Scott Oldford Site

Tag: how to start a story

  • 6 Ways to Cultivate Urgency That Will Captivate Fiction Readers

    6 Ways to Cultivate Urgency That Will Captivate Fiction Readers


    If you want to     write a novel worth reading, you can’t just have something to say. It has to be interesting enough to capture a reader’s attention — and it needs to move.

    Among your best friends for harnessing the power of momentum is to cultivate urgency in your fiction: leaving the reader with the feeling they must read what you’ve written.

    A lot of writers have great ideas, beautiful prose, or stunning scenes; perhaps smart dialogue comes as natural to them as breathing.

    But ultimately, how you bind these pieces of craft together to advance your idea is what separates memorable stories from those that fade into the background.

    Cultivating urgency

    First off, let’s dispel the common misconception that urgency is always a function of pace, and a force unique only to thrillers. Both are just malarkey. Urgency is about creating a feeling in the reader that they must read your work now. Its presence says to the reader that the story is important enough, enjoyable enough, and immersive enough to give them an excuse to drop whatever they’re doing to read it — and not stop until they’ve turned the final page, loaded up Amazon, and pre-ordered your next book.

    And, like any aspect of fiction-writing craft, urgency is something you can learn to use. Dial it up or down depending on the type of story, or genre in which you’re telling it.

    As you’re considering your story from the outset, or returning to it in revision, here are a few steps that may help cultivate your story’s urgency.

    1. Ensure your character wants something

    Simple, right? Humans usually want stuff, whether it is a sandwich, or to stop an impending apocalyptic collision with an asteroid.

    Whatever it is, make sure it’s crystal clear to the reader early in the story.

    2. Put something in the way of them achieving it

    Pursuit of the sandwich or stopping the asteroid can be infinitely interesting depending on what stands in the way of your character getting what they want.

    Throw some stuff in front of your character — vindictive butchers, clandestine government agencies — to make their pursuit more complicated, or their journey more interesting.

    3. Make it painful for the character to not get what they want, and make it matter

    The math of your character’s stakes has to tally up, so work hard to ensure the reasons and potential fallout are compelling enough to keep the reader interested.

    4. Make your character’s backstory and exposition work for a living

    Again, urgency doesn’t always mean action.

    Sometimes, it’s good to slow down and offer some context for the tale you’re telling. Backstory and exposition shouldn’t just be there to hang out on your couch, eat your food and watch your cable.

    Exposition and backstory are typically where we receive information dumps from authors. This is detail below the iceberg the author may need to write the story, but that ultimately gets in the way of the reader connecting to it.

    Keep your head, and your prose, above the water line.

    5. Treat your setting like a character

    Think of how your setting is not merely just a collection of artfully described details, but also an active player in your character’s journey.

    Each individual detail, along with its location, can affect what happens; and can ease or complicate your character obtaining what they want.

    If a setting has its own desire, its own complications of achieving those desires, and its own stakes, it can help you choose the details you share — and ultimately enrich the story world you’re creating.

    6. Avoid entropy

    Easier said than done, but keeping the reader’s interest alive should be among your primary objectives.

    Stories have arcs, we all know that. And we’ve seen it on charts and infographics a bazillion times.

    But there are individual arcs, or beats, that make up a scene’s microtension: the molecules of your story’s universe forming blocks of momentum and urgency. Where momentum slows, everything around it, including your beautiful writing, starts to die.

    If you’re slowing your story down, be sure you do so for a specific reason, such as changing characters and character POVs, locations, or merely to give the reader pause to catch their breath.

    But don’t let entropy seize control of the stick, because as urgency slows and the reader’s eyes get heavy, it will plunge all your work directly into the mountainside.

    Cultivating urgency in fiction takes practice. It’s not always something you can recognize — or that you should obsess over when you’re writing.

    But when planning new scenes, outlining, or revising those sections not quite delivering the impact you’d hoped with readers, dialing into the elements above can drastically improve your drafts.

    How do you keep readers interested in your work throughout their experience?

  • How to Write a Book in 3 Weeks: This Plan Makes It Possible

    How to Write a Book in 3 Weeks: This Plan Makes It Possible

    I’m an author.

    For writers who want to publish a book, the thought of uttering those words is a dream waiting to be explored.

    But for many, it never transfers to reality.

    Why?

    For some, it’s a lack of time. Or you’re not clear on what you should write about.

    For others, the discipline it takes to write a book eludes you.

    What if I told you that you’re just three weeks away from having a finished  manuscript in your possession?

    That’s how long it took me to write mine. And in this post, I’ll share how I did it.

    Start with why

    Why do you want to write a book?

    Like Simon Sinek repeats, your why is what drives you.

    It’s what will motivate you when the last thing you want to do is write. And it’s what will keep you moving towards your goal when you’re about to give up.

    So I’ll ask you again: Why do you want to write a book?

    Is it as simple as introducing yourself as an author? Or does it go deeper than that?

    For some, it’s about credibility with your target audience. For others it’s about marketing and brand growth.

    For me, it was about showing my audience that my expertise goes beyond writing copy.

    What’s your why?

    Plan to write your book

    Along with having smart writing tools available when you get down to writing, making a conscious plan for your project is vital — especially when you’ve restricted your delivery date to three weeks from today.

    I didn’t take on any new clients, and I minimized my social activity. It was only three weeks, and I was on a mission!

    I also told friends what I was doing. My business accountability partner knew my mission and helped keep me on track by sending me messages on random days asking how my progress was going. It pushed me to action when I was watching another episode of The Walking Dead!

    You don’t need to write for three consecutive weeks like I did. You could pick one week per month for three months, and stick to that.

    If you’re willing to block off three consecutive weeks, here’s the schedule I used:

    Day 1-4: Planning, chapter outlines and research

    Day 5-16: Writing

    Day 17-19: Proofreading

    Day 20-21: Revisions and final manuscript

    Along with making a schedule, plan for the partners you’ll need, like proofreaders, contributors or interviewees. Schedule calls with them and get time on their calendars.

    Planning these events not only prepares your partners for their commitments, but also helps you stick to your deadlines because they’re relying on you to deliver.

    Use the 20-minute technique

    Starting, by far, is the most difficult part of writing your book. Most people have little idea of what their book would be about, and put off starting until they find the one golden idea.

    A friend taught me a 20-minute technique that I used on day one of my project. By the end of 20 minutes, I had an overview of the messages in my book and how I would outline my chapters.

    It’s a simple technique that goes like this:

    1. Set a timer for 10 minutes
    2. Take a pen and paper and answer the following question: What are ten key messages of my book? (These will be your chapters!)
    3. Once your 10 minutes is up, set the timer again for 10 minutes
    4. For each of your key messages (chapters), write three key outcomes for each chapter

    This exercise is incredibly simple and open, and allows you to explore exactly what the messages in your book will be.

    It also draws on your gut instincts about your book. If you’ve been thinking about it for a while, you already know what your book will be about.

    This technique forces you to expand on your idea. Limiting this task to just 20 minutes  forces you to make a decision about the direction of your book.

    Don’t worry if your ideas aren’t refined. You can polish them later.

    This technique is here purely to help you commit to your ideas on paper.

    Turn commitment into discipline

    Three weeks isn’t a long time to write a book, especially when it includes proofreading and creating the final draft.

    This is when discipline comes into play.

    A commitment like this can bring up many limiting actions — writer’s block, procrastination, and so on.

    Luckily for you, The Write Life has plenty of resources to help you become more disciplined in your writing. Here are some my personal favorites:

    Now you know what to do, go forth and write!

    Tell us: Have you been planning to write a book? What has held you back from getting it done?

  • Is Backstory Killing Your Book’s Plot? Here’s How to Fix It

    Is Backstory Killing Your Book’s Plot? Here’s How to Fix It

    The following is an excerpt from 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing, available now.

    So many new writers start their books with pages — even chapters — of backstory.

    They want to tell the reader all about the creation of their fantasy world. Or they want to make sure readers understand every nuance of Mexican politics in 1956 because it will be critical to the plot on page 103. Or they want to make sure the reader understands every feature of time travel or cloning in the year 2133.

    Then their writing coaches or editors suggest that instead of including all this material in the opening chapters of their book, they should just reveal the backstory through dialogue.

    Aha, the author thinks. Dialogue — of course! But instead of jettisoning their precious descriptions and explanations, they essentially put quotation marks around the same ponderous material.

    Problem solved, right? Wrong.

    Your backstory can slow down the plot

    None of your characters should talk like the narrator. And readers still don’t want a backstory dump, even in dialogue. Your attempt to stuff backstory into dialogue results in long, tedious monologues instead of more believable two-way conversation.

    Let’s take a look at a before-and-after example passage:

    Before:

    Debby started panicking. “You know, John, that we can’t send people back in time without the right amount of energy, and even though we’ve done an excellent job in extracting energy from dark matter, as our last two experiments attest, I fear that there isn’t enough to get Colleen into the past and out of danger. Just look at the flux capacitor levels — the microcosm indicator is off as well, and it needs to be at 90 percent for a guaranteed trip. The flux capacitor is crucial for making a time jump, and needs to be at about 92 percent efficiency to work well. Also you need to contact Clare and Silas and make sure they can divert another 38 gigawatts of energy to the main frame so in one hundred hours she can make her jump back to the present. The main frame can handle up to 50 gigawatts, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

    Whew, did you find that tedious to read? It was pretty tedious to write, too.

    To make matters worse, these types of monologues often take place in the middle of important action. Readers aren’t going to believe a character will stop and give a lecture when bullets are flying or buildings are blowing up around her. Backstory, even in “active” dialogue, stops the present action.

    After:

    Debby frowned at the bank of blinking lights. “We don’t have enough energy here for Colleen to make the jump.”

    “Is there anything we can do?” John asked.

    An alarm sounded, and Debby hit the panel to the left to silence it. “Don’t know.” She glanced at the flux capacitor level and gritted her teeth. It was nowhere near the 90 percent she needed. “I think you need to contact Clare and Silas. Maybe they can divert more energy.”

    “Sure, but how much?” John asked.

    Debby thought for a moment. “I need another 89 gigawatts of energy.”

    “All right,” John said, jumping up out of his chair. “I’ll contact them — if I can find them.

    In this example, we assume that John and Debby already know a great deal of the backstory and pertinent information because they are in the story. Even if I wanted to make sure that the reader (as well as John) was clear about time travel, a cumbersome description only slows the action and raises more questions than it answers.

    Readers don’t really need to know it all

    Have faith in your characters, and have even more faith in your readers. Allow the reader to enjoy the journey. It can be more fun for them to discover the world and plot along with the heroine.

    Sometimes dense description given through dialogue sums everything up, causing the reader to wonder why they should bother to read on.

    Use a limited amount of shorthand that your readers will understand to convey what’s going on. Use the characters to convey their expertise in their own proprietary language, which can add depth to a character and give a better sense of what’s going on.

    Become the expert in your field of study, and of the world you are developing. But don’t build a time machine piece by piece through your dialogue.

    Backstory keys to success

    Next time you’re weaving backstory into your project, remember:

    • Jettison the dense backstory paragraphs at the beginning of your novel’s scenes.
    • Explain in common, character-driven language some finer points of the plot via dialogue.
    • Trust your reader to pick up on gestures, expressions, and atmosphere as substitutes for direct (and long) explanations.
    • Don’t explain everything. Only include bits that are essential and interesting, and that advance the plot.
    • Don’t build a time machine all in one monologue.
    • No one wants a truckload of information dumped at the start of a story. Readers want to be swept away, transported — not buried under a ton of rock.

    Readers don’t spend as much time as they used to “getting into” a novel or story. It’s your job to put the reader into the action and intimacy with your characters as quickly as possible. The rest will follow.

    How have you introduced backstory in your own writing?