5/15/2019 Day 15 - Character ArcsWhat is a Character ArcA Character Arc is the inner journey that a character take from the beginning to the end of a period of time. In novels, the character arc for the main character generally covers the length of the story, but minor characters may also have character arcs and theirs may run for shorter periods of time. The inner journey reflects a change a character makes in terms of philosophy or viewpoint. Character arcs are tied closely to conflict and tension in a story because what a character wants will be interrupted by all the hurdles thrown at them to bring on conflict as they work to achieve their goal. Having a solid character arc requires the writer to get to the crux of what the character wants and needs. It often will be reflected in the flipping of a strength or weakness of the character by the end of the story, so a character trait presented early in the story as a weakness becomes the character's strength in the end. Wants and needs are two very different dimensions in a character. Wants are superficial. They sit on the surface and are based in some deception the characters have brought onto themselves. Needs are the deeper, more meaningful aspects that are often hidden, not only from the reader, but from the character as well. It's only as the character goes after what they want that they discover what they need. For example, let's look at a book whose central theme is bullying and where the main character is being bullied. What the character wants is for the bullies to stop bullying. What the character, needs, on the other hand, is a coping mechanism. The want is what sets the character on his path to finding a way to not be bullied. During that journey and after the climax, the character may discover he is smarter or stronger than the bullies, but what he needed all along was a way to cope with the bullying. The change that has come over the character by the end of the story is that he has learned how to deal with bullies. Types of Character Arcs Character arcs can be neutral, positive, or negative. Generally speaking, if you are writing a novel and find your main character's arc does not change your character for the better or the worse, you will risk frustrating and disappointing your readers. The point of reading a book for most people is to find out what happens when, and if the answer is "nothing" in the end, the reader is left with feeling the book was a waste of time. There are some exceptions, including non-fiction books and mysteries, but the goal should be to leave the reader satisfied with the result (positive arc), activated to make a change or do something different (negative arc), or learning something new (which is often the purpose of non-fiction works and mystery novels). If you are writing a mystery, you may want to focus on the secondary characters rather than the main character. The main character may have a neutral character arc, but the secondary characters are likely to have either a positive or negative character arc. A Positive Character Arc A positive character arc is one in which the character overcomes challenges and becomes a better person. They may be physically stronger, mentally smarter, or more emotionally empathetic. Stories with positive character arcs are fun stories. They are the Disney fairy tales, romance stories, and heroic journeys on the shelves. They show us that everyday people can achieve great things and give us hope or comfort that we too can do great things. A Negative Character Arc A negative character arc is one in which the challenges get the better of the character in a way that stunts the character's growth or development. In the end they are a worse person instead of a better one. Stories with negative character arcs act as warnings, either letting us know what we would be up against if we choose the main character's path and how things can go terribly wrong. Subplots and Secondary Characters Subplots generally are supporting the primary theme of a story or presenting additional related themes with a supporting characters journey as it coincides with the main character's. Therefore, if you are introducing subplots in your novel, be sure to consider the character arcs of your supporting characters as well. Exercise: Character Arcs
If you are creating your notes in your OneNote Novel Editing notebook, follow these steps to complete the exercise:
Chapter Summary Parameters You should complete this exercise by reviewing your Day 3 Character Attributes worksheet, thinking about your central themes, and skimming through your story as needed. Character - Write in the character's name or, if unnamed, a short description. Goal/Want - Write down a short description of what the character wants. Deception/Lie - Define the lie or misconception that the character believes about themselves or the world around them that prevents them from achieving their goal. Strengths - List the character's strengths as they relate to the goal. Weaknesses - List the character's weaknesses as they relate to the goal. Change - Explain how the character overcomes the deception that prevented them from going after their goal (positive character arc) or how the character comes to believe the lie and self-destructs (negative character arc). Character Arc Analysis Your character arc for each character should have all of the elements listed above in the parameters. If it doesn't, something is missing. You can ask yourself the follow questions to try to get to the crux of what is wrong:
DOWNLOAD: Character Attributes Worksheet Template Instructions Tips for working by hand If you'd like to work on notepaper or set up your own table in your favorite application, include the columns listed above for each table. The percentage listed is approximately the size you should make each column. Add rows as you work through your chapters. Leave a little extra space between characters so you have plenty of room to add notes about changes you might want to make. Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 16 - Setting as a Character 5/14/2019 Day 14 - Build TensionBuild More Tension in Your Story While tension in a story can be tested by reviewing pace (see Overall Chapter Pacing), you can also make sure your story doesn't lag in the middle due to tension not ramping up. If action rises and falls along a flat plane rather than rising and falling with incremental increases, the center of the story can feel repetitious and as if nothing is really moving forward. The way to correct this is to make sure the tension is building with each conflict. For example, in a romance novel, tension may build between the main character as the love interest in the following ways:
In the example above, a "first fight" is often disregarded in a relationship, especially if it's a new relationship as a minor tiff or lover's quarrel indicative of nothing in the bigger scheme of love. When friends bring evidence to the table, though, doubts may be sewn in the main character's mind but then also rationalized as if the friends are jealous. But when the best friend gives hard evidence, the main character now has to make some decision that is going to bring the conflict to the cusp of the climax. Each conflict ramps up the discord in the main character's heart. For this exercise, you will need to think about all the ways you are causing discord between your main character and one of the following: their self, a secondary character(s), the antagonist, or the reader. You will be able to use your Chapter Summary for this exercise, but will also be creating another worksheet. For this worksheet, you will be moving to the Developmental Edit section of the notebook because we are starting to crystallize the story. Exercise: Create a Tension Worksheet
Analysis of your conflict After you have ranked all your scenes with conflict, you can ask yourself the following questions to see if you need to make repairs.
Methods you can consider for fixing or adding more tension
DOWNLOAD: Tension From Conflict Worksheet Template Instructions Tips for working by hand If you created the Conflict worksheet earlier, you can use highlighters to either highlight the items indicated in the instructions or eliminate them. (Do whichever offers the least amount of work and color on the page.) Add a rank column wherever you can squeeze it in. Maybe at the front of the columns you first created or the end. If you don't have much room, consider using a different colored pen or pencil for marking the rank. Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 15 - Character Arcs 5/13/2019 Day 13 - Improve Transitions and HooksOnce you have confirmed each scene has purpose (Day 11) and reviewed chapter pacing to root out overly long or excessively short breathers, you can look to improve your transitions and chapter hooks. What are Transitions ? Transitions are what take us from one event or scene to another in a story. Good transitions between scenes flow smoothly even when the time or location has changed. Bad transitions are confusing. They make a reader wonder, “How did I get here?” For example, the main character is walking into an empty house. The scene feels tense and foreboding. The chapter ends with the main character's hand on the doorknob, the wind whistling through the broken glass above his hand, and a shadow crossing over the full moon. End scene. The next chapter opens with the main character at lunch the next day. Wait. What? What happened at the house? Did he go in? Did he change his mind and go home? Bad transitions like this disappoint the readers and will even lead some to throwing the book in frustration, or worse, not reading the rest of the story. What are Hooks? Hooks are what keep us reading past midnight. They are often that “dun dun dunnnn” moment or that scene that ends with the reader exclaiming, “OMG! What happens next?!” In the example above, the scene ends nicely with a good hook. As a reader, I want to know what happens when he opens that door. I'm going to turn the page to find out. I would be hard-pressed to put the book down in that moment. Not every chapter needs to end with a highly dramatic hook like the example above. In fact, overuse of this technique can feel gimmicky or childish. The goal should be to keep the reader reading so it's worthwhile to consider how our chapters all end and start. Effective use of transitions and hooks between chapters will have a lot to do with where you are in the book. Remember, we want to be ramping up tension through the rising action in the second act. As we approach the climax, it can be very effective to end a chapter on a cliffhanger because this keeps the reader highly engaged. On the other hand, it's quite okay to casually meander into the next chapter when you are in the beginning of the book where we tend to have longer descriptions for character introductions and world building. However, you still want to keep that reader reading, so its worth the time to look at how and where you transition in new settings or new characters at the front end of the book, or how you leave a character hanging as you get close to the climax. Exercise: Review Hooks and Transitions Specifically read and review the end and the beginning of each chapter in your story. You should be confirming you are ending the chapter on the best hook possible, and also starting the next chapter with a transition that hasn't lost the reader from the hook on the end of the last chapter. Consider the following while reading through your chapters:
DOWNLOAD: Hooks and Transitions Worksheet Template Instructions Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 14 - Build Tension 5/12/2019 Day 12 - Overall Chapter PacingPacing From Chapter Length Hopefully by this point, you are feeling pretty good about the foundation of your story because if you had any big plot holes, character inconsistencies, or scenes missing purpose, you've fixed them. The next step is going to be working on the intermediary issues between plot holes and common grammar or spelling mistakes. This will be where we crystallize your characters, setting, and scene. Exercises will include making sure the pacing of you story feels right, that dialog makes sense, and that you have eliminated exposition that doesn't drive your story forward just like you did with scenes that had no purpose. Tension should ebb and flow in a story, so there may be high and low spots throughout your chapters. The low spots should only exist as short "breathers" after moments of high stress, either for the characters or the reader. Keep in mind the action should continue to rise over the course of all the scenes until the final battle. Therefore, longer breathers at the beginning of a story are perfectly fine, but as we ramp up through the rising action, the breathers should become shorter. The shorter breathers will build in that sense of urgency. So, a good test of tension is a review of pacing. One of the easiest ways to check the pace of your story is to look at the length of your chapters. There is no right or wrong word count for a chapter size, but you should find that your chapters tend to a "usual size" near the front half of your story, then get a bit shorter as you near the climax. This reflects the early stages of world building, where you will spend more time introducing characters and setting, but then as you enter the stages of rising action, the pace of the story gets faster. (See Day 9 - Map Your Chapter Summary to a Story Arc for a discussion about the stages of a traditional story arc.) Exercise: Review Chapter Pacing For this exercise, return to your Chapter Summary page in the Structural Edit section of your Novel Editing notebook and follow these steps:
Excessively long chapters may be of too much exposition. Review those chapters again to check for spots where you have over-explained something or written too much backstory. Strategies or correcting these can include:
Excessively short chapters, especially early in a story, may indicate that something is missing. Review the chapters and ask your self the following questions. Revise chapters as needed.
Tips for working by hand If you have been completing the assignments by hand, you can still use your Chapter Summary spreadsheet. You may not have room to add a new column, but you can still use a pencil or colored pen to write in the word counts. If you are someone who doesn't type your story into an application, you can do word counts based on an average. For instance, count all the words on a "typical" written page, then use that as your estimate for the average number of words on a page. For a page only half-filled, use half the count. Only count the words on pages that are less than half a page. Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 13 - Improve Transitions and Hooks Every Scene Should Count Every scene should drive your novel forward. If a scene doesn't, it should be removed or revised. Today's exercise will help you focus on each scene to ensure the scene has a purpose and that it moves your story forward. Said another way, each scene should have a mini-arc to be effective. The arc will be made up of an Action, a Reaction, and a New Action. An action, whether it is external or internal to your main character, will cause your character to react, and then a new action will carry the character (and your reader) forward. Let's think for a moment what kinds of actions make our characters react.
In each case above, the main character is going to need to react to the situation that has been placed before them, and after they react, they will need to formulate a new plan to move forward. Any scene which is missing one of these three parts is lacking its purpose within the story. Today's Task You could look back at your Chapter Summary (see Day 5) but I like to do this step independently of that analysis simply because, by this point, I know my story so well inside and out that I'm looking for any way that helps me see the scenes with fresh eyes. Also, this analysis may have more rows in the table than the Chapter Summary if your chapters are made up of more than one scene. You should do this exercise by using both your memory of what you wanted or thought you needed to accomplish in each scene plus a review to confirm you did what you set out to do. Exercise: Complete the Purposeful Scenes Worksheet
If you are creating your notes in your OneNote Novel Editing notebook, follow these steps to complete the exercise:
Setting Characteristic Parameters From memory, complete the information in the columns from SCENE to READER RESPONSE. Scene - Write in the chapter number and scene number o the scene. I like to use a shorthand notation of C1S1 which represents Chapter 1 Scene 1. Optionally, you can use a short description. Purpose - In the most concise possible way, note the purpose of the scene. The most common include:
Focal Character - Not every scene will necessarily focus around your character, so note in the Focal Character column who is the character being changed or challenged. (Think about a Darth Vader scene. He's the main character in the scene who's being challenged by the rebels.) It's important to know, a setting can also be a character, so if you have a setting that is going through a change, put the name of the setting here. (More about setting as a character is coming soon.) Element of Change - Write in what about the focal character is meant to change. The list here is a short list, but it should give you an idea of how you should be thinking about the element of change.
Reader Response - Think about how the change should affect the reader. What is the emotional or empathetic response you are hoping to evoke? Again, this is a short list only meant to set you thinking on the right path.
The last three columns should be completed by re-reading your scenes as a fact-finding mission as you did earlier with the outlining worksheets in Days 3 - 7. Don't do these from memory because the goal should be to make sure you haven't forgotten or accidentally missed anything while writing. Action - Write in the internal or external action that prompts the focal character in the scene to act. In the scene mentioned above with Darth Vader, it might be one of his lieutenants telling him the rebels are moving forward. Reaction - Write in the character's reaction to the action with which they have been presented. New Action - Note the new course of action that the character is taking. The action plus the reaction should lead the character down a new path or reinforce the previous path with new determination. Analysis of your Purposeful Scene worksheet As you work through your scenes, you may start to see weak spots that are easily fixed or you may get a sense that something is wrong but still be unsure what that something is exactly. The following questions can help you analyze what you filled in and provide some clues about repairing a scene without much purpose. In some cases, you may realize you don't need the scene after all.
DOWNLOAD: Purposeful Scene Worksheet Template Instructions Tips for working by hand If you'd like to work on notepaper or set up your own table in your favorite application, include the columns listed above for each table. It will work best if you set the page up in the landscape orientation. The percentage listed is approximately the size you should make each column. You may even want to set the table up across two sheets of paper to give yourself enough room for each column. Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 12 - Overall Chapter Pacing Editing Strategies Don't start today's tasks until you have read through all your chapters and annotated everything on character, setting, and scene, and have mapped your story to a story arc. If you've done all the work of reading and painstaking note-taking, now you are ready to start the even harder task of editing. Unless you are one of those truly gifted authors, you probably have a long list of TO-DOs spread throughout your worksheets. You can tackle these items in any number of ways, but I recommend you start with fixing the biggest plot holes first. Your biggest plot holes may have to do with character development or they might be related to the timeline. Only you can figure that out, but if you such a big overwhelming list of things that need to be fixed that you are frozen with the fear of doing anything, let me give a few guidelines. 1. Make a back up your novel before you change anything. This means, make a duplicate record of your story and set it aside. Consider naming it by today's date OR better yet, with an addition to the title of the document like this: Original file name: Tomorrow Girl New copy file name: Tomorrow Girl - Big Picture Edits - 2019-05-09 2. Highlight the biggest plot holes that you can remember off the top of your head. Whether you are using a paper copy or an electronic version of your spreadsheet, grab a highlighter and choose a color. Use that highlighter on the top five issues regardless of which worksheet they are on. Big plot holes will be those gigantic inconsistencies either in how events occur on the story's timeline or in the way a character acts. They are items that break the story and may require you to be really creative in the way that you fix them. In some cases, they may require that you do a massive edit across multiple chapters or even rewrite a big chunk of your story. Fix the timeline items first if you have them, then move on to the character inconsistencies. 3. Pick one of the five biggest plot holes and tackle it. Before you actually start running a red line through all the text, grab another sheet of paper and write down five ways you could fix that one plot hole. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the plot hole, try breaking it into smaller chunks. Finish these sentences. This part of the story isn't working because _____. If _____ happens, then _____ can't happen later in the story. This will help you pinpoint the first thing that needs to be corrected, because really, it could be a whole series of events that are coalescing to cause the plot hole. Try working backward if you need to. In order for the ____ scene to work, ____ must happen first. And in order for that to happen, ____ must occur. If you have a close friend or fellow writer in your community (whether in your city, via the phone, or online), consider talking through the issue and its possible solutions with them. Sometimes talking aloud will bring things to light that you haven't even considered yet and you may start to find that one solution from your list is better over another, even if it isn't the easiest one. 4. Go back to your highlighted item and cross it off the list. I like to use an alternating color of highlighter and draw my lines right through the first color. One done! Doesn't that feel good?! 5. Make another backup. If your first plot hole required extensive edits to multiple chapters, this might be a good time to create another version or backup of your book. I make backups every time I feel like I've done anything major to my story. For you, this may mean after this first set of edits. For someone else, it may mean after all of the Day 2 - 6 edits. Whatever you decide, think of it in terms of, what if I have a change of heart after sleeping on it? How easy will it be to revert back and consider an alternate plan of action? 6. Once you've fixed the biggest plot hole, get busy on the next biggest one. Continue using whatever strategies helped carry you through on fixing the first one. By the time you get to #5... Well, I'm not going to lie. The fifth one can be as tough as the first one, but because you have tried some different strategies for fixing the other four, coming to a solution might feel simpler. 7. Once you have the first five items fixed, highlight the next five and work on them one at a time as you did the others. Keep whittling away until the last things you have to fix are items like "the walls were painted blue in chapter 3 but they're green in chapter 7." 8. Celebrate! When you finish this big round of edits and have crossed off all the To-Do items on all of your worksheets, be sure to do something to reward yourself. Buy yourself a piece of your favorite pie or a new book from an indie author that you've been following. Have a glass of wine (even if it's the middle of the week!). Whatever is your equivalent of a pat on the back, go for it. Good job! You deserve it! DOWNLOAD: Editing Strategies Checklist Template Instructions Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 11 - Perfect Every Scene with Purpose What is a Story Arc? A story arc is the traditional arc that builds the structure of a story. You may also find it called a story curve or simply, the story structure. While genres will vary to some degree or another, almost all stories follow the curve to some extent and so it has become a wildly popular topic among those who teach creative writing. The traditional arc is broken up into five stages which are in turn often broken into smaller components. If you think about your favorite book or movie, it's likely that you will recognize each stage. The stages are: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution. The Five Stages of the Story Arc The exposition is the beginning of the story leading up to the curve and it's where we get grounded in the story. It's when we carry our book as we're reading to the kitchen, make a cup of tea, and then go burrow into a blanket to snuggle in. (Or put the book away if we aren't hooked, but more about that later.) We learn who is the main character, where and when the story is taking place, and what the character wants. That "want" is going to be a powerful motivation to moving the story forward. The rising action is the where the story starts moving forward. It makes up the bulk of the story with conflicts and challenges and it can be broken down further into four distinct components. A [trigger] provides some sort of insight to the main character that what is wanted can be obtained despite any doubt or fears they have. The [quest] is how the character gets past those doubts to go after the wanted thing. But then, [surprise]! - there's something more that raises a true fear and understanding of what failure could cost. And finally, the character makes a [critical choice] and decides getting the wanted thing will be worth every risk. All of this rising action and turmoil (whether it's internal or external) is ramping up for a big battle in the end and that big battle is the climax. This is when we find out, usually along with the main character, what that character (and us as extensions of that character as the reader), needs. Not wants! -- Needs. Finally, we have resolution and a return to order or a normal world. We see the main character returning home and taking his place once more in the world, albeit, changed in some way. There's often some sort of celebration or recognition of the main character having gone after what was wanted and achieving what was ultimately needed. Other Resources Several authors and writing professionals have created story arcs for the different genres. Search the Internet for "story arc" and the genre of your manuscript to see if one has been made for your genre. These are meant to help you understand from the unique perspective of your genre what each of these components reflect. This may be more helpful that the short description I've provided above and give more guidance in completing the exercise below. When you do your search, you may run across beat sheets. "Beat sheets" are another way of presenting a story arc in a less graphical way. Beat sheets are often set up as spreadsheets that list the "beats" in one column, a description of the beat/component in the next, and calculations of page or word count where each beat should be falling. If you are trying to shoot for a specific word count, you usually can recalculate the beats based on the total word count. Some of the beat sheets are set up to do the calculation for you. If you can't find a story map specific for your genre, visit Ingrid Sundberg's blog and see her Archplot Story Structure download. It demonstrates each of the pot points in several different ways. https://ingridsnotes.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/what-is-arch-plot-and-classic-design/ Why Map a Completed Story to the Story Arc? Mapping your completed story to a story arc is one more step to rooting out plot holes and fixing them. It will also make sure you have all the elements of a story that a reader expects to find in a story and that all those elements are in the right places. Exercise: Map Your Chapter Summary to the Story Arc
Before you get started creating your OneNote page, take your Chapter Summary outline from Day 5 and highlight all the items in your Chapter Outline that create tension and lead up to the climax. We can use this highlighted text for two exercises, including this one.
Considerations
DOWNLOAD: Story Arc Worksheet Template Instructions Tips for working by hand If you'd like to work on notepaper or set up your own table in your favorite application, include the columns listed above. The percentage listed is approximately the size you should make each column. If you are going to work by hand, give yourself plenty of space to complete the descriptions and notes for each component. Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 10 - Strategies for Editing From Your Worksheets 5/3/2019 Day 8 - Find Your FlowOrganize Your Workspace
Week one of editing is in the books! Well done! Of course, now we get down to the challenge. Editing is a lot like completing a puzzle. Sometimes the pieces don't fit even though they look like they should. Sometimes all the pieces come together with hardly any work at all. And sometimes we have to spin some stuff around until it fits into place. Sometimes we lose a piece under the table. It's always fun when you get a piece from another box too, right? You may have started one worksheet each day, or you may have created all your worksheets in one day and are now ready to spend the next six days reading and annotating. You may be thinking to yourself, "This is a lot of worksheets." You're right. It is. I recommend you give yourself plenty of space to work. If you are working on hand-written outlines, find a place where you can spread out. You will be picking up and setting aside the various pages. A lot. If you are working strictly on your computer, and have dual monitors, you might try using Cascading Windows. To cascade your windows, follow these steps:
If you are working on your computer, a table device, or your phone, things will be a little more challenging for you as you swap in and out of outlines. In this case, think about printing a copy of your book if possible so you can read through the paper copy while working the outlines on the computer. Find Your Flow Once you've gotten the workspace under control, the next step is to find a rhythm to Read-Notate-Summarize-Repeat. When I first start my big picture edits, I like to start with my Setting and Character Analysis worksheets on top, and the reason is because the first handful of chapters are when you introduce characters and build their world. Somewhere about a quarter of the way through, you will find you are reaching for those worksheets less and by the time you are half-way through, you may not be reaching for them at all because your characters will be on pretty solid footing. You will only need those worksheets for major shifts or reveals...those ah-ha moments when readers think, "Oh, that's why she did that." Try to read through the chapter without stopping to edit as much as possible. Only pause when you have read a character or setting attribute. Stop mid-scene to notate items that are details about characters or setting. After you have finished reading through the chapter, then complete the Chapter Summary, Timeline, and Conflict worksheets while the chapter is still fresh in your mind. If you can't remember something, flip back and reread. If your chapters tend toward the long side, you can break your chapters down into scenes. Use a Highlighter Use a highlighter judiciously. Whether you are working in a paper copy of your book or with an electronic version, the highlighter will be your friend when you are trying to get through massive amounts of text in a relatively short period of time. If something doesn't read right, don't fix it - highlight it. If you have a specific note you need to make so you don't forget why you highlighted it, use Comments or make a note on one of the outlining worksheets. It doesn't matter if the worksheet isn't expressly made for whatever notation you are making. The point is to capture everything you think you need to fix but stay in your groove. Okay! Let's get reading and annotating! DOWNLOAD: Instructions for Analysis of Outlines Template Instructions Return to the Table of Contents Go to Day 9 - Map Your Chapter Summary to a Story Arc |