Kurt Vonnegut famously said: Every character should want something, even if it’s a glass of water.
It’s a simple concept: Give your character a desire. That advice has been largely translated to goal. Give your character a goal.
This classic writing advice gets lost in translation when it gets associated only with book-level goals. For example: My character is broke, trapped in a loveless marriage in a foreign country and just wants to make it home.
Goal: Get Home. A good, noble, goal! But this is a book-level goal. This is what the character wants to achieve by the end of the book. Catch the killer. Solve the mystery. Get the guy.
Book-level goals are essential, but not the only “goal” a successful character needs.
Read more...When I read, I’m always on the lookout for craft, narrative technique, and story fundamental examples I can share with writers.
So, I was delighted during a recent breakfast chat with author Suzette Mullen, when she articulated a beautiful example of her books’ Take Aways.
Naming your book’s Take Away aka Point aka Controlling Idea aka Main Theme aka Story Guiding Principle can act as a lighthouse-in-the-fog as you write and revise, but this enormously helpful story fundamental is often misunderstood or overlooked.
No wonder, with so much confusing terminology! But it all boils down to one powerful tool for the author.
Read more...WHAT IS THE CLIMACTIC MOMENT?
Your book will have many pivotal moments, big and small, but “the Climactic Moment” refers to an archetypal plot point leveraged in many popular books.
The Climactic Moment is one of five major archetypal turning points that include:
Three pillars of book structure are:
1. Character Arc
2. Present Story Timeline
3. Present Story Drive
Each concept is simple on its own – it’s the way Character Arc, Present Story Timeline and Present Story Drive come together that make a novel or memoir complex and unique.
In order to combine these elements in a way that creates structure for your book, it helps to have a clear definition of each.
