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NARRATIVE AND PROSE ENHANCEMENT DRILLS (“prose drills” for short) As a prose writer, if you cannot yet consider your style rightfully defined as a cross between Toni Morrison and Ray Bradbury, then you should work on developing a more powerful literary voice. After all, if you're going to try to become published, you might as well write as well as possible No? But do you have what it takes? Consider, all writer styles and voices are in a very large part a fusion of past immersions into good (or bad) literature. It‘s so true that you only write as well as you read. The writing of great authors soaks into you, becomes part of you, defines your ability to peel the onion and render each sliver. The point of the following prose drills is to dramatically speed up this natural process. The selection of writers and their prose is diverse, beginning with a little Shakespeare (of course!) and evolving gradually to lit more contemporary (with a dose of Plath). The names of all the writers isn't important, only their prose. So how to write prose drills and accomplish miracles? Is it easy? No. Can it become tedious? Yes, but you must persevere. The pain will be worth it. Let’s get started. Each of the following blocks of narrative is to be written in long hand only, not typed. Don’t ask us why. It just works this way and not the other way. Steps as follows: Step I: Choose three to four of the first narrative blocks. Step II: Using a pen, methodically write the first block of prose onto paper, not rushing, stopping now and then to repeat the words in your head as you go. Step III: Once done, read the entire passage you’ve written. Speak it out loud or hear your voice in head speak it, the words and sentences spoken with varying pause and rhythm (not a dull robot drone). Pretend as if you are reading this passage to an audience and it must sound good! Step IV: Repeat the process of writing out the block and reading it. Repeat this for each separate block of prose for a total of three times. Step V: Move on to the next three or four passages. Repeat the process above, and so on, until all have been written and read. The more times you accomplish the above, the more it will become a part of you. You will be astonished at the results. Truly. And btw, you can create your own set of prose drills borrowed from several authors (at least five) in your genre, authors you would love to emulate. Or you can mix a selection of your authors with the works of these authors. That's what author Anje Goodwin did. Regardless, see you at the National Book Awards! _____________ This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune - often the surfeit of our own behavior - we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves and trechers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on - an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! Our last king, whose image even now appeared to us, was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, thereto picked on by a most emulate pride, dared to the combat, in which our valiant 'Hamlet - for so this side of our known world esteemed him - did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact, well ratified by law and heraldry, did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands which he stood seized of to the conqueror. Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, wherein we saw thee quietly inured, hath opened his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again. What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse, again, in complete steel, revisit thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous, and we fools of nature so horridly to shade our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-.like a while they bore her up - which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and imbued unto that element; but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death. So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years - twenty years largely wasted, the years of the wars, trying to learn to use words, and every attempt is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure because one has only learnt to get the better of words for the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which one is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling, undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer by strength and submission, has already been discovered once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope to emulate - but there is no competition - there is only the fight to recover what has been lost and found and lost again and again. But perhaps neither gain nor loss, For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business, I can only say, there we have been, but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time. This is concentration without elimination, both a new world and the old made explicit, understood in the completion of its partial ecstasy, the resolution of its partial horror, Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness, To be conscious is not to be in time but only in time can the moment in the rose garden, the moment in the arbor where the rain beat, the moment in the draughty church at smokefall be remembered, involved with past and future, Only through time is time conquered. Only a flicker over the strained time-ridden faces distracted from distraction by distraction, filled with fancies and empty of meaning, tumid apathy with no concentration, men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind that blows before and after time, wind in and out of unwholesome lungs time before and time after. In my beginning is my end. In succession houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. In that open field on a summer midnight, if you do not come too close, you can hear the music of the weak pipe and the little drum; and we see them dancing around the bonfire, the association of man and woman in daunsinge, signifying matrimony - a dignified and commodious sacrament. Two and two, necessary conjunction, hold each other by the hand or the arm which betokens concord. Round and round the fire, leaping through the flames, or joined in circles, rustically solemn or in rustic laughter lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes, earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth, mirth of those long since under earth, nourishing the corn. Trampling its granite; their red backs gleam under my window around the stone corners; nothing more graceful, nothing nimbler in the wind. Westward the wave- gleaners, the old gray sea-going gulls are gathered together, the northwest wind wakening their wings to the wild spirals of the wind-dance. Fresh as the air, salt as the foam, play birds in the bright wind, fly falcons forgetting the oak and the pinewood, come gulls from the Carmel sands and the sands at the rivermouth, from Lobos and out of the limitless power of the mass of the sea, for a poem requires multitude, multitudes of thoughts, all fierce, all flesh-eaters, musically clamorous bright hawks that hover and dart headlong, and ungainly grey hungers fledged with desire of' transgression, salt slimed beaks, from the sharp rock-shores of the world and the secret waters. You remembered a day in August when it was foggy and sleet struck the front of your jacket with little ringing sounds and then a blue hole in the clouds opened wider and wider, like the rainbow ring that you had seen around the sun on the day before the mist had poured down from the ridges like some cold-glaring white liquid; and now the blue hole got bigger and sun came out and it was exactly 32 degrees F and you could see across the river valley again to the low brown ridge of gravel with the blue sky behind; and the wind was chilly and between the rocks grew green wet ribbons of tundra and the arctic was so beautiful that all at once you knew that you could live and die here. Snowdrifts lay steeply against that ridge, corrugated by wind rain, and the river flowed down the sand in dark blue braids. No bird sang; no sound of life was heard, but a black little spider crawled feebly in a warm spot on the mud. The peacefulness is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them shutting their mouths on it, like a communion tablet. It is Russia I have to get across, it is some war or other. I am dragging my body quietly through the straw of the boxcars. I am stepping from this skin of old bandages, boredoms, old faces. The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right, white as a knuckle and terribly upset. It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet with the 0-gape of complete despair. They're out of the dark's ragbag, these two moles dead in the pebbled rut, shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart. One, by himself, seemed pitiable enough, little victim unearthed by some large creature from his orbit under the elm root. The sky's far dome is sane and clear. Leaves, undoing their yellow caves between the road and the lake water, bare no sinister spaces. Already the moles look neutral as the stones. Their corkscrew noses, their white hands uplifted, stiffen in a family pose. I enter the soft pelt of the mole. Light's death to them: they shrivel in it. They move through their mute rooms while I sleep, palming the earth aside, grubbers after the fat children of root and rock. By day, only the topsoil heaves. I shall never get you put together entirely, pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles proceed from you great lips. It's worse than a barnyard. Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. Thirty years now I have labored to dredge the silt from your throat. I am none the wiser. Scaling little ladders with gluepots and pails of Lysol I crawl like an ant in mourning over the weedy acres of your brow to mend the immense skull-plates and clear the bald, white tumuli of your eyes. All morning, with smoking breath, the handyman has been draining the goldfish ponds. They collapse like lungs, the escaped water threading back, filament by filament, to the pure Platonic table where it lives. The baby carp litter the mud like orangepeel. Southbound cars flatten the doped snakes to ribbon. I think of the lizards airing their tongues in the crevice of an extremely small shadow, and the toad guarding his heart's droplet. The desert is white as a blind man's eye, comfortless as salt. Snake and bird doze behind the old masks of fury. We swelter like firedogs in the wind. The sun puts its cinder out. Where we lie the heat-cracked crickets congregate in their black armorplate and cry. In this country there is neither measure nor balance to redress the dominance of rocks and woods, the passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds. The horizons are too far off; the colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance. Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions and night arrives in one gigantic step. These rocks conceive a dynasty of perfect cold. In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for. I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here. The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened. Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas, the pines blotting our voices up with the lightest breeze. Despite her wild compulsion to talk and despite the frightened ravenous curiosity of her dormitory clique whom she awakened by sobbing over their beds, Melanie wasn't able to say clearly what finished happening half an hour ago. She remembered the Turk suddenly abandoned English and raved at her in furious Turkish ' and she told them about that and about the obscene tatoo flashing on his chest when she ripped his shirt open, and that he stopped the car on a country road, and there was a tall hedge, maples, sycamore, and a railroad track nearby, and a train was passing, passing, and passing, and beyond her moans, and later an animal trotting quickly on the gravel. a mysterious nightscreech, the sound of moon, and then, with no discontinuity, the motor starting it's cough and wretch and a cigarette waving at her mouth already lighted as if the worst were over and someone had started thinking of her in another way. But Mrs. Gruenwald all this time was rising and sinking like a whale, she was in a sea of her own waves and perhaps of self-generated cold, out in the middle of the lake. She cared little that Morgana girls who learned to swim were getting a dollar from home. She had deserted them, no, she had never really been with them. Not only orphans had she deserted. In the water she kept so much to the profile that her single pushing-out eyeball looked like a little bottle of something. It was said she believed in evolution. Nina stood and bent over from the waist. Calmly, she held her cup in the spring and watched it fill. They could all see how it spangled like a cold star in the curling water. The water tasted the silver cool of the rim it went over running to her lips, and at moments the cup gave her teeth a pang. Nina heard her own throat swallowing. She paused and threw a smile about her. After she had drunk she wiped the cup on her tie and collapsed it, and put the little top on, and its ring over her finger. With that, Easter, one arm tilted, charged against the green bank and mounted it. Nina felt her surveying the spring and all from above. Jinny love was down drinking like a chicken, kissing the water only. It was the kind of hospital you'd walk into and see an old orderly mapping barefoot - with an Aztec face straight out of the Anthropology Museum - stringmop mopping the waiting room, and held stop to watch you all the way down the hall, even though you'd know they must see plenty of Americans in there. Then there'd be the woman in the business office - young and pretty but with one smaller arm, with maybe something wrong with it, dangling half-hidden under her sweater. She'd be wearing a crucifix just like Dona's - the old cook back at the house - and she'd look suddenly up at you in such a way that at first you'd think she was going to start wailing like Dona did, the night before when you arrived - wailing in Spanish, over and over again the same thing - saying, "Oh, when will you bury him, Senora, when will you bury him, for he wanders in this house and calls out to me every night like before!" That pavement that had in it a little lump that went right across the middle, almost like a little small curb-type thing that would cause a something that was rolled over it to bump as it went over. I did not tell about that, and I also did not tell about the sheet - white and thick and longer, it seemed to me, than the kind of sheets you would see on beds back at the house - and about the way that sheet hung down so limply - almost wetly - on all sides from the humanish shape with the sticking-straight-up-feet on one end that trembled as they pulled out the cart and rolled it toward where I was standing out there. The orderlies pulled back that sheet at the same time they were rolling the cart along toward me both at once, in this long graceful motion - so that the cart was rolling forward at the same time that the sheet was being pulled back, so that the body seemed to be merging toward me like a something being pushed forward out one end of a something else sliding away all in one smooth motion. The mouth is a permanent fixture in the back of my mind. But there is nothing I can think of to say that will convey to you the look of that thing that seemed impossible to have ever been a mouth - that made it seem to me unthinkable that this would be what a human mouth could ever be reduced to - that I couldn't help but feel made it absurd to think that mouths exist at all. That that mouth could have uttered that hoarse weeping we heard ... And right in that moment I was seeing that mouth-thing, that half-open scissors-cut in a faceless bag of salt, the thingness of that bag-thing - its blind cartoon X's for eyes - like a being that wanted to cry out. As I think of it now, we talked about our weaknesses. We were clothed in the darkness and a little drunk and tired. How I hated being weak. That was my confession. We had tried to put up hay that day, and the bales were wet. I could lift them off the ground but couldn't muster enough strength to pitch them up onto the rack. Steve - Steve worried loneliness. It was a little puzzle. He only felt it after people had come to visit. After they were gone after a few days, he didn't notice he was alone again. But if friends visited because they thought he needed the company. He wanted them to come but hated the loneliness they brought with them and left behind. He found it curious that he didn't miss people more. That feeling frightened him. It was a wonderful conversation that contained all kinds of emptiness. The silences of one who really is getting out of the habit of speaking. The natural pauses. The silence of not knowing what to say. The desire to say nothing that will fill up the silence. It was the talk of people who knew they should be sleeping and say only enough to keep the conversation going. Above us, that night, I like to think the sky was expanding, is still expanding. Another vacuum. ___________

An Interview With Anje Goodwin Michael Neff, director of the New York Pitch Conference, talks to aspiring author, Anje Goodwin, about her leaps in narrative evolution and prose style after working with the NAPE Drills (pronounced "nap"). - A Sample of Anje's Latest Work Q: Angie, you are one of the AWC alums; we reconnected in January about some systemic issues found in a sample of your prose submitted to the forum. We discussed that a prose drill exercise could help with the problems you were facing; can you tell us a little about your expectations? And what difficulties you might have faced during the exercise. A: I’ll start by saying that you warned me that the prose drills wouldn’t be easy, and I think going in I half-hoped you were joking. The first day was admittedly the roughest, the work I knew I had to do felt daunting, and I would say that’s really where the difficulty of the exercise lay. A lot of it was just forcing myself to keep at it, which took a lot of patience on my part; I’ve always been the go-go-go type, and patience, even with myself, was never really something I excelled at, but the prose drills sort of demand it. I have a few projects in the works currently and at the time, knowing that I had to put them on hold to work on the prose drills felt a lot like punishment. I just wanted to finish my projects NOW, and that is where the difficulty of the prose drills came in. It’s not a forgiving exercise if you’re not willing to give it the time it needs; it meant/means putting my current projects aside, working on something unpleasant repeatedly, allotting a specific time for it, and sticking to it for a month maybe longer. It’s a difficult thing to do, and that’s where being patient with myself really came in. After the first week of being patient with myself and trying to find the right combination of word jumbles that felt right or felt like “me” the difficulty just sort of melted away, and it was just repetition from there. Q: It sounds like you had a bit of a rocky start, but would you say the prose drills were overall helpful to you? A: Oh, Absolutely! I worked on the prose drills in an old notebook that had the workings of another project sprawled in the first quadrant, occasionally when I would take a break from the exercise and read fragments of that project to myself and I would notice those systemic issues you mentioned in our call; I would make mental notes of where I would put a comma or how I would restructure specific sentences. I think looking at those old pages now, like you, I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly what was wrong, just that the problems were systemic. Q: Did you find that they made any significant change in your writing? If so, can you tell us some of the changes you’ve noticed in the tone of your writing? A: Actually, I did; I knew my writing was going to change, the changes were the whole point of the exercise, but I was completely unprepared for just how apparent and drastic those changes were going to be. Before the drills I would say that the tone of my writing was equal parts whimsy and monotony; while I loved concepts and events in my project looking at them now, I can see that they lacked energy. After rewriting the first quarter of my manuscript, I can say that the tone is completely different; the monotonous film that washed over everything is gone, there’s a seriousness, and an urgency weaved into the tone that wasn’t there originally; chapters feel shorter and punchy, and reading things back feels less like something I must slog through, and more like something polished. The changes are stark, but my work is better for it. Q: How have you dealt with those changes? A: I like to think I’ve accepted them; at the time of starting the prose drills, I was going through the process of rewriting my manuscript to make it query-ready, but working on the exercises meant that I had to stop. When I came back to my manuscript, the tone of my writing was very different, so I took all the work I had already done and essentially scrapped it and started on another rewrite so that the whole of the manuscript would be written in the new tone. It was admittedly a bit of a headache, but there is, unfortunately, no easy way to “perfection.” Q: By the way, you told me you were working on rewrites. Can you walk us through a little of your writing process? A: Sure! There are quite a few steps to it, so bear with me; I came up with this process a few years ago to make something that would help me stick to a strict deadline, and so far, its helped. I start things off with the obvious stuff, planning, figuring out my characters and their goals; Remeus wants to rescue her friend and family, Thaige is on a revenge mission, I chart out the details I already know are going to happen: Remeus receiving a fragment of the blade, the reveal of Morgul, and the capture of Thaige, act as anchor points, which allow me to map out the chapters between them. I say map things out because in a way, that’s what I’m doing; my anchor points are like destinations for my characters, and I have to figure out how they got there. Arguably, for me, this is the most important part; there's nothing that sets you back more than not knowing what happens next; it’s natural to get stuck on chapters: sometimes our characters and stories have a way of getting away from us in unexpected ways, and it helps to have a way to steer things back on track so to speak. And then, at last, the part where I actually write! I do my writing by hand, and I don’t edit. Occasionally when I think have a new idea THAT ABSOLUTELY MUST GO IN, I jot it down on a post-it note, slip it into whichever part of the chapter it belongs to, and continue writing. I do this until the story is finished; I filled two and a half moleskins this way. When the handwritten manuscript is finished, I begin typing it up, adding in my post-it note alterations; I must stress that I personally use a retro word processor with minimal editing capacity; I think it’s crucial to use a device or computer program that won’t allow you to edit. As writers it becomes all too easy to fall victim to over-polishing fragments of our stories before they’re complete, working and re-working certain parts until we’re left with a project that resembles Frankenstein’s monster more than it does a legible story. When everything’s all typed out, I do a basic line edit, cleaning up typos and inconsistencies before printing out the whole manuscript; I separate everything by chapter, which makes the workload seem less daunting, and from here the process seems to start all over again, chapters are rewritten by hand, typed out, and combed through once more. Lastly, the final part, I like to use the text to speech option available in Microsoft Word to tidy everything up and catch all those mistakes that are hard to notice when you’re only reading something. And that’s it! As I said before, my whole process is a little much, but it’s served me well so far. Q: Considering the tenacity and effort needed for both this lengthy process of yours and the prose drills would you recommend them? What would be your advice to people looking to try either? Honestly, I would, though I can’t say that my process would work for everyone; like with all things, people can and should take bits and pieces of my process and either add it to their own or change it in a way that better suits them, though it would make me over the moon if even one person started using this process for themselves. As for the prose drills, I would doubly advise anyone who, like me, thinks they’re done with rewrites to please give them a try when you think your book is finished, you’ve combed through your manuscript, and it feels ready to you, I would say, that’s the perfect time to set your story aside, and try the prose drills for a month. When you return to your work, it will be with fresh eyes and a changed writing style. Trust me, your manuscript will thank you for it. _______

There is a scene towards the beginning of Midnight Run in which the two main characters have their first in-depth conversation. Bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) and his captured fugitive, an embezzler with a heart of gold named Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin), are seated across from one another in the dining car on a train that’s speeding west from New York to Los Angeles, where Walsh must bring his charge. Jonathan is watching in silence as Jack gnaws on a chicken wing. Eventually he speaks, in a low, grave voice. He asks Jack, “Familiar with the word arteriosclerosis?” Jack stares back, shoving the meaty end of a drumstick into his mouth. Jonathan continues, in the same quiet, serious tone: “Cholesterol?” Jack still says nothing. “If you want, I can outline a complete balanced diet for you.” Finally Jack responds. “Mail it to me from C-block,” he says, but Jonathan remains undeterred. After a moment he asks, slightly more emphatically, “why would you eat that?” If this seems like surprising conversation between a bounty hunter and his prisoner, it is because it is, but Jack is determined not to seem taken aback by Jonathan’s questions. As normal as he might present, Jonathan is slippery. He is in this mess in the first place because, while working as an accountant, he had discovered that his firm was a front for the Chicago mob. Wanting to do something good after the years he unwittingly spent helping a sinister outfit, he has stolen $15 million from their accounts, given most of it to charity, and then vanished. Jack has located him rather easily, but he still has to drag him across the entire country in only a few days, and Jonathan is clear that he plans to subvert this plan as best he can, knowing that he will be killed by mob hit-men as soon as he arrives in LA. “I’m gonna have to give you the slip,” he tells Jack matter-of-factly while aboard the train. It is the story of a pitch-perfect, once-in-a-lifetime friendship doomed by circumstance to be nothing more than a fleeting encounter. The conversation in the dining car encapsulates the entire dynamic of the two men: Jack’s veneer of tough-guy disaffection and Jonathan’s incessant, slow, slightly-smug undermining of it. It’s clear that Jonathan will soon get under Jack’s skin, if he hasn’t already. In fact, Jonathan is already in more control over his journey towards captivity than Jack would like; they are on a train in the first place because of Jonathan’s severe “aviophobia,” which manifested in an spectacular panic attack after they boarded a plane to LA. After Jonathan’s screaming protests get them booted out of JFK, they journey to Grand Central. Jonathan smiles lightly as they walk towards the train platform; “I love to travel by train,” he calmly tells the frazzled Jack, as if nothing out of the ordinary has driven them to this point. Jonathan is stretching out their trip, looking for ways to trick Jack and escape. But he also is fascinated by the bounty hunter, a man who is his exact opposite but with whom, he realizes, he shares a sense of ethics. He is curious about him. Neither man can deny their instant connection, although they do try hard for a while. Midnight Run is, in the words of the great critic Alan Sepinwall, “the Casablanca of buddy comedies”; it is a road-trip odd-couple action-adventure but it is also, first and foremost, a tragic love story. It is the tale of a pitch-perfect, once-in-a-lifetime friendship doomed by circumstance to be nothing more than a fleeting encounter. The special thing about Midnight Run is that “friendship” isn’t merely something that happens to them because of the genre they’re in; it’s something they each really need. Each of them is alone (technically Jonathan has a wife and a dog he loves, but he is also a wanted man who must spend his life in hiding, not the greatest social scenario in the world). That they wind up being pursued by a rival bounty hunter, a gaggle of gangsters looking to kill Jonathan, and the FBI (led by the inimitable Yaphet Kotto as Special Agent Alonzo Mosely), means that for the first time, they also get to experience solidarity against the rest of the world—a beautiful thing, since, until now, both men had been up against all the forces out to get them, by themselves. Midnight Run was written by George Gallo and directed by Martin Brest in 1988, and was released to critical success. The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote that the film itself was “perfectly serviceable” and that it “might have remained a perfectly forgettable action-comedy if somebody hadn’t had the inspiration to cast Mr. De Niro and Mr. Grodin in the leading roles.” Canby is a little hard on the plot for my money (what’s so wrong with a formula if it’s followed well?), but he is right about where the film burns brightest. De Niro and Grodin have the best platonic chemistry I’ve ever seen on film, and they each alternate in the “straight man” and “lunatic” roles, making the film a true give-and-take. Grodin, as I’ve written, was a master of the “straight man” shtick, delving so far into the persona of calm normalcy that he revealed the madness inherent in it. Here, though, he starts off as the film’s neurotic foil, with De Niro’s sarcastic, pissed-off bounty hunter the reigning Bud Abbott of the duo. But the two switch in and out of these stock parts, especially once it’s clear that Jonathan, and not the bounty hunter Jack, is the one really calling the shots. Despite its frequent laughs, the film’s greatest joy is watching the two men acknowledge their feelings for one another. Grodin, all the while, plays it cool; his constant comedy comes from his subtle, straight-faced, annoying remarks, peppered with the occasional psychotic outburst. The great fun of Grodin as an actor is that it is never clear when his characters are going to blow. De Niro is a particularly good casting contrast to him because he has made a career out of playing equally pent-up characters, only his have a much wider blast radius than Grodin’s on the off chance they do explode. He creates tension by keeping his cool in circumstances where any other man would easily lose his mind, which is often far scarier a move. Throwing together two such time-bomb performers, as Midnight Run does, doesn’t yield bombast as much as balance… Jack and Jonathan never go off at the same time. And, since Jonathan is ultimately revealed to be more of a desperate lunatic than Jack, there’s a greater meta-comic payoff in watching De Niro’s Jack flounder haplessly for a few moments, whenever Jonathan does get the better of him. Despite its frequent laughs, the film’s greatest joy is watching the two men acknowledge their feelings for one another. In the middle of the second act, Jack gets on the phone with Eddie Moscone (Joe Pantoliano), the slimy bailbondsman waiting for them in LA, and yells at him for a double-cross. He shouts that he’s going to screw Moscone by killing Jonathan (thus preventing Moscone from getting a payout from the price on Jonathan’s head). But as he’s yelling this into the receiver, he looks up at Jonathan while shaking his head and frowning, reassuring Jonathan that he would not do such a thing. There are numerous little moments like this—promises, gestures between the two men that cement what they are already starting to realize, which is that they care for one another. It’s part of the film’s uniqueness that both men actually do understand that they are, of all things, soulmates. They clearly feel themselves being transformed by the presence of the other, forming a bond despite (or perhaps because of) their opposing personalities and secretly-similar worldviews. The film’s beginning suggests a reluctant friendship, but the most of the ensuing misadventures actually represent a very symbiotic collaboration. By the end of the film, they don’t want to leave each other. Although they never tell one another directly what they feel, they do allow it to become subtext when they talk. “I think… under different circumstances,” Jonathan tells Jack on another train ride, towards the film’s end, “you and I probably still would have hated each other!,” a joke which sends both men into a fit of laughter, because of course they don’t hate each other at all, they just drive each other nuts. This connection is foreshadowed in the first dining car conversation, as Jack attempts to turn the tables on Jonathan and pester him with questions for a while. Jonathan explains why he’s in this mess in the first place and why he’s kind of okay with it: “taking $15 million of mob money and giving it to charity was good for a lot of people.” Jack doesn’t buy Jonathan’s goody-goody answer, shooting back, “so you pissed off a mafioso killer just to be loved by a bunch of fucking strangers? That makes a lot of sense.” Jonathan, always determined to destabilize Jack, asks intensely, baldly, vulnerably, “don’t you want to be loved?” Jack is startled by this, averting his eyes, and deflecting quickly by saying, “lots of people love me!” And when Jonathan hears this, he, who will become the first person to love Jack Walsh in many years, pauses for a second, tilts his head, and then asks, “really?” View the full article

Introduction to Pre-event Assignments The below seven assignments are vital to reaching an understanding of specific and critical core elements that go into the creation of a commercially viable genre novel or narrative non-fiction. Of course, there is more to it than this, as you will see, but here we have a good primer that assures we're literally all on the same page before the event begins. You may return here as many times as you need to edit your topic post (login and click "edit"). Pay special attention to antagonists, setting, conflict and core wound hooks. And btw, quiet novels do not sell. Keep that in mind. Be aggressive with your work. Michael Neff Algonkian Conference Director ____________ After you've registered and logged in, create your reply to this topic (button top right). Please utilize only one reply for all of your responses so the forum topic will not become cluttered. Also, strongly suggest typing up your "reply" in a separate file then copying it over to your post before submitting. Not a good idea to lose what you've done! __________________________________________________________ THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Before you begin to consider or rewrite your story premise, you must develop a simple "story statement." In other words, what's the mission of your protagonist? The goal? What must be done? What must this person create? Save? Restore? Accomplish? Defeat?... Defy the dictator of the city and her bury brother’s body (ANTIGONE)? Struggle for control over the asylum (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST)? Do whatever it takes to recover lost love (THE GREAT GATSBY)? Save the farm and live to tell the story (COLD MOUNTAIN)? Find the wizard and a way home to Kansas (WIZARD OF OZ)? Note that all of these are books with strong antagonists who drive the plot line (see also "Core Wounds and Conflict Lines" below). FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. ___________________________________________________ THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT (Photo : Javert from "Les Misérables") What are the odds of you having your manuscript published if the overall story and narrative fail to meet publisher demands for sufficient suspense, character concern, and conflict? Answer: none. You might therefore ask, what major factor makes for a quiet and dull manuscript brimming with insipid characters and a story that cascades from chapter to chapter with tens of thousands of words, all of them combining irresistibly to produce an audible thudding sound in the mind like a mallet hitting a side of cold beef? Answer: the unwillingness or inability of the writer to create a suitable antagonist who stirs and spices the plot hash. Let's make it clear what we're talking about. By "antagonist" we specifically refer to an actual fictional character, an embodiment of certain traits and motivations who plays a significant role in catalyzing and energizing plot line(s), or at bare minimum, in assisting to evolve the protagonist's character arc (and by default the story itself) by igniting complication(s) the protagonist, and possibly other characters, must face and solve (or fail to solve). CONTINUE READING ENTIRE ARTICLE AT NWOE THEN RETURN HERE. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. ___________________________________________________ CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE What is your breakout title? How important is a great title before you even become published? Very important! Quite often, agents and editors will get a feel for a work and even sense the marketing potential just from a title. A title has the ability to attract and condition the reader's attention. It can be magical or thud like a bag of wet chalk, so choose carefully. A poor title sends the clear message that what comes after will also be of poor quality. Go to Amazon.Com and research a good share of titles in your genre, come up with options, write them down and let them simmer for at least 24 hours. Consider character or place names, settings, or a "label" that describes a major character, like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST. Consider also images, objects, or metaphors in the novel that might help create a title, or perhaps a quotation from another source (poetry, the Bible, etc.) that thematically represents your story. Or how about a title that summarizes the whole story: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, etc. Keep in mind that the difference between a mediocre title and a great title is the difference between THE DEAD GIRL'S SKELETON and THE LOVELY BONES, between TIME TO LOVE THAT CHOLERA and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA between STRANGERS FROM WITHIN (Golding's original title) and LORD OF THE FLIES, between BEING LIGHT AND UNBEARABLE and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed). ___________________________________________________ DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES Did you know that a high percentage of new novel writers don't fully understand their genre, much less comprehend comparables? When informing professionals about the nuances of your novel, whether by query letter or oral pitch, you must know your genre first, and provide smart comparables second. In other words, you need to transcend just a simple statement of genre (literary, mystery, thriller, romance, science fiction, etc.) by identifying and relating your novel more specifically to each publisher's or agent's area of expertise, and you accomplish this by wisely comparing your novel to contemporary published novels they will most likely recognize and appreciate--and it usually doesn't take more than two good comps to make your point. Agents and publishing house editors always want to know the comps. There is more than one reason for this. First, it helps them understand your readership, and thus how to position your work for the market. Secondly, it demonstrates up front that you are a professional who understands your contemporary market, not just the classics. Very important! And finally, it serves as a tool to enable them to pitch your novel to the decision-makers in the business. Most likely you will need to research your comps. If you're not sure how to begin, go to Amazon.Com, type in the title of a novel you believe very similar to yours, choose it, then scroll down the page to see Amazon's list of "Readers Also Bought This" and begin your search that way. Keep in mind that before you begin, you should know enough about your own novel to make the comparison in the first place! By the way, beware of using comparables by overly popular and classic authors. If you compare your work to classic authors like H.G. Wells and Gabriel Marquez in the same breath you will risk being declared insane. If you compare your work to huge contemporary authors like Nick Hornby or Jodi Picoult or Nora Ephron or Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling, and so forth, you will not be laughed at, but you will also not be taken seriously since thousands of others compare their work to the same writers. Best to use two rising stars in your genre. If you can't do this, use only one classic or popular author and combine with a rising star. Choose carefully! FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here. - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why? ____________________________________________________ CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Conflict, tension, complication, drama--all basically related, and all going a long way to keeping the reader's eyes fixated on your story. These days, serving up a big manuscript of quiet is a sure path to damnation. You need tension on the page at all times, and the best way to accomplish this is to create conflict and complications in the plot and narrative. Consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you MUST have present in the novel. First part, the primary dramatic conflict which drives through the work from beginning to end, from first major plot point to final reversal, and finally resolving with an important climax. Next, secondary conflicts or complications that take various social forms - anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters. Finally, those various inner conflicts and core wounds all important characters must endure and resolve as the story moves forward. But now, back to the PRIMARY DRAMATIC CONFLICT. If you've taken care to consider your story description and your hook line, you should be able to identify your main conflict(s). Let's look at some basic information regarding the history of conflict in storytelling. Conflict was first described in ancient Greek literature as the agon, or central contest in tragedy. According to Aristotle, in order to hold the interest, the hero must have a single conflict. The agon, or act of conflict, involves the protagonist (the "first fighter" or "hero") and the antagonist corresponding to the villain (whatever form that takes). The outcome of the contest cannot be known in advance, and, according to later drama critics such as Plutarch, the hero's struggle should be ennobling. Is that always true these days? Not always, but let's move on. Even in contemporary, non-dramatic literature, critics have observed that the agon is the central unit of the plot. The easier it is for the protagonist to triumph, the less value there is in the drama. In internal and external conflict alike, the antagonist must act upon the protagonist and must seem at first to overmatch him or her. The above defines classic drama that creates conflict with real stakes. You see it everywhere, to one degree or another, from classic contemporary westerns like THE SAVAGE BREED to a time-tested novel as literary as THE GREAT GATSBY. And of course, you need to have conflict or complications in nonfiction also, in some form, or you have a story that is too quiet. For examples let's return to the story descriptions and create some HOOK LINES. Let's don't forget to consider the "core wound" of the protagonist. Please read this article at NWOE then return here. The Hand of Fatima by Ildefonso Falcones A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God. Summer's Sisters by Judy Blume After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinn who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world. Note that it is fairly easy to ascertain the stakes in each case above: a young woman's love and friendship, the entire world, and harmony between opposed religions. If you cannot make the stakes clear, the odds are you don't have any. Also, is the core wound obvious or implied? FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. ______________________________________________________ OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS As noted above, consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you should ideally have present. First, the primary conflict which drives through the core of the work from beginning to end and which zeniths with an important climax (falling action and denouement to follow). Next, secondary conflicts or complications which can take various social forms (anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters). Finally, those inner conflicts the major characters must endure and resolve. You must note the inner personal conflicts elsewhere in this profile, but make certain to note any important interpersonal conflicts within this particular category." SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it? ______________________________________________________ THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING When considering your novel, whether taking place in a contemporary urban world or on a distant magical planet in Andromeda, you must first sketch the best overall setting and sub-settings for your story. Consider: the more unique and intriguing (or quirky) your setting, the more easily you're able to create energetic scenes, narrative, and overall story. A great setting maximizes opportunities for interesting characters, circumstances, and complications, and therefore makes your writing life so much easier. Imagination is truly your best friend when it comes to writing competitive fiction, and nothing provides a stronger foundation than a great setting. One of the best selling contemporary novels, THE HUNGER GAMES, is driven by the circumstances of the setting, and the characters are a product of that unique environment, the plot also. But even if you're not writing SF/F, the choice of setting is just as important, perhaps even more so. If you must place your upmarket story in a sleepy little town in Maine winter, then choose a setting within that town that maximizes opportunities for verve and conflict, for example, a bed and breakfast stocked to the ceiling with odd characters who combine to create comical, suspenseful, dangerous or difficult complications or subplot reversals that the bewildered and sympathetic protagonist must endure and resolve while he or she is perhaps engaged in a bigger plot line: restarting an old love affair, reuniting with a family member, starting a new business, etc. And don't forget that non-gratuitous sex goes a long way, especially for American readers. CONTINUE TO READ THIS ARTICLE THEN RETURN. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. ________________________ Below are several links to part of an article or whole articles that we feel are the most valuable for memoir writers. We have reviewed these and agree 110%. MEMOIR WRITING - CHOOSE A SPECIFIC EVENT (good general primer) How to Write a Memoir That People Care About | NY Book Editors NYBOOKEDITORS.COM Are you thinking of writing a memoir but you're stuck? We've got the remedy. Check out our beginner's guide on writing an epic and engaging memoir. MEMOIR MUST INCLUDE TRANSCENDENCE Writing Memoir? Include Transcendence - Memoir coach and author Marion Roach MARIONROACH.COM MEMOIR REQUIRES TRANSCENDENCE. Something has to happen. Or shift. Someone has to change a little. Or grow. It’s the bare hack minimum of memoir. WRITE IT LIKE A NOVEL How to Write a Powerful Memoir in 5 Simple Steps JERRYJENKINS.COM When it comes to writing a memoir, there are 5 things you need to focus on. If you do, your powerful story will have the best chance of impacting others. MEMOIR ANECDOTES - HOW TO MAKE THEM SHINE How to Write an Anecdote That Makes Your Nonfiction Come Alive JERRYJENKINS.COM Knowing how to write an anecdote lets you utilize the power of story with your nonfiction and engage your reader from the first page.

First of all, let's look at what a pitch should never be. This is a modified example from a past pitch conference. Despite the fact that this writer received our pitch models in advance, the following is what they produced for the first day of the conference. The title and author's name are withheld for privacy reasons. As follows: Sixteen-year-old Warren’s grandfather was his world: Chicago firefighter, Marine, master builder, musician, upstanding Polish-American man. Now Warren’s a stranger in his own house. His mother, a doctor, is guilty and distant; his father, a fire chief, means well but fails. His siblings seemed to get all his grandfather’s gifts: discipline, heroism, talent, craft. Warren tries his best to mimic their feats – swimming, piano-playing, building, firefighting – battling in spirit to take his grandfather back. He tries, and he fails. He resents and fears his awesome big brother, who guards the family heritage like a hero of yore; he envies and resents his kid brother’s grandstanding and musical gifts. Warren’s part of the family and not, home but not home, with no one and nothing but his grandfather’s picture – his one guiding light – to call his own. In the end, shame and pride drive him to dream of revenge: unable to belong in his grandfather’s world, unwilling to accept the world that he’s left, will Warren set this house on fire? Before you compare the above example to the examples below, you'll note that this pitch contains an ample amount of set-up. We learn about the kid and his life circumstances. Okay, great, and a wrap statement in the second paragraph. But what is missing? Consider, we know zero about the plot. There is no hint of it, not a sign. The writer leads us to believe the kid will lead towards a revenge of some kind, but what kind? He apparently has no journey to undertake, no challenge to overcome, no complicating obstacle as far as we can see. What must Warren do? What will Warren do? Who knows? And it's the failure to answer these questions that cuts the heart out of this pitch. The professional hearing it, or reading it, will immediately see there is no plot evident. Not exactly a good idea. We recommend instead the following as effective models for a novel pitch session. Keep the core body of the pitch to 150-200 words. Note too that your pitch is a diagnostic tool that helps professionals determine the strong and weak points of your novel, thus enabling productive discussion on matters of premise, character, and plot development. Take special note of inciting incident, protagonist intro, setting, stakes, plot points, and cliff-hangers. SURVIVING THE FOREST by Adiva Geffen Historical Women's Fiction (PROTAGONIST INTRO AND SETTING) Shurka is a happy young woman who lives a fairy tale life with her beloved husband and their two young children, in a pretty house in a village in Poland. She believes that nothing can hurt them. Or so she thinks. Then, World War II breaks out (INCITING INCIDENT) and the happy family quickly understands that their happiness has come to a brutal end. The family is forced to flee and find shelter in a neighboring ghetto (STAKES AND FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT) where they discover the Gestapo is taking Jews away on trucks every night, never to be seen again. Backs against the wall, the family makes the brave and very difficult choice to flee into the depths of a dark forest (EXTENSION OF FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT). There, surrounded by animals, they know this is their only chance to escape the real beasts. They have no idea what will await them, but they know that doing nothing is not an option if they wish to survive. (CLIFF-HANGER: WILL THEY SURVIVE? WHAT PRICE MUST BE PAID?) ______ GIRL IN CABIN 13 by A. J. Rivers Detective Murder Mystery (PROTAGONIST INTRO AND SETTING) FBI agent Emma Griffin is sent undercover to the small sleepy town of Feathered Nest to uncover the truth behind the strings of disappearances that has left the town terrified (STAKES AND INCITING INCIDENT). To Emma there is nothing that can lay buried forever. Even though her own childhood has been plagued by deaths and disappearances. Her mother’s death, her father’s disappearance, and her boyfriend’s disappearance--the only cases that she hasn’t solved. Her obsession with finding out the truth behind her past was what led her to join the FBI. Now, she must face what may be her biggest case. In Cabin 13 there lies an uneasy feeling. The feeling of her movements being watched. When a knock on her door revealed a body on her porch and her name written on a piece of paper in the dead man’s hand. Suddenly her worlds collide. (FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT) With the past still haunting her, Emma must fight past her own demons to stop the body count from rising. The woods have secrets. And this idyllic town has dark and murderous ones. Either she reveals them or risk them claiming her too. (CLIFF-HANGER AND ADDITIONAL STAKES - WILL SHE SAVE THE "FARM" AND LIVE TO TELL THE STORY?) _____ Now, go and write the pitch for your novel following a thorough analysis of the above examples, and please, take your time. Once done, put it aside for a few days then read it again and ask yourself this question: WILL THIS MAKE SOMEONE WANT TO BUY MY BOOK? _________________________________________________

The name may not ring a bell to those who aren’t criminologists, but Tony Parker greatly contributed to the literature and representation of criminals. In 22 books, this unassuming British gentleman chronicled all sorts of criminals—murderers, sex offenders, con men, and more—as well as underdogs and outsiders, from single mothers (In No Man’s Land) to miners (Red Hill), to people living in housing estates (The People of Providence) and small towns (A Place Called Bird). His method: to step aside and let people speak for themselves. It sounds so simple, but Parker excelled at it. Whenever he talked to someone for a book, they would inevitably relax and tell their life story. By using this technique, his work resembles Studs Terkel’s oral histories (his last book was on the Chicagoan, whom he admired; he died shortly after finishing it at the age of 73), or Frederick Wiseman’s self-effacing documentaries, except Parker neither had a slant nor exclusively took institutions as his subjects. Individuals concerned him more. Parker was raised amid comfortable surroundings in Stockport, Cheshire. He was born into a middle-class home on June 25, 1923. Bookish and sensitive, he started his writing career as a teen poet, whose talent and craft were nurtured by a correspondence with Edith Sitwell. However, he wasn’t sheltered; he learned hard life lessons quickly. His mother died when he was four. At 18, he was enlisted in the military, where he identified as a conscientious objector. Relieved of his duties after persuading a board of his beliefs, he went to work in a mine for 18 months, reifying his socialist views and stowing away the experience for a book many years later, Red Hill (1986). In 1952, Parker had his life shaken up. While supporting his wife and child as a publisher’s representative, he read about two teens convicted of shooting a police officer during an attempted robbery—Christopher Craig and Derrick Bentley. At the time, murder was a capital offense in England and Wales for criminals over 18. Craig being a minor, Bentley—who was mentally impaired and wasn’t the one to shoot the cop—was hung. This horrified Parker; he took a stance against capital punishment and became a regular prison visitor. His trips to penitentiaries and his conversations with inmates lead to Parker producing a feature for Paul Stephenson, a BBC Radio producer whom he knew. It was a program on the life of Robert Allerton (a pseudonym for this self-avowed professional criminal), which Parker then fleshed out, turning the program into a book he co-wrote with Allerton, The Courage of His Convictions (1962). This portrait lays down the foundation and form for his subsequent interviews and books. When Parker talked to people for his book projects, he would handle them with, as director Roger Graef put it, “a gossamer touch.” First, he would cast a wide net using the connections he cultivated throughout the years, granting him access to institutions and people typically unreachable for others. Once Parker knew who he wanted to talk to, he would not conduct interviews but start conversations—they could ask Parker anything. He had all sorts of methods to make the recorded conversation as smooth and pleasant and comfortable as possible. He would try to sit at a vantage point in which the other person was higher than him. He would act as a luddite, feigning how to work a tape recorder (which was placed conspicuously) and asking the other person to hit a button that would make the device record. And at any time, he told them they could press this other button—the “pause”—to stop recording. During these sessions, Parker would remain still and listen intently, only ever so slightly nudging the other person with a well-phrased question. To protect their privacy, he would alter names and places. By the end of projects, people would often continue their relationship with Parker, keeping in contact with him through the years. Parker’s preferred tapes were TDK D90, and he would use 200–300 of them for each book. And yet there’s no archive dedicated to him—that’s because he would incinerate the tapes after each book. What remains are the completed projects. Finishing these works required patience and dedication, for Parker would spend hours upon hours listening to his tapes before transcribing them in longhand. His wife Margery would type up the transcripts. Then began the editing process, which, according to Parker’s son Tim, could take another four to six months. The finished text would eliminate all of Parker’s questions and would be a distillation of the conversation. So finely honed, the text would capture the essence of the person. Parker had his detractors too. Michael Davies, an inmate sentenced to death before receiving a reprieve, and the subject of Parker’s The Plough Boy (1965), said in a BBC Radio 4 program that he doesn’t think Parker “can really gather from interviews just what these people are like.” It’s one thing to talk to criminals and another to experience the criminal life the way someone like Allerton and Davies had. Stephenson, the man who gave Parker his first big break, considered him too deferential and permissive—never calling into question or taking to task the people he talked to, many of whom made serious offenses. Judgement and criticism never factored into Parker’s works, however. They weren’t a part of his M.O. Rather, Parker wanted the humanity in these criminals to shine through by giving them room to narrate their life course, all the steps taken that had led them to the moment where they are now. He didn’t just publish collections of interviews—that would be diminishing his legacy. There was an art to what he was doing, for he practiced and executed his craft with sensitivity and care, making his books transcend their visage of documentary realism. Parker rendered people as they were by letting them tell their narratives. He saw murderers, thieves, lighthouse keepers, and the homeless not as categories but as flesh-and-blood humans. View the full article

Introduction to Pre-event Assignments The below seven assignments are vital to reaching an understanding of specific and critical core elements that go into the creation of a commercially viable genre novel or narrative non-fiction. Of course, there is more to it than this, as you will see, but here we have a good primer that assures we're literally all on the same page before the event begins. You may return here as many times as you need to edit your topic post (login and click "edit"). Pay special attention to antagonists, setting, conflict and core wound hooks. And btw, quiet novels do not sell. Keep that in mind. Be aggressive with your work. Michael Neff Algonkian Conference Director ____________ After you've registered and logged in, create your reply to this topic (button top right). Please utilize only one reply for all of your responses so the forum topic will not become cluttered. Also, strongly suggest typing up your "reply" in a separate file then copying it over to your post before submitting. Not a good idea to lose what you've done! __________________________________________________________ THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Before you begin to consider or rewrite your story premise, you must develop a simple "story statement." In other words, what's the mission of your protagonist? The goal? What must be done? What must this person create? Save? Restore? Accomplish? Defeat?... Defy the dictator of the city and her bury brother’s body (ANTIGONE)? Struggle for control over the asylum (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST)? Do whatever it takes to recover lost love (THE GREAT GATSBY)? Save the farm and live to tell the story (COLD MOUNTAIN)? Find the wizard and a way home to Kansas (WIZARD OF OZ)? Note that all of these are books with strong antagonists who drive the plot line (see also "Core Wounds and Conflict Lines" below). FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. ___________________________________________________ THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT (Photo : Javert from "Les Misérables") What are the odds of you having your manuscript published if the overall story and narrative fail to meet publisher demands for sufficient suspense, character concern, and conflict? Answer: none. You might therefore ask, what major factor makes for a quiet and dull manuscript brimming with insipid characters and a story that cascades from chapter to chapter with tens of thousands of words, all of them combining irresistibly to produce an audible thudding sound in the mind like a mallet hitting a side of cold beef? Answer: the unwillingness or inability of the writer to create a suitable antagonist who stirs and spices the plot hash. Let's make it clear what we're talking about. By "antagonist" we specifically refer to an actual fictional character, an embodiment of certain traits and motivations who plays a significant role in catalyzing and energizing plot line(s), or at bare minimum, in assisting to evolve the protagonist's character arc (and by default the story itself) by igniting complication(s) the protagonist, and possibly other characters, must face and solve (or fail to solve). CONTINUE READING ENTIRE ARTICLE AT NWOE THEN RETURN HERE. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. ___________________________________________________ CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE What is your breakout title? How important is a great title before you even become published? Very important! Quite often, agents and editors will get a feel for a work and even sense the marketing potential just from a title. A title has the ability to attract and condition the reader's attention. It can be magical or thud like a bag of wet chalk, so choose carefully. A poor title sends the clear message that what comes after will also be of poor quality. Go to Amazon.Com and research a good share of titles in your genre, come up with options, write them down and let them simmer for at least 24 hours. Consider character or place names, settings, or a "label" that describes a major character, like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST. Consider also images, objects, or metaphors in the novel that might help create a title, or perhaps a quotation from another source (poetry, the Bible, etc.) that thematically represents your story. Or how about a title that summarizes the whole story: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, etc. Keep in mind that the difference between a mediocre title and a great title is the difference between THE DEAD GIRL'S SKELETON and THE LOVELY BONES, between TIME TO LOVE THAT CHOLERA and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA between STRANGERS FROM WITHIN (Golding's original title) and LORD OF THE FLIES, between BEING LIGHT AND UNBEARABLE and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed). ___________________________________________________ DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES Did you know that a high percentage of new novel writers don't fully understand their genre, much less comprehend comparables? When informing professionals about the nuances of your novel, whether by query letter or oral pitch, you must know your genre first, and provide smart comparables second. In other words, you need to transcend just a simple statement of genre (literary, mystery, thriller, romance, science fiction, etc.) by identifying and relating your novel more specifically to each publisher's or agent's area of expertise, and you accomplish this by wisely comparing your novel to contemporary published novels they will most likely recognize and appreciate--and it usually doesn't take more than two good comps to make your point. Agents and publishing house editors always want to know the comps. There is more than one reason for this. First, it helps them understand your readership, and thus how to position your work for the market. Secondly, it demonstrates up front that you are a professional who understands your contemporary market, not just the classics. Very important! And finally, it serves as a tool to enable them to pitch your novel to the decision-makers in the business. Most likely you will need to research your comps. If you're not sure how to begin, go to Amazon.Com, type in the title of a novel you believe very similar to yours, choose it, then scroll down the page to see Amazon's list of "Readers Also Bought This" and begin your search that way. Keep in mind that before you begin, you should know enough about your own novel to make the comparison in the first place! By the way, beware of using comparables by overly popular and classic authors. If you compare your work to classic authors like H.G. Wells and Gabriel Marquez in the same breath you will risk being declared insane. If you compare your work to huge contemporary authors like Nick Hornby or Jodi Picoult or Nora Ephron or Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling, and so forth, you will not be laughed at, but you will also not be taken seriously since thousands of others compare their work to the same writers. Best to use two rising stars in your genre. If you can't do this, use only one classic or popular author and combine with a rising star. Choose carefully! FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here. - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why? ____________________________________________________ CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Conflict, tension, complication, drama--all basically related, and all going a long way to keeping the reader's eyes fixated on your story. These days, serving up a big manuscript of quiet is a sure path to damnation. You need tension on the page at all times, and the best way to accomplish this is to create conflict and complications in the plot and narrative. Consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you MUST have present in the novel. First part, the primary dramatic conflict which drives through the work from beginning to end, from first major plot point to final reversal, and finally resolving with an important climax. Next, secondary conflicts or complications that take various social forms - anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters. Finally, those various inner conflicts and core wounds all important characters must endure and resolve as the story moves forward. But now, back to the PRIMARY DRAMATIC CONFLICT. If you've taken care to consider your story description and your hook line, you should be able to identify your main conflict(s). Let's look at some basic information regarding the history of conflict in storytelling. Conflict was first described in ancient Greek literature as the agon, or central contest in tragedy. According to Aristotle, in order to hold the interest, the hero must have a single conflict. The agon, or act of conflict, involves the protagonist (the "first fighter" or "hero") and the antagonist corresponding to the villain (whatever form that takes). The outcome of the contest cannot be known in advance, and, according to later drama critics such as Plutarch, the hero's struggle should be ennobling. Is that always true these days? Not always, but let's move on. Even in contemporary, non-dramatic literature, critics have observed that the agon is the central unit of the plot. The easier it is for the protagonist to triumph, the less value there is in the drama. In internal and external conflict alike, the antagonist must act upon the protagonist and must seem at first to overmatch him or her. The above defines classic drama that creates conflict with real stakes. You see it everywhere, to one degree or another, from classic contemporary westerns like THE SAVAGE BREED to a time-tested novel as literary as THE GREAT GATSBY. And of course, you need to have conflict or complications in nonfiction also, in some form, or you have a story that is too quiet. For examples let's return to the story descriptions and create some HOOK LINES. Let's don't forget to consider the "core wound" of the protagonist. Please read this article at NWOE then return here. The Hand of Fatima by Ildefonso Falcones A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God. Summer's Sisters by Judy Blume After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinn who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world. Note that it is fairly easy to ascertain the stakes in each case above: a young woman's love and friendship, the entire world, and harmony between opposed religions. If you cannot make the stakes clear, the odds are you don't have any. Also, is the core wound obvious or implied? FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. ______________________________________________________ OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS As noted above, consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you should ideally have present. First, the primary conflict which drives through the core of the work from beginning to end and which zeniths with an important climax (falling action and denouement to follow). Next, secondary conflicts or complications which can take various social forms (anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters). Finally, those inner conflicts the major characters must endure and resolve. You must note the inner personal conflicts elsewhere in this profile, but make certain to note any important interpersonal conflicts within this particular category." SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it? ______________________________________________________ THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING When considering your novel, whether taking place in a contemporary urban world or on a distant magical planet in Andromeda, you must first sketch the best overall setting and sub-settings for your story. Consider: the more unique and intriguing (or quirky) your setting, the more easily you're able to create energetic scenes, narrative, and overall story. A great setting maximizes opportunities for interesting characters, circumstances, and complications, and therefore makes your writing life so much easier. Imagination is truly your best friend when it comes to writing competitive fiction, and nothing provides a stronger foundation than a great setting. One of the best selling contemporary novels, THE HUNGER GAMES, is driven by the circumstances of the setting, and the characters are a product of that unique environment, the plot also. But even if you're not writing SF/F, the choice of setting is just as important, perhaps even more so. If you must place your upmarket story in a sleepy little town in Maine winter, then choose a setting within that town that maximizes opportunities for verve and conflict, for example, a bed and breakfast stocked to the ceiling with odd characters who combine to create comical, suspenseful, dangerous or difficult complications or subplot reversals that the bewildered and sympathetic protagonist must endure and resolve while he or she is perhaps engaged in a bigger plot line: restarting an old love affair, reuniting with a family member, starting a new business, etc. And don't forget that non-gratuitous sex goes a long way, especially for American readers. CONTINUE TO READ THIS ARTICLE THEN RETURN. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. ________________________ Below are several links to part of an article or whole articles that we feel are the most valuable for memoir writers. We have reviewed these and agree 110%. MEMOIR WRITING - CHOOSE A SPECIFIC EVENT (good general primer) How to Write a Memoir That People Care About | NY Book Editors NYBOOKEDITORS.COM Are you thinking of writing a memoir but you're stuck? We've got the remedy. Check out our beginner's guide on writing an epic and engaging memoir. MEMOIR MUST INCLUDE TRANSCENDENCE Writing Memoir? Include Transcendence - Memoir coach and author Marion Roach MARIONROACH.COM MEMOIR REQUIRES TRANSCENDENCE. Something has to happen. Or shift. Someone has to change a little. Or grow. It’s the bare hack minimum of memoir. WRITE IT LIKE A NOVEL How to Write a Powerful Memoir in 5 Simple Steps JERRYJENKINS.COM When it comes to writing a memoir, there are 5 things you need to focus on. If you do, your powerful story will have the best chance of impacting others. MEMOIR ANECDOTES - HOW TO MAKE THEM SHINE How to Write an Anecdote That Makes Your Nonfiction Come Alive JERRYJENKINS.COM Knowing how to write an anecdote lets you utilize the power of story with your nonfiction and engage your reader from the first page.

There comes a moment in every long-running series character’s journey to step out of time to join the pantheon of the greats and live forever. So why has author Lee Child denied Jack Reacher—the current King of Crime Fiction—immortality? Like everyone else in the free world, I’m a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. Reacher is a modern-day Conan, roaming the land without attachment or possessions, stumbling into trouble then moving on the second he’s crushed it into dust. Child injects just enough hard-boiled metaphor into his lean, mean prose to keep us aware that while the author has chops, he’s sparing with the hatchet. Before the Jack Reacher series became the juggernaut we know today, Child made the decision to age Reacher in real time. Which leads to one of the unintentional problems caused by lasting success: Jack Reacher is on his way to becoming a senior citizen. In the Beginning When the series got its start with The Killing Floor in 1997, Jack Reacher was thirty-five. Child has turned out a new Reacher yarn every year since (and two in 2010!). Decades passing isn’t an issue for a less imposing protagonist, but Reacher is a hulking monolith of epic proportions. Pushing sixty, Jack Reacher is transitioning genres from crime’s hard-boiled genetic anomaly into the realm of science fiction. Other authors have confronted this same issue. How did the prior King of Crime Fiction deal with these mortal stakes? Robert B. Parker had to address the same issue with Spenser. (As an aside, Spenser has no first name. Jack Reacher has no middle name. If Child could do it all over again, I wonder if it would be Reacher, first name unknown.) In his maiden voyage, Spenser is also in his mid-thirties. Fifty years later, Spenser has outlived his creator and his double-jab-cross combo hasn’t lost any snap. Parker’s solution to the time problem was ignoring it, which led to some unusual continuity issues. For example, the longer Spenser states he and Susan have been together, the younger they become when they first meet, which was in the second Spenser novel. By then, Spenser has served in the armed forces, gone to college, boxed, and worked for the district attorney’s office. The Spenser character is mostly unaffected by the passing years, though he lost the progressive edge he had in the 1970’s. Now instead of ahead of the times, Spenser is firmly in step, or perhaps even a little behind. Spenser paid for eternal life in relevance. Other characters—James Bond for example—lost context on gaining immortality. Comic book characters are forever locked in time. Not only does their readership accept it, they demand it. When creators attempt to replace the heroes with a younger generation, the changes are soon undone. The difference is that Spenser and Reacher occupy less fantastic settings, though we know their world isn’t ours. In our world, no one lives forever. Before the Beginning The many adventures series characters live elevate them to mythic status. Not only in quality, as the stakes rise, but in sheer quantity, as the corpses they leave in their wake also stack up. With Spenser, it begins to strike strange that the Boston Police Department is not concerned with a man with a triple-digit butcher’s bill. Jack Reacher’s body count is easier to digest. Much like a successful serial killer, Reacher is nomadic by nature, with little connection to the events. Reacher by nature is unbothered by killing, unlike early Spenser, who becomes physically ill after luring two of Joe Broz’s goons into a trap. Within a few books, Spenser is no longer bothered. Once immortal, death becomes an abstract concept. But as a series character’s adventures rise to mythic levels, his origins must be revised to match. For Spenser, he began as a boxing contender whose championship run stopped at Jersey Joe Walcott (born 1914). But as the years passed, once having faced off against Joe Walcott now inched towards elder abuse, and the detective’s origin changed. Spenser no longer left boxing because he lacked what it took to win a championship title, but rather due to corruption. Gone was any implication he couldn’t have been the best of the best. In Sudden Mischief, the twenty-fifth novel, Spenser feeds Susan Silverman’s ex-husband a left hook Spenser is sure would have won him the belt, had he mastered the blow back then. Jack Reacher began as a military police investigator, but over time this became beneath someone who, among other accomplishments, is the only non-Marine to win the Wimbledon Cup. Thus Child conceived the 110th MP Special Investigations Unit—a secret, special forces division of the military police. In the early books, Reacher left the army during a force reduction. But such a mundane reason does not befit a budding immortal. In the sixteenth Reacher novel, The Affair, the circumstances of Reacher’s resignation are altered to suit his mythic evolution. Before The Affair was released, I was curious if Child would pull Reacher out of time. The way Batman has always been Batman for around ten years, Reacher might now permanently always be a decade out of the army, forty-five years young forever. On reading the book I was surprised that while the circumstances of Reacher’s resignation changed, the date of it did not. Child had passed on the chance to immortalize his creation. Perhaps part of the decision is Lee Child’s fascination with the Cold War. He wanted a Reacher who was active in the 1980’s so he could scratch his itch to tell those stories. So again like Conan, the Reacher novels slide back and forth in the character’s timeline. This solution allowed Child to tell us tales at any point in Reacher’s life, but it doesn’t remove the point of his inevitable death. Right now, Reacher, who could fold me into an elegant swan, is around the corner from a discount at Denny’s. If he had an address, his mailbox would be packed with AARP invitations. If Reacher continues to age in real time, he’ll be collecting Social Security in 2024. Readers likely won’t mind. I will happily suspend my disbelief if it means reading a Reacher book on my deathbed. But the situation raises an interesting question. We all hope to create a character that outlives us. Now that the series has changed authors, will Jack Reacher take that step? Once more, we can turn to Spenser. When a character is passed from the creator to a new author, some changes are inevitable (thank you, Ace Adkins, for not moving Spenser into an abandoned firehouse). Now that Jack Reacher has been passed to Andrew Child, we should expect some transformations. Within one book, Reacher has already gotten better looking and more tech savvy. With an Amazon television series around the corner—whose showrunners have stated each season will cover the contents of a single novel—immortality beckons. My prediction: Long will live the King of Crime Fiction. *** View the full article

Various interviews and reviews over the years conducted with writers who attended the New York Pitch Conference (Ripley Greer Studios). Reasonably detailed. A few meander but they contain sufficiently good advice for neophyte writers. Halie and Lee Ann walk down the New York Pitch Conference memory lane, talking about how it turned them around as writers, and helped make them friends for life. The above is from one of the older conferences with more limited programming, however, even at that time we utilized pre-pitch workshops to conduct novel analysis and go forward with edits.

Introduction to Pre-event Assignments The below seven assignments are vital to reaching an understanding of specific and critical core elements that go into the creation of a commercially viable genre novel or narrative non-fiction. Of course, there is more to it than this, as you will see, but here we have a good primer that assures we're literally all on the same page before the event begins. You may return here as many times as you need to edit your topic post (login and click "edit"). Pay special attention to antagonists, setting, conflict and core wound hooks. And btw, quiet novels do not sell. Keep that in mind. Be aggressive with your work. Michael Neff Algonkian Conference Director ____________ After you've registered and logged in, create your reply to this topic (button top right). Please utilize only one reply for all of your responses so the forum topic will not become cluttered. Also, strongly suggest typing up your "reply" in a separate file then copying it over to your post before submitting. Not a good idea to lose what you've done! __________________________________________________________ THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Before you begin to consider or rewrite your story premise, you must develop a simple "story statement." In other words, what's the mission of your protagonist? The goal? What must be done? What must this person create? Save? Restore? Accomplish? Defeat?... Defy the dictator of the city and her bury brother’s body (ANTIGONE)? Struggle for control over the asylum (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST)? Do whatever it takes to recover lost love (THE GREAT GATSBY)? Save the farm and live to tell the story (COLD MOUNTAIN)? Find the wizard and a way home to Kansas (WIZARD OF OZ)? Note that all of these are books with strong antagonists who drive the plot line (see also "Core Wounds and Conflict Lines" below). FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. ___________________________________________________ THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT (Photo : Javert from "Les Misérables") Since the antagonist in nearly all successful commercial fiction is the driver of the plot line, what are the odds of you having your manuscript published if the overall story and narrative fail to meet reader (and publisher) demands for sufficient suspense, character concern, and conflict? Answer: none. But what major factor makes for a quiet or dull manuscript brimming with insipid characters and a story that cascades from chapter to chapter with tens of thousands of words, all of them combining irresistibly to produce an audible thudding sound in the mind, rather like a fist hitting a side of cold beef? Such a dearth of vitality in narrative and story frequently results from the unwillingness of the writer to create a suitable antagonist who stirs and spices the plot hash. Let's make it clear what we're talking about. By "antagonist" we specifically refer to an actual fictional character, an embodiment of certain traits and motivations who plays a significant role in catalyzing and energizing plot line(s), or at bare minimum, in assisting to evolve the protagonist's character arc (and by default the story itself) by igniting complication(s) the protagonist, and possibly other characters, must face and solve (or fail to solve). CONTINUE READING ENTIRE ARTICLE AT NWOE THEN RETURN HERE. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. ___________________________________________________ CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE What is your breakout title? How important is a great title before you even become published? Very important! Quite often, agents and editors will get a feel for a work and even sense the marketing potential just from a title. A title has the ability to attract and condition the reader's attention. It can be magical or thud like a bag of wet chalk, so choose carefully. A poor title sends the clear message that what comes after will also be of poor quality. Go to Amazon.Com and research a good share of titles in your genre, come up with options, write them down and let them simmer for at least 24 hours. Consider character or place names, settings, or a "label" that describes a major character, like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST. Consider also images, objects, or metaphors in the novel that might help create a title, or perhaps a quotation from another source (poetry, the Bible, etc.) that thematically represents your story. Or how about a title that summarizes the whole story: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, etc. Keep in mind that the difference between a mediocre title and a great title is the difference between THE DEAD GIRL'S SKELETON and THE LOVELY BONES, between TIME TO LOVE THAT CHOLERA and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA between STRANGERS FROM WITHIN (Golding's original title) and LORD OF THE FLIES, between BEING LIGHT AND UNBEARABLE and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed). ___________________________________________________ DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES Did you know that a high percentage of new novel writers don't fully understand their genre, much less comprehend comparables? When informing professionals about the nuances of your novel, whether by query letter or oral pitch, you must know your genre first, and provide smart comparables second. In other words, you need to transcend just a simple statement of genre (literary, mystery, thriller, romance, science fiction, etc.) by identifying and relating your novel more specifically to each publisher's or agent's area of expertise, and you accomplish this by wisely comparing your novel to contemporary published novels they will most likely recognize and appreciate--and it usually doesn't take more than two good comps to make your point. Agents and publishing house editors always want to know the comps. There is more than one reason for this. First, it helps them understand your readership, and thus how to position your work for the market. Secondly, it demonstrates up front that you are a professional who understands your contemporary market, not just the classics. Very important! And finally, it serves as a tool to enable them to pitch your novel to the decision-makers in the business. Most likely you will need to research your comps. If you're not sure how to begin, go to Amazon.Com, type in the title of a novel you believe very similar to yours, choose it, then scroll down the page to see Amazon's list of "Readers Also Bought This" and begin your search that way. Keep in mind that before you begin, you should know enough about your own novel to make the comparison in the first place! By the way, beware of using comparables by overly popular and classic authors. If you compare your work to classic authors like H.G. Wells and Gabriel Marquez in the same breath you will risk being declared insane. If you compare your work to huge contemporary authors like Nick Hornby or Jodi Picoult or Nora Ephron or Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling, and so forth, you will not be laughed at, but you will also not be taken seriously since thousands of others compare their work to the same writers. Best to use two rising stars in your genre. If you can't do this, use only one classic or popular author and combine with a rising star. Choose carefully! FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here. - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why? ____________________________________________________ CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Conflict, tension, complication, drama--all basically related, and all going a long way to keeping the reader's eyes fixated on your story. These days, serving up a big manuscript of quiet is a sure path to damnation. You need tension on the page (esp in fiction), at all times, and the best way to accomplish this is to create (or find them in your nonfiction story) conflict and complications in the plot and narrative. Consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you should ideally have present. First, the primary conflict which drives through the core of the work from beginning to end and which zeniths with an important climax (falling action and denouement to follow). Next, secondary conflicts or complications which can take various social forms (anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters). Finally, those inner conflicts the major characters must endure and resolve. And now, onto the PRIMARY CONFLICT. If you've taken care to consider your story description and your hook line, you should be able to identify your main conflict(s). Let's look at some basic information regarding the history of conflict in storytelling: Conflict was first described in ancient Greek literature as the agon, or central contest in tragedy. According to Aristotle, in order to hold the interest, the hero must have a single conflict. The agon, or act of conflict, involves the protagonist (the "first fighter") and the antagonist (a more recent term), corresponding to the hero and villain. The outcome of the contest cannot be known in advance, and, according to later critics such as Plutarch, the hero's struggle should be ennobling. Is that always true these days? Not always, but let's move on. Even in contemporary, non-dramatic literature, critics have observed that the agon is the central unit of the plot. The easier it is for the protagonist to triumph, the less value there is in the drama. In internal and external conflict alike, the antagonist must act upon the protagonist and must seem at first to overmatch him or her. The above defines classic drama that creates conflict with real stakes. You see it everywhere, to one degree or another, from classic contemporary westerns like THE SAVAGE BREED to a time-tested novel as literary as THE GREAT GATSBY. And of course, you need to have conflict or complications in nonfiction also, in some form, or you have a story that is too quiet. For examples let's return to the story descriptions and create some HOOK LINES. Let's don't forget to consider the "core wound" of the protagonist. Please read this article at NWOE then return here. The Hand of Fatima by Ildefonso Falcones A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God. Summer's Sisters by Judy Blume After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinn who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world. Note that it is fairly easy to ascertain the stakes in each case above: a young woman's love and friendship, the entire world, and harmony between opposed religions. If you cannot make the stakes clear, the odds are you don't have any. Also, is the core wound obvious or implied? FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. ______________________________________________________ OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS Consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you should ideally have present. First, the primary conflict which drives through the core of the work from beginning to end and which zeniths with an important climax (falling action and denouement to follow). Next, secondary conflicts or complications which can take various social forms (anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters). Finally, those inner conflicts the major characters must endure and resolve. You must note the inner personal conflicts elsewhere in this profile, but make certain to note any important interpersonal conflicts within this particular category." SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it? ______________________________________________________ THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING When considering your novel, whether taking place in a contemporary urban world or on a distant magical planet in Andromeda, you must first sketch the best overall setting and sub-settings for your story. Consider: the more unique and intriguing (or quirky) your setting, the more easily you're able to create energetic scenes, narrative, and overall story. A great setting maximizes opportunities for interesting characters, circumstances, and complications, and therefore makes your writing life so much easier. Imagination is truly your best friend when it comes to writing competitive fiction, and nothing provides a stronger foundation than a great setting. One of the best selling contemporary novels, THE HUNGER GAMES, is driven by the circumstances of the setting, and the characters are a product of that unique environment, the plot also. But even if you're not writing SF/F, the choice of setting is just as important, perhaps even more so. If you must place your upmarket story in a sleepy little town in Maine winter, then choose a setting within that town that maximizes opportunities for verve and conflict, for example, a bed and breakfast stocked to the ceiling with odd characters who combine to create comical, suspenseful, dangerous or difficult complications or subplot reversals that the bewildered and sympathetic protagonist must endure and resolve while he or she is perhaps engaged in a bigger plot line: restarting an old love affair, reuniting with a family member, starting a new business, etc. And don't forget that non-gratuitous sex goes a long way, especially for American readers. CONTINUE TO READ THIS ARTICLE THEN RETURN. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. ________________________ Below are several links to part of an article or whole articles that we feel are the most valuable for memoir writers. We have reviewed these and agree 110%. MEMOIR WRITING - CHOOSE A SPECIFIC EVENT (good general primer) How to Write a Memoir That People Care About | NY Book Editors NYBOOKEDITORS.COM Are you thinking of writing a memoir but you're stuck? We've got the remedy. Check out our beginner's guide on writing an epic and engaging memoir. MEMOIR MUST INCLUDE TRANSCENDENCE Writing Memoir? Include Transcendence - Memoir coach and author Marion Roach MARIONROACH.COM MEMOIR REQUIRES TRANSCENDENCE. Something has to happen. Or shift. Someone has to change a little. Or grow. It’s the bare hack minimum of memoir. WRITE IT LIKE A NOVEL How to Write a Powerful Memoir in 5 Simple Steps JERRYJENKINS.COM When it comes to writing a memoir, there are 5 things you need to focus on. If you do, your powerful story will have the best chance of impacting others. MEMOIR ANECDOTES - HOW TO MAKE THEM SHINE How to Write an Anecdote That Makes Your Nonfiction Come Alive JERRYJENKINS.COM Knowing how to write an anecdote lets you utilize the power of story with your nonfiction and engage your reader from the first page.

The novel writing, development, editing, and pitch forums are for utilization by New York Write to Pitch and all other Algonkian alums, as well as AAC members and guests. This is the primary focal point for polishing, rewriting, or beginning a new genre or literary plot-driven manuscript. Novel Development Forums, Programs, and Events Novel Writing and Editing - Concept to Query Platitudes, entitled amateurism, popular delusions, and erroneous information are all conspicuously absent from this collection of detailed novel writing guides and maxims. The goal is to provide you, the aspiring novel author, with the skills and knowledge it takes to realistically compete in the commercial book market of the 21st century. Best to begin the journey with Labors, Sins, and Six Acts which includes an overview and linkage to the best of AAC and Novel Writing on Edge. This forum grouping also contains the critical "Bad Novel Writing Advice" designed to assist writers in avoiding counterproductive contamination; "Art and Life in Novel Writing" (insightful reviews of books on novel writing, among other things) that provides a balance of important advice from varying perspectives; the 16-Part "Algonkian Novel Writing Program" for editing or writing the genre novel in "six act" stages, as well as the Algonkian Writer Conferences forum, FAQ, and all other things related to Algonkian. __________ ACC Writer Info Forums and Video Critiques Reviews, Commentary, and Plenty of Controversy Entertaining literary book analysis in Audrey's Corner with an aim towards helping aspiring novel writers; Writing With Quiet Hands, a new novel writing advice column by legendary agent, Paula Munier; Unicorn Mech Suit, a diverse collection of SFF interviews and insights; plus Cara's Cabinet collection of ravels and unravels, combed feed, and worthwhile nuggets of information culled from AAC essays and articles. And don't neglect our most popular forum of all wherein our resident geniuses dissect and discuss novel writing videos from a number of sources--unquestionably worth a rant or two. Just ask Stephen King who hates plotting! __________ Narrative Critique Forum New York Write to Pitch and Algonkian Perspectives A forum for New York Write to Pitch alums to post samples of their scenes and prose narrative for detailed critique based on AAC guidelines. Emphasis on choice of set, narrative cinema, quality of dialogue, metaphor, static and dynamic imagery, interior monologue, general clarity, tone, suspense devices, and routine line editing issues as well.

What is the Purpose of Algonkian? To give writers in all genres a realistic chance at becoming published commercial or literary authors by providing them with the professional connections, feedback, advanced craft knowledge and savvy they need to succeed in today's extremely competitive market. What is Your Strategy for Getting Writers Published? - A model-and-context pedagogy that utilizes models of craft taken from great fiction authors and playwrights, thereby enabling the writer to pick and choose the most appropriate techniques for utilization in the context of their own work-in-progress. - Emphasis on providing pragmatic, evidence-based novel writing guidance rather than encouraging multiple "writer group" opinions and myths that might well confuse the aspiring author. - Our insistence that a writer's particular genre market must first be thoroughly understood and taken into consideration when it comes to the planning of the novel, and on every level from narrative hook to final plot point--thus clearly separating us from the MFA approach found at university programs like Iowa and Stanford. - Our conviction that you were not born to be a good or great author, but that you stand on the shoulders of great authors gone before. Their technique and craft are there for you to learn, and learn you must as an apprentice to your art. Every success you achieve is based on hard work and evolving your skills and knowledge base. - Our instructional and workshopping methods, as well as our pre-event novel writing guides and assignments which are the best in the business. How are Algonkian Events Unlike Many Other Workshops and Conferences? - More than sufficient time for productive and personal dialogues with faculty. No "speed" dating-like pitch sessions. - Critical MS and prose narrative critique provided by faculty only, not attendees (no MFA methodology). - Comprehensive 86-page novel-and-fiction study guide. - Extensive pitch prep before events with agents or publishers. - As noted above, unique and challenging pre-conference assignments that focus on all major novel elements. - An event focus on market-positioning, high-concept story premise, author platform, and competitive execution. - Emphasis on pragmatism and truth telling. No false flattering or avoidance of critical advice to spare the writer's feelings. Thin skins need to go somewhere else. - No tedious lectures, pointless keynotes, or bad advice. - Faculty chosen for wisdom as well as compassion - no snobs or bad attitudes. How to Know When My Novel is Ready for a Program or Event? When is it not? The novel-in-progress, even if only a concept, is ready to be examined and properly developed no matter the stage because the process always entails approaching story premise and execution in a manner that is productive. In truth, it's a process that should have begun as soon as the work was conceived. Therefore, the stage of the novel or number of years working on it is irrelevant. Any time is a good time to begin doing it correctly. Do you Have Success Stories? Comments, Careers, and Contracts Which Events or Programs to Attend First Novel Writing Program online and/or one of the workshop retreats followed by a New York prep seminar followed by the New York Pitch Conference OR the Novel Editorial Service (MTM) followed by New York prep seminar and New York Pitch, in that order. These are best case scenarios wherein money isn't tight. We will provide an overall discount of 26% on all events in either string if payment is made upfront for the entire grouping. Contact us for more information. What Genres do You Work With? Upscale and literary, memoir and narrative non-fiction, mystery/thriller and detective/cozy genres, urban fantasy, YA and adult fantasy, middle-grade, historical fiction, general fiction and women's fiction. Our agent and publisher faculty handle all genres. How Does Algonkian Differ From An MFA Approach? Algonkian emphasizes writing-to-get-published, creation in the context of heart, wit, and market knowledge. We teach writers to think pragmatically about the development of their ms while retaining their core values for the work. Our motto is "From the Heart, but Smart." College MFA programs do not prep a writer for the cold reality of the current publishing climate. Many of our most grateful writers are graduates of MFA programs. How do Writers Interact With Agents and Publishers? The model for the pitch is a "book jacket" the writer creates with the help of the workshop leader prior to the pitch session. The process is part of a longer evolution the writer begins even before arriving at the conference. Once the pitch is accomplished, the agent interacts with the writer in a Q&A session. The workshop leader then follows up with the writer to create a plan for publication, i.e., a step-by-step post-conference process the writer must undertake in order to stand a realistic chance of having his or her manuscript published. What is the "Pre-event Work" All About? Writers are given several different types of relevant assignments, story and pitch models, as well as a considerable amount of reading on the subject of advanced craft directly applicable to their work-in-progress. The idea is to prep the writer before the event so they can hit the deck running and share with us a common language. As a bonus, the pre-event work saves us from wasting time with extra handouts. Samples of the pre-event work, readings, and guides can be found here.

Like Kara, I also don’t write sex scenes. I tried once and failed spectacularly. After listening to Jenna Moreci’s advice I understand why! If you plan to write a sex scene, I wholeheartedly encourage you to watch this video. Jenna outlines ten tips to help writers with sex scenes and provides practical how-to advice. [MORE BELOW]

Delivered with a display of abstracted and theatrical gravitas, his speech staged itself in noble fashion, puttering out with proper pauses and plenty of sincere expression. I'm unclear as to what "honesty" actually meant in the context of reinventing his writing life, unless he meant that projecting himself into a first person narrator was an act of honesty? Overall though, I would not recommend this to anyone. Just not enough substance. Course, if you're a big Gaiman fan you might marvel at his lordship's demeanor and penchant for pithy pronouncement. - Michael

A Chris Stewart Classic from "Novel Writing on Edge." I recently ran across an article in The Guardian, where authors were asked for their personal dos and don’ts. There was no indication of how or why certain writers were chosen and most of it is repetitious drivel, but let’s go through the first bunch and have some fun, and in my next post we’ll take on a sort of companion article in Salon, about readers’ advice to writers. Here we go, starting off positive, with an open mind: Big Yes! to Elmore Leonard’s rules about ‘said’ and adverbs. Been guilty of both transgressions myself. They just creep up on you and before you know it you are ‘gasping’ and ‘grumbling’ and ‘coaxing’ and, God Help Me, ‘trilling.’ Yes, I once used ‘trilling.’ You can’t hate me more than I hate myself for that one. I love Diana Athill’s idea of looking at passages you love with ‘a very beady eye.’ She says to check which passages would be better dead. Perfect lead in for a more updated version of Arthur Quiller-Couch’s ‘murder your darlings’ (it was Arthur Quiller-Couch, not Faulkner who said this, though Faulkner did change it to ‘kill your darlings') – which passages are Better Off Dead? Think of your unhappy reader chasing after you like that paper boy on a bike, wherever you go, night and day, screaming, “I want my $14.95! I want my $14.95!” Next! I’m sorry, but Margaret Atwood is just odd. I’m not a fan of her writing (I can hear you gasping with horror – Oh shut up; it’s a free country), I only liked The Handmaid’s Tale, but that’s not really relevant. What’s odd are her first few suggestions about taking pencils on a plane and how to sharpen them and a reminder to bring paper (DUH. For heaven’s sake, are we first graders here? We can handle the writing materials part, Margaret, make yourself useful!). She wastes 5 of her 10 with nonsense, and the last 5 don’t contribute much either. Rudimentary stuff. The only useful thing: “Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.” So I’ll stop whining about Margaret Atwood and move on to whining about Roddy Doyle, who seems to have a similar brain fog as Margaret, advising us to keep the online browsing to a minimum, use a thesaurus, and give in to temptation to do household chores once in a while. Wow, this is mind blowing stuff, isn’t it? These are almost patronizing suggestions for those of us who are looking for some meat on the bone. His useful bits, “Do feel anxiety – it's the job,” and “Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones.” What’s odd are her first few suggestions about taking pencils on a plane and how to sharpen them and a reminder to bring paper (DUH. For heaven’s sake, are we first graders here? We can handle the writing materials part, Margaret, make yourself useful!) If you haven’t given up on writing entirely and decided to go to medical school where at least you get to dissect dead people and SEE something, here we are at #5, Helen Dunmore. I’m sorry, who? I actually know who Helen is, but at this point I’m wondering if we’re ever going to hit a really heavy-hitting, popular, mainstream writer that most people know and would therefore listen to. We need some name recognition here. Not everyone reads Orange or Booker Prize winners. (By the way I did that for a few months and was not impressed. I had to quit after Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, which was wretchedly bad and is now being made into a movie! That book had more holes than a moth-eaten sweater.) Her advice starts off promising, “Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue,” “Listen to what you have written” (for rhythm, because jagged places could be clues to what you don’t know yet), and “Read Keats’ letters” and then fizzles out into things like: read and rewrite, go for a walk, know that you can write and have a family, join a professional organization, and more of the same. Yawn. Geoff Dyer is next and his entry is a turn in a new direction – a turning of the top 10 pieces of advice into a flash fiction piece of such edge and wit that we’ll forget we wanted to read a list in the first place and just admire him instead. Every suggestion is couched in a personal story to show how clever he is. It was entertaining, I’ll admit. His best bit, “Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.” Neil Gaiman stopped at 8 but should have stopped at one. His first one was, “Write.” Is that supposed to be funny? (Brief intermission: I think these writers should have had a word limit for each answer, and maybe some 'dont's' on how to give a good list so they didn’t get so deeply mired in the obvious suggestions that everyone and their grandmother can give you.) Anne Enright does a little better, and I like her tone. She seems very sensible and down to earth and wry. The kind of person you’d like to have in your critique group. She would bring booze and brownies. How can you not like someone who says right off the bat, “The first 12 years are the worst”? I wouldn’t say her advice is earth-shattering, but there is a recognizable kernel of truth and feeling behind each one. I will forgive her #9 (“have fun”) for #10, which is rather inspiring, “Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.” Do you hear that? Weekends off everybody! Richard Ford’s list is more the kind of quote a reporter would get from someone if they caught him coming unawares out of the men’s room. It’s full of don’ts. It’s usually better to tell writers what to do than NOT do. Don’ts are easier to think of, and if you’re on the receiving end, checking them off in your head because you’re guilty of them, you pretty much lose the will to live, let alone write a book. Dos are harder to come up with and make people feel more empowered. His best, “Try to think of others' good luck as encouragement to yourself.” That’s a toughie, but it’s true. Neil Gaiman stopped at 8 but should have stopped at one. His first one was, “Write.” Is that supposed to be funny? Or is Neil giving us The Zen of Writing Lists of Advice to Writers? I will forgive her #9 (“have fun”) for #10, which is rather inspiring, “Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. David Hare. PD James. Al Kennedy. No comment. In the immortal words of a Monty Python sketch, I’d be deliberately wasting your time. Hey, they should have asked John Cleese or Terry Gilliam! Al Kennedy does give us something that I would suggest applying to these lists, "Older, more experienced/more convincing writers may offer rules and varieties of advice. Consider what they say. However, don't automatically give them charge of your brain, or anything else; they might be bitter, twisted, burned-out, manipulative, or just not very like you." I doubt that these are truly the rules by which these writers live. Maybe some of the ideas, but there’s a certain self-consciousness to writing a list like this. In compiling it, you’re not thinking of yourself only, you’re thinking of all the hungry writers who are going to print out your list and carry it around in their wallets, pulling it out on the dark nights of the writer’s soul (of which there are many) in order to cheer them, like The Little Match Girl with her matches. And we know what happened to her, now don’t we? Who wants to be responsible for that? So, no, I won’t be giving you my list. Read the article here: Advice to Writers Chris Stewart is program director for literary arts for the state Arts Council in Maryland.

Isabelle Allende says writing technique, e.g. suspense, cannot be taught. The faculty at Algonkian say NONSENSE. Is Isabelle wrong? Or does she know something we don't? Actually, she doesn't. I realize we're supposed to bow down before her god-ness... only just can't do it. She's a great writer, sure, no question, but that doesn't mean she's intellectually infallible. Unfortunately, her viewpoint isn't unique. But who does it serve? Quite suddenly, we find ourselves face down and gasping for air in the dank pond of Iowa mantra: WRITING CANNOT BE TAUGHT. If Iowa's mantra possessed any substance whatsoever, then why does it always take so many years for a novel author to hone their editorial skills, technique, and knowledge base, if not for the fact that they're teaching themselves and/or being taught? Apparently, writing is BEING TAUGHT quite often, and I might add, ALL OVER THE WORLD. Perhaps Isabelle and Iowa cannot communicate craft nuances to writers or engage them in a manner that is sufficiently instructive. But that does not mean the task is impossible because *they* can't or won't do it.

DISCLAIMER: if you believe you are part of a fruitful writer group, Godspeed you. Most likely you are not, but it's a social distraction at least. Regardless, please consider the information below as being useful for reality checking your situation both now and in the future. If any of this rings true for you, you are advised to beware, especially if you are serious about writing a publishable novel. "Traditional critique groups are looking at a work the size of a skyscraper with a magnifying glass. They lack the perceptual distance to see flaws." Before we read my own dark, embittered opinion (just kidding) on the many downsides to writer groups, let's watch a video, then include a few reviews on this topic. Reviews of Sites Discussing Writer Groups - Inherent Fallacies A writer site which shall remain anonymous due to the fact I utterly disagree with their criteria for judging any given writer group as beneficial, shall now be examined. According to them, the following five "qualities" must exist in order to judge any particular writer group helpful. As I note each category, I will also ( .. ) the fallacies inherent in each: 1. Constructive Feedback (Amateur writers by definition cannot possibly know, under most circumstances, whether or not any advice concerning any element of their writing or story is valid in the first place. The chances of the advice being counterproductive are high, especially when a groupthink circumstance takes place. Also, studies prove that humans are far more likely to accept "critique" when it flatters them or corroborates what they wish to believe about themselves or their creations.) 2. Positivity (What does this really mean anyway? At what point does advice become "negative"? Who decides? What are the group politics that define this term? Hearing the productive truth should set the bar, not what sounds or appears to be arbitrarily "positive." I can just hear one of the more erudite group members saying, "Now, Amelia, that's really not a positive way to look at Dan's work, is it?") Overall though, between being "positive" and wallowing in "chemistry," the writer group has beached itself on the Hopeless Coast. 3. Big and Small Picture Comments (Let's go back to number one above. The same logic holds. Additionally, the very act of dichotomizing the interweaving complexities of novel development into "big and small picture" is itself maddeningly arbitrary and functionally useless.) 4. Thick Skin (Yes, by all means, we know this subject well. Avoid narcissist contamination by all means necessary. Still, thick skin presence does nothing to balance out the risks and downsides.) 5. Chemistry (I understand what the author of this review of writer groups means, however, "chemistry" is yet another way of creating more risk. The more chummy the group, the less likely as a whole they will be to deliver that one "negative" comment (presuming it is also correct) once every few months that might actually do a bit of good. Overall though, between being "positive" and wallowing in "chemistry" the writer group has beached itself on the Hopeless Coast.) Review Number Two - The Slow Boiling Frog Effect This piece consists of a writer group review by a writer who seems to have plenty of experience with such groups. He loves Facebook as a source for finding groups. He goes on to name four different kinds of destructive writer group personalities (see our BAD EGG list below); however, his overall vision of writer groups is one of helpfulness and community. He fails to recognize the inherent shortcomings and risks in receiving potentially damaging advice when it comes to novel development and writing. My viewpoint on this is adequately expressed in the five points above. I know this fellow means well, but his viewpoint is almost childlike. He will Pied Piper others into sanguinely tailing along with a writer group on Facebook, or wherever, until one day they either wake up or cross the line into seeing the group as an end in itself. At least the slow-boiling frog effect will comfort them. Review Number Three - No Escaping Rank Beginners I love the title of this one on Quora.Com: "How to find a creative writing group which isn't full of painfully bad writers?" Brooke McIntyre, Founder of Inked Voices, leads off by providing generic and maternal guidance on finding writer groups. Other members of Quora follow suit. None are critical of the writer group concept in the first place. They all seem to hold the belief that the significant risks the aspiring author faces in the midst of amateur group dynamics swirling with ill-formed opinions just don't exist, or at least not enough to matter. They all seem to hold the belief that the significant risks the aspiring author faces in the midst of amateur group dynamics swirling with ill-formed opinions just don't exist, or at least not enough to matter. They recommend writing classes with competent instructors. Nothing wrong there, however, they fail to provide any kind of real litmus test for choosing one group over another other than to note being in one with similar genre interests might be helpful. But what about the credentials of people in the group? Publications? Reputations? The odds of hearing a bit of useful advice are increased in proportion to the quality of the members, especially if they're professionals (but how rare is that?). Unfortunately, the overwhelming mass of writer groups in their thousands, meeting at homes and in coffee houses all over the country, are filled with rank beginners (btw, who can still qualify as beginners after ten or more years). God bless them, they don't know what they don't know. The Author's Review For many years I've realized the futility of obtaining useful and project-evolving advice from the average writer group. In consideration of this epiphany, I recommend that writers limit any given writer group to a critique of prose narrative, and seek response in defined categories (e.g., clarity, imagery, dialogue, originality, pacing). Assuming the group members as a whole are reasonably intelligent, non-axe grinding, non-narcissistic, non-mentally ill people (and don't include the SIX BAD EGG TYPES below) as well as avid readers of your specific genre, they should, in theory, be able to provide a measure of helpful feedback to you regarding your narrative. Regardless, you must look for commonalities, and not take everything at face value. At some future point, a dedicated novel writer should seek advice from a professional. Why? Because the professional can provide nuanced advice on proper narrative composition, openings, novel hooks, etc. that are beyond the reach of the standard writer group. Substantially better advice comes from successful acquisition editors or literary agents who have been in the business for many years. Their ability, honed by experience in the ms submission trenches, and via immersing in their chosen genres, outweighs the opinions of of even published authors who can only speak from a limited frame of reference. In a recent Algonkian workshop, for example, an invited author recommended to one of the attendees that she start her novel in a car. Unknown to the author, this was terrible advice. Yes, terrible. Each year, thousands of new writers start their novels in cars. It's a running joke with agents, and I can't think of a better way to get an instant rejection than by starting a novel in a car. Even more ridiculous circumstances are created by money hungry colleges that match academic-trained literary authors as instructors with student genre writers. In a recent Algonkian workshop, for example, an invited author recommended to one of the attendees that she start her novel in a car. Unknown to the author, this was terrible advice. Yes, terrible. A good example of this is the Stanford Online Certificate Program ($7000+ for six courses). Not only will the writers get highly questionable advice from non-professional instructors not in their genre, but they will pay through the nose for the privilege (while also receiving online "critique" from a group of non-professional writers, many or most of whom are also not in their genre). From "Why Critique Groups MUST DIE": Also, editing is best done on a keyboard, or with a red pen. Not out loud in a social group, where peer pressure and weird dynamics can screw up a draft in two seconds flat. YOU MAY NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "HELP" AND REAL HELP. Consider. Would you try to build a livable and quite stylish home on your own without an architect and a professional home builder simply because you had the ability to hammer a few boards together with nails? Of course not. You would acquire the expertise and skills before you began. And yet, new writers approach the creation of a thing equally or more complex, such as the writing of a competitive commercial novel, in the belief they can do so because they have a story idea, can type words on a page, and have read a few magazines about writing. They consult with other new writers as ignorant as themselves and proceed to build a house called a novel, but one that will not risk their lives because fortunately for them, it is all on paper. Below are select and important views on writer groups culled from around the web. Naturally, we have chosen to keep the writers anon, cause it's safer for them. I found myself reviewing all the reasons why I hate writing groups (screenwriting or otherwise). In a nutshell, I find them to be anything but helpful to writers. Most of the participants are bad writers to begin with and have no real experience or expertise to offer other writers. Members typically are unpublished or unproduced, unschooled in screenwriting craft themselves (that’s why they’re in a group), and they almost never know how to give constructive criticism (i.e., “make the Mercedes a pickup truck”). Input from group members usually falls into three categories: empty praise, vicious critiques, or banal suggestions. I also find that, over time, familiarity within the group between members begins to undermine any real advice that might be offered, as cliques form... _________ I know I’m not in the majority when I recommend that you get involved with a writers’ group. Dean Koontz apparently loathes them, Harlan Ellison despises them, and I’ve read advice from dozens of other pros whose work I love and whose opinions I value who say writers’ groups will do everything from steal your soul to cause your writing to break out in pox. Nonetheless, I strongly recommend that you get involved with a good writers’ group when you’re getting started. I credit what I learned from my early groups (plus enormous amounts of hard work and persistence) with leading me to publication... _________ I’m also uncomfortable with the group-think I’ve seen develop whereby one person says, “This really isn’t a mystery. You should recast it as a mainstream novel.” And pretty much everyone else keeps making the same criticism, adding their own twist on it, even though you know in your gut that they are absolutely wrong. Yet the pile up continues and you start to doubt yourself. Then afterwards when you ask one of them about it, the person will say, “Oh, well, I didn’t really think that. Not really. I mean it might help, but I doubt it. You probably just need to make it more of a psychological mystery, you know?” _________ Once a week reading fifteen pages only cleans up shoddy prose. Traditional critique groups are looking at a work the size of a skyscraper with a magnifying glass. They lack the perceptual distance to see flaws. A novel can have perfect prose page to page and yet have catastrophic faults. In fact, I would venture to say that most writers are not rejected due to prose, but rather, they meet the slush pile because of tragic errors in structure. Traditional critique groups can tell you nothing about turning points or whether a scene fits properly. They lack the context to be able to discern if our hero has progressed sufficiently along his character arc by the mid-point of Act 2. They have zero ability to properly critique pacing, since pacing can only be judged in larger context... _________ I know two writers who stopped writing for years because critique groups convinced them they do not nor ever had “what it takes” (though the one of them who’s resumed writing has more what it takes than I do.) I’ve known a half a dozen writers who became obsessed with whatever the particular bugga boo of their group was, like “Don’t mix latinate and anglo-saxon words” to the marked detriment of their prose. I know writers who continue writing stuff that obviously will never sell, not because it’s what they want to do, but because their group has convinced them anything else is selling out. In fact, I’ve known more harm than good caused by writers’ groups... THE BAD EGG TYPES (from Ebooks4Writers.com) Beware these types of writer group beings. Bad Egg 1: The “expert”. Often this person joins a group that they perceive as “amateurs” and get their satisfaction from tearing everyone else’s work to shreds. They seem to have met plenty of editors and agents, and know intimate details of what they’re looking for – never what you’re writing though. When you pin them down, usually they either don’t write at all, or write badly and have never been published (or not anywhere that counts). Bad Egg 2: The “mouse”. She or he sits quietly, smiles, makes the coffee, brings cake. Is always working on something too big to bring for critiquing right now. And is way too polite to actually comment constructively on anyone else’s work. You’d almost forget they were there … except they are and you wonder why. Bad Egg 3: The “boss”. This is the person who wants the group to take minutes, to form a “society” of some kind, to have a timer so no one gets a second more than their allotted time. Oh, and s/he decides how much time you’ll get, with his/her calculator. The group ends up spending so much time on official trivia that critiquing falls by the wayside. Bad Egg 4: The “needy one”. This person means well, but their need for reassurance and encouragement leads to everyone in the group feeling like they can no longer give honest critiques. And that tends to leak outwards so that critiques generally become softer, less realistic and less helpful. Bad Egg 5: The “defender”. Even if your group has a rule (a common rule, by the way) that the person whose work is being critiqued is not allowed to respond until the end, this person will argue and defend every comment you make. They always have to explain why their character acts that way, or says those words, or what that gaping plot hole is for. This can lead to some awful scenes all round! Bad Egg 6: The “mentally ill”. Sadly, occasionally you will see this person in a writing group. When they are honest about their condition, it’s usually fine and the group can help. But often they refuse to acknowledge they have a problem, and can blow a writing group apart with their behaviour. I’ve experienced this personally, and we were lucky to save our group (and had to ask the person to leave).

The personality goes on to state that a lot of work and planning will work it's magic to evolve, by inference, even a bad story idea into a "great story." Let's be hyperbolic about this for the sake of example. Writer X has a story idea that pretty much mimics The Hunger Games... Need I continue to elaborate?

While this video is based on helping people write a novel, or to at least be happier while trying, I have to confess that I did not feel happier after watching this. The overall tone did not make me want to run to my keyboard and start working on a new manuscript (forget that I’m already at it typing this post). On the contrary, I kind of got depressed. [MORE BELOW]

In the topic thread below you will find several responses by veteran writers and authors critical of Stephen King's personal opinions regarding plotting, and further reaction to his disparaging of authors who themselves utilize plot and story planning techniques (for example, J.K. Rowling). We here at Algonkian Author Connect believe the dialogue concerning this issue is important, especially for writers relatively new to novel writing. Feel free to contact us with any thoughts you might have. Thank you.

Nothing is original? False. The "Hunger Games" idea was original when first conceived for BATTLE ROYALE. It ceased any claim to originality once recycled into "The Hunger Games," but prior to that it was original. All story ideas currently extant were once original at one time in the past. Classic examples? [MORE INFO]

That said, I agree with Joe that this video might do more harm than good when it comes to giving writers advice. It sounds like Hank is (as we've been hammering on so hard here) a pantser. From the way he described his process, it sounds like he sort of wanders through the story and sees where his interest (and the characters) take him. [MORE BELOW]

Introduction to Pre-event Assignments The below seven assignments are vital to reaching an understanding of specific and critical core elements that go into the creation of a commercially viable genre novel or narrative non-fiction. Of course, there is more to it than this, as you will see, but here we have a good primer that assures we're literally all on the same page before the event begins. You may return here as many times as you need to edit your topic post (login and click "edit"). Pay special attention to antagonists, setting, conflict and core wound hooks. And btw, quiet novels do not sell. Keep that in mind. Be aggressive with your work. Michael Neff Algonkian Conference Director ____________ After you've registered and logged in, create your reply to this topic (button top right). Please utilize only one reply for all of your responses so the forum topic will not become cluttered. Also, strongly suggest typing up your "reply" in a separate file then copying it over to your post before submitting. Not a good idea to lose what you've done! __________________________________________________________ THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Before you begin to consider or rewrite your story premise, you must develop a simple "story statement." In other words, what's the mission of your protagonist? The goal? What must be done? What must this person create? Save? Restore? Accomplish? Defeat?... Defy the dictator of the city and her bury brother’s body (ANTIGONE)? Struggle for control over the asylum (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST)? Do whatever it takes to recover lost love (THE GREAT GATSBY)? Save the farm and live to tell the story (COLD MOUNTAIN)? Find the wizard and a way home to Kansas (WIZARD OF OZ)? Note that all of these are books with strong antagonists who drive the plot line (see also "Core Wounds and Conflict Lines" below). FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. ___________________________________________________ THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT (Photo : Javert from "Les Misérables") What are the odds of you having your manuscript published if the overall story and narrative fail to meet publisher demands for sufficient suspense, character concern, and conflict? Answer: none. You might therefore ask, what major factor makes for a quiet and dull manuscript brimming with insipid characters and a story that cascades from chapter to chapter with tens of thousands of words, all of them combining irresistibly to produce an audible thudding sound in the mind like a mallet hitting a side of cold beef? Answer: the unwillingness or inability of the writer to create a suitable antagonist who stirs and spices the plot hash. Let's make it clear what we're talking about. By "antagonist" we specifically refer to an actual fictional character, an embodiment of certain traits and motivations who plays a significant role in catalyzing and energizing plot line(s), or at bare minimum, in assisting to evolve the protagonist's character arc (and by default the story itself) by igniting complication(s) the protagonist, and possibly other characters, must face and solve (or fail to solve). CONTINUE READING ENTIRE ARTICLE AT NWOE THEN RETURN HERE. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. ___________________________________________________ CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE What is your breakout title? How important is a great title before you even become published? Very important! Quite often, agents and editors will get a feel for a work and even sense the marketing potential just from a title. A title has the ability to attract and condition the reader's attention. It can be magical or thud like a bag of wet chalk, so choose carefully. A poor title sends the clear message that what comes after will also be of poor quality. Go to Amazon.Com and research a good share of titles in your genre, come up with options, write them down and let them simmer for at least 24 hours. Consider character or place names, settings, or a "label" that describes a major character, like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST. Consider also images, objects, or metaphors in the novel that might help create a title, or perhaps a quotation from another source (poetry, the Bible, etc.) that thematically represents your story. Or how about a title that summarizes the whole story: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, etc. Keep in mind that the difference between a mediocre title and a great title is the difference between THE DEAD GIRL'S SKELETON and THE LOVELY BONES, between TIME TO LOVE THAT CHOLERA and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA between STRANGERS FROM WITHIN (Golding's original title) and LORD OF THE FLIES, between BEING LIGHT AND UNBEARABLE and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed). ___________________________________________________ DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES Did you know that a high percentage of new novel writers don't fully understand their genre, much less comprehend comparables? When informing professionals about the nuances of your novel, whether by query letter or oral pitch, you must know your genre first, and provide smart comparables second. In other words, you need to transcend just a simple statement of genre (literary, mystery, thriller, romance, science fiction, etc.) by identifying and relating your novel more specifically to each publisher's or agent's area of expertise, and you accomplish this by wisely comparing your novel to contemporary published novels they will most likely recognize and appreciate--and it usually doesn't take more than two good comps to make your point. Agents and publishing house editors always want to know the comps. There is more than one reason for this. First, it helps them understand your readership, and thus how to position your work for the market. Secondly, it demonstrates up front that you are a professional who understands your contemporary market, not just the classics. Very important! And finally, it serves as a tool to enable them to pitch your novel to the decision-makers in the business. Most likely you will need to research your comps. If you're not sure how to begin, go to Amazon.Com, type in the title of a novel you believe very similar to yours, choose it, then scroll down the page to see Amazon's list of "Readers Also Bought This" and begin your search that way. Keep in mind that before you begin, you should know enough about your own novel to make the comparison in the first place! By the way, beware of using comparables by overly popular and classic authors. If you compare your work to classic authors like H.G. Wells and Gabriel Marquez in the same breath you will risk being declared insane. If you compare your work to huge contemporary authors like Nick Hornby or Jodi Picoult or Nora Ephron or Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling, and so forth, you will not be laughed at, but you will also not be taken seriously since thousands of others compare their work to the same writers. Best to use two rising stars in your genre. If you can't do this, use only one classic or popular author and combine with a rising star. Choose carefully! FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here. - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why? ____________________________________________________ CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Conflict, tension, complication, drama--all basically related, and all going a long way to keeping the reader's eyes fixated on your story. These days, serving up a big manuscript of quiet is a sure path to damnation. You need tension on the page at all times, and the best way to accomplish this is to create conflict and complications in the plot and narrative. Consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you MUST have present in the novel. First part, the primary dramatic conflict which drives through the work from beginning to end, from first major plot point to final reversal, and finally resolving with an important climax. Next, secondary conflicts or complications that take various social forms - anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters. Finally, those various inner conflicts and core wounds all important characters must endure and resolve as the story moves forward. But now, back to the PRIMARY DRAMATIC CONFLICT. If you've taken care to consider your story description and your hook line, you should be able to identify your main conflict(s). Let's look at some basic information regarding the history of conflict in storytelling. Conflict was first described in ancient Greek literature as the agon, or central contest in tragedy. According to Aristotle, in order to hold the interest, the hero must have a single conflict. The agon, or act of conflict, involves the protagonist (the "first fighter" or "hero") and the antagonist corresponding to the villain (whatever form that takes). The outcome of the contest cannot be known in advance, and, according to later drama critics such as Plutarch, the hero's struggle should be ennobling. Is that always true these days? Not always, but let's move on. Even in contemporary, non-dramatic literature, critics have observed that the agon is the central unit of the plot. The easier it is for the protagonist to triumph, the less value there is in the drama. In internal and external conflict alike, the antagonist must act upon the protagonist and must seem at first to overmatch him or her. The above defines classic drama that creates conflict with real stakes. You see it everywhere, to one degree or another, from classic contemporary westerns like THE SAVAGE BREED to a time-tested novel as literary as THE GREAT GATSBY. And of course, you need to have conflict or complications in nonfiction also, in some form, or you have a story that is too quiet. For examples let's return to the story descriptions and create some HOOK LINES. Let's don't forget to consider the "core wound" of the protagonist. Please read this article at NWOE then return here. The Hand of Fatima by Ildefonso Falcones A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God. Summer's Sisters by Judy Blume After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinn who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world. Note that it is fairly easy to ascertain the stakes in each case above: a young woman's love and friendship, the entire world, and harmony between opposed religions. If you cannot make the stakes clear, the odds are you don't have any. Also, is the core wound obvious or implied? FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. ______________________________________________________ OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS As noted above, consider "conflict" divided into three parts, all of which you should ideally have present. First, the primary conflict which drives through the core of the work from beginning to end and which zeniths with an important climax (falling action and denouement to follow). Next, secondary conflicts or complications which can take various social forms (anything from a vigorous love subplot to family issues to turmoil with fellow characters). Finally, those inner conflicts the major characters must endure and resolve. You must note the inner personal conflicts elsewhere in this profile, but make certain to note any important interpersonal conflicts within this particular category." SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it? ______________________________________________________ THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING When considering your novel, whether taking place in a contemporary urban world or on a distant magical planet in Andromeda, you must first sketch the best overall setting and sub-settings for your story. Consider: the more unique and intriguing (or quirky) your setting, the more easily you're able to create energetic scenes, narrative, and overall story. A great setting maximizes opportunities for interesting characters, circumstances, and complications, and therefore makes your writing life so much easier. Imagination is truly your best friend when it comes to writing competitive fiction, and nothing provides a stronger foundation than a great setting. One of the best selling contemporary novels, THE HUNGER GAMES, is driven by the circumstances of the setting, and the characters are a product of that unique environment, the plot also. But even if you're not writing SF/F, the choice of setting is just as important, perhaps even more so. If you must place your upmarket story in a sleepy little town in Maine winter, then choose a setting within that town that maximizes opportunities for verve and conflict, for example, a bed and breakfast stocked to the ceiling with odd characters who combine to create comical, suspenseful, dangerous or difficult complications or subplot reversals that the bewildered and sympathetic protagonist must endure and resolve while he or she is perhaps engaged in a bigger plot line: restarting an old love affair, reuniting with a family member, starting a new business, etc. And don't forget that non-gratuitous sex goes a long way, especially for American readers. CONTINUE TO READ THIS ARTICLE THEN RETURN. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. ________________________ Below are several links to part of an article or whole articles that we feel are the most valuable for memoir writers. We have reviewed these and agree 110%. MEMOIR WRITING - CHOOSE A SPECIFIC EVENT (good general primer) How to Write a Memoir That People Care About | NY Book Editors NYBOOKEDITORS.COM Are you thinking of writing a memoir but you're stuck? We've got the remedy. Check out our beginner's guide on writing an epic and engaging memoir. MEMOIR MUST INCLUDE TRANSCENDENCE Writing Memoir? Include Transcendence - Memoir coach and author Marion Roach MARIONROACH.COM MEMOIR REQUIRES TRANSCENDENCE. Something has to happen. Or shift. Someone has to change a little. Or grow. It’s the bare hack minimum of memoir. WRITE IT LIKE A NOVEL How to Write a Powerful Memoir in 5 Simple Steps JERRYJENKINS.COM When it comes to writing a memoir, there are 5 things you need to focus on. If you do, your powerful story will have the best chance of impacting others. MEMOIR ANECDOTES - HOW TO MAKE THEM SHINE How to Write an Anecdote That Makes Your Nonfiction Come Alive JERRYJENKINS.COM Knowing how to write an anecdote lets you utilize the power of story with your nonfiction and engage your reader from the first page. ________________________

What makes for good drama is a constant. To begin, we combine Siegal's "nine act structure - two goal" screenplay (very much like the Syd Field three act except that the "reversal" from Field's structure joins "Act 5" in Siegal's version) with the Field classic three act. The Two-Goal Structure, Siegal maintains, creates more dynamic plot tension due to the insertion of PLOT REVERSAL later in the story. We concur. NOTE: "Plot Point" is defined here as a major occurrence that emphatically changes the course of the story. In the genre novel as a whole, we see three to five major plot points depending on various factors: a first PP that begins the rising action, second PP defined by the first major reversal, a third PP defined by a possible second major reversal, a climax PP, and a theoretical PP residing in the denouement, i.e., we think the story is going to resolve a certain way after climax, but a surprise happens that resolves it in a way not expected. Algonkian Writer Conferences developed the Six Act Two-Goal novel planning outline for all writers of novel-length dramatic fiction, regardless of genre, as well as narrative non-fiction. The point is to utilize a tightly plotted act structure, similar to that used by screenplay writers, to effectively brainstorm and produce competitive, suspenseful plots for the genre novel (fantasy, SF, YA/MG, mystery, thriller, crime, historical, women's fiction, etc.). Upmarket or literary fiction utilizing strong plot lines also benefit (see examples below). We do not dismiss other forms of novel outlining out of hand, simply recommend this one as being a strong and tested framework not only for breaking into mainstream publishing, but for later translating the novel into a film as efficiently as possible. In the opening of a story ignited directly or indirectly by the antagonist, the protagonist(s) are focused to embark on their primary task, challenge, journey, or struggle (first major plot point), and thus follows a "first major goal" to win that struggle, thereby initiating the second act of the story (Syd Field model); however, by the middle of the second act or later, the protagonist(s) realize they have pursued the wrong goal. A second goal is now needed. The protagonist(s) are therefore forced to alter their course and struggle to accomplish a new and presumably more productive means-to-an-end. To put it simply, storming the walls didn't work and now the Trojan Horse solution is needed. Finding the wizard wasn't sufficient, now the little band of heroes must steal the Wicked Witch's broom. Acquiring a reasonably priced rest home for her mentally unstable father failed, now the impoverished daughter must prepare a room in her basement. Attempting to flee got his knees pulped by a sledge hammer, now the captive author must connive a more subtle and deceptive means of escape. The fusion of the Siegal and Field models we outline below thus becomes a tighter six act model for the novel or narrative nonfiction. However, before you begin using the SATG, take note that your most important elements to sketch and produce from the onset are your: High Concept Story Protagonist Hook and Core Wound Defined (+ General "P" Definition ) Antagonist The Novel "Agon" Rich and Potent Setting BTW, keep in mind that you construct your novel in units of scene, and every scene drives the plot line(s) forward. NOTE: we use examples of novels, stories and films below that will likely be familiar to the widest range of readers. These include ANTIGONE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE HUNGER GAMES, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, GLADIATOR, THE GREAT GATSBY, WAR OF THE WORLDS, CATCHER IN THE RYE, CITIZEN KANE, HARRY POTTER, DA VINCI CODE, THE MALTESE FALCON, THE SUN ALSO RISES, COLD MOUNTAIN, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and MISERY. But make no mistake, the rules governing the art of fiction, or good storytelling, remain steady regardless of genre, and have pretty much been fixed since Apollonius of Rhodes wrote about the Argonauts. And if you happen to be one of those writers who believes that writing a novel "your way" or simply "from the heart" or "only with my character's direction" means avoiding or denying the critical elements of commercial fiction and good storytelling found below, it‘s best to move on quickly from this page and seek the Elysium of your desire. All best wishes to you. ACT ZERO Backstory to Set Up the Tale You must carefully forge your backstory before you begin. Understand the issues below. This does not directly appear in the story except by use of flashback and via other methods to DELIVER EXPOSITION: Writers set up the disaster that is coming in the story. Forces need to already be in motion in order to create conflict for the characters. Usually the emphasis for the backstory will be on the antagonist, but even protagonists carry baggage into the story. Years and years of planning might have gone into the collision course. ACT ONE (Page 1 - 30+) Issues of The Hook: Protagonist Intro - Antagonist First? - Inciting Incident - Extreme Importance of Setting - Establishment of Characters - The MacGuffin - In Media Res - Crucial Sympathy Factors - Something Bad Happens - Exposition - Theme? What needs to be done from the start? Why is the hook of Act I critical to this novel and to being taken seriously as a writer? The author showcases their BEST PROSE AND NARRATIVE SKILLS. Opening scenes clearly use show-don't-tell effects to render the protagonist and major characters as necessary. Scenes themselves have clear beginnings, middles, and ends. Point of view is rendered masterfully on both a distant and close level. Narrative and story progression don't feel overly derivative, but rather fresh and suspenseful, definitely engaging. And btw, Algonkian Writer Conferences recommend you consider utilizing the SCENE STORYBOARD GUIDE at this point to sketch important scenes ahead of time (crucial). Act I foreshadows the primary external conflict or complication (related to the protagonist goal in ACT II) to come. SYMPATHY FACTORS in the first 20 pages, or fewer, are critical for connecting the reader with your protagonist. We must see the character playing out their role in active scenes. We learn about them, their strengths and weaknesses, idiosyncrasies and flaws, and we learn these things by virtue of their actions, various internal concerns and conflict, and in the way other characters react to them in real time (vital--set up SECONDARY CHARACTERS whose role, at least in part, it is to reveal the traits and inclinations of the protagonist). Conflict begins on one or two of three levels (primary story conflict, inner conflict(s), and interpersonal conflict). THREE LEVELS OF CONFLICT. Setting is established (and it must be one that works TO CREATE VERVE AND OPPORTUNITIES). IN MEDIA RES may be employed here ("beginning in the middle"), ie, beginning where it most benefits the story, at a point of action, turmoil, or during a lively or curious event, etc. Something bad, irritating or tension-causing usually happens (Chief Bromden gets electro-shocked in the CUCKOO'S NEST or Jake debates his impotency with his ex-girlfriend in THE SUN ALSO RISES) or has just happened (murder victim found in the mayor's plum tree). An INCITING INCIDENT may take place that sets in motion events leading to the FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT (see Act II below). In the movie, GLADIATOR, Commodus murders his Emperor father (Inciting Incident) which inevitably leads to the Emperor's general, Maximus, realizing the murder. He defies Commodus and faces execution (Plot Point) as a result. In King's MISERY, the author protagonist gets in a car accident and is rendered helpless (Inciting Incident). Kathy Bates finds him and imprisons him in her house (Plot Point). In ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, McMurphy is sent to the asylum as a result of a fight (Inciting Incident) and later bets the inmates that he can shake up the Big Nurse and not get sent to the shock shop (Plot Point). The author cleverly PARCELS IN EXPOSITION in a variety of ways, via narrative, dialogue, characters, flashbacks, etc. NOTE that all major exposition must be delivered before or during the scene wherein the FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT takes place. All information necessary to understand the story going forward must be known. Pardon the cliche, but exposition horse before the plot point cart at all times. In THE SUN ALSO RISES, Jake delivers the final round of exposition about his love, Brett Ashley, to his rival, Robert Cohn, just as Robert is making it known he wants Brett for himself. Jake reveals Brett's background and future plans (Exposition), and Robert indicates his plans for pursuing her (Plot Point). THE MACGUFFIN, if any, might well be introduced or foreshadowed as an object (or even goal) which catalyzes the plot line, or at least assists creates a source of mystery or tension (THE MALTESE FALCON or the mysterious head scar on HARRY POTTER). Something called THEME might well get a foothold here. Does the author have a message or a bigger point she or he wishes to portray in the plot, or by means of the character struggles, their conflicts and arcs, or perhaps by means of the setting itself? All the above? And theme doesn't have to be the exclusive province of literary or upmarket literature. Regardless, here are some great examples of theme from the dark classics. Please read and consider writing a "theme statement" for your own novel. It can't help but inform your work and make it richer and more relevant to the reader. The ANTAGONIST AND HIS OR HER MINIONS (if any), are introduced to a meaningful degree, along with more characters as necessary, or sidekicks of the protagonist. Note to Writer: don't create a minor or major character who doesn't somehow play a role in the development of the plot(s) and/or the protagonist arc. And they must create a presence on the stage of the page, either by virtue of their personality, position, attitude of the moment, or all of the above. You must consider and weigh and sketch each character carefully. Imagine they are all in a film. Will they seem gratuitous or vital to you? Sufficiently energetic or too quiet? The PRIMARY ANTAGONIST might remain a mystery (Lord Voldemort in HARRY POTTER), or be introduced first (the Big Nurse in CUCKOO'S NEST or the Opus Dei albino in DA VINCI CODE or the Wicked Witch in WIZARD OF OZ) to produce dramatic concern once protagonist accepts the goal. NOTE: The above is a very important dramatic effect. If you understand to a meaningful degree the power of the antagonist, whoever she or he may be, then instinctive concern for the protagonist enters the reader's mind as soon as she or he accepts the goal in ACT TWO (see below). ACT TWO (Page 10+ - 50+) More Hook: Write the Story Statement - Establishment of Major Goal - Primary External Conflict or Complication Begins - First Major Plot Point and Plot Line - Protagonist Psychology - Rising Action What's the mission? The goal? What must be done? Created? Accomplished? Defeated? Defy the dictator of the city and bury brother's body (ANTIGONE)? Place a bet that will shake up the asylum (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST)? Do whatever it takes to recover lost love (THE GREAT GATSBY)? Save the farm and live to tell the story (COLD MOUNTAIN)? Find the wizard and a way home to Kansas (WIZARD OF OZ)? Note that all of these are books with strong antagonists who drive or catalyze the plot line going forward. Note to Writer: If you can't write a simple story statement like above (which builds into your hook/log line) then you don't have a work of commercial fiction. Keep in mind that the PLOT LINE is an elaboration of the statement, of the primary complication. Also, look over the brief summaries of films and novels in the SAMPLE LOG LINES PDF. These contain the simple statement, but more elaborated into a short hook. Necessary Preparation Steps for the Author: (members utilize the AAS technique guides) Write the story statement. Make it clear. Brainstorm necessary complications, reversals, and conflicts on all levels. Write a short synopsis to reveal the major elements and clarify. Sketch the plot line(s) with notes on the proper settings. Write the hook/log line and listen to how it sounds. The FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT therefore takes place that establishes your protagonist‘s overall goal. In other words, the course of the action or plot changes, often drastically, and usually with a change of setting. Success seems possible. The RISING ACTION of the story truly begins with the launch of the primary external conflict or complication. A means to achieve the goal is decided. The work begins, the war begins, the feet hit the bricks, the plan to reunite the lovers is initiated. The graph has begun to rise and it won't stop until after the CLIMAX. In other words, the protagonist commits to the goal(s). But why? What is the motivation? What are the internal and external issues involved? She or he may go willingly into the situation because the alternative is worse, or to help an apparent victim. She or he may undertake the task not realizing the true dangers or complications ahead, out of ignorance. Another character might trick or push the protagonist into situation. ACT THREE (Page 50+ - 250+) Plot Line Evolution: Minor Reversals - Complications - Thee Levels of Conflict - Major Reversal Time - Plot Points - The Martians are Winning The dramatic pursuit of the goal evolves. The FIRST GOAL (the means to the end) within the master goal (the final desired result) is pursued (see STORY STATEMENT above), but this will eventually lead your protagonist to a firewall or dead end, or what is known as the MAJOR REVERSAL in the parlance of our times (Dorothy gets to Oz, but no Kansas until the broomstick is fetched). Members should utilize the AAS craft and technique guide modules. NOTE: This act pulls out all the stops to create tension, angst, conflict, and issues for the protagonist and appropriate characters to resolve: MINOR REVERSALS TAKE PLACE: protagonist(s) struggle, perhaps score small victories of one sort or another, but these are almost always reversed. For example, McMurphy organizes the inmates and theatrically pretends to watch the World Series in defiance of the Big Nurse, but she makes her will known later and punishes him (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST). The Wicked witch makes Dorothy and company take a poppy snooze right on the verge of OZ, and later, the Guard at OZ tells them no one gets in, no way, no how! MINOR COMPLICATIONS TAKE PLACE: in other words, things happen that have a notable negative physical or emotional impact on the protagonist or those he/she cares about. These are not as strong as minor reversals, but action must be taken to overcome them. McMurphy takes the inmates out for a boat ride, but conflict at the dock with the boat captain and a need to make a quick escape takes place (ONE FLEW OVER). Meanwhile, Scarecrow hassles with crows, Tin Man is rusted, Lion overcompensates for cowardice, and Witch throws fireball. And know that "minor complications" can be fairly serious. In WAR OF THE WORLDS the major character had to bludgeon an insane curate to prevent him from giving away their hiding place to the Martians. You get the picture. But how many of them? Good question. Assignment: open up and read three of the best novels in your genre that you can find. Analyze the scenes and pick out the reversals and complications. Make a list. Report back. Whether upmarket or genre, MINOR COMPLICATIONS combine with MINOR REVERSALS to continually spike the narrative and story. It can't be easy for the protagonist and/or her companions. If too easy, you inevitably build to classic mid-novel sag. Tension runs out, wheels spin, and an inexperienced writer pads the middle with lumps of dull narrative and quiet situation. Ugh. "Best Wishes" rejection letter on the way. Off to a minor eBook publisher who will publish you if you have more than 100 Facebook members. Note: as a bonus, complications and reversals also assist greatly in maintaining all three levels of conflict (see above). Also, prior to climax, we may have a smart and strong reversal or complication which serves to introduce a twist or an unexpected event in the story (sometimes called a MIDPOINT CLIMAX).o Pinch Points Reveal and Reinforce the Antagonist Aims Pinch Points: an example or reminder of the nature and implications of the antagonistic force that is not filtered by the hero's experience. We see it for ourselves in a direct way as a scene that provides a glimpse into the villain's mind. The antagonist reaffirms his or her goal to delay, injure, stop, crush, or kill the protagonist. The intent is manifest and the concern for the protagonist is elevated. There should be two and situated near the 3/8 mark and the 3/5 mark in the manuscript. In ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST a pinch point takes place at the 3/5 mark when the Big Nurse informs the assembled hospital staff just what kind of cruel fate is in store for McMurphy. Crisis Point or MAJOR REVERSAL = Second Major Plot Point We've already noted what happened to Dorothy. In Stephen King's MISERY, after the captive author protagonist has his knees sledge-hammered by Kathy Bates (God, that hurt!) to prevent him from trying to escape again, he knows he's been using the wrong means to pursue the master goal (ie, to escape). He must now reboot and choose another path, a second goal to achieve the master goal (escape). To accomplish, the author conceives a new plan of theatrical cooperation with his captor, the new goal within the master goal being to trick her into passivity and lure her into a trap whereupon he can knock her senseless. In general, at this point, backstory issues, mysterious strangers, twists and turns and events all point out that your protagonist is on the wrong track, and the antagonist graph is rising. The Martians are conquering Earth and the Big Nurse is slowly tightening a noose around McMurphy's neck. Once more, success seems possible. INTERNAL CONFLICT IS ON THE INCREASE ALSO. Of course, and so is interpersonal conflict. All three levels of conflict are rising! But back to the protagonist for a moment ... Why should she or he turn back now? Why doesn't he/she? What's at stake? Is there a DILEMMA? What makes your protagonist realize the unavoidable importance of her/his original goal? What gives it new meaning? Does someone die? Do the stakes raise? Does reputation suffer or threaten to diminish? We must have a answer. This is true drama. Storytelling at its finest. ACT FOUR (Page 200+ - 375+) Second Major Plot Point - New Rising Action and Suspense - Conflict Levels - Climax - Victory at a Cost Opens with the SECOND MAJOR PLOT POINT as protagonist pursues the new and truly productive goal (the author of MISERY decides to write the novel Kathy wants in order to enact his new scheme to escape). The characters get that final clue, the missing piece to the puzzle, which allows them to make the necessary changes to successfully complete the plot line. Success seems more possible than ever despite MINOR REVERSALS OR COMPLICATIONS which may continue to take place. The final clue or missing piece to the puzzle is found. Possible surprise or twist takes place (the traitor is revealed--or this is reserved for CLIMAX or DENOUEMENT) All three conflict levels continue to build, however, some interpersonal conflicts may be resolved by this point. This builds to CLIMAX, and the protagonist will usually win out over the antagonist, but victory or success must come at a price (such as the death of a favorite character: the sheriff in MISERY is killed by Kathy just before climax). Climax should be the most intense plot point in the story, but the intensity and nature of that intensity depends on the needs of the genre and the nature of the story. While the climax is the moment when the decisive event occurs, plot development is a process that occurs throughout your novel (see above). As we've noted, the reader must see how main character behaves at the start of the novel, and understand how her/his nature is challenged by the main goal. In HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Huck thinks about going against morality of the day and writing Miss Watson where the Phelps family is holding Jim. Instead, he follows his conscience and he and Tom free Jim, and Tom is shot in the leg in the attempt (victory at a cost). You can also have a double climax. For example, in HARRY POTTER, when the heroes find and escape with a magical hoarcrux, that's a climax, but a climax is when Harry finally defeats the chief antagonist, Lord Voldemort. After the climax, you must show the reader the outcome, and how it is good or bad for the main character. Important! ACT FIVE (Page 300+ - 400+) Denouement - Loose Ends Wrapped - Theme Wrap - Conclusions - Resolutions - A Final Surprise? Denouement wherein all loose ends resolved, a final surprise perhaps, hint of the sequel perhaps, but readers on their way with the emotions the writer wants them to feel (Fitzgerald actually saved final exposition regarding Gatsby for the denouement following Gatsby's death). Internal Resolution and With Theme or No What does the protagonist and possibly other characters learn as a result of climax? How does this manifest itself going forward? How are things different? How are they changed, especially the protagonist? In CATCHER IN THE RYE, Holden leaves it ambiguous as to whether he's "better" or not, and many would say there is no "better" anyway; he just has to grow up, painfully and with a lot of depression thrown in for good measure. On the other hand, we look to the last line of the novel for another take on the conclusion: "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." Perhaps then, the conclusion to Holden's initial conflict (the tension between wanting to connect but hating everyone) is that he did in fact connect – in one way or another – with everyone he met. The new question isn't whether or not one should connect, but whether or not the pain of inevitable loss is worth the initial gain. From SPARKNOTES, we have a slice of theme from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: The most important theme of this novel is the book's exploration of the moral nature of human beings--that is, whether people are essentially good or essentially evil. The novel approaches this question by dramatizing Scout and Jem's transition from a perspective of childhood innocence, in which they assume that people are good because they have never seen evil, to a more adult perspective, in which they have confronted evil and must incorporate it into their understanding of the world. As a result of this portrayal of the transition from innocence to experience, one of the book's important subthemes involves the threat that hatred, prejudice, and ignorance pose to the innocent: people such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are not prepared for the evil that they encounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed. Even Jem is victimized to an extent by his discovery of the evil of racism during and after the trial. Whereas Scout is able to maintain her basic faith in human nature despite Tom's conviction, Jem's faith in justice and in humanity is badly damaged, and he retreats into a state of disillusionment. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. _______________ ________________________________ [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Writing and editing a first novel of any kind is a long, hard slog even when armed with the right information and guidance. But if you're immersed in an atmosphere of foolish and erroneous advice, as most struggling novel writers are, the task becomes impossible. - Michael Neff __________________________ It's like acid rain. It never ceases to scar, harm the environment, and ruin vacations. We're talking about bad writer advice, of course (btw, see our first article on this subject). While perusing several collections of "Worst Writer Advice" found sprouting like toxic tulips after a simple Google search (most of it authored by insufferable rank amateurs working for the ad-driven content industry, and who wisely appear between ages 12 and 17), I found the various fallacies and idiocies about novel writing contained therein to be worth pointing out. Much of it was reminiscent of childish Twitter rumor, and therefore, potentially harmful to aborning novelists. Should one even bother though to set this straight? It makes you feel a little like the baffled ex-astronaut prodded into revealing Earth really is a globe when addressing a convention of flat earth fanatics, i.e., "I can't believe I'm even talking about this." And btw, I also visited the kingdom of Reedsy, one of the more popular writer advice hangouts. I was investigating their article on writing for NaNoWriMo, aka National Writing Month, but I found the surge of cheerleading blather concerning this competition to be a grand welcome mat for bad advice scuffery. No surprise there (not *everything* was bad advice, though most points required far more elaboration, and enough dark neoplasms did exist to cripple a writer's ability to succeed, e.g., "Follow whatever crazy character shows up and leads you down the rabbit hole, and let yourself be surprised!”). Yes, yes, leave the plot behind, just follow that crazy down the hole, and once you've reached the bottom, sitting with your crazy on a toilet in a squalid gas station bathroom just south of Pismo Beach, look up and squint to see that small crack of light high above you. Overall, I felt as if I were being lectured by children who had just discovered how to type, and it made me think... Could I now toss aside decades of experience and acquired knowledge regarding the topic of novel writing, and quite simply, like them, sally forth and tap out a new "epic novel" in a month? We are awash in wunderkind. Where do they come from? What do they want? Not long ago, a Reedsy-like writer in a Zoom workshop enthusiastically erupted, "The best thing about writer groups is that no one is necessarily right. Writers are free to approach novel writing in any number of ways, even if they have to INVENT IT AS THEY GO." I informed her that was actually the worst thing about writer groups (btw, was the inverse "necessarily wrong" also true?), and the "invent it as they go" was itself an invention of ignorant narcissism on the "go" only to rejection. Next, I asked her if she knew the definition of a plot point, whereupon she evaporated into electronic memory. I never saw her again, but apparently, "no right way to write a novel" was an important standard for her, one she clung to tenaciously. And btw, she's not alone. Such "writers" don't wish their "creativity" to be "controlled" or "diluted" with rules meant for "some." In all fairness, it's likely she'd absorbed such foolish and ruinous maxims after ingesting the literary advice equivalent of cyanide, the kind one inevitably discovers puddling around the web (see Google search above). Where else?... Oh right, I forgot. She could have learned it from her writer group? Where is the nearest cliff? Maybe this act of investigatory literary journalism will rescue your dream from ruination, or not. As one of the wise sages we'll review points out, "don't listen to experts if it makes you feel bad.. just follow your instincts." Again, I repeat, where is the nearest cliff? Regardless, more favorites below, from mind boggling to laughable. WE will not provide them with free publicity by naming or linking to them. As follows: "Some people, however, will say that no book will ever succeed without an outline. This is terrible writing advice. If you don't want to use an outline and want to go straight to writing then go ahead - don't allow anyone to tell you otherwise." (Some people? In two decades I've never heard anyone make this sweeping statement; however, I do belong to the non-pantsing school. I adamantly advocate for productive planning and/or outlining in advance, especially for aspiring genre-specific authors relatively new to the field. WE article on this issue here.) Some people are fortunate and they don’t have a lot of time commitments on their hands. These writers might get their book written, edited, and on their way to publishing in just a few weeks. This in no way means it’s not good! It just means they were able to spend a lot of consecutive time on it. (Some writer people known to this writer person are able to conceive, write, edit, and publish their novel in a few weeks... Tell me who. Show me the novel. This reminds me of the ancient Jack Kerouac novel-typing-in-one-sitting stunt, but not quite as extreme. Nevertheless, preposterous no matter how you look at it.) Join a writing group either in person or virtually and give them extracts of your work. (We've debunked that solution here.) Write in your own voice, with your natural grammar. Let copyeditors and proofreaders worry about your grammar later. (Your "natural grammar"? As both a line and developmental editor, this green light to ignore reasonable grammar can result in eye popping hybrids. Consistent and obvious bad grammar is a red flag to professionals. There are irritating nuances to grammar, yes, but advising writers to ignore grammar rules in general is wrong.) Most of the writing and publishing industry is shockingly elitist, and most of what they teach is bad advice that doesn’t work. (The portion of the industry that might present itself to some as elitist is not that portion of the industry currently engaged in freelance editorial work, i.e., unless the editor in question happens to be a former publishing house editor or literary agent. In that case, they are feverishly searching for jobs and will not be inclined to act snotty. The broad brush allegation that "most of what they teach is bad advice" is plain ridiculous, if for no other reason than the allegation is too sweeping. Most? Really? No examples given here. No names. Who provides unproductive advice and who does not varies widely.) (FYI, the statement above, and below, was made by an instructional-and-self-publication website) Nothing about reading books about writing—or subscribing to blogs about writing—is going to help you do that... But I have yet to find a book about writing that’s a better use of your time than actually writing. (I'm still bandaging my jaw. Well said, I must say. The writer has yet "to find a book about writing" that's any good? Waste of time? For example, "Screenwriter's Problem Solver" by Syd Field teaches nothing worthwhile? "Art of Fiction" by John Gardner? And so forth? We addressed this issue quite well on WE. It's hard to believe this issue has to be debated. I've only ever heard one person say this in twenty years, and that was an MFA prof attempting to sell his program to a writer workshop. And I'll maintain that if you cannot communicate writing advice using the written word, then you cannot communicate it verbally either. ) Read as much writing as you can in your genre (the kind of books you want to write)?... I actually tell people not to do this... Instead, read only the minimum amount necessary to know what the general consensus is in that field. (Huh? This fellow actually finds harm in immersing in one's chosen genre? Read the minimum amount? What does that mean? How does he define? We never find out. It's just overall ridiculous.) Do you find it hard to believe that a portion of the above isn't just an invention? I'd prefer it that way actually. Far more disturbing to see fellow writers (or alleged writers) passing this pap around as if valid. God bless Novel Writing on Edge. ________________________________ [url={url}]View the full article[/url]