Creating Conflict with a Crucible

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

It's human nature to avoid conflict. Certain characters (ordinarily bad guys) may seek conflict as a tactic for aggression, but most of your characters won't. In fact, even when confronted with conflict by a bad guy, it's often in your character's best interest to turn his back on the conflict and walk away. If the reader asks herself why your character doesn't just walk away, you're in trouble.

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Creating Conflict with a Closed Environment

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

A simple device for keeping your characters locked in conflict is the Closed Environment. No bond/relationship is necessary to keep the characters in it. It's simply a situation with little or no connection to the outside world.What goes on in the closed environment is hidden from the outside world. Characters within the closed environment cannot readily receive help or escape. So, a closed

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Conflict

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Lajos Egri, in his classic, The Art of Dramatic Writing, calls conflict the "origin of action" and "that titanic atomic energy whereby one explosion creates a chain of explosions." But perhaps James M. Frey puts it best in How to Write a Damn Good Novel. He says that story is struggle and that conflict is the "gunpowder" of storytelling.Conflict and struggle go hand-in-glove with each other. No

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Wordiness creeps into everyone's writing.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Wordiness creeps into every writer's work. Here are just a few examples of common wordy phrases and their potential concise alternatives.Wordy Phrase >>> Potential Alternative(s)is able to >>> candue to the fact that >>> becausein an effort to >>> toin order to >>> toin regard to >>> about or onin the course of >>> during or inin the near future >>> soonin view of >>> sincein view of the above >>

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What Fiction Readers Want

Monday, December 19, 2005

Though a novel is a commercial product, like a drug or the performance of a stage play, it provides a service. So, the writer should think of novel writing as a performing art and a service industry. The key to success in any service business is a keen sense of what the customer wants. What he really wants — which isn't necessarily what he says he wants. For example, a tennis pro knows that his

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The Role of Decisions in Conflict

Saturday, December 17, 2005

As I tell tennis players, the best way to pressure people is to confront them with choices. That's because they fear making the "wrong" one.If a person's fear of making decisions is greater than his desire, that fear extinguishes desire.Have you ever known a person who cannot make a decision? I knew a woman once who couldn't even decide how she wanted her coffee. I kid you not: before ordering it

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The Bait-and-Switch Trick

Thursday, December 15, 2005

The opening scene you tease the reader with must be relevant. If your opening hooks potential readers, they buy the book. So, they hate the old Bait-and-Switch trick, which makes readers feel cheated. It can really hurt sales of future works.In Technique in Fiction, Lanning and Macauley say that... a writer has to discriminate wisely between the attention-getting device that soon becomes fairly

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Inner Conflict

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Inner conflict is the most powerful conflict, and it's the key to creating memorable characters.Inner conflict is opposition from an antagonist within, in the form of doubts, misgivings, guilt, remorse, or indecision. Since a character's wants won't interest a reader unless the reader views them as important, inner conflict is usually moral conflict with the character's self-worth (self-concept)

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The Adavantage of Opening Story Questions About the Core Conflict

Saturday, December 10, 2005

When you begin reading a novel, you begin a journey, not a bout of wandering. Opening story questions about the core conflict are like road signs that tell you whether you're headed toward Topeka or Timbuktu. Would you follow anybody on a journey if he didn't tell you where it lead? Of course not, because you know there are only bad reasons for him to withhold that information. At best, he does

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Hooks: Opening Story Questions

Friday, December 9, 2005

The most important story questions are the first ones, the ones you plant in the opening. Story questions posed in the opening are called hooks. Get your hooks in the reader immediately.Why? Remember that prospective readers pick your novel off a shelf in the bookstore and start reading the first page. Make them take it to the cash register.They are as fussy as trout, who have countless offerings

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Suspense by Hanging

Sunday, December 4, 2005

The old movie Thirty Seconds over Tokyo illustrates the power of suspense. Released in 1944, the title hinted that it was about the daring bombing raid the United States conducted less than six months after Pearl Harbor. This, of course, was a historical event that the audience already knew the outcome of. No suspense there.The purpose of this bombing raid was to cheer American morale and to set

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Type 1 & Type 2 Suspense

Friday, December 2, 2005

There are two types of suspense:Type 1 Suspense: suspense characterized by reader curiosity (i.e., wonder)Type 2 Suspense: suspense characterized by reader anxiety and apprehension (i.e., worry)Type 1 Suspense can be created with a few words any time. No reader involvement is necessary. Type 2 Suspense can be created only if the reader is emotionally involved in the story. The reader is then

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