I made a joke the other day about measuring the distance to Mars in football fields. Why? Because it is so quintessentially American. We will literally measure in anything BUT metric: school buses, dump trucks, blue whales, and the ever-classic…football fields.

It started innocently enough. I saw this article…which CRACKED ME UP:

This “article” made me laugh so hard I joked that, “I live for the day we measure light years with a ‘football field’ conversion so we Americans can grasp the sheer enormity of open space.”

Then I did it for fun, because I am a nerd.

*obviously feel free to skim*

Roll with me:

The average distance to Mars is about 2,050,000,000 football fields.

Now we need something like:

(football field)^x

1^x football fields

a^b ~ 2.05 × 10?

2³¹ ~ 2,147,483,648

So we could say:

The distance to Mars is roughly 2³¹ football fields.

That means:

If you doubled a football field 31 times, you’d reach roughly the distance between Earth and Mars.

We can do an entire American conversion chart for distance to Mars:

• ~ 2.05 billion football fields
• ~ 1.9 billion Walmart parking spaces
• ~ 320 million school buses
• ~ 8 billion bald eagles standing beak-to-tail

Laughs aside though, why do we Americans struggle SO MUCH with the metric system (other than sheer stubbornness, which is a totally valid argument)?

First of all, in the States we grow up in school, life and work constantly using a version of the old Imperial System. Most of us measure in miles per hour and feet and inches and pounds all the time. To us, metric might scale, and might be simple, but it definitely remains abstract.

Which brings me to my point. What IS measurement really?

A story.

Measurement as Narrative

Fans of the metric system claim it is logical, powers by ten, is used by the whole world! All of this is true but, IMO, the problem isn’t math, it’s human brains. We have a proclivity to attach any form of measurement to something we can imagine. Let me illustrate.

End of the World Movie

Picture it.

We are in the White House. Terrified analysts and scientists gather around a bank of computers, faces dour. President Tom Cruise paces thoughtfully back and forth while the experts talk.

Scientist: Mr. President!

President: Yes? How bad is it?

Scientist: Bad, REALLY BAD.

President: *heavy sigh* Just HOW bad?

Scientist: An asteroid approximately fifteen kilometers in diameter is approaching Earth at twenty-four kilometers per second!

President: Um…what?

Scientist: The impact will be approximately 3.1 X 10^17 joules, sir!

President: O_0

Scientist: Sir? Sir! An asteroid the SIZE of MANHATTAN is hurtling our way and will hit with the force of 300 million megatons of TNT!

President: Why didn’t you just lead with that?

See, when scientists say an asteroid is 15 kilometers in diameter that is math. When scientists say it is the size of Manhattan, that is a story. While metric measurement is brilliant for calculation, Imperial might be better for imagination.

Measure Stubbornness Story

I have been pondering this thought for a while. Started when someone on LinkedIn was griping how silly it was that Americans refuse to use metric. Someone answered in a way that made sense for the first time. He said it wasn’t we refused, but that one didn’t have to understand the Imperial system because Imperial made intuitive sense.

Zero degrees evokes “seriously cold” just as 115 degrees “feels” really frigging HOT.

No one needs to teach math or systems of ten or scaling to intuit the measure.

The Imperial System makes sense because I have carried a GALLON. I know a foot is the “length” of a human foot and a yard is the distance of a “typical” stride. I can picture that, feel it, sense it, envision it.

And Americans aren’t solely guilty. Journalists globally measure descriptively to anchor abstract measurements in things people can already understand. They might describe something in terms of “double-decker buses” or “lorries” or “Olympic swimming pools” for easy frame of reference.

Why? Because humans are wired for story.

Even a preschooler (or an American) can grasp the concept of something that’s the size of three full-grown elephants.

Weighed, Measured & Found Wanting

So what is the point of this post? Other than I unwittingly “discovered” something cool I wanted to share?

Nope. Pretty much that.

Light cognitive load today. You’re welcome.

Suffice to say that I have spent years trying to explain that we Americans just don’t USE metric all the time. Back when I was in university and a Neuroscience Major, I took a lot of Chemistry, Biology, etc. Since I was in a lab two hours a day, I used liters and grams and meters to the point I instinctively understood the measure in a practical way.

Decades away from having to use that system daily?

Meh, work is about a $26 Uber ride away. Looking to relocate to the office that is $6 Uber away (Uber being the measurement of length that ALSO factors in pain, inconvenience, and just how willing you are to risk your life).

This is the New, New Imperial Standard, btw

What are YOUR thoughts? How do you measure?

Admittedly I posted my football fields to Mars on Linked in and the comments were HYSTERICAL. Orbits measured in Cheerio boxes, swallows (African or European?), parrots, kiddie pools because WHY does Olympic get all the glory, literally?

What are some of the funniest measurements you have seen? I hope you see the American plot to undermine metric really is NOT as nefarious as has been reported. I am shopping a lot more at Aldi, so totally working those metric muscles.

The post Why Americans Measure in Football Fields & Likely Always Will appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

AI is the new buzzword. Everything is AI, has AI, offers AI. To be blunt, AI is not the problem. People believing the tool can replace the work is the problem.

Yes, I have been quieter on here far longer than usual. Not gone, just down and dirty in the trenches doing postgraduate work in AI/Machine Learning because y’all matter the world to me. You deserve more than an opinion piece.

For those who might be new to this blog, writers and tech are my jam. The “new shiny” is always something to be wary of. That was true with Web 1.0 and websites, Web 2.0 and social media, Web 3.0 and algorithmic alchemy, and it is truer now than ever in human history.

AI enters the chat.

In 2014, I introduced the concept of the SWOT analysis with 3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing & Increase Sales. Back then, the new tech shiny happened to be social media and algorithmic alchemy. Again, the tools evolve. If we want to remain in the game, stagnation equals death. What I said in 2014 is still relevant today, and we are all going to address the AI generated elephant in the room.

The AI Bubble is Already Here

I’ve been around since companies were tossing billions at anything with dot com at the end. I wrote very literally the first books on social media and branding back when writers were throwing holy water at email and snail-mailing agents.

Suffice to say, not my first rodeo.

Today, we are going to do a quick and dirty SWOT analysis because I want you to remember you matter, people matter and human voices matter.

I didn’t jump head first into AI commentary because I wanted to see how the pieces moved, how the machines “thought” and where we could spot and exploit the blind spots.

Because there are always, and I mean always blind spots.

SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Strengths. AI is an incredible tool for those who use it wisely. It can compress research time we might have once lost in a library, then later on Google. Using ChatGPT or Grok or Gemini or whatever can help us sort through sticky ideas and find our core through lines. This can save time, revisions, and stop us from spending months or—God forbid—years on a WIP that has no spine.

Weaknesses. If we fail to understand core AI concepts like hallucination, model confabulation, synthetic error, false interference, unverified synthesis, we can unwittingly train our chatbot to sign off on some really, and I mean really bad ideas.

Opportunities. Again, AI as a tool can cut down on time we spend chasing our tails. Additionally, AI can help us shoestring or outsource tech that we have to “know” to do this work on a professional level in a way that is incredibly cost-effective. For instance, need a basic website? When I started out, a basic website was outside of the scope of most people’s abilities. One had to drop five grand or more on just a simple web page that told the world we were actually being serious.

Threats. Mistaking the tool for the artisan who wields the tool.

Even the Big Wigs at Davos See This

Follow along the speeches at the WEF and the cracks are already showing. Many thought leaders pushing AI still cannot seem to make good on all the promises. And, personally, I am happy they’re admitting this.

AI can give the illusion of replacing real jobs—writers—but that is all it is.

An illusion.

Go hang around on LinkedIn and feeds are crammed with beautifully crafted posts that look great at a glance. But that is the problem. Beyond the glance, the reality is far more troubling. Yes, maybe social media posts before were ugly. Too many folks who misused your and you’re and goofed up there/their/they’re. But at least back then, despite the grammatical ugliness and typos, posts still had a human beating heart.

To quote The Incredibles, “When everyone is special, no one is.”

Social media sites have recently added AI as a feature so people could feel confident they were saying something thought-provoking and brilliant. Maybe we fell for it…for a while. It hit us (writers particularly) in the confidence because masterfully crafted sentences and proper usage of em dashes and colons once helped US stand apart.

Now? Everyone using an em dash properly has to prove they aren’t a bot.

No, the irony is not lost on me.

We have fallen into the AI Uncanny Valley where we wonder who and what is real. Who can we trust? Which people are doing the real thinking versus who’s offloading all their brainpower and human ingenuity? That is what we are going to drill into today.

Landman, Wildcatting & What Creatives Do BEST

For those who have yet to inhale watch the Paramount series Landman, no spoiler alerts. The irony of this wildly successful story is merely an illustration of exactly why AI cannot and will not replace authentic creativity.

All industries have blind spots. Multinational oil companies mistake decades of what they think they know while dismissing rule-breakers; entertainment does the same by churning out predictable, forgettable stories using outdated ideas of what “works.”

Landman is proof of concept. Audiences want great stories. They are wholesale rejecting formulas, especially formulas where investors and boardrooms hold more sway than the audience.

Maybe the reason Landman landed so hard with me (pardon the pun) is writers are wildcatters. We learn the emotional topography then drill. We pressure test, see what hits. What is a leak? When is a leak a sign we need to go deeper? How can we parlay that experiential intuition we know in our bones into a gusher?

When do we stop drilling and move on because the terrain is tapped out?

Many of us traipse off into the wilderness of story, trekking past the bones of countless who tried to strike it rich before us with only a dream, our instincts, and a stubbornness that can often look like madness.

AI cannot and will never replace that.

How many of you decided to become writers because you LOVE books? Back in the day, you queried agent after agent hoping someone would invest and kept at it despite rejection? Then with social media. How many of you risked everything starting a blog? Trying? Failing? Reinventing? How many of you self-published went indie or hybrid?

You, my lovely wildcatters, are the pioneers with a dream and the unconquerable spirit.

But let’s all be honest here. Maybe some of you never used AI or refuse to. Fair enough. Perhaps you’re in love with AI. Wonderful! Again, it can be a great tool. Yet, as I mentioned, the world has been drifting into a place that doesn’t need anymore drilling.

AI UNCANNY VALLEY is DRY

It might not all be “dry” but it’s either pumping out the predictable or it’s being worked over when it long ago needed to be ditched. Differentiation is the key, but this is where we need to reverse the mantra I’ve hammered for years.

Instead of working smarter not harder? It might just be time to also work harder not just smarter.

Just because Uncanny Valley is dry in no way means humans no longer yearn for great stories. The point is creative professionals might just have to go Old School to dominate the Brave New World.

Just like in the series, Landman, it is the person dismissed by “those who know” who often demonstrate exactly how much the power brokers are blind to.

AI is fabulous for optimizing, but that is the danger. It can over optimize exhausted terrain. This is where your instincts—instincts no machine can replicate—are going to be golden. While LLMs (large language models) can synthesize a human experience, they cannot replace them. They can’t translate humanity the way you can.

Many of us have been reading since we were children. We are the product of decades of novels, encyclopedias, lived experiences and we must get back to WHY PEOPLE LOVE WRITERS (Code for stories).

We see what non-writers cannot.

When we write stories about families, love, loss, murder, heartache, death, redemption there is a visceral nature to it that only other humans can recognize. Almost every human being has been in love, been betrayed, been misunderstood and the reason they read stories, watch movies, inhale series is that the artists are the ones who are the intermediaries.

We take the liminality of life and offer readers a vocabulary for what they feel. Why are they afraid, inspired, burned out, misunderstood? We put that into words and make it real, ironically…through fiction.

By definition…NOT REAL.

Why AI LOVING Your Writing COULD Be a Warning

Maybe it’s just me, though I doubt it. AI is impressive. It’s easy to start collaborating with your chatbot and finally feel heard, seen, revitalized. It is, however, also easy to suddenly feel replaced.

Maybe this AI thingy is better at this than I am. The writing seems cleaner, the ideas appear better, everyone seems to looove AI so do I even matter anymore?

*sobs into brownie batter*

It’s hard not to teeter on personal extinction. Creatives already struggle with feeling like we are “real writers.” In the early days, “real writers” had book deals out of NYC. Then the wildcatters struck out on AMAZON, hit big with self-pub, then suddenly how much money we made on a book—regardless of quality—became this new de facto benchmark of a “real writer.”

Now? Hell, we are trying to prove to a robot we are not a robot.

Then, if we post something that sounds sane, fun, imaginative that WE WROTE, deep down we are asking a new question, “Will readers think I am AI?”

Whether we were/are “real writers” has now literally transformed from our own emo-creative-insecurity talking to something tangible.

Are you a robot? *feeling the side eyes*

This is where we have to be careful with AI. Artists have always struggled with deep insecurity. It’s tragically the very quality that can make us damn good at what we do. We refuse to let go until something is “perfect.”

Until recent years, we understood that perfect is the enemy of the finished. Now? Perfect is no longer the enemy of the finished. AI can step in and “finish and perfect” a turd.

Enter in AI slop.

The next pivot around perfect is the enemy of the finished might just need to be that perfect is the enemy of authenticity/art.

Humans are Messy and So is ART

Remember the old films of oilmen who struck black gold? The gusher spewing oil everywhere and men cheering even though they were covered head to toe in sludge?

Why were they so happy?

***Took me a while to figure that out especially after getting covered in an oil spill in Corpus Christi when I was FOUR.

They were happy because they understood the value in that mess.

Humans are sticky. Our lives are rarely pretty and packaged perfect. Love, hate, loss, divorce, death, murder, intrigue is all ugly just like what comes out of the ground. But what comes out of the ground must be refined into what people use every day. Into what they VALUE.

Writers are the explorers, the drillers and the refiners.

Why so much that is coming out of the lazy use of AI is failing to keep our attention is that it is too perfect. It’s a food replicator synthesizing a five-course French meal without any of the messy pots and pans. Refuse to be intimidated by the food replicator. We want the real deal, dirty dishes and all.

The World Still Needs Us To Get “Dirty”

The new writing paradigm did a lot of great things for creatives. We were no longer solely beholden to gatekeepers. This was wonderful because gatekeepers had shareholders. They wanted what had demonstrably worked in the past from the next Twilight to Fifty Shades of the Same Old BS.

For those writers who didn’t fit neatly into boardroom projections, self-publishing and indie opened up areas of writing that had either been wholly abandoned (long form works, short form works) to what hadn’t yet been even tried (genre blending, mixed POVs, previously overlooked audiences).

And what happened? We suddenly had an explosion of some incredible works that never would have made it in any other market condition, E.g. The Martian.

Yet, algorithms stepped in and started lulling us into the same predictive models us wildcatters had hoped to shrug off. Suddenly, authors no longer had time to write thoughtful, deep, meaningful works because audiences wanted more and more and faster and faster.

Problem is? Optimization only takes us so far. Optimized garbage is still…garbage.

The market and technology has accelerated. This can be bad. We need to learn, grow, move, learn, pivot and somehow remain sane. Conversely it is also AWESOME. The cycles are getting shorter. Bad ideas are dying faster.

And THIS is where we drill.

Not every reader (or television audience) wants faster and faster if it is at the expense of quality. Writers are exhausted. We feel sold out and burned out and audiences now watch live streamers because too many plots are more predictable than my cat puking on the rug when there is TILE literally RIGHT THERE.

Refuse to Settle for Efficient When YOU ARE ESSENTIAL

No more low-hanging fruit. Yes, AI can help us plot, outline, turn bad ideas into better ideas. We can streamline what we do and nothing about that is bad. At no point will I ever tell you that spending a year or five or ten on an idea that needed to die on the cutting floor is a bad plan.

Being bad at managing our time does not an artist make.

Yet, the world doesn’t need anymore prefab “perfect” and utterly forgettable stories. Sure, we can use AI to churn out book after book after book and look super productive on the outside. Audiences might even bite initially, but AI is not our target audience.

PEOPLE ARE.

While AI might tell you everything you have is golden, AI isn’t spending time it doesn’t have and it’s hard-earned money to step through the wardrobe into another world so it can forget the world it lives in for just a little bit.

Again, people are.

And this is where y’all are going to shine and it’s how we “beat” the machines.

Or at least remember they work for US.

***DISCLAIMER: All em dashes are mine, any semicolons ethically sourced and plot bunnies raised humanely. Any and all typos are “certified organic” and run-on sentences are now “free range sentences.”

What Are Your Thoughts? I LOVE Hearing from YOU!

Where have you caught yourself optimizing instead of risking? Have you ever loved a piece of writing because it was a little rough? What part of your process would you never outsource—even if AI did it better? Have you started feeling the eerily perfect “sameness” of the AI Uncanny Valley?

I really DO love hearing your thoughts especially on AI. Again, I have missed y’all. Just learning to code, build LLMs, creating my own chatbots for school AND keeping up with the blog even been a bit much for me.

What are some of your fears? Expectations? Thoughts you’d like for me to explore? This blog is for you guys, so let me know!

The post If AI Loves Your Writing, Be Very VERY Worried appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Agency means a condition of being in action, instrumental, or possessing some kind of power. It can incorporate not only making decisions, but the belief that we (or our characters) have choice. If we think about it, if there aren’t options, then by default, our characters have no power and are not making any decisions. They are the flotsam and jetsam being flung along by the currents of Fate.

Code for “boring.”

I’ve been editing fiction for over twenty years, and one of the biggest problems I see with new writers is that the “story” is really just a series of bad things happening. There is no agency. The character is totally reactive. To a degree, this is fine in the opening salvos of the story.

To a degree.

If we parse apart novel structure, what we will see (especially with good stories) is that there is a steady progression of agency that flows in tandem with rising pushback, higher stakes, and a steadily compressed ticking clock.

My favorite writing instructor for plot is Larry Brooks. His “How To” Story Engineering, for me, was a game changer. For years I knew how to edit a plot, but when I sat down to write, everything just sort of fell apart. I’d read craft books or take classes and, what seemed so simple and doable, always turned to utter mush roughly 25,000 to 30,000 words in.

Many of you might know what I am talking about.

You come up with a BRILLIANT story idea and begin writing. The first 10,000 words are amazing! The words flow and you write until you think your hands might fall off.

By about 15,000 to 20,000 you begin losing steam.

After 28,000 to 30,000 it starts feeling like it might be easier to do brain surgery from space…with an egg beater. #KillMeNow

Why is that?

Structure and Agency

I love, love, love the way Larry teaches us how to think about plot (and recommend the book, obviously). He gave me a simple way of thinking about all my stories in a way that keeps me always moving forward.

Additionally, if I do get stuck, I can quickly diagnose WHY and where and how I am going wrong.

I prefer to think of story in five acts (just an expansion of Aristotelian three-act structure).

The opening is Normal World. This is usually pretty short, especially in our modern age where audiences have the attention span of a crack addicted fruit fly…that also happens to have severe ADD.

Yet, Normal World is CRITICAL. This is where we (the audience) will meet the protagonist we are supposed to care about enough to dedicate time, money and attention we don’t have for an average of 12-15 hours. It is also where we get an idea of the problem this character will have to face and overcome to be rightfully called a hero.

In the LOTR (Lord of the Rings), we begin in the Shire. Why? Because we have to actually care about the Hobbits and the Shire. We cannot be vested in a people and place we don’t know.

The inciting incident, introduces the core story problem. If there is no hint that Sauron is alive and well and living in Beverly Hills Mount Doom, there really is no point to us even meeting Gandalf and the Hobbits. But keep in mind, no decision has yet been made.

When Gandalf sticks a ring Frodo inherits into the fire, he only believes the ring possibly maybe might be THE RING. For Frodo and Samwise, the adventure has not yet begun.

In Normal World, the character will have very little to no agency…until…

Turning Point to Act One: Agency Sparked

The inciting incident reveals a fork in the road. This is where the MC’s life bifurcates. One road leads to retaining the status quo. The other road leads to adventure.

Yet, the character must choose of their own free will to set out on adventure.

Events cannot simply fling them ahead. Granted, they will be signing up for far more than they can handle, but (at the time) they don’t know that. They also need to have some vague idea of what the adventure entails. To toss characters out into the world and push them from point to point is NOT dramatic tension.

It’s soap opera writing.

Which is fine for fan fiction (episodic writing), but not great for novels, novellas, short stories or screenplays.

When Frodo and Samwise leave the Shire, their goal is NOT to destroy the Ring of Power in Mount Doom. It is far simpler. It is simply to meet Gandalf at The Prancing Pony. While scary and out of the comfort zone, it is (to them) still doable. Additionally, they know the adventure is in some way tethered to a ring dangerous enough to even scare the great Gandalf the Grey.

Act One: Running

In Act One, our MC will be largely reactive. They don’t yet believe they have agency, though they still must exercise it for a good story.

For instance, Gandalf doesn’t force Frodo and Samwise to meet him. They agree to leave the safety of the Shire.

Additionally, it isn’t Frodo and Samwise’s fault they miss Gandalf at the rendezvous point. However, they must choose to trust Strider. They have to choose to either stay at The Prancing Pony (or return after the Black Riders have left and hide) OR to follow a stranger they don’t know into the wild.

We authors must always provide opportunities where, if the character(s) makes a decision, one decision pushes the narrative forward and the other ends the story.

What Does this Look Like?

For instance, in the movie Labyrinth, we meet Sarah faffing off in a park in costume reciting lines from a play. In Normal World, Sarah is flaky, entitled, immature (but also clearly hurting).

The inciting incident is when she discovers her missing teddy bear and decides to be emotional and take her out anger on her infant brother. She chooses to recite the call to the Goblin King to take her baby brother.

Granted, she has zero clue it will work, BUT when it does work and David Bowie materializes—looking far too sexy for a grown ass man in makeup and big hair—and offers her a chance to have all her dreams…the story truly begins.

One decision lets him rule her, give her all she ever desires…if she only turns over her baby brother. The other decision is to race against the clock and see if she can rescue her brother from the center of the labyrinth.

Obviously, if she gives up baby brother, the story ends. And an entire generation of preteen girls, myself included, took 25 years to work out why she didn’t grab the deal.

Quick Note on Labyrinth

Movies can be a lot of fun to study, especially good ones. If you haven’t seen Labyrinth or have slept since then, I recommend going back and watching. I learn something new every time. In fact, the last time I watched it I learned a whole new level I’d missed, but had been there all along.

Roll with this and indulge me, it’s actually cool/important.

Sarah arrives late to babysit her brother. We (the audience) are somewhat misled. The stepmother points out exactly what Sarah’s problem is. Sarah is stuck and not growing up normally. The stepmother tells Sarah that she can say if she has plans, that they want her to have plans and she should have her own plans, but Sarah balks. She treats her like the evil stepmother out of a storybook no matter what she says.

Dad backs up stepmother. This event is what drives Sarah into a temper tantrum.

But pay attention.

Dad is obviously remarried and remarried long enough to have an 18 month old baby. One would assume, given the times, that Dad and Stepmother had dated and married before the 9-10 months to have the brother. This means a minimum of 2.5 to as much as 3 or more years has passed since Sarah’s mother was in the picture.

My entire life, I assumed Mom had died, since Hollywood loved killing off parents. Watch the introduction when she is in her room. Played at normal speed, we see playbills with the mother and even with Sarah.

Okay, so mom was an actress and daughter is a theater nerd following in mom’s footsteps.

Or is she?

Now PAUSE the MOVIE

Now, go back and rewatch and hit PAUSE. If you do this, the entire story changes. Pay attention to the newspaper clippings taped in her vanity mirror, the clippings that at normal speed I’d assumed were likely an obituary or newspaper articles about a famous but now dead mother.

Whose face do you see?

JARETH, the Goblin King.

In among the articles and scrapbook clippings a whole new story emerges.

Jareth looks just like the mother’s costar. What now seems far more likely is the mother ran off with another man and abandoned her daughter at roughly age 12-13…exactly the time she should have started transitioning into adulthood.

This is a whole other level of emotional damage.

It now makes perfect sense why Sarah is emotionally moored in childhood. Additionally, a sparkly, charismatic man offering to take care of her if she sacrifices a child in her care, has a whole new twist.

If great movies understand the power of Normal World, we should too. Every story should introduce the Big Boss Troublemaker right from the start.

In Labyrinth we get this in the park where she’s reciting the final lines to take down the Goblin King. BUT, we ALSO see him again in her bedroom in the moments before she recites the incantation that sets off all events from there.

Act One: REACTIVE

Once our MC decides to step out on adventure, sure, there will be a lot they cannot control. Yet, they still must have agency, meaning options.

New writers can be very bad about making the MC far too passive. They have no other choice but to do X, Y, Z. This is author intrusion.

Now, I am not suggesting to make the options silly. The Hobbits aren’t choosing between trusting Strider and certain death. They could circle back to the inn for shelter or decide to hide in the woods and wait it out for Gandalf. The choices might suck, but they are at least doable.

Agency is limited in Act One because not only should we have a plot arc, but a character arc. If characters are too perfect and can handle everything the story throws their way with dignity and aplomb? That is a snooze fest.

There has to be something emotionally undeveloped that must change by the end of the story.

For the Hobbits, they believe their happiness and fulfillment lies in adventure, in anywhere BUT the Shire. The very place they despise for being boring will be the one place they’ll (eventually) be willing to sacrifice their lives to save from certain destruction.

For Sarah, she’s stuck in nostalgia and is refusing to evolve. Again, when she steps into the magical realm, who does she meet? Hoggle. Again, Hoggle tells her what her problem is, but she is not yet matured enough to appreciate the advice. He tells her, “You take too much for granted.”

Taking things for granted is a hallmark of childhood. It is, in fact, a mark of ZERO AGENCY.

Act Two: Warrior

Act One is relatively short. How do we spot the turning point to Act Two? This is when the MC shifts from running to fighting. In Act One, circumstances bigger than them are beating the hell out of them. They fight back but are really hitting in the dark. They are unaware of what the larger story problem is and probably still unaware of their character flaws that are holding them back.

Act Two is when some sort of event or information changes the MC’s perspective and their level of agency. They go to being a mix of reactive and increasingly proactive.

When the Hobbits take refuge with the elves, Gandalf confirms that Sauron is back and there is only way to stop him. At this point, the Hobbits still can go BACK to the Shire. Rather, they willingly decide to keep going. Frodo will bear the Ring and Samwise will act as a helper/bodyguard.

In Labyrinth, Sarah is stuck in an oubliette (a small prison cell). The adventure has effectively ended. Hoggle comes to her aid and is happy to lead her back home and out of the labyrinth. If she goes home, story over. Yet, we are in Act Two. Sarah bribes Hoggle to help her solve the labyrinth.

She has effectively taken on a new level of agency.

Act Two will be the longest act. Again, I recommend Story Engineering. Larry has some great diagrams and formulas and examples. But, in Act Two, the thing we must remember is our characters must have increasing levels of agency.

NO CHEATING!

Maybe your character is far too perfect. Or the opposite. They don’t have any of the right answers…they are just luckier than a leprechaun dressed in a coat made of rabbit’s feet.

Bad thing happens—Oh no what will we do?—then some existing character or new character rescues them out of the mess at zero cost and with no effort from them.

NO.

This is the part of the book where many new writers decide to leave a convenient journal, video, have a new character appear with all the abilities and answers. NO.

Y’all might know I love horror (supernatural type books), and I read…a lot. Recently, I listened to a book with a premise that had a lot of promise. I couldn’t finish it.

The characters had no agency. Instead of them actively having to find answers to why crazy/life-threatening stuff was happening in their basement, the author used a crap ton of seriously convenient “dream sequences” that served as flashbacks to spoon feed vital details.

NO.

Flashbacks are a sign of weak/lazy writing.

Before anyone argues with me, check out Why Flashbacks Ruin Fiction and Time as a Literary Device. Can we mess with time? Sure! I love doing that. But like all things in writing, the rules exist for a reason. There is a certain WAY to go about using time.

Tossing in hidden boxes of journals or videos slipping in dream sequences absolves the characters of responsibility. In short, it takes away agency. Handing characters the answers all-but-spelled-out is cheating.

Bright Idea Fairies and Agency

Since Act Two IS so long, you’ll have what are called “pinch points.” This marks how our character is not only progressing along via plot, but how they are emotionally maturing. Since they are not yet fully evolved, they’ll try to rely on their old ways of thinking. They haven’t yet come to understand that their old habits/worldview etc. is precisely part of the problem.

Which is why, as they are trying to solve the core story problem, they will have what I call “bright idea fairies.”

Usually the “bright idea fairy” will be in some way related to the character flaw. If your MC is a workaholic who needs to appreciate life and family, expect them to orchestrate events where they can have BOTH (Inviting the wife and kids to a company event).

Maybe your MC is a fighter. Their instinct will be to fight. If they hide and avoid, they’ll look for better ways to hide and avoid. If they’re a control freak, they’ll keep white-knuckling and refuse to trust others and delegate.

In Labyrinth, Sarah is taking on increasing levels of responsibility, but not enough. She is still far too reliant on her allies.

Bright Idea Fairies (BIFs) are directly responsible for the False Victory and, by default, the Darkest Moment.

The False Victory is the Big Boss BIF, the brightest of the Bright Idea Fairies. It is the last event that should prove to our MC they must make those final changes that transform them from a lowly MC (protagonist) into a hero.

The Darkest Moment is where everything has failed and the protagonist is dumped unceremoniously at the final crossroad. One road leads home (and to failure), the other plunges ahead into certain death (or at least implied certain death).

Agency Unleashed: Act Three HERO

After the darkest moment, we usually see the rally of the allies. Once everything has been stripped away, what matters is restored. HOWEVER. The difference here is that the hero finally understands they must go it alone. Only ONE character can take on the Big Boss Troublemaker.

***Or two if this is a Buddy Love structure like LOTR or a romance. Yet, the two have effectively become one. In romance, guy and gal must come together if they hope to be victorious. Yes, they can spend the entire book driving each other bonkers BUT they must come together like VOLTRON in order to win.

This is the climax of the story. The odds should be total sh!t. In fact, the worse the odds, the better the story. That and time should be almost out. If the MC fails, super bad things need to happen or we will not care.

These can be large-scale catastrophic implications. Sauron rules Middle Earth and destroys all Frodo and Samwise hold dear, OR personal catastrophic implications. Sarah loses her little brother forever.

By Act Three, your character has ditched the old self and is now battling the BBT (Big Boss Troublemaker) on new terms. Frodo and Samwise willingly accept a suicide mission to protect the Shire.

Sarah goes in to face Jareth on her own. How does she win? She claims her AGENCY.

“You have no power over me.”

Once she finally realizes that Jareth only has as much power as she has been willing to relinquish, he loses his hold over her.

The Denoument: Agency Realized

After the battle is won, the world might be in shambles but everything has changed for the better. Yes, the end of every Marvel movie means some big city is reduced to rubble, but the greater threat has been neutralized.

At the end of LOTR, we see an interesting bookending in the movie.

In the beginning, the Hobbits (mistakenly) believe adventure outside of the Shire is the key to personal fulfillment. They are naive and childlike which is largely why Sauron never offered them jewelry.

He underestimated that the very qualities that nearly get them killed (frying bacon on a mountain with dead kings on their trail) is also what makes them remarkably resilient to the sway of the Ring (and arguably the only reason they succeed when all other races have failed).

Yet, there is a cost.

Unlike the opening in Normal World, our heroes aren’t bouncing along getting into mischief. They sit, somber and broken at a table, forever changed. Their fellow Hobbits laugh and drink and joke in the background, oblivious to the sacrifice these Hobbits made to make that a reality.

They have learned that self-serving adventure is not the secret to happiness, rather sacrificial love is the key to joy.

The book is vastly different than the movies. In the book, the Shire does not survive in tact.

It is razed, and the Hobbits killed or enslaved. Life is no longer beautiful and innocent. Those in the Shire live in fear and are barely surviving.

Our band of heroes return expecting a hero’s welcome only to come to the horrible realization the battle is far from over. The biggest fight is yet to come. They must liberate the Hobbits and rebuild what remains of their home.

That said, while everything they knew and took for granted is obliterated, they can finally rebuild in a world that is no longer under constant threat.

Unlike the other Hobbits who have bowed down to their oppressors, Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin pass on their lessons and show their fellow Hobbits they have more power than they know.

Using Agency in Our Writing

The key thing to remember about agency is that our character must always be actively involved in the decision making process. They can and WILL make a lot of bad decisions. Yet, over time, as they mature, these decisions will vastly improve.

I use this when I am writing. It doesn’t matter if we are a plotter who loves outlines or a pantser (write by the seat of our pants). In fact, for the pansters here, having an understanding of agency is KEY. It’s likely even more important since we rely more on intuition to write.

I am a Plotser

That means I create a log-line that says, overall, what my story is ABOUT. But it serves as a guideline to keep me pointed in the correct direction. If I know (usually by word count) that I am well into Act Two, then I know when my MC is being too passive.

Are they relying too much on others? Do they still react to everything as opposed to becoming increasingly proactive? Am I offering actual choices to my character, or am I just letting them drift along the riptide of bad situations? Am I cheating and allowing my characters to rely too much on luck?

Trust me. All these years later, I still have to delete sections because I recognize either the character is too evolved for so early in my story OR they need to do better because they can’t be so passive and dull-witted halfway into Act Two.

I hope you will now watch movies and read books with fresh eyes. Being a writer is a fabulous calling because watching movies, series, and reading books are all considered professional development.

I guarantee that if you see a story that breaks these rules, it is probably a story you either struggled to finish or didn’t like (but might not have been able to articulate WHY you didn’t like it.)

What are Your Thoughts?

Does this idea of agency help you better understand story flow? How you can use it to ratchet dramatic tension? Few things will make us turn pages like a character who has decisions but is making the wrong ones. Conversely, few things will turn us off like a character who keeps making the wrong decisions and fails to ever learn.

Does this help you in a place where you are stuck? Maybe offer some insights into how you can up the stakes? Can you now see better why you loved some stories or grew tired of others?

If we think about agency in terms we are familiar with, what comes to mind. Literary agent? This is a person with power we don’t have to make decisions where we cannot. Now zoom in on that feeling and make sure it’s in your stories.

I love hearing from you!

And remember, my perennial author branding book, Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World and my mystery thriller The Devil’s Dance are both on sale on Kindle right now for only .99. Also please grab a copy of Larry’s book! Especially for those who struggle with plot.

Whether it is comments, shares, sales, or reviews, these are the things that keep us content producers (and authors) going and able to keep delivering. I always appreciate your support and love being able to keep doing this for you!

The post Agency: The Critical Component of ALL Great Stories appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

The Silence, for those who don’t know, is an Amazon Original movie. I guess ‘original’ is one descriptor, though I can think of a lot more accurate ones. ‘Rage-inducing,’ ‘insult to horror movies,’ ‘bad knock-off,’ and ‘intellectually insulting’ are a few that immediately come to mind.

First of all, for the newbies, there are no new stories. To be blunt, virtually every ‘new’ story is derivative in some way and needs to be. Trust me. When I was a beginner, I believed I had to craft ‘the story never told before.’ Not only is that a literary Sasquatch, but even if we’re by some slim chance successful?

The story won’t sell.

We want to be able to pitch an idea and say, “Well, if you like X, then you’ll LOVE my story.” This is why places like Amazon have those auto-populated suggestions that tell us what people who enjoyed X Book or X Movie ALSO liked.

Fans tend to be parochial, which is great for sales, btw.

But there is a HUGE difference between a movie that uses elements of similar idea and a ham-fisted attempt to glory grab off the success of another.

Same-but-Different SELLS

The Silence movie might have been able to capitalize on this same-but-different advantage, but failed miserably. The movie began as a novel by the same title, The Silence by Tim Lebbon.

***For the record, I had NO idea The Silence was originally a novel until I began writing this rant post…which was why I delayed publishing this blog. I wanted to read the novel for myself to affirm my suspicions/opinion that the producers and screenwriters should all be flayed fired.

Oddly, this is one of those rare times I read the novel after seeing the ‘movie.’ It was a riveting book, layered, emotional, and incredibly well-written with memorable/dimensional characters. But as a screenplay?

*sobs uncontrollably*

Not every premise translates well to the visual medium unless the screenwriters are willing to make some major changes that keep the original premise in tact. What peeves me the most is this.

Had the screenwriters simply adhered to some storytelling fundamentals, they could have easily maneuvered The Silence off the page and onto the screen while also keeping the story’s core brilliance in tact.

*rails at heavens*

The Silence Movie as Bad Knock-Off

To understand why I was so peeved, what exactly was Amazon trying to copy?

Badly.

In my opinion? Bird Box. Josh Malerman’s Bird Box wasn’t just a beautifully written and utterly terrifying book, but the story concept translated extremely well to screen and was a massively successful film.

The screenwriters didn’t stick to the book exactly, because that’s impossible to do in the comparably short time a feature film affords. But they did condense and refit what needed to change in order to maximize the story on screen.

In Bird Box, ‘something’ starts happening. We don’t know what it is, only that people see SOMETHING that then causes them to go violently insane. The phenomena quickly spreads across the globe.

The day chaos hits home, the main character, the VERY pregnant Malorie, is with her sister getting an ultrasound. While leaving the hospital, everything hits the fan, and Malorie has no choice but to take refuge in a house full of total strangers who become her lifeline.

Malorie must survive in a world where vision (our single most relied upon sense) could be a death sentence for her as well as anyone around her.

Over the course of the story, Malorie remains pinned in a house with a host of exceptionally layered characters who regularly clash. Their personalities alone create so much tension you think you might shatter any moment. This was executed superbly in the book (which is almost always better) but ALSO in the movie (which is rare).

THAT is great horror writing. For the record, slasher movies are to horror what porn is to epic romance. Believe it or not, horror is one of the toughest genres to write well and as close to literary fiction as one can get (when done properly).

Horror is less about the monsters/threat, and more about how we—humans—respond and the ways we change for good and bad because of the monsters/threat.

In the Bird Box world, stress is heaped upon stress. Going outside could risk everyone’s lives. Yet, they must go outside to get supplies, fresh water, etc. and do all of this completely blinded.

Add in that not everyone in the group agrees on the nature or level of the danger? That supplies are running low and they can’t remain in the house forever?

Welcome to a cauldron simply waiting to boil over.

The Silence Meets the Bright Idea Fairy

Now that I’ve explained a bit about Bird Box, the only plausible explanation I have for The Silence (movie) is Amazon was miffed by Netflix’s success with Bird Box. They probably sent some intern to hunt for a similar book that focused on one of the other five senses turned horribly wrong…and said intern found Lebbon’s The Silence.

The tricky part about horror—as I’ve already mentioned—is that a lot of the best stories only work on the page. Actually a lot of fiction doesn’t translate well to screen.

Drama is a good example. Unless you have superlative screenwriters and Oscar-caliber actors? You’re likely in for a three-hour snooze-fest where all the characters seem absurdly emo or perpetually constipated.

But back to horror…

On the page, the reader is in the heads of the characters. You can hide a lot of information and make the reader feel emotions, inner turmoils, and the ever-ratcheting tension. It’s also easier to misdirect, obfuscate, and give only enough detail for the readers’ imaginations to fill in the blanks.

And the human imagination is always more terrifying.

Before I proceed? HUGE HIGH FIVE to Tim Lebbon for scoring a movie deal off his novel.

My advice? Skip the movie and read the book…unless you want to see what all I am about to gripe about for yourself.

Tim, I am so sorry for what they did to your lovely novel, but hoping you make tons of money and zillions of new fans, regardless.

That aside…

Like always, everything here is merely my opinion, so take with a grain of salt…and maybe add in a shot of tequila.

What We Don’t Know Will Kill Us…in Scarier Ways

The first MAJOR problem for me, regarding The Silence movie, was they gave away too much too soon. I read the book to see how this was handled in comparison to the movie.

As I suspected, Lebbon didn’t provide a lot of detail about the creatures (known as Vesps), how they’re able to so rapidly overwhelm entire countries, how they hunted (sound), and why they’re virtually indestructible until almost halfway into the book…thus confirming my suspicions that the screenwriters are to blame!

O_o

Revealing too much too soon was the first, and maybe one of the largest mistakes, the moviemakers did with The Silence.

***This is also a rookie writing mistake. Learn to be SECRET-KEEPERS!

In The Silence movie, we (the audience) see a team of cavers break into a cavern and unleash a flood of vicious primordial creatures. Creatures that have been trapped in a world of silent darkness for a gazillion years in a completely isolated ecosystem. Not too far into the movie, we SEE the creatures up close.

Bad move.

The screenwriters could have had a flurry of something escaping, something hunting and kept the characters (and viewers) in the dark about how to evade being Vesp food for as long as possible (BE QUIET). But the moment we saw what humanity was up against? Knew how to outmaneuver it?

Meh.

Okay, so giant blind pterodactyls dumb enough to swarm into a wood chipper because it makes noise. We can deal with that.

Yes, this really happened in the movie. What ALSO happened? The dad DIDN’T LEAVE THE FRIGGIN’ WOOD CHIPPER ON UNTIL HE’D KILLED AS MANY VESPS THAT WERE STUPID ENOUGH TO FLY INTO IT!

What made Bird Box, the book and movie, so scary is we never knew precisely WHAT was making people go violently insane. We never even knew if it had evil intentions.

Maybe it was an alien race that, when viewed, simply surpassed the ceiling of human comprehension and broke our brains. Perhaps it was a military experiment gone awry. Maybe it was a spray tanning product gone terribly wrong.

Part of the fear factor is no one knew, and there was no way TO know.

In Bird Box, even watching video of the ‘whatever’ created the same effect. Suffice to say that sometimes our audience might want to know certain information, but just because they want it, doesn’t mean we should give it.

Pick a Villain from the Get-Go

I’ve done a lot of blogs and teaching about log-lines over the years. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to realize this movie is going to SUUUUCK by simply glancing at the log-line…which, again, I only did afterwards.

*hangs head in shame*

In my defense, I use movies to teach what to do and what NOT to do. I suffer for my art…and for y’all .

With the world under attack by deadly creatures who hunt by sound, a teen and her family seek refuge outside the city and encounter a mysterious cult.

Netflix log-line for an AMAZON movie, LOL

If you want my formula for a log-line, it’s pretty much this:

Intriguing Protagonist + Antagonist/Story Problem + Active Goal + Ticking Clock + Stakes = STORY

A teen and her family is meh at best. Looking for refuge. Oh-kay. Um, who wouldn’t when the world is under attack by deadly creatures? In the novel, the family had an actual/physical destination. Every setback and disaster that kept them from reaching their specific goal wound the tension tighter.

Yet, in the movie, the vague ‘escape to the countryside’ offers no solid anchor, no focused objective and thus makes it impossible to generate authentic dramatic tension.

But the bee in my bonnet? Encounter a mysterious cult.

‘Encountering’ is boring. ‘Mysterious’ is even MORE boring. Maybe murderous? Bat$#!t crazy? What are the stakes? What’s the ticking timeline? Has the family discovered that there’s shelter, but they only have enough room/supplies for so many people? And this cult is stopping them every step of the way, threatening not only their lives, but slowing them down enough that they might lose all hope of refuge from the Vesps?

Nope.

In fact, this cult ISN’T EVEN INTRODUCED UNTIL WE’RE NEARLY TO THE END OF THE MOVIE!

Quick! Throw in a CULT!

It’s like someone went, “Well, we’ve done a lot of CGI and people might be bored with neurotic pterodactyls. QUICK! Throw in a CULT!”

The cult actually could have possibly turned this travesty around, but they came in too late. In Stephen King’s The Mist (which never really shows the monsters, btw), it’s the people who supply most of the terror.

It’s truly bonkers how rapidly humans can devolve into quackery when the world goes to hell in a hand basket. Yet, in The Mist, the super religious nut—who eventually creates murderous chaos—is present and already stoking trouble in Act ONE.

It wasn’t as if King had an eerie mist teeming with giant tentacles that tore people apart for most of the movie…then thirty minutes before the end? Half the trapped shoppers suddenly found religion.

If the cult was going to be part of the movie, they needed to be there from the get-go. Or a proxy. Otherwise? Kristen is screaming and throwing things and talking about herself in third-person.

World-Building has RULES, Even in The Silence

This was handled in the book a million times better, obviously. But, this doesn’t give the screenwriters a pass. With some minor changes, they could have taken a world ideal for the page and refitted it for the visual medium.

Clearly, they didn’t.

What did they do wrong? Whenever we build a different world, we as ‘Author God’, are responsible for establishing the rules. If those rules can be broken, then we are also in charge of working out the special circumstances where said rules can be broken.

First, we’ll dissect the creatures in The Silence *bada bump snare*

According to the movie, these critters been trapped in a world with no light, and, like many cave-dwelling animals, have no eyes and hunt by sound. Fair point. But even bats are nocturnal. They don’t hunt all hours of the day and they don’t attack everything. Attacking everything (in nature) is pointless and needlessly uses up energy.

Same with a blog, but I’m on a roll here, folks…

Anyway, being trapped in a world with no light would probably also make the Vesps super photosensitive. Why don’t these critters need SPF 450 to keep from bursting into flames like my Irish family members?

Also, in The Silence movie, every single sound—and I mean every single sound—throws the Vesps into berserker mode. That would get exhausting pretty quickly, especially since the world outside of a cave sealed off from the surface is a pretty darned noisy place.

Which begs the question….

If the creatures are set off by even the tiniest of sounds, then why not turn on every noisy contraption we have? If the father in the movie could flip on a wood chipper and make the Vesps divebomb blindly straight into a metaphorical Vespsa-Mix, then why are the humans being SO quiet?

Line the cities with wood chippers and loud speakers playing Brittany Spears’ Oops, I Did It Again on a loop. Not only for protection but also for some AWESOME dark irony .

Military: Hey, we still have those Barney & Friends VHS tapes? Should work on that cult, too.

It doesn’t make sense.

The movie has plenty of moments where a character even lightly stepping on gravel is enough to attract frantic Vesp attention, but here’s the thing. Nature is LOUD. Yes, the country is quietER than the big cities, but far from silent.

Every moving branch, lowing cow, and skittering squirrel would have the Vesps flinging themselves around to the point they’d be in therapy and on a high dose of Xanax within a couple weeks.

Instead of creeping along using sign language, why wasn’t this family using sound to their advantage? Leaving an alarm clock, radio, cell phone behind to attract the creatures away from them until they make it to the next leg of the journey?

Oh! I forgot! The cult. Wait…they’re late to the set. Never mind.

Character Choice Matters

What I’ve not mentioned to this point is that the teenage protagonist of The Silence is deaf. She lost her hearing in an accident. By the time the Vesps emerge, it’s been long enough for the family to learn sign language.

Again, this works on the page, but on the screen? They are too perfect a choice for a world where one has to (theoretically) be silent to survive.

***SPOILER ALERT

In Bird Box, we eventually learn that the blind had a natural advantage from the beginning because obviously they couldn’t SEE whatever was making regular people with sight go bananas. They could get along just fine because of their super-heightened senses of hearing, smell, touch, etc. that they’d developed since they’d never been able to rely on vision.

But, let me point out we learn this AT THE END.

In Bird Box, Malorie can see. She’s automatically at a major disadvantage in that she’s lived all the way into her adult life relying heavily on one of the five (or six) senses. She has to either hone those other senses or she’s doomed, as well as her unborn child.

After she gives birth, she has to take babies with perfectly healthy vision and train them to live as if they were born blind. This is all a colossal undertaking from the get-go.

‘The Silence,’ No Conflict, No Arc, Weak Story

Back to The Silence. As for the teenage Ally (neat spelling there), she already knows how to live as a deaf person from the moment the crisis begins. More importantly, though, her family also knows how be quiet and also how to sign proficiently.

How boringly convenient.

Had I written this? Perfectly fine if Ally was deaf, but for the screen, I’d have made her injury more recent. She’d have yet to come to grips with being hearing impaired and still been trapped on the emotional rollercoaster of her sensory world changing in an instant.

She wouldn’t have had enough time to change the habits formed over a lifetime. Like banging doors, slamming drawers, walking too loudly.

Her family would’ve been total beginners with sign language. Signing wouldn’t be their go-to way to communicate because they’d have yet to fully acclimate to having a daughter who couldn’t hear after well over a decade where she could.

They might still call out to her.

What was also boringly convenient? The grandmother was a retired nurse there to tend any injuries on the spot. NO! Make them suffer! Society is breaking down, for heaven’s sakes! Society imploding includes no longer being able to run to an urgent care when you need stitches and the correct antibiotic.

Without instant access to even basic medical care, the characters would have been forced to face how much they took for granted as well as learn new skills and take bigger risks…that could and SHOULD have created bigger problems.

For instance, they do their best stitching a deep wound, only for the stitches to go septic. OR? Stealing an antibiotic from a ravaged pharmacy only to find out it’s great for respiratory infections but does zilch for skin infections. Oh, and the injured person is violently allergic to it and goes into anaphylaxis…LOUDLY.

Great storytelling needs to bring out our inner sociopaths. Great writers will kill CHRISTMAS if we have to.

Up the Ante, Then Up it Some MORE

We are talking END OF THE WORLD…so make it worse. The screenwriters could have traded the preteen brother for a toddler or at least a much younger child. If the grandmother was still going to be included in the party, maybe make it where she’s in the early stages of dementia. She’s fine during the early hours of the day, but by late afternoon she’s dangerously emotional, confused, unpredictable, aggressive and prone to wander off (Sundowners syndrome).

Regardless, to make this story work on screen, the entire family (and even Ally)—in my POV—should have still had the habits of people used to being constantly VERBAL, accustomed to talking as their primary way to communicate. They’d probably even be unaware how much they talked just to talk.

Like talking to yourself. Shouting expletives when you bang your shin on the coffee table.

***For the record, my son (Spawn) and I would be dead within the day a couple hours if survival hinged on us being quiet.

This would have been the FIRST major hurdle to overcome. Imagine trying to run for your life and you keep having to refer to a sign language guide or scribble in a notebook (silently) to get even a basic point across.

‘The Silence’ Needed More Peril, Less CGI

Had Ally’s hearing loss been more recent, the family wouldn’t have had time to adjust. Add in a much younger sibling (age 5-6) or a grandparent with some unpredictable medical condition not easily managed or controlled (I.e. schizophrenia, Tourette’s, Parkinson’s) and the tension would have been through the ROOF.

The story problem would have forced character growth.

They would have all had to make big changes, tough choices and take incredible risks for the ‘weaker’ members of the group. In fact, I imagine had the screenwriters modified the story and character group in the ways I’ve suggested (or in a similar fashion) they wouldn’t have even needed any CGI.

Bird Box didn’t.

But, since The Silence screenwriters fixated on monsters and gore and cults, this only rendered the story family a gaggle of utterly forgettable—and borderline unlikable—characters.

Ally only ‘stood out’ because she had a superficial difference of being hearing impaired.

But LUCKILY, everyone in the family already had an A+ in being quiet.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The Silence is Melodrama NOT Drama

Why all the griping? Other than I needed to gain something from the 90 minutes I can never get back? Movies, as I mentioned earlier, can teach us a lot about storytelling. Heck, one of THE best books about how to write is actually about screenwriting. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat is a must-read!

***Amazon, are you reading? Y’all have the book in stock. Gift copies to your screenwriters, please.

In The Silence, the Vesps present an excellent end-of-the-world backdrop, but that’s all they are. They compel action that forces this family out of their comfort zone and into doing the unthinkable.

As is, the Vesps are simply a ‘bad situation,’ and the cult is an afterthought. The family is flat because the central story problem doesn’t present a focused core challenge overwhelming enough to force them to (authentically) grow from humans into heroes.

Just like the family needed weaknesses from the get-go, so did the Vesps. Not some bull sprinkles, ‘Oh they don’t like cold’ crap thrown out at the end…just after the cult showed up.

So in your own stories, remember structure is our friend. It lets us know who and what should show up when and where. When we REALLY understand structure, we can even bend and break those rules to surprise the audience…in a good way.

By understanding our core story problem, we can make sure we have a cast that will offer the path of greatest resistance. Every character will count.

What Are Your Thoughts? I LOVE Hearing from You!

Do you watch movies and pick them apart? Try and figure out ways the screenwriters could have done better? I read a TON of books, but I also actively watch movies, meaning I study structure, characters, dialogue, what I liked and what I didn’t.

I KNOW that books are pretty much always better than the movies, but that doesn’t mean screenwriters can’t pull off a fantastic film version of the longer work. This is why I often WILL read the book even if the movie adaptation made me want to throw myself off a water tower was bad.

Exercise:

What are some great movies that originated as books? Some of your favorites? Why did they work? What did the screenwriters keep/jettison? How did they condense or change it to keep the story in tact on screen?

Conversely, what are some of the largest tragedies you’ve seen on film. Doesn’t even have be a book adaptation. Can you think what the screenplay could have done differently to improve the experience?

I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments because that helps me, too!

The post ‘The Silence’ Movie: How to Botch Storytelling in Every Way Imaginable appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image courtesy of Kevin Wood via Flickr Creative Commons

Character building is essential for telling stories that readers a) can’t put down and b) will never forget. Why am I now talking about character building, since I know I have a reputation for focusing a lot of blogs and classes on story structure?

Stories, like other complex creations, are comprised of multiple parts. If we build a car, the body of the actual vehicle is essential. Everything else will attach to that frame, either inside or outside.

Regardless how innovative and imaginative the frame, I’d argue the engine is a pretty big deal or we’re left with a very large and expensive paperweight, doorstop, or garden planter.

When it comes to designing a car, we won’t get too far without wheels, and brakes might be a good idea as well. Yet, choosing a leather interior or cloth or what color the car might be? Not high on the priorities about making the car actually WORK.

Structure is the delivery system/engine of story. If we keep starting, stopping, flashing back, including too many POVs that aren’t salient to the overall tale? The reader is likely to finally get frustrated and give up.

While structure might be the frame and the problem the engine, is it driving anything (story) or anyone (characters) interesting?

Study & Character Building

I put in a lot of work and study when it comes to honing my writing skills. This means I’m always searching for ways to become a stronger author and craft teacher.

Want to get better at anything? Look to those who are the best at what they do and pay close attention. The best way, and a requirement for anyone in the writing profession, is to read…a lot.

I read a ridiculous amount of fiction. Since I have little time to actually sit and read for long periods of time, I’ve had to retrain my brain for audiobooks. Audiobooks are a life-saver, since life didn’t decide to suddenly pause because I wanted to be a writer.

***My dishes and laundry are apparently in control of cloning-technology they refuse to share.

This said, however, I listen to an absurd amount of books in virtually all genres and use this as training. When I encounter a superlative character? I usually buy the paper version then—like the monster I am—dog-ear, highlight, and make notes.

Studying other works offers an excellent education about character building for those willing to pay attention.

When you encounter a character that resonates, then ask why? What intrigued you? What made this particular character stand out/memorable? How did the author manage to do the same but different?

Characters of Note

I tend to go through binges in genres, though I believe my go-to favorite are mysteries. For instance, Sherlock Holmes is a character that’s been reimagined countless times and in varying forms largely because he’s incredibly unique and possesses seemingly endless depths for new authors to plumb.

After eating through all the Sherlock Holmes stories, I began searching for other detectives set in late 19th century London.

I fell in LOVE with Will Thomas’s Barker & Llewelyn Series.

Not only are the mysteries masterfully crafted, but Thomas has created such an incredible cast of characters that it’s hard not to get sucked into the entire series.

While he could have gone with a Sherlock/Watson knock-off (and plenty have), he took the template and created a crime-solving duo that was wholly fresh and new.

Thomas equipped Barker and Llewelyn with such intricate and idiosyncratic backgrounds (much shrouded in secrecy) that he crafted two characters unlike any I’ve encountered.

It is their SECRETS that provide the fuel for story, tension, and resonance. I kept reading because I wanted to know WHY Barker wore dark glasses and refused to show his eyes. How did a Scotsman come to be fluent in Mandarin and the master of so many unique fighting styles?

Why was Llewelyn sent to prison when he was a student at Oxford? How did he become destitute? Not all my questions were answered in one book. I had to keep reading to get to know the characters that so fascinated me.

Characters sold the stories, and eventually the entire series. I’d venture to say it’s why readers fall in love with series. Series give them a chance to know the characters better, understand them, and bond in a way that makes the final book feel like a death.

Character Creation

I thought back over works I’d edited, earlier stories of my own and had a moment of revelation. Why were some characters so flat? As interesting as some form-molded widget from a factory?

Conversely, what made other characters almost come ALIVE?

What was the X-factor?

Now that I’ve noodled this, I’ve revised some of my thinking. Multi-dimensional characters are not something writers can directly create. Rather, these lifelike people are forged from the crucible of story.

Dramatic writing uses a core problem (fire). The core problem generates escalating problems (the hammer). The trials (increasing heat/hammering) reveal, refine, define, and ultimately transform the narrative actors into characters.

Story alone holds the power to bestow resonance.

Character Building: Dangers of ‘Fill-In-The-Blank’ People

Character profiles can end up a lot like dating profiles…and about as helpful.

Height, weight, build, nationality, attractiveness, education level, how many kids, previously married, hobbies, etc.

Dating profiles also provide blank spaces for additional ‘deep, character-revealing statements’ such as: I’m not a game-player, love Mexican food, and my favorite activities are cross-fit and hiking.

FYI: ALL of that is likely a lie (other than enjoying Mexican food). Anyone who starts with I am not a game-player is almost guaranteed to be a game-player. It’s Shakespeare’s Rules of Romance. Or, as I call it, ‘The Lady/Dude Doth Protest Too Much’ litmus.

Anyway…

No School Like Old School

….or not.

Do I create character profiles? Sure. I also put a lot of thought and research into what ‘people’ I want to cast in a given story. It’s a great activity, but be careful. We can’t camp there. Activity and productivity are not synonymous.

Ultimately, fictional characters reflect the real human experience in a distilled and intensified form. This, however, doesn’t give an automatic pass on authenticity.

Aristotle might be Old School, but his observations regarding drama resonate even into the 21st century. In Aristotle’s Poetics he asserts:

Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly answers to these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing marks of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are. ~Aristotle

This gives three schools: Polygnotus (more noble), Pauson (less noble), and Dionysius (real life).

Even today these three schools of story thought are alive and well. Marvel’s Captain America movies proffer the larger-than-life hero, the man better than real men (Polygnotus).

Westworld and Game of Thrones provide a vast assortment of villains who are worse-than-life, an exaggeration of evil (Pauson).

Then, movies like Training Day or Glengarry Glen Ross show men as they really are…flawed. They’re not entirely noble or ignoble (Dionysis).

Granted, this is a vast simplification, but we can see novels fall into these schools as well. Genre dictates a lot of this. Harry Potter, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and A Man Called Ove could reasonably be placed in each category.

Character Building: Talk is Cheap

Why do I mention these ‘schools’ of story? Depending on genre, readers will have expectations when it comes to what they’ll find entertaining. As writers, our primary job is to entertain.

This said, stories are for the audience. This means we need to either serve them what they enjoy, or serve them what they don’t yet know they will enjoy .

As a general ‘rule,’ readers who gravitate to stories like Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy are fundamentally different than readers who prefer stories like Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. What readers are looking for—regarding story and characters—will be specific to the genres they gravitate to.

What KIND of Story Do We Want to Tell?

It’s critical to define what kind/flavor of story we want to tell, because this first of all informs character building. Also, an idea can be delivered any number of ways (parodies prove this).

Telling a story audiences don’t yet know they will love must work with the boundaries of preference. Take the boundaries and push them or deliver them in a new, fresh way.

J.K. Rowling didn’t completely ignore reader expectations and preferences for YA fantasy. She merely delivered her stories in a brand new way. She cast a boy (Harry Potter) as her lead protagonist.

Character building.

At the time, the YA fantasy world was dominated by female protagonists. The genre’s audience expected one approach, but only because they didn’t yet realize they’d LOVE something else. An unwanted boy living under the stairs, unaware he’s a wizard destined for greatness.

Talk the Talk & Walk the Walk

Earlier, I mentioned character backgrounds. These are a good start, but they’re only that. A start. Characters aren’t who we (the writer) say they are. Characters are composed of what they do or don’t do.

Go back to my analogy of an on-line dating profile. Someone can talk a great game on some dating site. Yet, it won’t be until that first awkward meet at a coffee shop—in person—that this profile is put to any real test.

Sure, he might say he’s a nice guy and have loads of pics of him with puppies and kids. But, how does he respond when the barista knocks a scorching hot venti Americano all over his best shirt?

Does he laugh it off and try to calm the hysterical barista? Or, does he throw a fit, demand the barista be fired, and threaten to sue?

She might claim she longs for friendship and intimacy in her profile. But, at coffee, how often is she checking her phone? Her Instagram? Does she engage and listen, or does she have the attention span of a goldfish with severe ADD…who just smoked some crack?

Same in Stories

We can tell the reader a character is a certain way, but how that character acts matters more. For instance, I did an edit a couple years ago and the writer said the female protagonist was a strong alpha female. Problem was, the MC didn’t act like one. I called the writer on the lack of continuity.

This is part of what we (editors) mean when we use the phrase, ‘Show, don’t tell.’

The writer can TELL me (the reader) all she wants how this character is an alpha take-no-prisoners gal, which the writer did in the set-up. Fair enough.

But, three pages later, when this alleged ‘alpha female’ is essentially begging for a chance at contract? I called FOUL. If she’s an alpha personality, then she needs to act like it. Actions speak louder than words.

We can TELL readers a character is anything, yet how that character acts is all that matters.

Talk is cheap and, adding to that…

Humans Are Liars

*hangs head* Yep. Probably.

We’re all liars. We might lie to others (to one degree or another). Mostly, though, we lie to ourselves. Wow, the dryer really shrank my pants!

No judgement. Goes with being human.

We all want to believe if something horrific happened, we’d act heroically. Maybe we would. But, perhaps not. We all want to believe we’d NEVER do X (kill, run, hide), but there’s only one way to know for certain.

Trial by fire.

Problem is, what we believe about our own character (integrity or lack thereof) is all theory until we’re faced with some crisis that puts that belief to the test. Only a test can reveal our belief as truth, half-truth, or a lie (self-delusion). Crises show us what we are made of (or not).

The hero-in-his-own-mind may, when faced with an actual trial, turn out to be a complete coward. Conversely, the person who wholly believes she could never be heroic might, in reality, be the most heroic of all.

It’s the same with characters in a story.

Character Crucible

The core story problem serves as the crucible. How we put the story together is what steadily turns up the heat on all parties involved.

Next time we’ll focus in on the components of story, the scene and the sequel. But here’s a preview and how it relates to character.

The scene is a fundamental building block of fiction. It is physical. Something tangible is happening. The scene has three parts (per Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure, an invaluable resource which I recommend every writer buy and study).

• Statement of the goal
• Introduction and development of conflict
• Failure of the character to reach his goal, a tactical disaster

Goal –> Conflict –> Disaster

The sequel is the other fundamental building block and is the emotional thread. The sequel often begins at the end of a scene when the viewpoint character has to process the unanticipated but logical disaster that happened at the end of your scene.

Emotion–> Thought–> Decision–> Action

Notice how the scene presents the problem, which then provides a way we (readers) can witness how a character acts/responds externally.

The sequel permits audience access to the internal. We can peer into the thoughts of that character. This is where we’ll witness how a character evolves/or devolves over time.

For bonus points, internal narrative—in scene and the sequel—is a fantastic way to mess with readers’ heads (I.e. the unreliable narrator).

In the End

Everyone has his or her version of the truth, but we as writers must tangibly demonstrate this. This means, when we strengthen the story, this automatically can strengthen the characters.

Everything in dramatic writing is and should be intentional. No extra screws or bits. Granted, practice will make us all better at this, but in great stories there are NO free rides. Period. No thought, setback, bit of setting, snippet of dialogue is there to simply take up space.

It ALL serves a vital/integral purpose.

And, if any character’s actions do not line up with who we (the writer) says he is? It better be intentional .

Taking time to master character building can help a lot with surprising your audience.

What Are Your Thoughts? I LOVE Hearing from You!

Is the saying, ‘Show, don’t tell‘ making a bit more sense? Can you see how problems are the ONLY way to really deliver character? How actions can be used in all sorts of ways, even as a way of misleading the audience for WHAMMO twist endings?

Where do you struggle? Because we ALL do. What you want to know more about? Where you get stuck, etc.

I look forward to helping you guys become stronger at your craft. Do you have a hard time crafting characters that are dimensional and unique? Hey, I’ve spent time in the land of “Low-Hanging Fruit” myself. When I tried to be different…I only ended up bizarro.

It’s OKAY to be NEW!

Do you see how we can create a character “on paper,” but depending on the STORY we toss them into, how they can become something/someone entirely different?

What are some of your biggest problems, hurdles or misunderstandings about plot, how it relates to character? Where do you most commonly hit the proverbial wall?

Hey, even bloggers need help with ideas .

The post Character Building: How Story Forges & Refines Characters appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Wounds matter in life and in fiction. We’ve all been hurt in some way and to some degree. Just goes with being human.

Admitting weakness, failure, mistakes, and flaws isn’t always easy. In fact, it can be downright terrifying for even the ‘strongest’ of us. It’s an especially daunting task in a world that idolizes something none of us will ever be…perfect.

Wounds are part of the human experience. When we understand the nature of wounds, our fiction becomes all the richer just by adding in these layers.

All genres and all stories require wounds. No wound and no story. Even The Little Engine That Could had self-esteem issues and a confidence problem .

Wounds provide friction vital for conflict, No conflict, no story. Conflict turns pages, sells books, and cultivates fans.

The entire point of stories is a flawed character overcoming some internal issue (damage) in order to triumph over an external problem. It’s why readers read fiction.

Undamaged characters aren’t simply boring, but the audience won’t be able to relate with them. How can we empathize with someone who lacks a past? Who’s never made a mistake, has no regrets, or has lived a charmed and problem-free life?

Short answer? We can’t.

Wounds: Genre Dictates Damage

This said, the wounds need to fit the genre because genre acts as a guideline for reader expectations. Our goal as authors should be to meet then exceed reader expectations.

Stories are all for the reader or should be, which is why genre constraints can be very helpful for writers.

No one expects a cozy cupcake mystery to explore the nature of evil. Readers who gravitate to this genre are wanting a lighter read and will resent us playing Dostoyevsky.

Conversely, if a reader is in the mood for a story that probes the depths of the human condition, they’re probably not picking up a novel about a cupcake baker who solves local crimes.

Many emerging writers often shy away from damaged characters and use genre as an excuse to avoid the uncomfortable. Big mistake.

A cozy cupcake mystery can give the reader the light entertainment she craves and also offer emotional resonance she needs…without being Crime, Punishment and Cupcakes (though that’s a killer title, LOL).

When we understand wounds better, it helps us cultivate layered characters who’ll make for page-turning stories, regardless of genre. Let’s look at some common sources for wounds.

Pain of Perfect

First, what is perfect? Good question. Humans all across time and in every culture idolize perfect (always have and always will) though what perfect is varies vastly and changes all the time.

Just take a moment to google female beauty standards across the ages and it’s easy to see how, while the world around us might change, people don’t.

We are still ridiculous.

The ancient Incas thought being cross-eyed was super sexy. RAWR. They often fitted infants with a plank between their eyes to artificially create this ‘natural’ beauty for those unlucky enough to be born with ‘normal’ eyes. Ancient Greece was hot for the unibrow.

From ideal body type to what constitutes success to what constitutes normal or abnormal is in constant flux, and is different everywhere. It even varies from household to household depending on culture and you got it…wounds.

This is where writers can have a lot of fun creating mayhem in fiction.

Wounds: Pain of Falling Short

No matter what genre we write, a character failing to ‘live up to’ some ideal is gold.

Maybe your character has spent a lifetime being measured against the ‘perfect’ older sibling, and struggles with self-esteem. This character might flounder trying to create his/her own distinct identity.

Or flip it.

What if the character happens to be the ‘perfect’ older sibling? This character didn’t ask for family or outsiders to pick on his or her younger sibling for not being as smart, talented, pretty, ambitious, etc.

This character never asked to be the standard unit of measurement to judge another human being. How much guilt might come with that? Think of the pressure or even the fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud’?

Also, we have another ‘person’ who lacks a distinctive identity. While we have two very different ‘people’ both characters are defined in relation to the other.

Outsiders have denied agency to both. It’s amazing how something as simple as birth order can create a wound that drives characters and their decisions (good and bad).

We see this sort of wound explored in everything from The Joy Luck Club (literary fiction) to Game of Thrones (epic high fantasy) to one out of every three Hallmark movies .

The Diseased Family Tree

Since we’ve been in quarantine for months now, many of us in close quarters with loved ones, we might be even more aware of old wounds that haven’t healed at all or have healed improperly.

We touched a bit on family damage a moment ago in regards to ‘perfection.’ Family damage can come in many forms.

Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box does a brilliant job of exploring the ‘anti-goal’ which is a common fruit of the diseased family tree.

Judas Coyne is a famous rockstar, wealthy beyond imagination who has everything (including a lot of emotional baggage). Hate, anger and resentment fueled his incredible success, yet false guilt and profound shame keep him from enjoying any of it. A vengeful ghost determined to destroy him body and soul might be the only thing with the power to liberate Coyne from his emotional bondage.

Sometimes the diseased family tree is not as obvious. Often, parents believe they’re giving their children the best, but are actually deluded about the nature of their motives.

In The Luckiest Girl Alive, TifAni’s mom is superficial, materialistic, and self-absorbed. Her father is an emotionally absentee ghost who resents his life. Her mother pushes for TifAni to attend an elite prep school to give her daughter all the opportunities she missed (code for ‘marry real money’). Dad doesn’t have the spine to stand up and say ‘no.’

Both parents are too self-centered to realize TifAni in that school is a ticking bomb.

Of course, not every character needs to grow up in Season Ten of The Jerry Springer Show in order to take on some damage. The road to therapy is paved with good intentions.

Parents are human, too.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty explores how the best of intentions can poison everything.

Life Wounds All

Life has 100% fatality rate. No one gets out alive. Also we’re all going to get hurt somewhere by someone (and hurt others, too). Thing is, life is all…pointy.

If family doesn’t make us bleed, then school, peers, romantic interests, work colleagues, Facebook or plain bad luck will.

I know. I missed my calling writing inspirational cards .

Why am I talking about all this? Because we writers have more ‘competition’ than any other time in human history. With no gatekeepers, discoverability is a nightmare. There are a gazillion choices for books and most of them (like cable channels) are a waste of what little free time we have.

More is Not Always Better

From movies to television to books, audiences are deluged with tired tropes, boringly predictable plots and characters with the emotional depth of a goldfish. We can see this ‘glut of meh’ as a problem or use it for our advantage.

If we know why readers read, what they want, then we can work hard on what matters.

Readers long for emotional connection and stories that help them deal with pain, ease their pain or maybe even solve/release their pain. They want hope that messed up people overcome big problems in spite of, or perhaps because of, wounds and flaws.

Audiences yearn to believe that, on the other side of their problems, there is joy, peace, true love, freedom, fulfillment, healing, understanding, wholeness!

Wounds are healed and victory sealed. Who doesn’t want more of THAT?

What Are Your Thoughts?

Getting tired of the same old same old? From Hollywood to books it feels like it’s just the same stuff over and over. I get giddy when I discover something truly excellent. Some of my best therapy and a-ha moments have come from fiction.

What about you?

I love hearing from you!

What are your thoughts? We need to write the stories that change the world because, if one looks back? That’s what writers do. The world is ailing and our stories provide the medicine, if not the cure.

I hope y’all will join me for my advanced class this THURSDAY. I’m working to mix in some advanced training along with fundamentals. We’ll be exploring something new—the unreliable narrator.

Also, my brand new plotting class from last week, There & Back Again: From Bright Idea to Successful Novel is now available On DEMAND!

Trouble with Story-Worth Problems? NEW CLASSES to HELP!

The Unreliable Narrator: Turning the Reader’s World Upside Down

Class is June 4, 2020 from 7:00-9-00 P.M. and a recording (as always) is provided with class purchase. Price of the class is $50 but use lockdown15 for $15 off.

For those who want BOTH classes PLUS a BONUS class as well as an EXCLUSIVE and PRIVATE workshop? I offer you…

The Deep Dive Bundle: Two Classes & EXCLUSIVE Log-Line Workshop

Almost nine hours of training! This also includes working one-on-one in a private workshop with moi! Workshop ONLY available to bundle participants. No discount codes because the discount built into the pricing. Recordings included.

Can’t wait to see y’all in class!

On Demand Classes

Ah, very few remaining On Demand classes we’ve not yet purged from the servers so take advantage while they remain. Also (at top) is the NEW plotting class.

On Demand: There & Back Again—From Good Idea to Successful Novel

$50 but use lockdown15 for $15 off ($35)

On Demand: Dark Arts, Building Your Villain

$50 but use lockdown15 for $15 off ($35)

The Edge: How to Write Mystery, Suspense, & Thriller

$50 and use lockdown15 for $15 off ($35)

Tick Tock: How to Write a Mystery Suspense Series

$50 and use lockdown15 for $15 off ($35)

The post Wounds: Unforgettable Characters are Fashioned from Damaged Pieces appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Every story begins with ideas. Alas, stories can only be created when at least two vastly different ideas collide. The place where these ideas meet is the BOOM, much like the weather.

Storms erupt because two very different bodies of air meet…and don’t get along.

Only one idea, however, can win. In the meantime, lots of metaphorical rain, lightning strikes and maybe some tornadoes. After the powerful storms, the landscape is altered, lives are changed, some even lost.

It’s the same with powerful stories. Yet, instead of weather fronts colliding, differing ideas are colliding.

It’s wonderful to have a great story idea. Alas, an idea alone is not enough. It’s a solid start but that’s all. Loads of people have ‘great ideas’ and that and five bucks will get them a half-foam latte at Starbucks…one day when it reopens.

Ideas are everywhere…especially now *sighs*

What differentiates the author from the amateur is taking the time to understand—fundamentally—how to take that idea and craft it, piece by piece, into a great story readers love.

Rolling It BACK

I’ve not been blogging for a while because I had pneumonia that—for whatever reason—would NOT GO AWAY and finally has after four months of being bedridden…just in time for a global pandemic.

Oh-kay.

Everyone is now learning social distancing. As a professional writer for almost twenty years… welcome to my life. So *waves*

For everyone who’s said this to me (or another author), “I’ve always wanted to write a book, if only I could find the time.” Here you ARE! No time like the present.

And I’m here to help you out. I am back posting. There is no sense talking about industry stuff and I want a break from doom and gloom. We are going to get back to the craft essentials and have a good time.

So for all y’all (yes, I am a Texan) who’ve ever had a GREAT IDEA and no friggin’ clue how to turn that sucker into a story?

We begin our adventure here. Fiction, stories are essentially a clash of ideas….

Building Ideas into Stories

To have a story we must have what I call a BBT (Big Boss Troublemaker), since the word ‘antagonist’ confused the bejeezus out of me. We will discuss this concept more on another post.

Suffice to say for now, the BBT is the core idea/person/entity that creates the central problem that must be resolved by the end of your story,

Whenever we discuss the BBT, however, I show how all BBTs are an IDEA. This IDEA might manifest as a villain or as a core antagonist. 

The core antagonist is only different from a villain in that this person’s goal is not inherently destructive, evil or nefarious. 

Their idea(s) simply conflicts with what the protagonist’s idea(s) and what the MC believes he/she desires.

This antagonist generates a core story problem BIG enough to shove the protagonist out of the comfort zone and into the crucible.

This pressure (problems) creates heat which is the catalyst that creates the cascading internal reaction which will fundamentally alter the protagonist.

These internal changes are necessary for victory over the story problem via external action (choices/decisions). The MC cannot morph into a hero/heroine carrying emotional baggage, false beliefs, or character flaws present in the beginning. Why?

Because these elements are precisely WHY the MC would fail if forced to battle the BBT head-on in the opening of the story.

The story problem, and what it creates, is like a chemical reaction. Our protagonist, by Act Three should transform into something intrinsically different…a hero/heroine (a shining star instead of a nebulous body of gas).

The problem should be big enough that only a hero/heroine is capable of victory.

Villains as BBT

Villains are fantastic and make some of the most memorable characters in fiction whether on the page, stage or screen (Joker, Buffalo Bill, IT, Dr. Moriarty, Cersie Lannister, etc.).

A common misperception, however, is villains are ‘easy’ to write. No, mustache-twirling caricatures are easy to write. But villains, villains that get under our skin, who poke and prod at tender places take a lot of preparation and skill.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is extremely dimensional. We, the audience, are conflicted because he’s horrible, grotesque, cruel… and suddenly we find ourselves rooting for him.

That seriously messes with our heads.

Dr. Lecter has an IDEA of polite society. Act like a proper human and be treated like one. His IDEA of what a human is entails all that separates us from animals, namely manners and self-control. Act like a beast, and beasts–>food.

This cannot help but conflict with any FBI agent’s duty to protect all lives (deserving or not), and help mete out justice in all homicides (even of those horrible folks we’re all secretly happy Hannibal made into a rump roast).

Hannibal also challenges the almost universal taboo against cannibalism, the idea that humans are not food.

All I can think is thank GOD Lecter is fictional or these jack@$$es hoarding TP might be in serious trouble right now.

…just sayin’.

Anyway….

Black & White is BORING FICTION

Superb characters are never black and white, wholly right or wrong because that’s an inaccurate reflection of humanity.

We (the audience) sense the falseness of such a simplistic character, and, while one-dimensional characters (villains included) can be amusing for a time, they’re not the sort of character that can capture an audience’s attention in a glutted market. Forget withstanding the test of time.

Caricatures don’t possess enough substance/dimension/gray areas to elicit heated debate and discussion among fans for years to come. Moriarty, Dracula, Frankenstein, Cercei Lannister, Joker, Darth Vader, Lestat, every serial killer EVER will continue to inspire debate until the meteor strike simply because there are no simple answers with any of them.

But villains are not ideal for all stories or all genres.

Core Antagonist as BBT

There are what people call character-driven stories which don’t require a villain. I twitch when I hear the term ‘character-driven’ because too many mistake this as a pass for having to plot. NOPE. We still need a plot ;).

Plot is what will drive the character change.

I’ve used the examples Steel Magnolias and Joy Luck Club in other posts so we’ll pick a different one today. The Mirror Has Two Faces is one of my favorite examples.

***And now y’all are stuck at home and can actually have time to watch this old movie .

The BBT in this story is the IDEA that physical beauty is bad. This IDEA is manifested in the story problem, which is created by Professor Gregory Larkin. He believes he knows why he’s always been unlucky in love.

Being an analytical Mathematics teacher at Columbia he gets a bright idea. He believes superficial attraction and sex is what has ruined all his relationships (and is partially correct).

He theorizes that physical attractiveness always undermines authentic intimacy. Thus, he postulates a solution. Find and date a woman he finds completely physically unappealing. Then he’ll find true love (Story Problem).

Enter in Professor Rose Morgan, a shy, plain, middle-aged professor who teaches literature also at Columbia. Ah, but Rose also happens to have a stunning older sister and a mother who was model-gorgeous in her heyday, a mother who always has to be the center of attention.

Gregory Larkin has the IDEA he can only find love so long as physical beauty is not part of the equation. Physical attraction only leads to a bad ending.

Close, but No Cigar

Rose Morgan also has her own idea about beauty, though is not actively aware of it initially. Her mother’s obsession with her own beauty has propelled Rose to demur and become a wallflower. She dresses in frumpy clothes, wears no makeup, doesn’t exercise and does nothing with her hair.

Namely, she doesn’t want to compete with Mom. Mom’s distorted overvaluation of physical beauty has created an equally distorted devaluation of physical beauty in Rose.

When Larkin asks Rose out and the relationship blooms enough for them to marry, it seems his theory is sound. Rose wants to believe she’s okay with this. That she is okay that she was picked because she was utterly unattractive on the outside.

Sure, it stings, but in the end, does it matter? They are close, share similar interests, enjoy each other’s company and she’s no longer terminally single.

Only once married, does Rose realize she’s sold herself short in a big way.

She didn’t believe she longed for Puccini and romance and lust and for a man (her husband) to want her. That was for ‘pretty girls’ and she was lucky to even be picked at all. Right?

Right?

Wrong

One night, Rose presses Gregory for sexual intimacy and he freaks out. He rejects her advances, and is angry at her for upsetting his tidy formula for lasting love.

This crushes Rose.

Rose believes she repulses him, but is very wrong. He did want her, probably more than any woman ever before. Yet, he still clings to his false IDEA. He remains undeterred that physical attraction/relations will ruin true love. He leaves right after this disastrous night for a lengthy lecture tour.

Rose finally faces her fear of being pretty and her false beliefs and ideas that she a) is not pretty and b) does not deserve to be pretty. She cleans up her diet, gets her hair done, changes her wardrobe and wears makeup. She feels differently and notes others treat her differently, too.

Gregory also does some soul-searching and starts pondering his IDEA might be wrong. Maybe outer beauty does not instantly negate inner beauty. Perhaps beauty, physical attraction, lust wasn’t the problem. He was.

Maybe.

Idea Showdown

Gregory returns to NYC and sees Rose has bloomed. She’s a very different wife inside and out. Not only is she stunning, but she’s now confident and knows what she wants, what she deserves.

She apologizes for her part in the problem. Confesses she never should have agreed to a passionless marriage. Rose thanks him for helping her see her own cowardice, but in truth she wants passion and Puccini, love and sex and more than marriage melba toast.

Gregory is dumped…again.

This forces him to take a hard look at himself and his ‘theory.’ He’s forced to choose between his ‘flawless theory of perfect love’ or Rose.

Will he let Rose dump him and go in search of an even more physically unattractive female? Or will he ditch his theory and woo Rose back?

Ideas as Weather Fronts

What happens when a cold front meets with a hot front? A STORM! Same in stories. This is why it’s critical to understand the BBT’s idea and the proxy carrying out the idea. It’s why it’s just as vital to understand the protagonist and his or her IDEA to be challenged.

Like in weather the colder and drier the cold front and the hotter and moister the hot front, the bigger the BOOM.

Thus once you’ve selected the IDEAS that will clash and what sort of characters will serve as the delivery mechanisms, make sure to choose who will suffer/change the most. The higher the stakes the better the story.

Also ask (for both sides):

What does he/she want? Why does he/she want it? Why now? What happens if he/she fails to get what they want?

When we articulate these and craft these ahead of time, we can make sure to pack as much punch into the plot as possible. No reader wants to invest 12-15 hours into a story where there are low stakes or no stakes. Where no one changes. ZZZZZZ.

Y’all might laugh, but I’ve edited many a work with no stakes. When I asked the writer, ‘What happens if she doesn’t find out the secret?’ Usually, I got, ‘She um…just doesn’t?’

Nope. That isn’t a story, it’s a sedative.

So write like the wind! The world has gone bonkers and remember, in fiction, it’s legal to kill the people who take all the toilet paper.

Lots of love and see you next time

The post Ideas Collide: Powerful Storms are the Center of All Great Stories appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Voice. All readers (and literary agents) want to find the next great one, and all writers want to know what the heck it is. If voice were easy to define, then we wouldn’t have dozens of articles, books and classes to demystify the concept.

Today, I’ll put in my two cents and see if I can help some light bulbs go off.

Voice is—in its essence—that uniqueness that we as artists bring to the story. Remember, humans relied on an oral tradition for tens of thousands of years. We are a story people. Voice, in my opinion, is a holdover from that oral tradition.

Ah, but the original storytellers were not only the precursors of the modern writer, they were also the precursor to the modern actor.

I can imagine the one dude in the cave who used the most dramatic gestures and movements, who had the best inflection at just the right time when he told the story. He probably had the largest audiences…the ones who tipped the most.

I don’t care what anyone says, storytellers—WE—are the oldest profession .

Authors as Directors

Whenever we watch a movie, certain directors seem to stand apart. It’s easy to spot a Quentin Tarantino or a Francis Ford Coppola movie just from the style. What film is used, the light, the shots, what’s included, what isn’t.

Voice can be similar. For instance, Ernest Hemingway became famous for his economy of words when his peers at the time lived by the mantra, ‘No modifier left behind.’

It’s fairly simple to decipher Hemingway’s work from Faulkner with a glance at a page or two.

William Faulkner included expansive details, used long luxurious prose, and wrote sentences that could span over half a page. Hemingway, on the other hand? Brevity to the point of being almost sterile.

Stephen King will still say in thirty words what probably could have been said in five, but it doesn’t matter because his fans love his particular writing voice. If readers had wanted him to write leaner, they’d have penalized him in the 80’s before he ever became a household name.

Authors Have a Lot in Common with Actors

Actors use a technique known as ‘method acting’ to train themselves to behave realistically under imaginary circumstances. In method acting, the goal is to simultaneously stimulate two types of awareness—that of the character and the artist.

Writers, to some degree, are doing much of the same thing. But, instead of doing this with ONE character, we have the arduous job of doing this with all the characters.

It isn’t enough to be in the head of our main character. If we cannot also learn to empathize with the antagonist, and even core supportive characters, our writing can end up flat, lacking dimension.

I’ve read many a new writer whose characters all sounded like the same person…the writer. If one reads their dialogue aloud with no tags, it’s impossible to tell any of the characters apart.

The reason is because that the writer hasn’t yet matured enough to develop a strong authorial voice and doesn’t understand how to create differentiated character voice, which is a whole other bugaboo.

***Which is why Grace is teaching a class on CHARACTER VOICE this Friday. Go HERE and use New10 for $10 off. Remember, you get a free recording with your class.

Voice Can Affect Our Career

First of all, voice can affect our career because if we don’t have a solid voice, we won’t connect with readers. Don’t connect with readers and well?

*crickets chirping*

Won’t sell any books.

We can have the best plot ever written, but if all the characters are talking heads, it doesn’t matter. We can have the most interesting characters, but if we cannot put them in an interesting and compelling story, we still have a problem (though, granted, an easier one to fix than the former).

Voice is something to consider when choosing what genre we want to write in, but that’s for another post on another day.

Voice and Empathy

A HUGE part of voice is our ability to empathize. The more we study the human condition, the easier we can get in the head of a character(s).

This is why reading fiction is so vital. By reading good fiction, we are essentially studying people through stories. This is how I can spot writers who don’t read.

Writers who read a lot of fiction are simply better at playing different parts and being convincing. We get lost in the story because they don’t all sound like the writer wearing a different mask and trying to ‘fool’ us.

Ah, but want to get even BETTER?

Broaden the Palette

Read NF, particularly psychology and sociology books. The more we study people, the easier it is to empathize and it will also ring as authentic. Read body language books. Study history, culture, local color. Absorb as much as you can.

Then get out of your comfort zone and live life. Take risks. I’ve visited a good part of the world, not all of it the pretty touristy spots either. I once traveled in a motorcade through the Syrian Desert all to have a locally famous Bedouin woman read my fortune in Turkish coffee grinds.

Yes, that’s a real thing.

Was either that or watch Bollywood soaps dubbed over in Arabic. We were seriously bored.

Also, that same week while in Bosra—I’m not kidding—we’d had no water in weeks (only crappy knock-off soft drinks). There was this ancient man with no teeth selling water ‘by the sip’ from a glass bottle he wore around his neck.

I literally handed him a stack of cash for the whole thing. Don’t judge me. As far as I was concerned, he was a genius entrepreneur who knew his market. Right man, right place, right time with right product.

Me? No figs given.

I’ve been stranded in France, lost in New Zealand, once shared a bathroom with chickens in Mexico, and nearly took out the undercarriage of a Mercedes driving through downtown Damascus at midnight.

No, I wasn’t speeding. The street lights sucked, the friggin’ speed bumps were WAY too tall, and no one bothered marking them with ANY reflective paint. You’d be driving and then BAMMO!

This traffic cop comes over to see what the noise is all about. Probably the wire hangers coming untwisted. I play damsel in distress, then hand him a couple fresh packs of Marlboros I’d brought along for just such a special occasion and thank him for his concern.

Nothing to see.

Now where’s that fried chicken place we were looking for?

#NotMakingThisUpFolks

Truth is stranger than fiction, which is why it is good to get out more.

FYI, it is miserably hot and nasty during the day so you go out to eat, get food, etc. all at night. So driving around looking for fried chicken in the middle of the night not nearly as weird as….

Moving on!

LIVE, then bring that to your craft. Get out among people, preferably people vastly different from you. Listen to them. Ask questions. Have a lot of experiences. Take part in the human condition.

Eat weird food, hang out with weird people, make friends with those who are different from you. You can always agree on something you all love #BabyYoda.

Volunteer work is wonderful for meeting an incredible crosshatching of people with all sorts of life experiences. Listen, take notes, take classes, take trips…take chances!

If our voice is our art, then how many colors, shades, textures and tools do you want to bring to the table? Sure, we are free to finger-paint with three primary colors, but the more shades we add, the more our art expands and the more voices we can speak with authenticity.

What are your thoughts?

I wonder if that was why authors/writers, historically, were viewed with such fear and reverence. If you look back, those guys and gals lived some CRAZY lives!

Any fun tales to share?

Come on. We won’t tell anyone who doesn’t read the comments .

Give yourself some goodies for Christmas. PANTS OPTIONAL!

I also have some treats, like a BRAND NEW class I’ve never taught before, and it turned out FANTASTIC. OMG BEST CLASS EVER for my FREAKY FRIENDS!

BTW WE FIXED THE API ERROR! Stripe was giving an API error for some of y’all trying to buy classes and we FIXED that! So get these classes while they are on sale before they are slated for deletion of stuck in cold storage.

NEW! HOLIDAY ON DEMAND: How to Write Deep POV by #1 Best Selling Author Maria Grace! Normally $55 now $25

ON DEMAND Dark Arts: HOLIDAY SPECIAL Building Your Villain is usually $55 and for the next few days is only $25. Three hours of psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, pathology and how that applies to writing.

It is like the Behavioral Analysis Unit for Authors. Tres FUN! Villains are some of the most enduring characters in literature. Why not add your own legends to the list?

I’m also offering ON DEMAND! Holiday Sale! Story Master: From Dream to DONE. This class is to train you how to plot whether you’re a plotter, a pantser or a mix of both. It’s also a crash course in creating dimensional characters.

I love hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of DECEMBER, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages (5K words) of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or fewer). 

In the meantime, PLEASE treat yourself to a class! We have a TON of classes that we will be deleting or putting into cold storage come January and will no longer be available. So STOCK UP while you can.

The BIG SPECIALS (other than what I mentioned above)

On Demand: Beyond Bulletproof HOLIDAY Barbie

Usually $55 and now only $25.

This is a THREE-HOUR class on guns, knives, weapons, fighting, law enforcement (from local cops to international espionage) and more. Everything you need to build a bad@$$—male OR female—and get the details CORRECT.

Spilling the HOLIDAY Tea: On Demand Blogging for Authors

Usually $75 and now only $40.

Get prepped and ready for the new year, new you, new blog.

New Classes THIS WEEK FREE RECORDING INCLUDED

Tick Tock: How to Plot Mystery Suspense Series

Thursday, December 12th, 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST (NYC TIME). Use New20 for $20 off.

Can You Hear Me Now? Developing Character Voice

Friday, December 13th, 7:00-9:00 P.M. EST. Use New10 for $10 off.

NEW ON DEMAND CLASSES

Bite-Sized Fiction: How to Plot the Novella

Use New20 for $20 off

Why Are We HERE? Scenes That HOOK

Use New20 for $20 off

Popular On Demand Classes

The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES ON DEMAND

Use Binge10 for $10 off.

How do we create characters that readers will fall in love with, characters strong enough to go the distance? Find out in this THREE-HOUR class that also comes with detailed notes and a character-building template. 

This class dovetails with my previous class:

Bring on the Binge: How to Plot and Write a Series (ON DEMAND). Use Binge10 for $10 off.

Need some help with platform and branding?

Branding: WHEN YOUR NAME ALONE Can Sell (ON DEMAND)

Use brand10 for $10 off.

For the complete list, go to the OnDemand Section.

The post Voice: What is Writing ‘Voice’ & Why is It Important to Storytelling? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

What makes the difference between a meh novel and one we fall head over heels in love with regardless of genre? Good question and it sure would make our job easier if there existed one answer.

Though there isn’t one answer there’s a list of pretty good answers, thus for this post and the sake of brevity, we’ll pick one. Today, I posit that the reader, upon page one, is testing a potential relationship. Kinda like dating.

We (readers) BOND to the great stories much the same way we bond in human relationships. Think about it.

We even admit to this all the time without truly noting what we’re saying, “OMG, I fell in LOVE with that book! I LOVE that character!” etc.

When we authors roll with this metaphor, our job as storytellers becomes far simpler (though simple and easy are not the same thing).

Attraction

I teach a class called Hooked–Your First Five Pages (and offering it again) because those initial pages are critical. It’s like meeting a member of the opposite sex and noticing something that makes our heart flutter, that propels a longing to know more.

A vast majority of relationships start with this kind of heart-fluttering spark, though granted there are relationships where there was nothing/nada in the beginning, and, over time, something surfaced.

This happens in fiction though it’s rare. Every person who has ever recommended Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to me has told me essentially the same thing, “Oh the first hundred pages will bore the paint off the walls, but if you get past that….it’s AWESOME.”

Ok. I’m good, thanks. Not picking on this book, but just not my beer. Sorry.

I’m glad he has a great personality…. *looks for exit*

OPW versus NPW

Though not all relationships begin with an instant spark, it’s pretty amazing to have (and ideal, too). In fiction it is no longer optional. In a what I call the NPW (New Publishing World) we no longer have the luxuries of the OPW (Old Publishing World).

In the OPW, only so many authors were ever published. Discoverability wasn’t a nightmare. The competition was finite.

In the NPW? We gotta have that love-at-first-sight or the browsing reader will simply pass after glancing at the sample pages and move on until something sparks.

Story IS Seduction

All righty, so sparks are great but not nearly enough if nothing catches fire. Before Hubby, I had more than my fair share of bad dates which I want to use for the purposes of illustration.

Nothing Ned

When I was 20 a ridiculously hot Marine asked me out and he wasn’t gorgeous…he was breathtaking. Just looking at him made my knees weak…and then I went out with him.

I’m not picking on Marines because I know plenty who are brilliant, but this young man was not one of them. Though I think he was likely the most handsome man who’d ever asked me out, it was one of the most painful dates of my life. Agonizing might be a better word, namely because I find intellect attractive and this guy was about as smart as a tomato plant.

During the meal, I found myself wondering if he’d start leaning toward the light, postulating he might be able to photosynthesize his own food. Was the steak he ordered even necessary? 

Yes, I know. Not a very nice thing to think but I was only twenty. Gimme a break!

And maybe he wasn’t dumb and I simply assumed this because I was young and dumb, myself. Perhaps he was nervous or shy. But what killed the spark was he was a blank, a Nothing Ned. He parted with nothing of his own.

Me: *eagerly smiling* So, you like to mountain bike?

Him: *shrugs* Not really.

Me: *still perky* Okay, you have hobbies?

Him: *makes face* Nah. Not so much.

Me: *dying a little inside* Where are you from?

Him: *chews* Texas.

Me: *feeling the tailspin, reaching for anything* What music do you like?

Him: *butters more bread* I dunno. Really don’t listen to music.

Me: *wanting to commit Seppuku with sorbet spoon* So what do you do?

Him: *shrugs again* A lot of things.

Now maybe this guy was a genius and a layered and dimensional human being with loads of cool hobbies we could have bonded over. But, because on this ONE date he parted with NOTHING of himself, he came across as boring, dull, and frankly dull-witted.

Was he? No idea.

I didn’t have the bandwidth to endure another painful evening like that to find out. The spark of his looks were enough to get me to dinner, but nothing ignited because he refused to part with anything personal to act as tinder to make use of the spark.

Then we have the other kind of date. Again, really attractive guy, enough to spark a date and by the end of the evening…I wanted to throw myself out of a moving car.

Let’s meet…

Over-Sharing Oliver

Over-Sharing Oliver was the opposite of Nothing Ned and he spent hours using dinner as his personal confessional/therapy session relaying in vivid detail everything that had happened to him from childhood, the deets of his nasty divorce and why he hates and doesn’t trust women (but thinks I might be different—thanks) and on and on about himself.

HIS likes, accomplishments, job, hobbies, interests, opinions and thirty minutes into this ordeal I seriously wondered why the heck I was even THERE.

I felt like a prop whose sole purpose was so he didn’t look stupid eating at a restaurant and talking to himself (though he was essentially doing just that).

The Story as Romance

When we create our characters we must be vigilant to avoid the polar opposite ends of the backstory spectrum, and it IS a balancing act.

On one side the character can be a Nothing Ned. We fail to explore and articulate the backstory of WHO this character is and why he/she is a certain way. How do they see their world? Why do they act/react the way they do?

Dramatic tension cannot exist in a vacuum. There is nothing to emotionally ignite the relationship between the reader and our story.

Conversely, when we create the backstory, it doesn’t belong vomited on the reader all at once like Over-Sharing Oliver. As we talked about on Tuesday, mystery is a good thing. It keeps readers turning pages.

There is a reason the final big ending of a novel is called the climax *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*.

The reader and story bond in relationship that grows and intensifies with every struggle, setback and finally a triumph (climax)…which can be a betrayal (tosses book across room), an unsatisfying letdown (no more books by THAT gal), satisfying (cool, maybe get his next book), or a mind-blowing transcendent experience (in love, committed forever and no author does it better).

How any novel ends largely depends on the writer’s skills at wooing the reader then making them see stars . They will love YOU forever, eternally devoted. Frankly that is what we ALL want, readers and authors.

Learning to create fascinating and layered backstories is a great start, and USA Today BSA Cait Reynolds has a class on that tonight which I strongly recommend. Cait is a fantastic instructor.

Additionally, the worlds we create can in and of themselves become like a character where readers fall goofy in love because they ADORE that world (um…Cosplay anyone?).

This is why we are also offering world-building classes, because it involves so much more than one might think. Many of the MS I edit really are sad regurgitations of other worlds by other authors or, as in the case of Independence Day Resurgence a boring and bizarre cobbling of other worlds.

Hollywood: Hey, let’s retread Independence Day, slap on some Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica and a smidge of Call of Duty Infinite Warfare. It will be awesome!

…..yeah NO.

Instead our goal is to learn to create something grounded in familiar mythos, yet wholly ours and unique and captivating. Y’all can also feel free to peruse the archives of this blog for all kinds of free posts on character, backstory and world-building.

Either way, I want y’all to succeed and to create the stories we (readers) LOVE. I want that when we think of your novel we then blather on and on like we would over some guy/gal we had a mad-stupid crush on.

What are your thoughts? Can you relate to the horrible date? The one you believed you’d enjoy and ended up only wanting to chew off your leg to escape? What about stories? What stories captivated you instantly and you’re mad in love to this day? Why?

I love hearing from you!

For the month of September, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

NEW CLASSES FOR SEPTEMBER AND MORE!

All classes come with a FREE recording!

We’ve added in classes on erotica/high heat romance, fantasy, how to write strong female characters and MORE! Classes with me, with USA Today Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds, award-winning author and journalist Lisa-Hall Wilson, and Kim Alexander, former host of Sirius XM’s Book Radio. So click on a tile and sign up!

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The post The Art of Story Seduction—From Spark to Romance, Climax to Commitment appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Voice blooms from the heart.

All agents want one and all writers want to know what the heck it is. If it was easy to define, then we wouldn’t have countless articles, books and classes to demystify “voice.” Today, I will put in my two cents and see if it can help the light bulb go off.

Voice is, in its essence, that uniqueness that we as artists bring to the story. Remember, humans relied on an oral tradition for tens of thousands of years. We are a story people and “voice,” in my opinion, is a holdover from that oral tradition.

Ah, but the original storytellers were not only the precursors of the modern writer, they were also the precursor to the modern ACTOR. I can imagine the one dude in the cave who used the most dramatic gestures and movements and the best inflection at just the right time AS he told the story probably had the best audiences.

Writers are Also Composers/Directors

TIMING, is a HUGE part of being a good storyteller, thus it is naturally a large component of “voice.” Writers must have a natural sense of when things should be tense, versus the times we need to let the audience have a breather. Writing a novel is very akin to writing a symphony.

If everything is crescendo, then nothing is. If every page is mind-numbing tension, then nothing is. Conversely, if our writing is just a character thinking, then thinking some more, then thinking some more, then that is not a story, it’s a diary. It’s the elevator music of story.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

As writers, we are also directors. We need to take charge of the setting, the lighting, the mood and then tell the characters what to do (give stage direction). Our words are what give the pauses between the push. We must choose the right words at the right time to always control the pace, the push and pull of conflict.

We not only must make sure the plot arc is progressing accordingly, but the characters must arc as well. All of this must be balanced until the grand finale, the Big Boss Battle that every chapter has let up to. How we balance all of this is known as “voice.”

Writers Have a Lot in Common with Actors

Just like actors have to get in the head of a character they must portray on stage or in film, we, too, must learn to “get in the head” of our characters…ALL of them. An actor must play a singular part, but we must, to a degree, play ALL of the parts. It isn’t enough to be in the head of our protagonist. If we cannot also learn to empathize with the antagonist and even the supportive characters, our writing will be flat and will lack dimension.

New writers lack confidence and skill, so often what will happen is they parrot a popular author. They become a bad copy instead of an awesome original. But, the bigger mistake I see is voice often comes with preparation, and new writers often fail to prepare. New writers fail to understand the characters before they start writing. They get a flash of a scene in their head and then start typing. This is like an actor not taking any time to study the part before he begins reciting lines.

Not that this way is wrong, but it can make the difference between a Saturday Night Live skit performance versus a performance that brings home an Oscar.

I’ve read many a new writer whose characters all sounded like the same person. They hadn’t taken time to understand the characters–all of them–and really think about GCM (Goal, Conflict, Motivation via Debra Dixon). Thus, either all the characters sounded alike and the dialogue sounded like a bad third-grade play, or the protagonist was the only character with depth (because he was based off the writer) and all the other characters are talking heads or bad knock-offs off the protagonist.

Voice Can Affect Our Career

First of all, voice can affect our career because if we don’t have a solid voice, we won’t connect with readers. Agents love a strong writing voice because they love finding works readers will love. We can have the best plot ever written, but if all the characters are talking heads, it doesn’t matter. We can have the most interesting characters, but if we cannot put them in an interesting and compelling story, we still have a problem (though, granted, an easier one to fix than the former).

But voice can affect more than whether we get an agent. Voice can affect how well we write. Do we have the right genre for our natural voice? This is why we should never write for the market. We shouldn’t write romance because it’s a hot market. We should just ignore trends and write the best story for us to write.

How Does Genre Affect Voice?

Let’s extend this idea of actors being related to writers. Let’s say I have a role to cast. I want a male actor to play a cowboy. I have three different actors. I have Clint Eastwood, Jack Black, and Robert Deniro. Same story, different actors. Can you see how the choice of actor–the choice of the voice–becomes essential to how the story will play out? If I cast the wrong actor for the story I as a director want to tell, I can have a disaster, even though ALL THREE ACTORS are highly skilled and talented.

If I want a Old School Western? Clint Eastwood. But if I want a comedy? Clint might not be the right actor, unless Clint wants to branch out and do some intensive study in the area of comedy. With a lot of work and training, Clint could pull it off. But does he really want to? Does the director want to mess with it when it is simply easier to cast Jack Black?

This is why we must really understand our voice and develop it accordingly. I LOVE thrillers, but I’m naturally a humor author. I find that I might love reading thrillers, but had a tough time writing them. I would get far too sidetracked with comedy that wasn’t appropriate for the character. Traditional “serious thrillers” are not a natural fit with my writing voice, which is why the novel I’m finishing has shifted to more of a Janet Evanovich style.

I made a mistake of believing that because I loved to read thrillers, that I should then write them. Yeah…um, no.

It took writing three “serious” thrillers that I was less than thrilled about (bada bump *snare*) to see what my true writing voice really was. My NF has been a success because I am true to my voice, whereas my fiction was good, it’s won contests, but it never felt…right. It didn’t have that connection that my NF did.

Yet, it is only because I wrote a lot that I figured this out. I experimented and I also gained CONFIDENCE to admit where I really needed to be writing. I was less prone to listen to what other people thought and decided to take my path. Take a thriller and then add in a sympathetic, funny character.

This is why writing and writing A LOT will reveal our true voice. We get time to try the genres we like and if they are a fit? Perfect! If not? We’ll see it sooner.

Voice and Empathy

I feel a HUGE part of voice is the ability to truly develop the ability to empathize. The more we study the human condition, the easier we can get in the head of a character. This is why reading fiction is so vital. By reading good fiction, we are essentially studying people through stories. This is why I can spot writers who don’t read.

Writers who read a lot of fiction are better writers. Ah, but want to get even BETTER?

Broaden the Palette

Read NF, particularly psychology and sociology books. The more we study people, the easier it is to empathize and it will also ring as authentic. Read body language books. Read history. Read as much as you can. Then get out of your comfort zone and live life. Take risks. I jumped out of an airplane (a few times), but, in retrospect, I could have probably taken a pottery class and been fine. LIVE, then bring that to your craft. Get out among people. Listen to them. Study them. Take part in the human condition.

If our voice is our art, then how many colors, shades, textures and tools do you want to bring to the table? Sure, we are free to finger-paint with three primary colors, but it will limit our art.

So, do you guys feel that you finally understand what voice is? Do you have questions? What are your thoughts? Your suggestions? Do you think people are born with their natural voice? Or do you feel life experience shapes voice? If we don’t have a voice can we develop one? Do you believe there are “tone deaf” writers who will never improve no matter how much teaching?

Share! I love hearing from you!

I LOVE hearing from you!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Since it was such a HUGE success and attendees loved it, I am rerunning the Your First Five Pages class SATURDAY EDITION. Use the WANA15 code for 15% off. Yes, editors REALLY can tell everything they need to know about your book in five pages or less. Here’s a peek into what we see and how to fix it. Not only will this information repair your first pages, it can help you understand deeper flaws in the rest of your manuscript.

My new social media book, Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital World is NOW AVAILABLE. Only $6.99.

WANACon, the writing conference of the future is COMING! We start with PajamaCon the evening of October 3rd and then October 4th and 5th we have some of the biggest names in publishing coming RIGHT TO YOU. If you REGISTER NOW, you get PajamaCon and BOTH DAYS OF THE CONFERENCE (and all recordings) for $119 (regularly $149). Sign up today, because this special won’t last and seats are limited. REGISTER HERE.

The post What is Writing "Voice" appeared first on Kristen Lamb.