Lost

I read an article about what happens when a person gets lost. I thought it was interesting because even though it was written to apply to my day job, it was good information for writing. Many of the things discussed apply to both literal and figurative "being lost." I've even experienced these myself, probably more frequently than is healthy since I'm a worrier and I get lost in my own thoughts.

When lost, hikers experience a number of fears. The longer they're lost, the more and worse fears they experience:

• Fear of being alone,
• Fear of darkness,
• Fear of animals, specifically predators,
• Fear of suffering, and
• Fear of dying - Thinking about a life undone, who will take care of their family, and what people will say once they're gone.

I can extrapolate these to other situations. If a character is confused or worried, they might believe no one can understand them (fear of being alone). If a character is facing something they don't want to, they might fear the unknown (fear of darkness). In a book, a character might even face a real fear of death and worry about the things I've listed.

If allowed to continue worrying, a person will start to act irrationally. They'll push ahead further and get off track. They'll experience spatial disorientation. They'll ignore risks, failing to make fire, getting rid of critical supplies, ignoring search aircraft, and more. When lost, rational thought is hard to maintain. People devolve through certain emotions:

• Panic
• Frustration
• Anger
• Depression/withdrawal
• Fatigue
• Forgetfulness

There's a proper way to behave when you're lost. Following the rules will keep you from becoming more lost, keep you alive longer, and increase the chances that you're found. I find it fascinating because it seems that the more resilient characters--i.e. the ones we want to read about because they make good protagonists--will do these things intuitively. Maybe they'll go through a crisis of faith at some point, but in order to overcome everything and beat the Big Bad Antagonist in the climax, they have to figuratively:

• Create a positive attitude,
• Administer first aid to those who need it. In a group setting, this bonds people together.
• Find shelter. This creates a safety net, someplace that they can go to and diminish their fears.
• Create fire. This gives them a sense of control over the environment.
• Create a signal for a search party. This creates a goal: To be rescued.
• Find water and food. This is the last on the list because it's the most basic. The other items are how you survive mentally, which says a lot about the human mind.

The article even suggests that children are better at staying alive until they're rescued than adults.  They're better at inuitively knowing that they need to STOP: Stop, Think, Observe, and Plan.

I thought this was an interesting glimpse into the human mind. It's something I want to keep in mind as I develop characters and plot lines.

Silence

Most people are uncomfortable with silence. This holds true both in life and in writing.

When having a conversation--especially a heated conversation--our first reaction is to fill it with something. There's a reason the phrase "comfortable silence" was coined. Most of the time, silence isn't comfortable for any of us.

While in college, I briefly thought about being a psychologist. I was fascinated with the human mind, especially with neurological disorders. I ended up graduating with a minor in psychology, which was unrelated to my science major. One of the classes I took was Introduction to Counseling, which taught tools and techniques for conducting a talk session. One of the tools they gave us was, merely, silence.

When you want to get someone to talk, you just... stop. It seems counter-intuitive. Even now, after many years, my first reaction is to open my mouth and say something. But if you let the silence stretch on, if you hold out against the uncomfortable feeling bubbling inside of you, the other person will likely fill the void and reveal something about themselves in the process.

In writing, silence is also valuable. In critiquing others' work, I've noticed that we all have a tendency to do something like this to make silence stretch on:

"He waited for her to talk. The silence stretched on."

Rather than making the reader feel the silence and the wait--which is what we want to do in all aspects of our writing, right?--we're telling them something. And I don't need to tell you that telling is bad. Better to show.

I found this example in The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. It's a great example of how you can show "waiting." Adam has called his friend Blue from a parking lot. Her aunt picks up the phone. He asks to talk to Blue. Upon finding out who he is, the aunt answers:

"How wonderful. I'll go get Blue."

There was a brief, uncomfortable moment while voices murmured in the background of the telephone. Adam swatted at gnats; the parking lot needed to be mowed again. The asphalt was hard to see in some places.

"I didn't think you'd call," Blue said.

Rather than saying, "Adam stood there and waited for Blue to come to the phone," the author put us in Adam's shoes. We heard what was going on through the phone--and haven't we all been there, hearing muffled voices on the other end as the phone is passed from one hand to the other? We waited with him in the parking lot, looking around at our surroundings, seeing the weeds poking through the cracked asphalt.

And she never even used the word "wait."

How I Made Plotting Work For Me

After finishing my first novel, I started dreaming up what my second novel would be about. Being a pantser, I thought, "Yeah, let the creativity all hang out, man." It's funny because in my work life, I'm the opposite: I have checklists, appointment reminders, and excel spreadsheets to keep me on track. After floundering around for about 20,000 words, I decided that pantsing wasn't working for me any more.

And honestly, all the work I'm doing now is work that I did in my first book, albeit on the fly, in my head, and deep into the revisions. I felt like plotting would be stifling to my creativity, but let's face it: I plot my life, so why not my book? There's still room for creativity. It's just coming at a different, and in my opinion, better, point in the process.

The Plot

The first thing I decided to do was create a plot synopsis. Being that I'd agonized over it in my first book, I knew what I needed to do: Focus on the main plot. Leave out--but leave room for--sub-plots. Identify the key parts of the novel structure. Ensure there's enough story.

Really focusing on the big story events focused me. Before I started this exercise, by the time I was hammering out Chapter 8, I was meandering off on some wild goose chase (of which I got four more chapters of--hence my deciding to plot). When I wrote the plot out, I realized what needed to happen and recognized those four chapters as a wild goose chase.

(Because, honestly, I didn't want my protagonist in an MRI machine. What was she doing there? How do I get her out? Ugh. This has nothing to do with the interesting part of the story. I knew I'd be stripping it, anyway.)

I also considered sub-plots. I thought about additional characters that would round out the cadre of folk that will go on the ride with my MC. I identified some sub-plots that I thought would take place and then started thinking about characters.

The Characters

I have a problem with most of the "character sketch" templates I see. It's all about hair/eye/skin color, hobbies, and occupation. To me, none of that matters. I mean, it does, but it's not essential to the plot (unless it is, and in that case, you don't need to think about it because you already know).

Instead, the important part is the growth arc of the characters. I came up with my own template, which includes only two static details. I filled it out for seven characters who are playing a main or supporting role:

• Back story - What happened prior to this story that we will discover within the story or that supports the story arc? This included sub-plot material.
  
• Back back story - What happened before the back story to make this possible? For instance, if the MC is a thief who just got out of jail, what happened in his childhood to make him fall in with the wrong crowd, which thrust him into thievery, which landed him in jail?
  
• Starting point / fatal flaw - What type of person is the character when this story begins? "Starting point" and "fatal flaw" aren't necessary the same thing, but I called it that as a reminder that the starting point should be interesting and sharp.
  
• Ending point - What type of person is this character when this story ends? How have they learned and grown?
  
• Opposite personality trait - Three-dimensional characters have conflicting personality traits because human beings are a mass of contradictions. This doesn't have to be "opposite," but I used that term to remind myself that it should be strikingly different than their "fatal flaw."
  
• Relatable trait - Sometimes this was the same as the opposite personality trait, but sometimes not. Every character needs to be relatable, so I wanted to ensure I thought about it.
  
• Stakes in the climax - This goes back to the main plot: What does this character have at stake in the climax? What does he or she want the outcome to be? How will his or her life be different because of it? It seems to me that if the character isn't affected by the climax, even in small part, he or she has no place in the story. Or maybe the climax isn't climatic enough.
  
• Relation to the climax - Does this character participate in the climax? Not all of mine did, of course.
  
• Initial objective - When we start the story, what does the character think his or her goal is?
  
• Revised objective - As the story progresses and we move from Act I to Act II, what's the new goal? This traces through all the way to the climax, where the character either does or does not resolve this objective.
  
• Underlying objective - This is the underlying growth arc, related to "starting goal" and "ending goal."
  
• Physical characteristics - Here's a catch-all for the static features of the character.
  
• Mannerisms or striking features - Here's something I incorporated into my first book during revisions. I read an article or blog post that I've unfortunately lost that talked about giving each character a stand-out trait. The article cited Harry Potter, where Hermione had big, fluffy hair, Snape had a perpetual scowl, or Harry had the scar on his forehead. These things shortcut our remembrance of these characters. "Oh, yeah, Ron Weasley, red hair."

As you can see, all of my "character sketch" bullets tie into the overall plot journey. As I created one for each of the seven characters (the protagonist, the hero, the antagonist, and four supporting characters), I discovered underlying sub-plots. Their clashing personalities are rife with tension.

Character Interaction

After seeing all the juicy sub-plots and possible tension, I wanted to examine the relationships. As I moved through this and the previous exercise, I thought through things that, again, I'd thought through during revisions of my first book.

Sometimes, I would think, "Ugh, I don't KNOW what the underlying objective is," but I forced myself to think up something. Why? Because if this were a real person, he or she would have an underlying objective.

Just as in life, each member of my novel had the potential to have a relationship with all other members of the novel. I decided to break down each and every relationship--all 21 of them. I even created a simple relationship map. For this, I'll use an example of Bob, a thief, and Mary, a police officer.

• Beginning of story - Bob of Mary - I came up with two to four adjectives that Bob would use to describe Mary at the beginning of the story. Then I found one, sometimes two, feelings that Bob has about Mary at the beginning of the story.
  
• Beginning of story - Mary of Bob - How Mary would describe Bob at the beginning. How she feels about Bob at the end.
  
• End of story - Bob of Mary
  
• End of story - Mary of Bob
  
• Growth arc - How they get from their beginning-of-story opinions to their end-of-story opinions. Basically a sub-plot arc summary.

If I do say so myself, this was a fabulous idea. Not only does it give me an idea for sub-plots, but I get inside my characters' heads and see how they view the world.

And it works for all the character relationships. If Bob the thief is the protagonist and Mary the police officer is the antongist, then Bob's daughter will have an opinion about Mary's partner, even if they've only ever spoken about that person to the main character.

I created a matrix and marked each relationship as "key," "supporting," or "none." The "none" means they either never met or they just have heard of the other person--but even if they've only just met, they have an opinion. Why? Because that's what we do as human beings. We form opinions about other people.

Creating Sub-Plots

I took my newfound knowledge and some feedback from a critique partner to revamp my original plot synopsis. I then took the character work and identified two sub-plots. The other characters' opinions of the antagonist fleshed out more back story. It informed me of their fears, and I thought of new ways to menace them, to create conflict, to deepen their three-dimensionality. And the sub-plots further refined the plot synopsis.

I did something interesting with the sub-plot synopses. I defined for each one the key plot points, just as I did with the main points. "Chapter 1" inciting incident, transition from Act I to Act II, midpoint, "final door," and climax. Only a couple of the plot points coincided with the main plots key points. I don't know how it will eventually turn out, but once I write it, I'll see!

Final Outline

Finally, I created a "scene summary," which fleshed out the plot and sub-plots. This helpes me pace the sub-plots and ensure that they related back to the main plot. I put each scene on an index card with the following information:

• Scene summary: 1-2 sentences
  
• Who is in the scene?
  
• Whose POV? (I'm writing third person limited but sometimes switch from my protagonist's head to another character's head to give more scenes impact.)
  
• Where is the scene physically located?
  
• (In shorthand) Which plot or sub-plot(s) is advanced in this scene?
  
• (If applicable, in shorthand) What key plot point is this? (i.e. Ch1 inciting incident, Transition from Act I to Act II, etc.)
  
• (If applicable) Key information reveal / plot twist

The good thing is that eight of my twelve chapters are salvageable in nearly the same form as before; however, I have additional information to flesh them out. I understand the character motivations and starting points. I know where I'm going to take them. And now, yes, I know what my characters look like.

I'm thinking about creating "location sketches," but I think because I took about a week to go through this, I might just try to get back into the writing again. I fully expect to add or change things as the story progresses, updating my notes and my index cards, but now I have this roadmap that I can use to stay on track. I feel like it adds efficiency and a better understanding of my novel, which can only aid in the writing.

Time will tell. Tomorrow, I plunge back into hammering words onto a blank page.

Do I take myself too seriously about writing?

I'm an unpublished writer who's harbored a secret desire to change the world with her writing since she was a child. Recently I acknowledged that hiding from the one thing that makes me leap out of bed with joy in the morning--and I'm not a morning person, people--was an impediment to seeing my dream of being published realized. About a month ago, I finished writing, revising, editing, and polishing my first real book and am now querying for it. I'm no longer a dabbler. I'm someone who writes.

My book is the first in a three-part series. That sentence is specifically crafted. Despite how agents, editors, publishers, and the public receive my book, I will write the next two books. Why? Because I have to. I wrote the first one because it needed to be written. Because something was shifting around inside me, lurking and poking its head out, reminding me that it needed out, until I got it out. The second and third ones are in there as well. Even if my mom and dad are the only ones who read them (although I hope dearly they skip the sex scenes), my books have to be written.

However, rather than starting Book #2, I took the advice of the writer-agent-internet-borg-collective and am working on an unrelated book. Writing it is different because along the way in writing the first one, I learned about structure, conflict, tension, characterization, dialogue, and all the things that make a story good. With the first one, I fumbled, poked around, scratched my head, and revised over and over and over, until I finished what I believe is a publishable piece of work. I made the mistakes and painfully wrote and rewrote, so I don't have to make the same ones over again.

On the other hand, I made another mistake.

I realized, after having written twenty thousand words of my new masterpiece, that the feeling I had when writing the first book was not there. The story wasn't lurking. Instead, I was mechanically considering the inciting incident and plot point number one and how to make my characters three-dimensional. Things I must do, yet things that aren't the heart of the story.

I've joined the community of writer-agent-internet-borg-collective (and you know I call it that lovingly, right? It's what brought me to the final, polished version of my first masterpiece) and have become distracted by the blogs and tweets and good intentions of its members. Good thing for me that I have noticed and will put it in its proper place.

But I'm still concerned for myself. Because, here's the thing: I want to write Animal Farm, 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, and The Diary of Anne Frank (yes, I'm aware that it's nonfiction). I want to write the next paradigm-shifting masterpiece. I'm not content to create sparkling vampires. (I mean, it's kind of a clever twist on the old "vampires can't go into the sun" thing, so I'm moderately impressed, but it's not enough.) I want to create change, something that stirs my readers and makes them think.

So here's my question to myself: Am I taking this all too seriously? Is it unfair of me to categorize other work into "important" and "entertainment only"? Will I shoot myself in the foot by insisting I must add to the collective of humanity?

Don't mistake me: I don't judge other people's work by this standard. I don't read a book, don my monocle, and wiggle my fingers. "Oh, deah meh, this was drivel, just drivel. It had no substance! No raison d'être! How dare it exist! I spit upon--" Yes, well, you get my drift. I don't do that.

I fear that I need that important reason to write. That if I don't feel that it's the next Atlas Shrugged or Fahrenheit 451, I can't finish it. Yesterday, I came to a screeching halt on my second book. I felt as though it was just another story about a haunting and an exorcist and another demonic possession. It's been done before. What do I have to add? Let Stephen King write it. *Cue Charlie Brown sad music as I mope up the basement stairs away from my writing lair*

I thought and thought, and I found it. I found what I wanted to say. And I have renewed vigor about writing it. But--I wonder--am I taking this all too seriously? After all, it's the journey. Maybe my storytelling is as engaging as Stephen King and people will want to read it, even if it's been told a thousand times before.

MAYBE I JUST NEED TO TAKE OFF THE DAMN MONACLE AND WRITE.

I just don't know.