Story Structure

Just finished a fantastic week at the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference. Fantastic event with several national agents and a national editor, too. I participated in an intensive writer's workshop with the fabulous author, J. Scott Savage, author of the Farworld series, as well as Case File 13: Zombie Kids.

Eleven of us submitted 20 pages for group and professional critique, then got dazzled as Scott showed us how to analyze our work not just for craft, but also for for audience response. Since we were a middle grade session, this was particularly helpful for my WIP, a new MG sci-fi urban fantasy. The conference was tremendous in rehabilitating my enthusiasm for writing and for exponentially increasing my skills. how's that for a plug?!

Ultimately, I was reminded of how I need to finish constructing the story, the character arcs, and plotting, before I continue. So I'm using a number of methods, but wanted to clue you in to one great method: Dan Wells' Seven-Point System for plotting. He gave the presentation at LTUE in February 2010. You can watch it on YouTube here, or read a great summary first by Lisa Bouchard. It's one of several methods I use, and a good one.

Happy writing!

Story Structure, Character Structure

The past two weeks I've taken off from writing and planning book two in the Lizzie Peterson saga. In part that's because I just needed a break from editing, in part because I was deep into writing several articles for my day job as a writer and editor, and in part because I'm doing some serious research into story structure. Oh, and into publishing, but that's a different post.

I've been studying Larry Brooks' book, Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. You can see the cover to the right.

Larry has some very inventive ideas about what makes up a story, character, theme, conflict, concept, and structure. It's got me thinking and rethinking and thinking some more. That's the danger with doing too much research into how to craft stories!   ;-)

So, combine this with Dan Wells' presentation at BYU's LTUE symposium two years ago, and you have two very nice approaches to the craft of story. Add Katherine Farmer's research on characters (no direct link to her, but a summary at my friend, Matt Tandy's blog), and you have several key concepts to consider when writing.

What I like about Larry's book, especially when I incorporate my own ideas and others' on story, is that it has the potential to make writing much, much more efficient, powerful, and engaging on all levels.

I'm naturally gifted at plot and dialogue, but I struggle a bit with character (except strong female characters, interestingly enough) and theme.

Now, I'm beginning to see how to see, delve into, and craft an entire world story before I even begin to type it. It's a fascinating journey.

So, if you are interested in really improving your craft, I recommend studying (not reading) Larry's book, watching Dan's presentation a few times, and finding someone who can share with you Katherine's methods (I don't want to give too much because she's writing a book on it and that might preempt her. But if you want to get together sometime, I can teach you what I know.)

What you need to understand is that story is structure, as Tracy Hickman and so many have told me. I've blundered my way through enough free writing and enough outlines to story that still lacked something that I've realized there is a deep, compelling need for a story to work on multiple levels.

The master writer, the truly gifted writer, I believe, is gifted not because she just intrinsically knows all this, but because she learns the craft so deeply that she can apply it and exercise it and manipulate it in the creation of the story. And that means fewer revisions, better stories that people want to read, and greater success as a writer.

That's a fantastic goal.

Author Interview: Joseph Vasicek

Hi Friends,

I have another author to introduce to you today. His name is Joseph Vasicek, a young writer minted from BYU. The current book he's promoting is called Genesis Earth.

Ok, some of you may not think BYU is a significant credential. But consider the number of amazingly successful authors, some of them New York Times bestsellers, who either studied or taught at BYU. Here's a few you might know:

Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Stephanie Meyer, David Farland aka Wolverton, and the list goes on. And that's just for genre fiction, too.

Of course, a number of you and I are trying to do get on that list ourselves!

But enough about us and BYU. Let's showcase Joe. He's a very bright, creative, and entrepreneurial fellow. In fact, he's launched heavily into the e-publishing world. In a few weeks we'll have Joe back to talk about those endeavors. But today, I'm hosting Joe as a guest blogger to talk about what's important to him. Take it away, Joe.



Why I Love Science Fiction

When I saw Star Wars: Episode IV for the first time, I promptly fell in love with science fiction. What seven year old boy wouldn't? For hours afterward, I ran around my house and backyard making starfighter sounds and pretending like I was flying an x-wing.

When I read A Wrinkle in Time one year later, however, my infatuation with the genre quickly turned into a lifelong love. It may have been the concept of fifth-dimensional travel, or riding on a centaur to an alien planet, or perhaps the idea of fighting against a hive-mind bent on absorbing and crushing all individuality in the universe, but I either way I knew I'd discovered my passion: science fiction.

At the city library, I read every Star Wars book I could get my hand on. Timothy Zahn, Kevin J. Anderson, Dave Wolverton, Roger Allen McBride--I read them all. When Jurassic Park came out, I read the book six times before I started middle school. I spent a summer obsessed with the Tripod series, and when I discovered Ender's Game, I finished it at a breathless sprint at 3:00 am the morning after checking it out from the library.

It wasn't just science fiction that entranced me. After finishing Jurassic Park for the sixth time, I devoured every Michael Crichton thriller I could get my hands on. The Chronicles of Prydain hold a special place in my heart, as do J.R.R. Tolkien and David Gemmell. To this day, The Neverending Story is my favorite work of fiction, and probably will be to the day I die. I even enjoyed Jayne Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, though I was much older when I discovered them.

But no matter where I wander, I always come back to science fiction. Why?

Part of it probably has to do with the fantastic, otherworldly nature of the genre. C.J. Cherryh makes me wish I had my own spaceship, while Alastair Reynolds freaks me out with alien ruins and cyborg melding plagues. In that sense, escapism has something to do with it, but not entirely. Fantasy takes us away from reality, whereas science fiction presents us a world of possibilities. I loved Xenocide precisely because the philotic web makes so much sense, I still believe that it could be real.

More than anything, though, I keep coming back to science fiction because of its deep capacity for thoughtfulness. I considered myself a free market capitalist, until Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed nearly convinced me to become an anarchist. A Canticle for Leibowitz gave me a deeper respect for Catholicism and a stronger sense of brotherhood with my fellow Christians than any other book I've read. Ender's Shadow taught me what it means to be a leader, while Robert Charles Wilson's Spin and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey made me spend hours pondering the fate of the universe.

The most thoughtful science fiction always explores what it means to be human. Consequently, the best works focus on character, perhaps more than in any other genre. When the universe itself is so strange as to be unrecognizable, the only things that can keep a reader grounded are fleshed out, believable characters. Whether it's Jane from Speaker for the Dead, Angelo Osic from On My Way to Paradise, Shevek from The Dispossessed, or Tyler Dupree from Spin, I know I've read a good book when I feel like I've come to know someone deeper than I know my own friends.

I love science fiction, not just as a reader, but also as a writer. When I read A Wrinkle in Time all those years ago, I fell in love with the genre because I knew that that was my destiny. I can't explain how or why, but I just knew it, and I've been writing ever since. And if I can write books that inspire my readers just as the best of these books have inspired me, I'd consider myself a success.

Because the best science fiction doesn't just take us somewhere new and alien--it helps us better understand and love the people in the world around us. And as a writer, that is a worthy goal to shoot for.

Josh: Thanks, Joe! Great post, and great to know you a little better. We look forward to your advice on the e-Publishing world. In case you missed it, Joe's website is One Thousand and One Parsecs, and his e-book, Genesis Earth, is available at Amazon.com. Take a peek and let us know what you think.