Plotting

A plot. A series of events that forms the story.

Sooner or later we all have to end up with one – particularly if we are writing novels. Some folks start out at chapter one with a structured plan, others write an endless series of disconnected scenes, following their interest, until the whole patchwork starts to show some cross-connections, then weave it together with endless iterations. Others write to the ‘horizon’ – plotting only two to three chapters ahead to some critical plot point.

Some people claim not to plot at all, but focus only on Narrative and Character, letting the characters loose on the page. I have always had a suspicion that these writers know their characters so well, and their character’s stories, that by default they pretty much have the whole thing in any case. But sooner or later if there is a story, there will be a plot.

How do you plot?

I tend to plot a lot looser now than I have in the past. I usually decide at the outset who the main PoV characters will be, then start tracing out a series of ‘threads’ – literally. I start with a sheet of A3 paper and draw a series of interconnected little bubbles, each of which is a key scene. This enables me to go crazy drawing lines between things, and to look at the parallel story arcs of the main characters and how these relate. The whole thing ends up like a dog’s breakfast in the end, and I have usually stapled on an additional one or two sheets of A3, with scores of little footnotes where I have run out of room in the boxes. OK. Sue me – I’m an engineer.

I usually back this up with notes on characters, lists of characters, glossaries, background material on the world etc.

What sort of tools to you use to plot? I personally love pencil and paper, but this is just my inner Luddite showing.

Do you plot everything out before hand, or explore your way into your potential story? Do you let your inner characters off the leash like a pack of overexcited puppies to run riot through your word processor?

The Ancient Art of Kinging

or What did those nobles do all day, anyway?

When you read fantasy, particularly the medievalish fantasy that seems to be the 'default' setting, there's never anything in there about how those assorted nobles actually filled their days. Oh, you might get a bit about hunting - but they certainly weren't doing that all day every day, and the feasts and whatnot didn't take up that much time.

Besides, somewhere in there the actual nitty gritty work of managing a kingdom or an estate had to happen, and that involved things we'd normally associate with a business - if one with a somewhat atypical approach to personnel.

So what did they do all day? Monty Python aside, it usually wasn't oppressing the peasants, at least, not up close and personal. Nor did they spend all day hanging around brown-nosing the most important person. And since everything that needed to be recorded had to be recorded by hand, and usually done or at least personally overseen by the lord himself (the art of delegation was seriously hampered by the question of trust, which they usually didn't have much of), there was a lot of administrivia in the nobleman's day.

A typical nobleman needed to at minimum check his accounts regularly - they were hand-written by scribes (particularly since the lord probably didn't know how to read or write and needed his secretary - the parish priest for the smaller estates - to tell him what was in them - but you can guarantee he could figure and was very interested in the numbers being right), and often involved barter since taxes and fines were often collected in kind rather than money, so receiving 20 days of labor from landowner X, two head of cattle from herder Y, and so forth, had to be converted into something a little more helpful - preside over the courts, usually in person (which is probably where the modern connotation of royal/noble 'court' came from) and often serve as the final arbiter of justice.

Digression alert - justice varied hugely depending on the culture. England after the Magna Carta had the rudiments of the modern jury system in place and the requirement that no free man be held without accusation or trial. Other places used something based on the Roman model. Still others, anyone at all could apply directly to the lord for justice. In Scandinavian regions, the Viking model lasted for quite some time - and is still partially in use in Iceland and the Isle of Man.

Anyway, our generic lord also kept track of expenses, the storage of precious goods (including spices), ensured his direct dependents - his family and the people who worked full time for him - had enough to eat and decent clothing, managed his agents - part time in smaller, more peaceful kingdoms, but in places that had warring nations nearby or were subject to Viking, Moorish or other raiders the information from his agents was critical to his and his land's safety, and organized hunting partly to supplement the meat supplies (and eliminate dangerous animals), and partly as a diplomatic function not that unlike modern summits (similar to feasts, which had the added joy of demonstrating to his eminent visitors what a grand fellow he was because he could put on such a lavish show), arranging his and his children's marriages - which were very much political business (and for the girls he needed to have sizable dowries so he didn't have to give up land) - and that was just in peace time.

If there was a war - which for mainland Europe was the norm - the lord was expected to ride to battle and take part personally unless he was too old, too young, or crippled. He was also usually expected to lead his men (and provide his share of the army in the form of trained soldiers), although if he wasn't much of a warlord and he was thinking about it he'd find himself a good, reliable veteran and put him in charge of the actual military management. If he was a warlord, there's a good chance he was more or less at war anyway, whether with local bandits (who often proliferated during and after wars, when the nobles were preoccupied and not able to focus as much on keeping law and order at home) or the neighbors.

Exhausted yet? As well as all this, he needed to keep himself in shape, which meant weapons training, riding, war games - the origin of knightly jousts and tournaments - and make sure his people were also training for possible war service, if that was the law. England required all free men to train with longbows until - I think - Tudor times. Other places expected every free man to own and practice regularly with a sword (Switzerland comes to mind).

If he got it wrong, our generic noble could easily become an ex-noble (or ignoble?). Excommunication could happen for reasons we'd consider trivial - and left his lands up for grabs. If he didn't keep himself and his people fit for war, the next time trouble flared up he could be overrun. Then there was the method of replacement politely described in the history books as 'usurpation'. Usually that translated to dead men's boots, and while it wasn't common, it wasn't exactly rare, either. There's a reason food and drink tasters were often part of royal and noble households, and it isn't letting someone else find out the cook didn't keep a close enough eye on the spit-boys and the meat is half raw.

Sadly, although all of this could easily be woven into the background of fantasy novels, it rarely is. Instead we get nobles lazing around or oppressing the peasants - or if the book is sympathetic, said nobles are nobly leading their people to war, without much - if any - detail about what's involved in running a swords and arrows war (hint: it's messy).

Who bucks the trend and gives good background information in their fantasy books? I can't really count PTerry as an example, mostly because he spends most of his writing time outside the little box labeled 'typical' and when he does focus on it, he's looking at it from the kind of angle where none of my rant is relevant (but if you're looking for it, it's there. Just... well, PTerried).

The plot is the king to catch the spirit of the thing

But, it’s a short story! I hear you say. But I don’t have to plot a short story!

Well, maybe you don’t my pretty. Maybe you do. In my writing life, I’ve had to plot some stories, and others have poured out of my fingers without my even thinking about them. In fact, I go through entire phases where I plot the entire thing in advance, and then others where I just write them... and back again.

I want to emphasize, before I give an example of a worksheet I use/have used at times, that this is not the only way to do it, that it doesn’t mean you should do it this way, and that your mileage may vary... considerably. Short stories more than novels are very subjected to a personal style and a "way of doing things." Mine, for instance, tend to include a mirror moment, where the character finds what he’s been pursuing is not what he wants. This is not true in a lot of other stories, some very good ones. It all depends on the author.

Okay, the first things you need to remember, is that all stories – not just shorts, though in shorts you have less time to introduce them – are composed of three elements: character, problem and resolution.

Other things that are nice to find roaming around – though some magazines don’t seem to require them – are setting and plot. The setting is, natch, the place where the story is set – and it can range from very important (story couldn’t happen anywhere else) to just a way to make sure your characters don’t float out into space... or sound like it. The plot should be the coherent actions that your characters take to effect the resolution of their problem, as well as to happens in reaction to them. Some of the more literary magazines, btw, omit the "resolution."

Now, the worsheet I use – for sake of brevity I’m going to use one of my own short stories (as happens, unpublished) for the example.

Title: The Private Wound
Character: Princess/Lady Elizabeth, in an alternate world in which Henry VIII reconcile with Catherine of Aragon and Mary is the undisputed queen, while Elizabeth ends up in a convent (as in Edward never existed, and this is the way to keep the succession uncluttered.)
Problem: Elizabeth is not remotely suited to the convent and is bored out of her gourd/looking for escape.
Goal: To escape being a nun.
Action: When Robert – Robin Dudley – Elizabeth’s childhood playfriend shows up in the choir, Elizabeth eagerly runs away with him. She wants to marry him, yes, she wants to be free from the convent, she even wants to fight for the crown if it comes to that.
Mirror moment – as she escapes with him (and this many years after, I don’t remember the details of the action, which is good for keeping it brief) she apprises herself of his situation – widower – and how it came about, and she starts to get a bad feeling. Then she finds he’s arranged everything to marry her quickly. Suddenly, she realizes that if she marries him she’ll be putting herself in his hands. Just like her mother was in father’s hands. She’ll only be exchanging the prison of the convent for another and more dangerous prison.
Resolution – she stabs Duddley and goes back to the convent claiming he tried to kidnap her. She realizes that her understanding of what happened to her mother – her private wound – makes it impossible for her to trust a male and that the convent, boring as it is, is safe and preferable to an illusory freedom in which she’ll be ruled by a man who will have power of life and death over her.

In retrospect, I know why the story didn’t sell – because the freedom Elizabeth longs for at the beginning of the story is no part of the resolution, which makes for a very "down" story. (I’m more than willing to send it to whoever wishes to read it, btw.)

I hope this makes sense, as I’m recovering from a minor illness that piggy-backed on the flu and I might not be particularly coherent. (Which accounts for my not having been around, yeah.)

Does it make any sense? What did I leave out that you need to know? What do you think the plotting should include? Is your preparation for short stories much different?

Embrace your Inner Weird

Or ... when writing characters, be honest, even if it hurts.

Ok, we writers, like all creative people, are a bit weird, always watching, listening and trying to make sense of the world and why people do things.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone else is just pretending to be normal, so they can pass.

Think of the gardening shows, where presenters run their hands through mulch and wax lyrical about the joys of compost.

Think of all those clips on U-Tube of peoples' cats and dogs doing cute things. You realise those people are following their animals around with a digital camera just waiting for them to do something. That's weird.

Think of the dentist who loved Star Trek so much he built his dental surgery like the bridge of the USS Enterprise and made all his nurses wear the 1960s uniform.

Think of the collectors who search for things like match boxes, old dress patterns and radios. Some of them even build sheds, or add rooms to house their collections.

Think of the times you did things that embarrassed you and you put your foot in it. Think of the times you did the right thing by accident, more than by design. Think of the less than wonderful moments when you fought down a craven impuslse to cry, this is all too much. Then you got up and kept going because you had to.

Now look at your characters? Are they too 'straight'? Do they need more quirks, more failings, more doubts?

Who did you like Mickey Mouse or the irrascable, Donald Duck? In Australia we prefered Donald, he had faults. We could identify with him.

So, embrace your Inner Weird. There's a little bit of 'weird' in everyone.

Are there characters in books or films that stayed with you because they were flawed? Are you a Mickey Mouse or a Donald Duck person?

"Look dad, glorious, glopsious mudd!"

I almost forgot I was posting here today. The last while has been very fraught, worrying about my cats and dogs - writing has been in the toilet. Normally I settle my head with a game of free-cell and the book’s theme track. But to be honest the last while has been more of a emotion-storm than I find easy to to focus on anything but the chrises and worries of the moment.
So that’s what I wanted to write about: emotion - how we elicit it, should we elicit it, and what does it do for the book.
From a personal point of view, I believe a book which does NOT stir the emotions is only marginally worth reading if you really can’t sleep. If it can’t stir my emotions then I can’t really care that much about the characters.
How: well that’s a difficult one. I do most of mine from the gut, bringing up things I really do care about, showing aspects of myself to the reader that are frankly uncomfortable for me. I’m a really softy. If it can’t upset me, it’s bloody well not good enough. It’s not easy or pleasant. This was one of the more difficult scenes I ever wrote:

_________

It was the old dog that finally did it.
Signy came down late in the afternoon, after the other stable-thralls had gone, her hand on the old dog's neck. Cair was standing in a dark corner of the stable, next to feed-store, carefully loosening a rock, which would give him a hiding place for the things he needed to steal for his escape. Now he stood dead still. It was dark back here.
Cair had noticed how, over the last week that this, her most faithful companion, had abruptly stopped coming down here with her. Now he could see it was only loyalty that had made it make the effort to walk. Something was plainly very wrong with the old dog. The beast shivered slightly as it leaned against her, pausing. Then she led it to an empty stall, and it lay down with a little whine.
Cair could swear that he'd made no sound, but somehow the Princess knew that he was there. Princesses did not belong in stables. They did not wear old -- if once good -- garments. They did not walk around unaccompanied by anyone but their dogs. She used to sneak out in the predawn and ride alone too, Cair knew -- something she was almost certainly not supposed to do, by the care she took to have the tack back in place when the thralls came to work. A Princess wasn't even supposed to touch tack! She was, by any definition, odd -- a breaker of the rules of her society. And Princess Signy added to her oddness by an almost inhuman ability to know where people were. She called him.
She was kneeling next to the dog, her face oddly white -- she was always a little too sun-browned for a noblewoman, and her eyes glittered strangely.
"Will you hold her still? I can't miss and I don't want her to know what I intend to do," she said in a dead-flat voice.
So Cair sat with the old bitch, gently stroking her. He had had an old grazehound back on Lesbos when was growing up who had been a bit like this old girl. She'd also followed him everywhere. He'd spoiled her, or so his brother had said.
"It has to be done," she said in that same voice, lifting the ear to expose the ear-hole.
Horrified and fascinated he watched as she drew the the knife from her sleeve and stabbed hard, pushing the blade in through the ear-hole.
The old bitch never even whimpered.
But Signy did. And then, as she pulled the knife out, tears were streaming down her face. "She couldn't swallow any more... a canker in her throat," she said hoarsely.
The hand that didn't hold the knife stroked the white-flecked muzzle. "I grew up with her. I..." she choked and let the shaking hand on the dead dog's flank say it all. She bent over and kissed the dog's nose, ignoring the blood.
"But couldn't someone else do this for you?" he asked. No noblewoman would do such a thing!
She stared blindly at him, not seeing past the tears. "She gave me all of her love and loyalty. How could I give her anything less? How could I let someone else kill her? It had to be done as quickly and cleanly as possible. How could I not be with her?"
He nodded. It was an attitude he simply had to respect. He sought for words of comfort, without any thought but to ease her distress, speaking not as a thrall to his noble mistress, but as one dog lover comforting another. "She is young now, free from pain, chasing down the deer in the eternal fields," he said quietly.
"Are there dogs in Odin's host?" she asked obviously desperately seeking reassurance -- even from a thrall.
That was a hard one. One he had debated and decided on long before, at the death of his own childhood hound. He gave her as honest an answer as possible. "Princess, I am not of your faith, but if a God cannot recognize and reward such love and loyalty, how can he be a God? If there are no dogs in heaven, let me rather go to wherever they are."
He took the knife from her hand and cleaned it on one of his rags, and gave it back to her. Signy sniffed. "I don't know what do with her now," she said in a small voice. "She just hurt so. I had to do it."
Cair touched her, awkwardly, on the shoulder. He hadn't lived here for this long without coming to realize that to do so held possibly fatal consequences. "I will deal with it, Princess. I will bury her down at the edge of the paddocks. The dogs all love that spot. Let her always be there."
She nodded, blindly. Sniffed. Bent over and kissed the dog's grey head once more and stood up. "Thank you," she said guiding herself along the stalls with an outstretched hand, eyes obviously too blurred to see.
Cair knew then that he was, against all the trammels of logic and common sense, her man.

______________
I don’t really know what it did for the book.

Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet. I'm Hunting Agents

Stop running for the nearest hidey hole, agents. I'm not hunting you THAT way. No, like many others out there, I'm looking for an agent to represent me. It's a daunting task, especially right now when the publishing business is in such a state of flux. There are times when the hunt makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and stop writing. That lasts for about 5 minutes, the length of time for my bruised ego to pick itself up and ping Sarah or Kate who will commiserate for a few minutes and then tell me to get back to work. Then there are those wonderful notes from agents who, even though they are rejecting me, have a word of encouragement, a recommendation or even a note to send them something else because they like my writing but this particular project just didn't sing loudly enough for them.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Maybe there's something in the water or in the phase of the moon, but it seems like there's been a spate of author's doing their best to sabotage their attempts to find an agent. For those of you like me who are still on the hunt, here are a few hints from some agents and others who have blogged on the issue this past week.

Rachelle Gardner has this piece of advice:

What trait can stop you from getting an agent?
In a word: Negativity.
If you're negative about the publishing industry; if you complain about agents and publishers and the unfairness of it all; if you're resentful about bad books being published; if you speak disparagingly of specific publishers or editors or agents... you can be pretty sure most agents will not want to work with you.

Jennifer Jackson had this to say:

Query letters in which you tell me that your book can't possibly be appreciated in the mere five pages our submission guidelines request so therefore you have sent me many unsolicited chapters do not endear you or your novel to me. They tell me you have no respect for the other writers submitting. I have news for you. Some of them are better writers than you are. Some of them are worse. Many of them may not be writing something I want to read. But they are all just as special as you are. They have worked hard and finished their novel. They are amazing for doing that. Each and every one of them. Don't you think I know that five pages isn't enough to fully appreciate a story? Certainly anyone could agree with that sentiment. But that's not the point of the query package. It's a presentation. An invitation to read. To be enticed.

She goes on to thank those authors who take the time to read the guidelines and send only what is asked for.

Lucienne Diver adds this: There is still an etiquette, there are still boundaries and procedures, and while doing your research means you’ll be targeting the right people with your work, it should not get to the point where you feel you know them so well you can bypass those procedures. Remember, they don’t necessarily know you. . . .

She previously posted "Querying Dos and Don'ts", but adds another several things to her list:

-don’t call the agent or editor by his or her first name unless you’re truly on a first name basis

-spend at least as much time on your query letter as you would on a cover letter to go along with your resume

-spell check and proof read

-make sure you’re following guidelines and do not direct the pros to a separate website to view your work; everything we need to make a decision should be included with your query

-be sure the pro can respond to the e-mail address you’ve used if sending an electronic query (Note: this seems obvious, but I’ve had responses bounce because the address is no reply or because there’s an anti-spam process I’m not going to take the time to complete.)

Another site to check out is Lauren Dane's Writerly Wednesday. Ms. Dane is right when she says:

This is a profession. You are not so special you can simply toss off a nasty note to an editor who rejects you, or talk about it on a blog, blaming that editor for not seeing your brilliance – and expect anything positive to come from it. This is a community. You don’t have to like every part of it, you don’t have to take any crap from people either, but how you handle yourself, how you respond is as important as your writing. There are a hundred other writers happy to take any space you leave at an agency or publisher with your bad behavior. Personal relationships are important in publishing just like many other professions.

Be a professional. Do your bitching behind closed doors, lick your wounds and move on.

That being said, how do you deal with rejections?

Me, I kick and scream and feel sorry for myself. BUT, and this is a very big but, I stay away from the REPLY button on email until my emotions are under control. I rarely send thank you notes because, frankly, agents have enough email and snail mail to contend with as it is. However, I make exceptions for those who have been particularly supportive or helpful. I want them to know how much I appreciate them going the extra mile even if they haven't offered representation. I also make note of those agents who, even though their websites say they are open for new clients, habitually send rejections less than an hour after receipt -- especially when the queries met all published guidelines.

One last question. How do you go about choosing what agent to query and how do you then prepare for that initial and oh-so-difficult introduction by mail (or email)?

Flashbacks

I recently read a novel by a first time author that included heavy use of flashbacks. The writer will, I hope, do well as he has a good style and invents interesting characters. However, the flashbacks ruined the book for me. The primary now-time story could not have sustained a novel.

The flashbacks covered the key events in the primary character's life over decades that explained his character and situation, starting at the age of five years or so. Important characters in the flashbacks had no connection with the now-time plot, which I found confusing.

This novel made me realise why I dislike flashbacks in stories. It takes a skillful author to handle the plot construction. David Drake pulled it off in one of his Venus stories but he is extremely gifted and experienced in matters of plot construction.

It also struck me that flashbacks are rarely necessaey. The story that prompted this article could easily have been constructed as a chronologically linear story, telling the protagonists tale from childhood to adult, as in Great Expectations for example.

Is this just me? Are there stories where multiple flashbacks are necessary to the plot? Are there stories that have been improved by flashbacks?

John

PS: As I mentioned Great Expectations, I thought you might like to see Cooling Churchyard where Pip met Magwitch. The photo shows the childrens' graves of Pip's brothers and sisters. Dickens based his stories on real places that caught hid imagination. many are on the North Kent Coast.