle is to forget about the end with ninety percent of our brains. Only ten percent of our mind can have its eye on the finish line. And the finish line shouldn’t be worked out in detail if we haven’t outlined. If the ending is too distinct, we may force our characters to behave a certain way and they may never come to life.

Let’s try it. In our beginning, Beryl’s village has been destroyed by war. Her parents were killed, and her brother and sister were taken by the army. Let’s say she’s fifteen, old enough to have been taken too, but she was missed because she was visiting someone on the village outskirts. She’s left behind with the elderly, the sick, and the very young. Rebels prey on skeletal villages like hers. The survivors have to get to safety. We know that in the end Beryl and some of the others will make it to some haven or other, although we don’t know exactly what that will be.

We’ve written the beginning in which Beryl returns to the center of the village and discovers how bad matters are. We look around with her and consider what characters we might have. Well, we’ll probably want one or two who can help her and a few who will make her task much tougher. For the ones who can help her, there could be a child who has a hidden strength and there could be an elder who has past experience with the methods of the rebels. For the ones who get in the way, one could be too sick to move. Another could disagree with all Beryl’s ideas and could divide the villagers. We might want to figure out a way to include a rebel or two in our cast. Maybe Beryl goes spying or a lone rebel is caught by a sentry.

We’ve got quite a bit of middle going already. The very ill character gets a scene or two, likewise the one who pits characters against one another. Beryl may be slow to realize that the child with the special strength (whatever it is) has it. The one with experience may be reluctant for some reason to share. Beryl’s spy mission could run a dozen pages. The rebel who’s caught becomes part of the action.

There can be natural crises, too – a hurricane, a blizzard, earth tremors, whatever. Food can run short. More food can be discovered. In each of these, the characters will respond characteristically. There won’t merely be a hurricane, there will also be characters behaving foolishly or bravely or brilliantly in the face of it.

And it isn’t enough to grasp what the characters’ roles will be in our plot, we also have to develop the characters themselves. For example, the character who has had dealings before with the rebels may be long-winded. Beryl will need qualities that help her and others that get in her way. Maybe in the past she’s always given up too easily and she’s distracted by grief for her family but she’s a good listener and she has hunches that usually pan out.

As we’re fooling around with all this middle stuff, we have an eye out for the passage that will lead us to safety, but we also have in mind that some element of the safety should be surprising. Safety, yes, but not exactly in the form the reader expects.

Here are three prompts:

• Tell Beryl’s story, changing any elements or characters you like. Go for at least five scenes in the middle.

• Expand “Sleeping Beauty” and keep the fairies who come to the christening on the scene. Have them and other castle characters get involved in creating a middle. Remember, in the fairy tale there’s an ongoing effort to keep Sleeping Beauty from pricking herself. Decide in a vague way how you’d like the tale to end. You aren’t locked into the long sleep and the big hedge and the prince.

• Retell one of my fairy tale examples or any other fairy tale you like, but make it modern and have it take place in an acting troupe or a circus or a dance school or any other situation that will bring in a bunch of characters. Again, keep your plans for the ending indistinct.

Have fun and save what you write!