By Kris Maze

Summertime is fun time, but it can also provide useful insights to your writing. I’m planning my next minor road trip close to home (*ahem, looking at you, gas pump) and making the most of these opportunities away from my writing desk. In past posts I’ve included tips about making your writing fresh by taking a writing vacation. In today’s post we will list ways you can take your writing on the road.

Make the most of your time and have fun researching your next novel with these tips.

Organize Your Tools

Old school notebook

One may not have access to all the digital tools you are used to inside a vehicle. Try using good ol' fashioned paper and consider keeping a few of these items near as you travel.

Keep a field notes book or notebook on your person. Have your favorite pencils or pens to capture the ideas as they come. I am a fan of Moleskine notebooks and carry one in my purse. Prepare for many as you experience new sights and scenes from each step of your road trip.

Sticky Notes

I love my sticky notes. Take down mini ideas and keep them in a notebook. Later, when you get back home, organize them and incorporate them into your working novel. What are tiny sized ideas for sticky notes? Here are some I frequently use:

• Working titles
• Poetic devices
• Rhetorical device sentences
• Descriptions of a scene, person, setting on the road
• Quotes from readings
• Dialogue or sayings unique to an area
• Any idea you don’t want to forget!

Digital Tools

Most digital tools can be accessed during your road trip with a little preparation. If you are a fan of OneNote or Evernote, or prefer to type in Word or Google Docs, you can from inside your car. Try the following ideas and dig around your current tools for some of these. You may have them at your fingertips already.

12 volt chargers

Many vehicles have regular plugs for using a standard wall plug for a laptop or other device. Try plugging in your device while the car is running and see if it keeps your battery charged and ready to write.

If your car doesn't have a regular sized outlet you can use, try getting an adaptor. I purchased one that came with a tiny blue case. And now I can pull the laptop in while working on the road in almost any car.

Wi-Fi hotspots

Consider having a hotspot on your phone to connect your laptop or iPad to the internet while on the road. Most phones offer a hotspot option. This could be an add on for as little as $10 per month. Many plans already include it and allow you to remove the service after a month or two. It may work well for you and could be something you use to write anywhere. I now use mine instead of connecting to public Wi-Fi as added security.

Social Media tools

You never know who you may get for an interview, and it is good to be prepared as the old Scouts mantra states. Read through Eldred Bird’s recent Writer’s in the Storm post about how to create your own Mobile Media Kit here, and always capture the moments that will inspire and inform your writing.

Map it

What is a road trip without a map? We may like to wander, but keeping track of the trip will help our writing succeed. Some writers may want the adventure of the open road, not planning the stops in advance. Others want to have the stops as carefully scheduled as they can to avoid stress and to optimize their experience.

Neither are incorrect approaches and both have benefits to your overall enjoyment of the road trip research. Whether you are a road trip pantser or planner, I recommend you keep track of your adventure so you can look back on your research and use it after summer has long passed us into fall.

Pinbox

One product I am trying this summer is Pinbox. This app works with an iPhone but can be shared with Android users. This versatile mapping tool can plan many things from errand trips to locations you have spent with family or friends.

Pinbox allows you to take pictures and notes as you visit to reference later. Another nice feature is to see the distance between each location which could be used for planning the trip. After the trip is over, it could help you write more authentic adventures as you see the trip as it unfolded.

Map Ideas to Enhance Your Writing

Many ways a map can add to your writing include:

Note the distance, time, and topography of the road between locales on your trip. Match them up to your novel.

Topography and Special Features

What special land features are common stopping grounds? What unique aspects of driving through an area stood out to you? What smells, sounds, and general vibe does an area give you?

If you are lucky enough to have someone else driving while you take notes, add these to your writing log between stops. If you are the driver (or like people in my family—are prone to carsickness if you write or read) then make stops and write in between.

Taking time to process each stop can make the setting and special parts of these stops sink in. Allow yourself time and space to absorb the details and get them down on paper. You won’t regret it later when you add them to your work in progress.

Read Other Books on Your Topic

Are there popular books about the area you are visiting? Is where you are going a known part of a novel in your genre? Read these in advance or bring the book along to absorb while taking your road trip.

How is your book like these novels? How will yours be different? What types of information are expected to make your book more interesting? What else could you find out while on the road to add unusual and new ideas to your writing?

In person Research

Find museums

There are many museums across the United States and here is a handy website to help you find the perfect one for your research. Type in a keyword or browse by state or category. The results may be road trip worthy in themselves. There are dedicated museums to ships or banjos or the Underground Railroad to name only a few. So if you want inspiration to pack up - there are interesting places to dive deep into your book research.

Find historical societies

Historical societies are prevalent throughout the world. If you are visiting outside your native country try looking up a local society in the place you are writing about. Many small towns in the United States have historical groups that are run by volunteers. You can find these with a simple search online. Try calling ahead and let them know what you are researching. This could the insights to elevate your novel.

Strike up a conversation at a local diner or shop

Visit parks and talk to the rangers or caretakers for story ideas and background information. Many shop owners are used to tourist traveling through during road trip seasons, They often know the best places to get the real local scoop.

Keep Receipts

Writers are able to deduct a certain amount of costs associated with the business of being a writer. Check with your accountant or tax specialist and see which items could benefit you the most. Potential items could include mileages, overnight stays, entrance fees, materials used to research like books purchased on your topic.

Photography

Take pictures of everything along the way. It records your adventure for future reflection and could save you money on your writing projects. Here are some uses of snapshots or profession level work (if you are lucky enough to have these talents along with writing!)

• Use them in social media. Create posts, tweets, and short videos of where you have been.
• Use them for cover art. Find the perfect backdrop for a novel? An aesthetic that conveys your book's feeling? Use your own photography.
• Use them for websites and personalized backgrounds. Even if you are used to creating with digital sources like Canva.com, using your own pictures adds your own style to your projects.

Be Flexible

Enjoy the trip. The best stories include conflict and problem solving. Most fun road trips include several stories about what doesn’t go well. Keep the messy process of a traveling in mind as fodder for good story telling. As the wheels roll down the road, may your mind be rolling into a fantastic flow of novel writing!

Are you planning a trip? Local or off to fulfil a trip you intended to take but couldn't over the last two years? Let us know your fun plans and tell us whether you plan to simply recharge during this trip or to research for a writing project.

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website.

See her new website under the penname Krissy Knoxx here.

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors.

And occasionally, she knits.

by Ellen Buikema

You’re reading a whirlwind story full of great story arcs and intriguing characters. The plot is speeding towards its climax, and you’re consuming the pages into the wee hours of the morning. Then bam! The book comes to a halt due to a natural disaster, last minute marriage to the wrong character, discover that it was all a dream, or another disappointing end.

There are better ways.

6 Different ways to end a story

1. A Resolved Ending

A resolved ending leaves the reader with no loose ends.

Consider Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. At the end of the story Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy marry. It appears as though their marriage will be a good one, and that the rest of Mr. Bennet’s daughters have settled down. There are no unanswered questions.

A resolved ending isn’t always a happy ending. In Shakespeare’s tragedies major characters often end up dead by one means or another. What matters most for a resolved ending is that all issues have been clearly resolved.

2. Unresolved Ending

Sometimes, the end is not truly the end. The unresolved ending leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Cliffhangers can be frustrating, but can also be satisfying if the story promises more.

Unresolved endings are good choices for a series, because it leads the reader to the next book. For example, Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. Some books in this series were published many years apart.

3. Expanded Ending

The Epilogue

This ending expands the story beyond the events of the tale, jumps forward in time, and sometimes changes perspective. Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale is an example.

Like an unexpected ending, expanded endings can change the readers paradigm.

The epilogue allows the writer to answer questions that might not be possible to answer in the space of the story, like how things turned out years after the main events of the story.

4. Unexpected Ending

The unexpected twist can be earth-shattering, or subtle. The trick to pulling off the big surprise is that in hindsight you knew it would have to happen. This should not come out of this air.

A good ending avoids the heavy-handedness that abruptly resolves all the story’s problems in an unnatural way. So, no previously unknown rich relative appearing from nowhere to give the poor hardworking main character a vast fortune. Good plot twists require clues left along the way. Have a look at The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney.

5. Ambiguous Ending

An ambiguous ending allows readers to come to different conclusions. Of all the endings, the ambiguous one requires the most involvement from the reader.

Take a look at the ending to Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. In the last lines, main character Pip takes the hand of the widow Estrella and says he sees “no shadow of another parting from her.” Is his prediction correct? The ending leaves the reader with more than one possibility.

6. Tied Ending

Sometimes referred to as a tied ending or a full circle ending, a circular ending brings the story “full circle” back around to where it began, with subtle differences showing how your characters have grown. The Hero’s Journey has this type of plot structure.

There are many options to repeat your main theme in the story’s end, people, actions, details.

James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake ends on a sentence fragment that finishes the first sentence of his novel.

4 Story Endings Examples

1. Take Them by Surprise

People are curious beings. Readers appreciate being surprised. Then give them something they don’t expect, but still makes sense for your story.

Maybe the thief turns out to be the narrator’s own husband or even the narrator herself. Maybe the girl doesn’t pick between her two suitors, but instead marries their uncle. Or their plumber.

Agatha Christie, a master of surprise, shows us how it’s done in And Then There Were None. Ten visitors are trapped on a small island and murdered one by one. With no one else on the island, which of them is the murderer?

2. Repeat the Theme of the Opening Scene

Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho begins with describing a graffiti using the text “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

The novel’s ending is perfectly circular.

“this is, uh, how life presents itself in a bar or in a club in New York, maybe anywhere, at the end of the century and how people, you know, me, behave, and this is what being Patrick means to me, I guess, so, well, yup, uh…” Above one of the doors covered by red velvet drapes in Harry’s is a sign with letters that match the drapes’ color that read “THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.”

3. Play on Their Feelings

Milan Kundera uses mood in his The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

Kundera’s story fades like a piece of music, diminuendo. The ending’s all about mood.

“Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below.”

Try to make your reader feel the moment, something ordinary but significant for the tale. Falling rain at the end of a long drought.

4. Leave Open Questions and Create Suspense

This kind of ending can be tricky and sometimes unsatisfying because the reader bought your book so you can show what happened. But if you’ve delivered an action-packed story and if the question is rather vague, it could work.

Consider Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. It ends with Scarlett O’Hara’s desire to be with Rhett Butler again.

“I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

For your reading pleasure, here’s a post on 100 Ways to End a Story.

How do you prefer to end your stories? What is your favorite book ending?

* * * * * *

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works In Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and Crystal Memories, YA paranormal fantasy.

Find her at https://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Top Image by Angeline 1 from Pixabay

Lynette M. Burrows

You can have interesting characters in a striking setting and have a boring book. Plot structure can create tension that keeps the reader engaged and eager to finish your book. But learning how to plot is confusing. Many writers have their own theory on how to create an interesting plot. Some argue the number of types of plot structure and they name anywhere between one (man against man) to seven. Others talk about the elements of or the stages of plot. Those folk teach five, six, seven, nine, or more elements they call stages, or doors, or plot points. They say to use a diagram or an outline or to write freely and figure it out as you go. What’s a writer to do? Learn as much as you can. A good place to start is 7 Plot Structures for Pantsers by John Peragine. If you're looking for a simple and effective tool for creating a cause-effect, can’t-stop-reading plot use the WHAT-BUT-THEREFORE method.

What is Plot?

At its most basic level, plot is the chain of events that make up a story. But a basic chain of events does not make a story. Consider this pared-down version of Rumplestiltskin by the Brothers Grimm:

The miller says his daughter can spin straw into gold.

The king gave the girl a room of straw to spin into gold.

The girl made a bargain with a droll little man.

The girl spins the straw into gold.

The king marries the girl and she becomes queen.

The queen gives birth to a little girl.

The droll little man wants his end of the bargain.

The queen guesses his name, and he goes away empty-handed.

As a plain chain of events, this classic story has no tension. It’s boring. 

A more complex definition of plot is the sequence of events which causes a character to react in a way that affects the next event through the principle of cause-and-effect. With this definition, you can still create an unexciting story. The tension must rise.

The way I make certain story tension grips the reader is to use a What-But-Therefore outline of each scene.

WHAT-BUT-THEREFORE 

The first time I heard about this tool, I believe they labeled it the THEN-BUT-THEREFORE. I have lost track of the person(s) who introduced me to the concept. It may spring from the creators of South Park, though they may not have been the originators of the idea. 

This group of sentences helps you create a causal plot. One act leads to a complication and a decision or new action. Used properly, they can help you build the steps of an interesting plot that shows your theme and compels your reader to turn the page. So let’s examine what those three words stand for in this application.

WHAT

For a scene to compel your reader to turn the page, there must be forward movement of the story. The main character must have a goal that matters. The character must do something, take an action they believe will get them to their goal. Sometimes this may include thinking, planning, or weighing choices, but an effective scene will always include or lead directly to an action. 

BUT

The action taken by your protagonist leads to an obstacle. The obstacle can be geographical, a person, weather, or just about anything else. Whatever the obstacle is, it blocks the forward movement of the protagonist toward her goal. These obstacles are progressive. Each more difficult to get past.

THEREFORE

She must change her strategy, her tactics, her direction. This decision can mislead her or force her to retreat or make her reconsider and change her goal.

Put together it is: WHAT the character does (an action) toward the goal of the viewpoint character BUT something or someone interferes (progressive complication) THEREFORE the character is compelled to do something she wouldn’t at the beginning of the scene (which becomes the action of the next scene.) 

Example

WHAT: The king takes the miller’s beautiful daughter, places her in a room of straw and demands she spin it into gold by morning or die. BUT the girl cannot spin the gold. THEREFORE she cries and pleads for help.

WHAT: A droll little man appears and offers to help for something of value. BUT the girl can only offer a necklace. THEREFORE, the little man accepts the necklace and spun the straw into gold and the king is pleased.

WHAT: The greedy king brings in more straw for the girl to spin into gold or die. BUT the girl still cannot spin the straw into gold. THEREFORE she cries for help again. 

WHAT: The droll little man reappears and offers to spin the straw into gold in exchange for something of value. BUT the girl only has her ring to offer him. THEREFORE, he accepts the ring and spins the straw into gold and the king is pleased. 

WHAT: This pleases the king who gives the girl even more straw to spin into gold and promises she’ll be his queen if she does it by morning. BUT the girl still cannot spin the straw into gold…

You get the idea. 

Rumplestiltskin doesn’t have an ideal plot, but it’s a classic because the plot complications and rewards grow and grow until the girl outwits her opponent.

What I Love about What-But-Therefore

When I make my What-But-Therefore sentence outline, I write fast and make them run-on sentences. Some writers need to follow the rules of grammar. That’s okay. You can write these out any way that works for you. The primary object is to write a series of scenes with cause-and-effect actions that build tension.

The reason I love this method of building an outline is that the words remind me to put the tension in each scene. But I don’t have an outline so detailed that my inner pantser feels restricted. I leave the specifics of the complications and how the characters get into or out of the complications. Therefore, my pantser side gets to play during the writing.

Story is More than One Thing

Can you build an interesting plot using the What-But-Therefore sentences? Absolutely. You can also make it uninteresting. Story is more than one thing. It takes a compelling theme, a set of characters with goals your reader cares about, an interesting plot that creates obstacles and twists, and the right mix of tension and release. 

There is no one right way to create a compelling story. You must find a way that works for you. Study plot structure as taught by Aristotle (Poetics), Gustav Freytag (Technique of the Drama), Joseph Campbell (The Hero’s Journey), Larry Brooks (Story Engineering), James Scott Bell (Plot & Structure), Jessica Brody (Save the Cat! Writes a Novel), Jennie Nash (Blueprint for a Book), or experts you follow. Must you read all those books? No one will force you to do so, but the more you learn and understand, the better able you will be to choose the things that work for you and your stories. 

Whether you use templates like the Hero’s Journey, or Story Engineering, or Blueprint, they all help you build your plot. Without complications and building tension, your plot isn’t compelling. Your story doesn’t satisfy. If you need a quick-and-dirty outline that gives you a flexible outline, What-But-Therefore can work for you.

What do you love about the plot template you use?

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows writes action-filled science fiction with characters who discover their inner strength and determination, then make courageous choices for themselves, their family, and their world.

In Book One of the Fellowship Dystopia, My Soul to Keep, Miranda Clarke lived a charmed life… until she breaks the rules. But it is 1961 and America’s a theocracy. Following the rules isn’t optional.

In the recently released book two, If I Should Die, Miranda, the former “good daughter” of the Fellowship, has transformed into a hero of the rebellion but now she faces the question, what do you do when the other side doesn’t want to listen?

Owned by two Yorkshire Terriers, Lynette lives in the land of Oz. When she’s not procrastinating by not doing housework and playing with her dogs, she’s blogging or writing or researching her next book. You can find Lynette online on her website, Facebook, or on Twitter @LynetteMBurrows. 

Image Credits

Top image by Mariana Anatoneag from Pixabay

Middle image by Kamchatka, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Bottom image by Anne Anderson (1874-1930), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons