Writers in the Storm

Tiffany Lawson Inman

Hello writers!  If you have read my guest posts on WITS before, you know I love talking about Crossing Emotional Barriers and Crossing Physical Barriers in Fiction.  Today I will be diving into another very important element of story craft that you should be paying close attention to.

Dramatic momentum.

Dramatic momentum from the first chapter to the last.

The momentum of scenes leading up to a romantic climax, seems like a no-brainer. A who-done-it mystery of scenes domino-falling until the big finish, seems like common sense. So what kind of dramatic momentum am I talking about?

The kind of dramatic momentum that is usually overlooked.

From the end of one chapter to the beginning of the next. No, I am not talking about the one-line gimmick to shock you into turning the page. I want writers to push themselves beyond the mere end-of-chapter gimmick. I am talking about writing with purpose throughout the entire chapter to make it easy for a reader’s mind to imagine turning the page before they actually do it because they have to know what happens next.

How do you build this dramatic momentum?

Build an End of Chapter Button.

A what?

A button. The phrase “button a scene” comes from Theatre. You, know that old school way of showing live action fiction? Its original use was not: “A TV writing term referring to a witty line that "tops off" a scene.” As it is so simply stated in a few screenwriting texts and glossary indexes.

Button is a term some folks misunderstand to mean close the scene with a button, as in shut it down or make a complete ending.

Nope.

A Chapter Button is more of a tool to leave the audience (reader) in a state of want, and also at the same time a feeling of satisfaction. 

What elements of story craft makes up a Chapter Button?

Action. Thought. Active emotion. One, two, or usually a mix of all three.  It is almost like stringing out a trip wire towards the end of a chapter or scene for the readers to read and then be forced forward from the explosion (big or small) from whatever nugget of greatness you left for them at the end. I have heard it described as "progressing but not closing anything off.” Or, an ignition switch that finishes one thing and starts another.  Modern comedians actually use them to finish one joke and take the momentum from that one joke to move into another more in depth storyline.

Something that would leave the reader with something new to think about (as well as the characters.)

My twist on the button is that you writers cannot simply think about this button as being one tiny round thing you push at the end of a chapter. There are many pieces of writing craft that you must use to build the Chapter Button.

Let us step a little further out of the box for a second and hmmmm…oh, heck, why not?! Let’s talk about fiction by using a scientific analogy. My thought process is all thanks to the many reruns of The Big Bang Theory on during dinner time.

To help us realize what elements make up and work to create a Chapter or Scene Button, think of the components of a chapter like the components of a nerve axon.

An axon, or nerve fiber, is a long slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body or soma. An Axon is made up of several parts.

**I have attempted to draw few diagrams for better understanding…or for your entertainment. **

Fiction Translation: The story makes up the electrical impulses moving from one chapter (cell) to the next.

The cell body encapsulates the nucleus. For those a few years out of school, here is a definition of the nucleus according to Google: the central and most important part of an object, movement, or group, forming the basis for its activity and growth. And the nucleus is a structure that contains the cell's hereditary information and controls the cell's growth and reproduction.

Fiction translation: This nucleus is everything your reader knows about your story and characters spanning from the first time they heard about your book to reading the blurb to then reading the first chapter to whichever chapter they are on now. This is your story’s DNA and memory and future.

Dendrites are the branch-like structures of neurons that extend from the cell body (Soma). The dendrites receive neural impulses (electrical and chemical signals) from the axons of other neurons. The signal always travels in the same direction.

Fiction translation: These are your receivers. They make up the first line, paragraph, page of your next chapter. Yes, I am talking chapter and scene transitions. Writers have to take the energy and information from the last chapter, absorb into the nucleus of the new cell (chapter) and reconfigure into fresh story (electric impulses) and ZAP! Start a new Chapter built with even more energy than the last.

Axons make contact with other cells—usually other neurons but sometimes muscle or gland cells—at junctions called synapses. At a synapse, the membrane of the axon closely adjoins the membrane of the target cell, and special molecular structures serve to transmit electrical or electrochemical signals across the gap. These are called neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are any one of a number of chemicals that are used to transmit nerve signals across a synapse.

Fiction translation: The synaptic gap or synaptic junction is not only the white page or half page between chapters. That gap is mental just as much as it is physical. Within that gap are HUGE amounts of thoughts (neurotransmitters) going through a readers mind. Thoughts that have been created by YOUR story.

But what if our axons (chapters) had synaptic vesicles with dead neurotransmitters inside?  The synapse would fail, right? If your story is stale and isn’t creating a charge within you reader’s head or heart, then they won’t get very far in your book.

The Myelin Sheath comes in to play here. The Myelin Sheath is part of the Axon and is described as being a protective layered coating surrounding your neurons made up of fat and proteins.  Neurons are the roads in, around and out of your brain that information travels along in your body.  Myelin sheath is the tunnel around those roads that protects and helps transmit the information.

Fiction translation: I like to think of the Myelin Sheath’s fat and proteins as helping to feed the story and make it stronger/faster. The Myelin Sheath is the KEY TO DRAMATIC MOMENTUM. The different layers are the yummy bits of :

• Subtext shown through thought and action.
• Character deepening details shown through thought and action.
• Non-cliché, intricate character relationships shown through thought and action.
• Real and active emotion shown through visceral and physical and mental action.
• Reader questions built by how and what and when you show story details through thought and action.

These layers will better secure your Chapter Button. These threads make the Chapter Button stronger. Without it, all you have is flat and slow information moving at glacial speed towards the end of a chapter and when your reader gets there, they just might put your book down and go do something more interesting with their time. EEK!

Note that without the Myelin Sheath being present, being healthy, or having all of the layers involved, the nervous system fails to function properly. This is what causes muscles not to listen to the brain, sharp and jittery movements, no control over movements, and then the nerves (your story) dies.

As you are writing, think about all of these electrical elements as they make smooth and energetic transition after transition after transition, moving your reader deeper and deeper into your character’s world. You are building a story as a whole to get fat and wide and deep with many layers, but it also needs to take us on a journey and each and every section should shoot the reader forward like we are taking rides through a complex nervous system.

Wooownelly, did I take the analogy too far? Maybe. But did it make you think? I hope so.

Did seeing how all of these components work together to create dramatic momentum make you realize you cannot skimp on story craft? I hope so!

Want to see a fantastic example of an author wielding strong dramatic momentum from cell to cell and chapter to chapter with pristine use of the FICTION AXON –click a sample of Sophie Jordan’s Uninvited into your Kindle. A story described on Goodreads.com as: The Scarlet Letter meets Minority Report in bestselling author Sophie Jordan's chilling new novel about a teenage girl who is ostracized when her genetic test proves she's destined to become a murderer. I wish I could have opened up the entire chapter for this blog and shown every story nerve element Sophie Jordan utilizes, but ten-plus pages of dramatic dissection is probably best saved for in-class lectures.

Thank you so much for going on this Big Bang Theory style journey. Next month I will leave the analogies in my head and get back to Crossing Emotional Barriers with digging into big ways to show little emotion and little ways to show big emotion.

Drop me line in the comments - What authors pop into your head when you think of stellar chapter transitions and strong Chapter Buttons?   Have any books you have read, broken the barrier on how fast you have read them?  Did you look back and wonder how they did it? I’d love to hear about them!

I will put EVERY COMMENTER’S name into random.org to spit out a winner to win one of my online courses I teach at Lawson Writers Academy. Writing Action and Emotion and Scene Writing, oh my!

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About Tiffany

Tiffany Lawson Inman claimed a higher education at Columbia College Chicago. There, she learned to use body and mind together for action scenes, character emotion, and dramatic story development. Tiffany’s background in theatre provides her with a unique approach to the craft of writing, and her clients and students greatly benefit. As a freelance editor, she provides deep story critique, content editing, and line editing.

Stay tuned to Twitter @NakedEditor for Tiffany’s upcoming guest blogs, classes, contests, and lecture packets.She teaches Action and Fighting, Madness to Method: high intensity emotion, Triple Threat Scene Writing, Writing Humor For Every Genre, and Short Story Workshops for Lawson Writer’s Academy online. She presents hands-on-action workshops, and will be offering webinars this year.

 

Susan Meissner

Every now and then I get a little jealous of the freedom that fantasy fiction novelists have to create a world and its history with such creative and even reckless abandon. Since I write historical fiction (emphasis on historical), I don’t experience the same level of artistic liberty. And while I love the genre in which I’ve chosen to work, I admit the research aspect of writing historical fiction can be ponderous; interesting and inspiring, yes, but still ponderous. The mining of old data and details to give the historical novel its context is not only time-consuming, but it often yields so much material that it’s easy to feel swamped by the amount of facts and figures you unearth.

Dictionary.com defines historical fiction as the genre of literature “comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages.” I love that bit about imaginative reconstruction because for me, that’s the perfect description. We typically don’t reinvent or rewrite history but we reconstruct its effect on humanity by creating fictional characters who experienced it.

Every writer of historical fiction has to decide how much historicity to fabricate, bend, or warp to tell their story. My personal goal is to get as much authenticity in the pages as I can, even down to the minute details. But even if you only care about getting the big stuff right, you will still need to spend a lot of hours finding out the truth of the big stuff. I have found that there are ways in this electronic age of ours to get what you need in a relatively quick fashion and be assured of its veracity.

Here are my top five tips on getting great information with less use of literary license:

1. Archived newspapers:

Many big city newspapers have digitized their old issues and you can view them online by getting an out-of-state library card. Old daily newspapers not only have the news of the day (obviously) but they also reveal what people were thinking, buying, and doing at that time in history. The social pages tell you as much as the front page, as do the advertisements and the obituaries. For the book I am writing next I need access to Philadelphia’s oldest daily newspapers. It only cost me $50 to get a non-resident card with access to them. Totally worth it.

2. Historical societies:

The men and women who work or volunteer at historical societies care very much about the authenticity and preservation of the past or they wouldn’t bother with it. Many societies have websites with contact information. If you begin your email of inquiry with stating who you are, what you are writing, and that getting your facts straight is important to you, you will more easily get connected to someone who can answer your questions. When I was writing Stars Over Sunset Boulevard, I needed to know how my character would get from home to the Hollywood studio where she worked using a street car in 1939. There are no more streetcars in Los Angeles. But there is a historical society dedicated to them. I got my answer within a few emails.

3. Ordinary experts:

There are often people currently living who either experienced your historical time period or they know someone who did. Sometimes they will write a memoir of their experience and they might even publish it themselves with little editorial advice. The book itself may not be written in stellar fashion but that doesn’t mean the content isn’t helpful to you. Sometimes these ordinary experts have social media pages that you can follow or they are on Facebook, not as a public figure but just as an everyday member. I have reached out to such people on Facebook who know the time period or the environment about which I am writing and have humbly asked if I might ask them about it, letting them know that, again, getting the facts straight is important to me. I rarely get turned down.

4. Wiki’s fine print:

Wikipedia is a great place to start a research project -- not because it’s completely, and 100% trustworthy but because Wiki’s best articles are always cited. It’s those citations at the bottom of the article that can provide you the most factual information in pretty quick fashion.

5. Professors and dissertations:

When I dive into a new historical event that I know nothing about, I often look for articles or other scholarly work written by graduate students or professors. Oftentimes a professor will have been quoted in an article or documentary on the very topic I am researching. Most university professors have email addresses that are listed on the school’s online faculty directory. If I approach one, I always ask if I can ask and I am very careful to express my gratitude for any help they can provide.

Sometimes you can find dissertations online, or you might have a friend or family member who is a university student or faculty member who can access dissertations and other scholarly work. You may not have time to read an entire dissertation but you can always look to the author’s primary and secondary sources. The lovely thing about scholarly work is it’s trustworthy. It may not be riveting reading, but you don’t have to worry too much about its accuracy.

What I enjoy most about writing historical fiction is what my readers say they enjoy most about it; and that is, that we learn something new about the past. History is never appreciated more than when it is threaded into the fabric of a great story. If we can agree on that then I think we owe it to our readers to give them the most factually-based work of fiction we can. They are expecting it.

It’s a lot of work to get to the nitty gritty truth, but oh, so worth it. You might even find it more interesting, compelling, and evocative than what you could have dreamed up on your own.

So, WITS readers, do you have any other historical hunting tips for us?

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About Susan

Susan Meissner is a multi-published author, speaker and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include Stars Over Sunset Boulevard and Secrets of a Charmed Life, a Goodreads Best Historical Fiction finalist for 2015. She is also RITA finalist and Christy Award winner. A California native, she attended Point Loma Nazarene University.

Susan is a pastor’s wife and a mother of four young adults. When she's not working on a novel, Susan writes small group curriculum for her San Diego church. She is also a writing workshop volunteer for Words Alive, a San Diego non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth foster a love for reading and writing.

Visit Susan at her website: susanmeissner.com on Twitter at @SusanMeissner or at www.facebook.com/susan.meissner.

Angela Ackerman

 We all know people read fiction for entertainment. There’s nothing like getting lost in a new world and living vicariously through characters: slaying monsters, solving murders, saving the family farm...even falling in (or out of) love.  But while this is going on, whether we consciously realize it or not, we also read for another reason: insight. We’re secretly looking for answers to life’s questions.

Why? Because none of us have a roadmap to this world of ours and we sometimes (okay, often) fumble through situations we’re not equipped to deal with. Our emotions can end up knotted and twisted like a basketful of yarn ends that we don’t know how to unravel. Storytelling provides a unique window into how someone else works through the challenges that the universe throws their way.

As authors, we can use the reader’s desire for insight to draw them deeper into the story. This is done by exposing them to a protagonist’s deepest emotions, allowing us to build empathy. But, to achieve this, authors must bring their A-game.

Creating bonds of empathy only happens when the writer knows their character inside and out, and can build a protagonist who feel like flesh and bone. This means digging deep to understand who the protagonist truly is, and giving them realistic human traits, good and bad, as well as needs and desires readers can identify with.

Pulling readers in so they empathize with the point-of-view character is all about creating a sense of “shared experience.” This is where an emotional moment is rendered so well an echo of the protagonist’s emotion is felt by readers.

Here are two techniques that facilitate shared experiences.

Unexpected Emotion

Several years ago I attended an all-day workshop with agent Donald Maass, who is a master of characters and emotion in storytelling. A lesson of his has stuck with me since: use emotional writing to give readers something new to experience. I wrote about it here in depth, but the cliff note version is that Donald encouraged us to take a highly emotional moment and dig within our character for something hidden, reaching past common emotional responses. We were to look for a feeling that was part of this moment, but one that a person typically might not dare voice or show in real life.

For example, take a hero who cared for his mother during an illness, one that slowly ate away at her strength. At the moment of her death, typical feelings would be a huge sense of loss and grief. But what else might be there? What else might he feel that he would never dare to voice to others present in the room?

Relief. And not just relief that his mother’s pain was at an end, but that his own pain was too--that the endless doctor visits, ambulance rides, medications, and sleepless nights listening for (and dreading) her struggling, hitching breaths were finally over.

This type of deep honesty pulls readers in because it is unexpected, but completely understandable (and maybe even brave to write about). After all, it’s not proper to say one is relieved that one’s parent has passed after having to live with the ordeal of illness for so long, but it doesn’t make it less true. Likely shame and guilt would quickly piggyback on the relief;  and echoes of these mixed feeling would wash over the reader as they remember a time when they felt relief even though it wasn’t proper to do so.

This shared moment brings readers in close, and they empathize deeply with the hero’s vulnerability and what he’s going through.

Sensory Description Triggers

Becca and I have created a Setting Thesaurus at One Stop For Writers that has the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and textures for over 220 different locations. We did this because one of the most powerful ways to pull readers into the story is through sensory detail.

Rich and layered, describing the smells or sounds or textures of a location not only can transport readers into the scene more fully, it can also trigger emotional memories, bringing them right back to a time when they experienced the same emotions (or situation) as the character. This creates that shared moment we’re striving to achieve, and results in readers becoming more emotionally involved.

Imagine a character who has just experienced a stillbirth at nearly full-term. She’s sitting alone in a hospital rocking chair, lights dimmed, cradling her bundled baby as she says goodbye. She’s been left alone for this private moment, and through her senses, everything is on mute: the sounds of the hospital around her, the smell of antiseptic, the movement of people striding past in the hall. It is only her and her son, and the silkiness of his hair as she runs her hand over it again and again. Written well, most readers will be brought back to a moment where they too were transfixed by a silken tuft of new hair, possibly their own baby’s. Through this powerful sensory detail that triggers memories and feelings, even a reader who has never experienced this type of loss can imagine what that raw heartbreak might feel like, and a shared moment is created.

When the character’s emotions join with the reader’s own through shared experience, it brings them closer, bonding them together.  Empathy is powerful and, once it grabs hold, it is difficult to break. Choose the right scenario, and dig for that hidden emotion, or look for the sensory trigger that will act as a hardwire connection to your reader’s own memories.

How do you create empathy? Do you use shared experiences? Let me know in the comments!

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About Angela

 

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker, and co-author of the bestselling resource, The Emotion Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, as well as the bestselling duo, The Positive Trait Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes and The Negative Trait Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws. A proud indie author, her books are available in five languages, sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors and psychologists around the world.

Angela is also the co-founder of the popular site, Writers Helping Writers, as well as One Stop For Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate their storytelling.

Photo credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/564709240755086276/