Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

When I first began writing, a lot of common writing terms and quotes made no sense to me. Maybe you felt that way too. I'd have running commentary in my head about point of view, dialogue, turning points. Because seasoned professionals said smart things about writing and I had no frame of reference for most of it.

Me at writing seminars in the way back:

• Write what you know. (I don't know ANYTHING.)
• Show, don't tell. (I'm writing a book...don't I HAVE to tell the story?)
• Tension on every page! (What kind of tension? WHICH page?)
• The 1st turning point happens a quarter of the way through the book. (What's a turning point???)

Reference: Seminar speakers in bold. I was the bumbler in the parentheses.

I bumbled along for a very very long time, reading writing books, and attending seminars. Scribbling stories that make me cringe now when I come across them. They had no structure, no stakes to keep anyone engaged, and no clear turning points.

Knowledge Begets Knowledge

Frankly, I didn't have even a glimmer of why a turning point was important until I heard Stephen J. Cannell speak about 3-Act Structure. (He was the writer behind tons of TV shows -- Castle, Rockford Files, The A-Team, and the original 21 Jump Street.) However, for turning points it was all Jennifer Crusie, the author of books like Bet Me, Faking It, and Welcome to Temptation. She also co-wrote some great books with Bob Mayer.

I wouldn't have understood Crusie's talk on the five turning points of a story without Cannell's primer on what the three acts looked like. Every bit of writing craft you learn will build on other bits of writing craft you have mastered.

The 5 Turning Points

Jenny Crusie describes writing structure in a way that makes sense to me. Certainly, she gave me the big turning point light bulb moment at that conference more than a decade ago. She didn't just tell me what a turning point was, she further defined what they looked like in a story and why they are important.

What is a turning point?

A turning point is a part in the story where an event happens that throws the protagonist into a whole new place.

Your reader is going to connect to your hero or heroine from that first page – you give them the payoff with your turning points.

• The 1st Turning Point is where things go from stable to unstable. You can start 5 mins before or after this turning point, but not later. You must introduce a protagonist that the reader wants to stay with for the whole book. (It’s why you often start things off with the protagonist in trouble.)

• 2nd Turning Point - The original trouble gets worse.

• 3rd Turning Point is where the reader can't go back.

A really good turning point tip.

Crusie pointed out that some people title each turning point, which she thinks is a grand idea. In Agnes and the Hitman (currently free on Kindle Unlimited) the third turning point was called "Agnes Unleashed" and it is where she gives in to her rage.

• 4th Turning Point is the Dark Moment. This is the crisis where both the main character and the reader lose everything. This is the crisis the protagonist is not sure they can overcome. The actions the main character decides on here will determine the last turning point.

• 5th Turning Point is the end, where there is once more a stable world. It is just a new stable world, with a changed protagonist.

More Advice About Turning Points

There are a few things to clarify. Some of these (#1 and #6) are mine, but most of these are still sage advice from Ms. Crusie, with a teensy bit of commentary from me.

1. Don't confuse "inciting incident" with "turning point."

Stories are about a protagonist's journey in solving a big problem. The article linked above defines it like this:

"The Inciting Incident is the event or decision that begins a story's problem. Everything up and until that moment is Backstory; everything after is 'the story.' Before this moment there is an equilibrium, a relative peace that the characters in a story have grown accustomed to. This incisive moment, or plot point, occurs and upsets the balance of things. Suddenly there is a problem to be solved." 

The first turning point is when the protagonist commits to the journey ahead, despite the obstacles they'll face. It's a moment when everything changes, and the protagonist will spend the next quarter of the book reacting to the change and its implications.

2. Some math clarification from the diagram above.

If you're thinking in terms of a 100K word book, the first turning point would happen around 25K. For an 80K word book, it would be around 20K, This needs to be a very big event.

About 20-25K words later, you hit them with another big event. (This second event combats "sagging middles.")

3. Each chunk of the book should grow smaller.

Things are getting worse faster if the pacing is quick and you keep the main character struggling with these events.

4. Every scene should have a protagonist and an antagonist.

This keeps the conflict (aka "tension") on every page. Stephen Cannell called his antagonists, "the heavies." His advice when a story begins to drag? "Go see what the heavies are doing."

5. People do not change because of thoughts – they change because of actions.

In other words, don't stay up in the character's head thinking deep thoughts. Have them do something active, and interact with the other key people in that scene.

6. Do not identify these turning points until the 2^nd draft.

Your first draft is just about getting the big picture and the characters down. Attempting to do the math and the pacing for your novel before you've gotten the story out is not likely to do you any favors. Pace the novel AFTER the first draft.

Are those stellar or what? Have you ever heard a good talk on turning points? Who gave it? What turned the story structure lightbulb on for you? Please share your a-ha moment down in the comments!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling, LinkedIn coaching, and copywriting for accountants and financial services firms. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.

Top photo from Depositphotos.

by Ellen Buikema

 
A character's impact on the plot involves all their traits. It's important to understand how their background, personality, flaws, and strengths influence the plot and move the story forward.

This time, I’m covering how characters’ hobbies and interests affect the narrative.

Develop well-rounded characters

People in our world have hobbies and interests, as should our characters. Some enjoy the extreme end like bungee jumping, aerial silk gymnastics, surfing on boards upon the waves, or sails for land surfing on the desert floor. Others prefer more laid-back activities like gardening, reading, playing a musical instrument, going to the movies, or painting. Although, I have witnessed people painting via swing, and playing something akin to musical chairs on a piano bench, so maybe that’s something in between.

Gifting your character with hobbies like these gives insight into the kind of person that character is. To make them relatable and believable, consider hobbies/interests that mirror personality traits in your characters, making them behave the way they do.

Making a protagonist or antagonist overly endowed with skills, unless they are superheroes or supervillains, might make those characters unrealistic. Who wants a perfect person, for the good or for the bad? Not me. And readers likely agree. Show characters failing while attempting to try mastering a hobby. This shows they are just like anyone else. Becoming good at anything, including hobbies, takes time.

Create character relationships

Having a hobby can be a great way to meet new people. In a story, characters having mutual interests is an excellent way to introduce characters to each other or kindle relationships, friends and otherwise. The choice of hobby/interest can be important to the kind of relationship between characters.

Consider:

• Two people meeting at a contemporary arts museum. What that might say about who they are?
• People locking eyes from across the science lab. Are they interested in each other? Or preparing to cause mayhem?
• A small group of people getting ready to jump from an airplane with one member of the group frozen in fear. Who will help that frightened person out?

These are a few ways to bring like-minded characters together, and give the reader immediate insight into what these characters may be like.

Use of negative/antisocial hobbies

A hobby can be a problem if it has negative consequences. These hobbies are not just for antagonists. Any of the following can be used as problems protagonists must overcome to achieve their goals.

For example:

Emotional pain: Purposely causing stress in others.

• Playing characters against each other.
• Guilt tripping.
• Purposefully ignoring.

Extrinsic motivation: Characters participating in hobbies at which they excel for external rewards like:

• Money.
• Popularity.
• Praise.

Financial strain: Spending money on the hobby and therefore unable to afford basic needs.

• Shopping addiction.
• Drug addiction.
• Gambling addiction.

Illegal activities: Participating in illegal activities for the rush.

• Cybercrime.
• Antiquity theft.
• Smuggling.

Influence the setting

Hobbies happen somewhere. Hence the setting. Some hobbies can be set anywhere, anytime, like reading as it is portable.

Other hobbies dictate the setting, such as surfing where you find the characters in Hawaii, Fiji, or perhaps off the Australian coast. As writers, we can use hobbies as a reason to put characters in specific settings where we want a particular scene or story to take place.

Travel is a flexible interest that allows writers to introduce their characters to new people, places, and experiences. For instance, Jules Verne’s novel,  Around the World in Eighty Days, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Hobbit.

Move the plot forward

Hobbies don’t necessarily need to move the plot forward—only mentioned in passing—but can be great tools to help the story along.

For example:

A hobby/interest may help determine how characters solve obstacles in their path. A swimming teacher may be able to help a person with deep fears—water and as well as her abusive husband. In teaching the woman to swim, she unwittingly helps the character escape an abusive marriage. The woman fakes her death. The abusive spouse assumes his wife, terrified of the water, had drown.

In this case a secondary character’s interest, love of the water, assists the protagonist’s interest in escaping her tormentor, which occurs in Nancy J. Price’s Sleeping with the Enemy.

J.K. Rowling included the hobby of card collecting, which Harry Potter and Ron Weasley do in the Harry Potter series. That hobby allowed her to add information to the stories as needed.

Harry along with friends Ron and Hermione Granger learn that an important item recently arrived at the school for safekeeping and there had been attempts to steal it. They discovered that the hidden object involved both Albus Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel, both wizards.

Soon after the Christmas holidays end, friend Neville Longbottom gives Harry one of the Famous Wizards cards for his collection. It’s the Dumbledore card, which mentions his connection to Nicolas Flamel. Hermione researches Flamel, and determines that the Philosopher’s Stone is likely the item hidden at the school.

Harry and Ron’s card collecting hobby lets the characters make this intellectual leap.

Here are some helpful links for character hobbies:

One from Robin Piree 101+ Hobbies For Characters To Create Interesting Characters
Plus a PDF of Character Hobbies and Skills Brainstorming from Jill Williamson

Do you give your characters hobbies? What have you read that uses hobbies/interests to enhance the narrative?

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About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents, and The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon chapter book series with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works in Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and The Crystal Key, MG Magical Realism/ Sci-Fi, a glaze of time travel.

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

Image by Gipfelsturm69 from Pixabay

by Janice Hardy

If things always work out in your protagonist’s favor, you might have a contrived plot.

Getting a plot to unfold just the way you want it to can be challenging. Sometimes we get so locked on how it should go, that we force it to follow a certain path—even if there’s no reason for it to unfold that way at all. This can lead to lucky breaks for the protagonist that feel convenient at best, contrived at worst.

Contrived plots not only stretch plausibility, they also hurt an author’s credibility with readers. Readers trust us to tell them a solid tale, and they lose that faith if we cheat by forcing events to unfold in a way that allows our protagonists to win with no effort.

The incredibly lucky protagonist is probably the most common plot contrivance.

You’ve met them before. The sleuth who always overhears exactly what they need to break the case wide open. The hero who just happens to save the one minion in the bad guy’s army who knows the secret way into his inner sanctum. The love interests who always bump into each other for no reason. No matter what the situation, something helps the protagonist get what they need, and all they have to do is show up.

We don’t always realize we’re contriving our plot, because the forward movement is what the scene needs to work—the problem is that the protagonist did nothing to earn it, so there’s no conflict. Quite often there’s no goal, either, since a key piece of information drops into the protagonist’s lap out of the blue without them even looking for it.

Wait, isn’t that just good plotting?

Some folks argue that every story is contrived, because as writers, we manipulate what happens to tell our tale. On one hand this is true, but it’s how we manipulate events that determines how contrived a story reads.

For example, if we show our protagonist coming home from her karate class in the first few pages, it’s no surprise to readers when she’s able to fight off an attacker later. But if we mention she’s a black belt after the attack has been thwarted—or worse, comment that, “It was a good thing she’d just earned that black belt” during the attack, then the scene will likely feel contrived. The vital skill wasn’t in the story until it was needed.

That’s a key difference between plots that feel contrived and ones that feel plausible.

Coincidences happen, and it’s not uncommon to have one or two occur in a story to make the whole thing work, but they typically work best when the coincidence is what brings people together or triggers the novel’s conflict, not the force behind getting the protagonist out of trouble.

General rule of thumb:

If the contrivance hurts the protagonist, it’s usually okay. Contrivances that help the protagonist usually feel forced or overly convenient.

Let’s look at some common ways writers heap good luck on their protagonists:

Always being in the right place to overhear vital information:

You can get away with one of these in a book, but more than that stretches credibility—especially if there’s no reason for the protagonist to be where she hears the information.

Possible fixes:

Just give your protagonist a logical reason to be where they need to be to hear that information. However, if you have a lot of these in your story, cut a few and make the protagonist uncover this information on her own through other means, like hard work or investigative skills.

Taking a wrong turn or getting lost puts the protagonist where she needs to be:

These are particularly tricky, because they commonly come after a harrowing escape or chase scene that feels exciting, so it does seem like the protagonist “did something” to get there. But all she really did was happen across the right place by sheer luck, not because she worked to get there.

Possible fixes:

Give the protagonist a reason to go where she does. She might see a turn off she recognizes, or remembers something she uncovered earlier. Maybe she’s trying to get to a nearby location that will put her close enough to logically find the right spot.

Random people give the protagonist what she needs with no effort on her part:

This is one of the more common contrivances in a novel, because the protagonist is technically working toward her goal—it’s just that everyone she speaks to gives her what she needs, even if they have no reason to.

For example, the protagonist is at a dead-end in her investigation and stops at a random diner for lunch, but while talking to the waiter, he just “happens to know” exactly the information she was trying to discover all day.

Possible fixes:

Make the protagonist earn the information. Show skill or guile in interviewing witnesses or talking to people. Let some people not want to help her or even give her bad information. Remember, no one has a reason to help the protagonist, and some might even have reason not to. Think about how those characters, small as they are, would feel and act in this situation.

A problem is solved out of the blue right when the protagonist needs it:

The most common example here is the person with money trouble who receives an inheritance right when she needs it, but any unexpected “rescue” can be a problem. The protagonist finds herself in a situation that will take a lot of effort to get out of, but someone or something appears and either solves it, or makes it trivial to obtain success.

Possible fixes:

Give the protagonist a goal to work toward to solve the problem. If she needs money, she has to come up with a way to get it. If she’s stuck somewhere, she has to use her own ingenuity to get unstuck. Don’t give her the easy way out, make her work for it.

Bad guys constantly make mistakes that aid the protagonist:

The poor, unlucky villain who never catches a break falls into this category. The reason the protagonist wins is because the antagonist messes up; it’s not due to any effort on the protagonist’s part. What’s worse is that often the only way the protagonist can win is if the bad guys fail, so it’s not really a win. Had the protagonist not been there, the same outcome would have occurred.

Possible fixes:

Make the bad guys smart. Give them good ideas and solid plans to thwart the protagonist. Even if they’re just henchmen, their boss knows what to do and does it well. Force the protagonist to be smarter and cleverer than the bad guys.

An easy win weakens your protagonist and your story, so make them work to earn their victories.

Lay the groundwork for skills to be used later. Make them actively look for clues. Don’t have them “realize” important things out of the blue. Show how they managed to solve the puzzles and figure out the plot and readers will love them for it.

Is your protagonist too lucky? What examples of too-lucky protagonists have you seen?

* * * * * *

About Janice

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series. Sign up for her newsletter and receive 25 ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now free.

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Image by Dee from Pixabay