Jodi Henley

Randomness as a personality factor?

2012-02-14T13:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe I'm not "that" random, but it's better than saying I have issues. I tell my kids I'm getting on in years and they laugh while they hand me water and try to get me to lie down. I suspect, like everyone else who comes to know me, they realize I'm not just burning the candle at both ends, but frying it in a skillet.

My doctor says that's not good, and throws in things like losing weight, taking blood pressure medicine, cholesterol medicine, more iron and slowing down. lol, like the day isn't short enough already. I've been busy with business and workshops. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking when I did the first workshop--it's not that I regret it, more like I love it...way too much. I can "see" this huge structure and it kills me that I might not have the time to get all the words out.

I need to post the end of the Running in the Dark series so I can archive it, but looking back on the workshop content, the last day's misc posting style doesn't work on a blog. Lee, from Ironhorse Formatting gave me a way to break down a power point, and I might do that, because I'm accumulating a lot of powerpoints. But video is calling again, and I think I've come a long way since my first set (and I'm much better at explaining).

Stop snowing already!

2012-01-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

Snow is falling. Not that big a deal, really. Just that snow falling in Seattle is a huge event on a line with a major cataclysm because there's never enough de-icer to go around, the snow plows really don't work and everybody running into each other is just brushed off as "many minor accidents." Seriously? Destroying someone's transportation is not minor. *sigh*

It wasn't so bad last night. Fat fluffy flakes drifting downward, making the bridges bad. Nothing (despite the ever present rain) had frozen until I got to the outskirts of town. Sometimes I think there's a wall around this place because the minute I drove over the rumble strips announcing you'd better slow down or risk ticket by speed trap, the roads glittered like diamonds. Beautiful at midnight like nothing else. And slick. Like driving on a sheet of gorgeous glass.

All the gigantic two story high, uber big-wheeled trucks and little beater cars were spinning out like tops. And snow is still coming down, outside my window--falling sideways, which is what snow and rain does here in the Cascade lowlands.

The agency I work for won the P&E poll, not that we do bad work (since of course, I'm prejudiced and think we rock), but it's definitely filling up my schedule. Growing pains I guess. Laura always wanted a company in the same way I wanted to talk craft and we're lucky that we complement each other. Number two for many years, and number one this year. No place else to go since we can't get better than the best, lol.

My workshops are filling up to the point where I'm just starting to black them out. Not in the half serious way I'd black them out before, but in the takes a lot of time kind of way that puts me behind in everything else I'm working on--not that I'd give them up. I've already proven I come down on the side of my workshops before just about anything except my kids. Guess they're my passion.

Damn snow. The flakes are getting bigger and starting to stick. My car looks like a snowball and my scraper is in the trunk. I know nobody cleans the side streets but I'm starting to hearing distressing spinning noises in the distance where the major thoroughfare goes through the middle of town. And we have four more days to go.

A serious case of the warm-fuzzies

2012-01-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Thank you to whoever voted to put me on the P&E poll, and whoever left the comment that I was an undiscovered gem. You made me blush right down to the toenails and gave me a case of the happys--it's not winning, it's just that I'm there.

((hugs))

Running in the Dark: Organic Structure for Character-driven stories Part 3 (creating story events)

2011-12-31T02:24:00.000-08:00

GMC is Goal, Motivation and Conflict. There are manybooks and workshops on variations of GMC and how to use it. What do they want? 2)Why do they want it? 3) And why can't they have it? Dwight Swain did something similar in Techniques of theSelling Writer, but called it motivation-reaction units. 1) What causes something to happen? 2) What happens inreaction to that stimulus? In his ground-breaking structural work, Story,McKee talks about how turning points spin the story and increase momentum.

Each technique is a valid way to look at plot. In a plot-driven story, eventB is always caused by event A. So GMC is pretty muchA>B>C>A>B>C, Motivation-reaction units are A>B>A>B andTurning Points are A>B>C>XX>A>B>C>XX2. Plots tend to be linear and look a little like algebra.

In other words—mostplots are based on purely logical progression and can be separated fromcharacter, because the events happen in an easily visible way that make senseto an outside observer.

Now let’s throwsome character into that. Character is aprocess of becoming. It changes according to who is looking at the character,when and why. And changes again--internally and externally--when new coreevents form over old ones. An emphasis on plotwithout understanding the way character works produces characters that flow outof plot instead of plots that flow out of character. Which makes it hard to write organically because while the under-structure is logical,that logic is the result of many plot threads coming together that don'talways appear logical on the outside, even though they’re true toyour character's internal logic.

It's contingentcausation. The accumulated effect of many things to produce a desired result.

There are two kinds of causation. Logical and contingent/intuitive.

Let’s take a look at logical progression before we move onto contingent/intuitive.

In a straight-line plot where characters are created to fillthe needs of the plot--let’s make up a simple plot to use as an example? A drives B.

Johnny wants a dog.(A)He asks his mother, who says he has to earn money to buy a dog. He does,(B) and she gets him a dog.

This is the kind of plot that would come to you full-formed,or as something you’d like to do. “I want to write a story about a boy who wants a dog, whathe does to get the dog, and his HEA.” The plot needs a boy, and whether that boy is the kid nextdoor, or a street kid, what matters overall is that he’s a kid.

Logical progression in an organic plot is also a little like algebra, although instead of the more straight forward, Atriggers B triggers C, or A triggers B triggers A triggers B, it’s actually…

…where the two characters in your plot intersect, or theprimary character touches a story event they createa combination. K (for kid)+ C (for cat) = (what happens) or X

If you take out the cat and add a dog or ferret, the plot can change and go differently but still make perfect sense. The elements of the story are interchangeable.

Now let’s give the boy a core event and some contingent causation.

He wanted a dog two years ago and asked his dad. His dadsaid yes and after saving and scrimping to buy a dog, on the way home from thebreeder someone broadsides their car. His father is almost torn in half becauseof the way the car accordions, the boy is thrown clear and the dog is trapped.The car catches on fire and his father and the dog both die.

Let’s also give the mother, a strong secondary character, acore event. And make it the same event to boost the emotional component.

Two years ago, she was a stay at home mom. She had a nicehouse, a minivan and had just talked her husband (a really nice guy with a goodjob) into finishing the garage as a family room. When her husband dies, her son goes into the hospital.Insurance pays for his care and the car. But there’s a funeral and bills don’tstop coming. After her son gets out, there’s no money coming in, but she has akid, a mortgage, a car payment, utility bills, food and gas. The insurancedoesn’t last long. Social security kicks in but the boy is almost fourteen. Intwo years, her child benefits will end. She’s grieving and hurting, andconfused, and now her whole life has changed because she has to be strong, finda job that pays enough to support the two of them and she has no skills.

Her son’s character is a circle with ripples coming out ofit that were formed by his core event. His desire for a dog killed his fatherand the dog. His need did “this” to his mother. He is the cause of all theirproblems.

After two years, what he wants more than anything is to goback in time and fix things. He wants a dog. This time, he’ll save it, andit’ll live and thrive and things will be alright again.

---He asks his mom for a dog.

His mom’s character resents the dog. It was the dog that killedher husband and changed their life. She’s about to lose the house, they can’tlive on what she makes, and it’s all because of this “dog”. Her husband went toget a dog, and he died. She loved him, and now he’s gone. He abandoned her fora dog.

When her son asks for a dog, it touches her on one of theouter ripples of her character. Depending on where--and let’s say the ring spins and the partfacing her son right now is “G”, the part of her that’s tired and resentfulafter a long day at work, knows better, but can’t stop feeling sorry forherself—-it’s going to intersect with what her son is facing her with. And let’s call that part of his ripple, “A”. The part of him that is desperate to fix things throughre-living events the way they should have gone.

So the intersection of two characters create a situation where the mom’s tired, resentful, self-pitycollides with the kid’s desperation to fix things through making everythingright again. Pieces of the core event “near” the intersection also havea bearing on the event in a lesser way. If it's the mom’s anger that her husband left her, itmight translate into fear a dog will cause her son to die. If it's the son’sguilt over wanting a dog in the first place, it might translate into anger thathis mother is trying to stop him from fixing things.

It’s still recognizableas the original plot. Boy wants dog. But colliding core events have now“created” a story event, AND fleshed it out with emotions and secondaryemotions.

The intersection of two characters with core events,creates organic plot.

Next: More on contingent causation and three dimensional thinking

Running in the Dark: Organic Structure for Character-driven stories Part 2 (core events as part of the transformational arc)

2011-12-26T20:39:00.000-08:00

I'm always doing a lot of work on core events, the transformational character arc and a bunchof misc. stuff and things that I really think fit into this workshop, and the great thingis that it makes the big puzzle I’m assembling come into focus. If you read my blog, this is part of my post onconscious and subconscious motivation--tweaked for the workshop--which is just another way of describinga layered core event.

As part of retiring this workshop (and putting everything in one spot) I want to keep it with the rest of organic structure so I'm not cutting it out and putting in a link, because I don't see a point to messing up the flow. Core events, like everything that happens in life, havelayers and implications. People are people, even if they’re created by someone else—and preferto think about things that don’t emotionally hurt them. If Mercedes left the front door unlocked,there’s no way she’s going to think, “Oh my God! It’s all my fault,” whenthere’s a perfectly useful villain around, “It’s all his fault. All the state’s fault. If they hadn’t releasedthe villain from jail…”

Her conscious thoughts and drive would focus on rescuing hersisters because she’s their protector. They love her and she loves them.

Her unconscious motivation would be the sneaking suspicionthat she forgot to lock the front door and a huge, horrible load of guilt. Shewants to fix things and make them right, something that can also halfway syncinto her conscious motivation because she really “does” want to rescue hersisters. The thing is, subconsciously, she’s not just looking for her sisters, she’s looking for redemption becauseof something “she” did, because of self-hate.

Conscious andSubconscious Motivation in a Core Event

In one of your blog postsyou said something about making the character's external goal a symbol of theirinner motivation (inner need) In the example you posted, you had a boy fightingfor a cat (his external goal) because to him this cat represented the feelingof self-worth he got from his grandmother (who had a cat.)

love this post. One of my favorites.

I love the idea of linking the characters external goal and inner need, andusing that need to drive not just the external goal, but all the character'sdecisions actions. But in some romance novels the character's external goalseems to take them right away from fulfilling their inner need eg the hero'sunconscious inner need is for a close loving family, but his external goal isto take a job travelling from place to place and avoiding all emotionalentanglements.
I can't work out what is driving the character in a case like this. (apart fromfear ) The character's core need is a loving family . (He won't admit it anddoesn't even realise it, but this is the only thing that will make him trulyhappy) but he's acting as if his need is escape.

This is actually two questions, one that deals with layering thetransformational arc and another that deals with core events.

What do we know about this guy? (let's call him John)

*John needs a loving family to make him happy.
*But what John really wants and is actively pursuing is a wandering-man kind ofjob where he can keep all his emotional entanglements shallow.

Lots of people know what’ll make them happy so why does John have thisdisconnect?

Depending on the sub-genre, and the kind of person John is, it can be all kindsof things so...let’s say this is a straight-up contemporary and give him somebackground. John grew up with a loving, wonderful family. His mom and dadfinally took off last year RVing around the country. He has a brother namedCal, a great sister-in-law and a niece who just turned eight. He's welladjusted, stable and ten years into a job at the hospital where he’s ananesthesiologist--rock-solid, right up until the day he decides to go wintercamping with his brother and sister-in-law.

Because of a faulty GPS they end up in a ditch. Cal and his wife die inscreaming agony while their little girl and John are trapped—unable to doanything but watch. By the time they’re found, the kid is all but catatonic.John’s parents can’t cope with Cal’s death, and there’s this girl—once theapple of their eye—who just sits there.

John is carrying huge survivor’s guilt—not helped by the fact his mom blameshim for Cal’s death. If you’d been the one driving, if you’d pointed out theroad, if you’d been able to tear free and get everyone out of the car…Nevermind he was trapped in the wreckage.

Flash forward eight months. His mom and dad put the kid in a nursing home,leave for Arizona, and John has issues. His parents can’t stand the sight ofhim, he’s in serious emotional pain and he’s got crippling guilt. If there’sone thing he knows, it’s that he should have died instead of Cal.

…in some romance novels the character's external goal seems to take themright away from fulfilling their inner need eg the hero's unconscious innerneed is for a close loving family, but his external goal is to take a jobtravelling from place to place and avoiding all emotional entanglements.

John “wants” to run, can you doubt it? His parents hate him, his niece is avisible reminder of his failure, his beloved brother is gone—and it’s all hisfault. He’s in pain. And when people are hurting, they try to avoid the sourceof that pain—which in John’s case is his family.

I can't work out what is driving the character in a case like this. (apartfrom fear ) The character's core need is a loving family . (He won't admit itand doesn't even realise it, but this is the only thing that will make himtruly happy) but he's acting as if his need is escape.

He’s afraid to love, because love got him into this mess. No one can hurt youlike a loved one. John loved his brother, but Cal died, he loved his mom andshe rejected him. His niece is catatonic and with every passing day, John slipsdeeper into a downward spiral.

He doesn’t “want” a family, what he really wants is to get the hell outof Dodge.

People are enormously complex and have lots of motivations, many of which goback to a trigger or core event. If Cal hadn’t died, there would be no story—ifJohn’s mom hadn’t done an Ordinary People on him, John wouldn’t be somessed up.

Deep down, John needs someone—a family or just the heroine—to accept him andgive him the space to heal. It wasn’t his fault, but when the people who saythey love you turn their backs on you, you don’t think logically. Right nowJohn equates love with betrayal. He’s afraid of opening himself up to lovebecause he’s in pain, angry at being betrayed by his parents, angry at himselffor not being able to help his brother. Angry because he knows there wasnothing he could do and guilty because deep down he knows he should havebeen able to do something. He’s not just running from the situation, he’srunning from himself.

By the end of the story he'll realise what he needs to make him happy, butin planning my story do I make him motivated by escape -- or by family (histrue need) ? Or maybe I should have him driven by escape until the midpoint,but then he begins to veer towards his true need (a loving family. )

It’s not that easy, and that’s the trouble with character-driven stories.They’re hard to plot because motivation isn’t always linear. John has issuesonly he can take care of. So it’s probably better to say his motivations are ina process of push and pull.

Internal conflict. Although the trouble with internal conflict is that it’s often subconscious.The John Cal's death has turned him into versus the John who can accept loveand become the person he was meant to be.

Which means this…

…the idea of linking the characters external goal and inner need, and usingthat need to drive not just the external goal, but all the character'sdecisions actions.

...needs to be more complex.

The kid and his cat are a fairly simple way to link external goal and innerneeds, because the kid has a single motivation and there are only two layers.The kid’s external goal—getting a cat, and his inner need—the self-worthrepresented by the cat.

Just like the kid, John’s external goal and inner need are in sync. He wants toget away because he wants to stop the pain. Everything he does flows out ofthat. But he also has stuff going on that he doesn’t know about—asubconscious need for love and family complicated by the fallout of his issues,which is cool because you want your people to be multi-dimensional but thetrouble is—how to show it?

By giving him a goal that represents his subconscious need.

Think one layer down. Not something that represents his inner need—which is tostop the pain, but his subconscious need, which is for love and family.

In short, he needs his niece to get better.

Remember her? In a coma, totally unresponsive—locked away by the people whoshould have loved her? John loves her too, and visits every week. He can’t doanything for her—but he desperately “wants” her to get better.

She’s the symbol of everything he lost and everything he can gain. Her recoveryis a visible manifestation of his transformational arc. And that’s what thisquestion was all about—how to show John’s arc.

John was never motivated to actively seek a loving family, because through theentire book his motivation was always to get away. It’s through the process ofcoming to know and care for that family (or heroine) that he changes enough tostart the healing process, accept and return love--and at that point, the endof the book, his motivation finally changes to actively pursuing his subconsciousneed because it's no longer subconscious.

When pt. A on thecharacter arc is your character’s core event

You already “know” character arcs. You see them all aroundyou—in stories, in movies, in everyday life.

There are upward driving arcs, downward driving arcs andstatic characters.

People change through positive steps—on a macro-level, because the nitty-gritty of a story can include negative stuff.
People change through negative, self-destructive steps.
Or they don’t change at all for the duration of the story.

Everything more specific is a variation.

When you know the beginning truth of a character and his orher end state, you pretty much know what needs to happen in the story itself.In other words, need dictates shape. You can’t show change if the right storyevents aren’t there, regardless of whether those events happen in the firsthalf so your person can change in order to do something, or come slowly, so theresolution of that change is the climactic moment.

I know that sounds pretty pat—so what I’d like you to do isthink about your protagonist, or the person in your story with the biggest,most visible arc. Let’s call him John.

Back when I first started writing my characters sprangfull-blown from my brain and jumped on the page. I’d start writing and littleby little, John would start warping—a little this way, a little that. Theneverything would go flat, and it’d be me pushing this guy around telling him to do stuff because the story needed him tobe a certain way at a certain time.

Every story has a starting point. And for those peoplewho’ve taken my core events workshop, or seen my videos—this next part willsound a little familiar, because Pt. A—for the purposes of a transformationalarc is your character’s core event.The psychological reason your character reacts, consciously or subconsciouslyto story events in a given way. In other words, it’s your character’s truth forthat particular story.

The reason John wouldgo flat was because I didn’t know him.

I simply said, “He’s got issues,” without stopping to thinkwhat his issues were, where they came from and how they drove his arc. Knowing a core event or your character’s pt. A keeps yourprotagonist on track.

Suppose I say John has issues, but what I really mean isJohn is a “dark and dangerous” type. Good for rescuing fair maidens, SpecialForces/SEAL stories, and regency rakes.

His arc is to change from being a dark and dangerous typeinto being a loving open person, capable of connecting with the heroine—whichisn’t very specific. Instead of giving John a pt. A, I gave him a type.

Or, maybe I said John’s issue is that he’s closed off anddoesn’t trust women. And I want him to open up and become a loving personcapable of connecting with the heroine. Which is better, but I still have no particulars. I can“see” John, all dark and dangerous, closed off and untrusting, and I’m guessinghis motivation is whatever I need to have happen in the plot.

Maybe it’s a historical regency and John wants to save hisancestral home—the one gambled away by his father. He goes off to India to makehis fortune and returns only to find the man who won the property sold it to awoman (the heroine) who wants to use it as an orphanage.

Now I paste in:

His arc is to changefrom being a dark and dangerous type into being a loving open person, capableof connecting with the heroine.

And add:

he’s closed off anddoesn’t trust women

This is what I knowabout John and assume to be the starting point on his arc—that and the factthat somewhere between what I know and the end of the book John changes from whatI know, into a loving, open person capable of connecting with the heroine.

In other words, there’s a big gray foggy area where the arcshould be. Percentiles and turning points don’t matter. What reallymatters is that I have no clue how to get John to the end of the story,although I might have a couple of scenes I want to use—a big scintillatingballroom scene, a John’s dad living with poor relations so John can “rescue”him scene, and a scene where John watches the heroine taking an ill child beggarfrom the streets back to his old family home where the kid recovers and turnsinto the requisite cute-kid complete with dog and lisp.

With the other stuff I know about craft of writing, maybe Iwant to start with the action and have John find out about the sale of his home(in recent backstory) and have John rush to confront the heroine, only to seeher…

…rescue an ill childbeggar from the streets and take him back to John’s old family home where thekid recovers and turns into the requisite cute-kid complete with dog and lisp.

That’s good, right?

John’s a closed off jerk. He watches the heroine dosomething guaranteed to soften him a little because everyone loves little kids.He confronts the heroine, they argue, he feels something for her andstarts/wants to change.

Which don’t get me wrong—does work, it’s simply stronger ifpt. A drives a strong transformational arc.

Which means once you know what’s going on with John you needto ask “why?” Why is Johnclosed-off and why doesn’t he trustwomen?

Maybe John’s dad really loved his mother, but she had onlymarried him because he was rich. And one day, after cuckolding her husband foryears, she left with a Frenchman.

Which leads to thequestion; how can this one event drive the entire character arc/story?

Because this one moment in time—the day John’s mom left—was the day John “knew” women weren’t to betrusted and closed himself off.

Like most kids, John loved his mom and got some kind ofaffection in return. He also got to watch his mom betray his dad, over and overagain—which as a kid probably didn’t bother him since it was his norm. It’sonly as he grows older that he begins to wonder, and then—his mom leaves with ahot French guy.

As an only child he’s invested in his mom—maybe his dadisn’t the most touchie-feelie man in the world—and when she leaves, it’s abetrayal and rejection. That sense of betrayal, loss and rejection, coupledwith the knowledge he has about his mom crystallizes in one white-hot moment andlocks into place.

Women “will” betrayyou. Women aren’t to be trusted. Opening yourself up to someone means openingyourself up to pain.

It’s John’s pt. A

It doesn’t happen in the story (in real-time, although it can in flashbacks because it's backstory) and he’s probably repressingit big-time, but the fallout from that one particular event still drives him.

There are so many implications, and probabilities, andattitudes surrounding it, it’s like a comet collecting a debris field.

John’s dad really loved his wife and was devastated. Hestarted gambling.

John refuses all the women his dad pushes at him, becausewomen aren’t to be trusted.

The heroine (let’s call her Jane) is half-French, and Johnhates the French because his mom left with a Frenchman.

John suspects Jane is after his money, because his momused his dad.

He’s not going to be feeling a whole lot of “something”toward Jane right off the bat because of his issues.

Which means to get from pt. A to pt. B, John has to realizenot all women are like his mother, get over his hatred of the French and trustJane not to use him—a much more John-specific goal for his arc.

Do you see your protagonist’s core event? What is it? Is itlayered, or the beginning of a visible arc? Can you see the end of the arc, orthe implications flowing from a core event that turn into story drivers?

Running in the Dark: organic structure for character-driven stories

2011-12-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I wrote this--which, lol, I thought was the hottest thing going since sliced bread. Nowadays, I kind of look at it as old-school, but it's also an important part of organic structure.

Core events. Point A on the transformational character arc. The lens for exploring and focus in your story, and probably stuff that I haven't thought of yet. I use it for just about everything, including figuring out how people tick, deconstructing stories, and getting things back on track.

---

Some people think “organic writing” is another word forpantsing. Other people think it simply means growing your story. Structure is important, but there are many kinds ofstructure and one size doesn’t fit all.

Organic writing > writing from inside your characters.

Organic writing > writing from inside your characters> character-driven stories. In organic writing, characters drive stories. Although to be fair, this can also work for purelyplot-driven stories too. The needsof a plot drive stories in an organic way, so in some ways, it might also be called “structure for pantsers” or “pantsing for plotters”. And to understand that, let’s talk about what character-driven“isn’t."

In a story driven primarily by plot, characters areinterchangeable, and I’m not trying to say plot-driven stories are bad, simplythat they’re “different” from character-driven stories because of the focus. Archetypes work well in plot-driven stories becausethey're a listing of character traits that tend to go together, sort of like ifI said, "I'm a mom" rather than, "I'm a chubby middle-agedbirdwatcher with a fixation on church steeples and pickled carrots." General versusspecific.

Organic writing, and I’m using the term to mean“character-driven organic writing” for this workshop, is specific to yourcharacters. Characters and plot in organic structure can't betaken out and used somewhere else because "those" charactersproduce "this" plot.

If I take John, my multipurpose example-guy, out of hisstory, there's no way I can replace him with someone else, because if I do thestory changes. A well-thought out, multi-dimensional character in a character-drivenstory can't be removed without damage.

In a plot-driven story, the story events drive thecharacters--so if I remove John and insert Rob, a twenty year old with acne anda brand new truck, his "Rob-ness" doesn't matter. What does matter isthe "weight" of the plot. To carry Rob, the plot would have to override personaldetails.

For an example,let’s talk about First Blood and the Rambo series.

First Blood,for those who haven’t seen it, is the first Rambo movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Blood

Loosely based onthe David Morrell book of the same name, it’s the psychological study of aVietnam vet.

In the movie, Rambo is a drifter. Everything that happens inFirst Blood builds on both hisbackstory and who he is because of that backstory. When he headsup into the mountains and does his whole poncho-survivalist thing, it'sunderstandable because he was Special Forces.

All actions are based on who he is, whathe did, what he became, andwhat's happening to him because of that.Because he was Special Forces he did "this", which produced that reaction, which wastriggered by something in his past. Circles in circles, unlike the more linearstructure of a plot.

Organic structure is a bull’s-eye of concentric rings, eachspreading out like ripples from a central character. An organic plot happens when the rings ofone character hit the rings of another character. brief note here--

this was my first workshop, is still my favorite, and something I'm constantly evolving. For most purposes, this is still a good analogy.

While the first Rambo movie is character-driven, the later"Rambo" movies are plot-driven. Although Rambo is still at the centerof each movie, he could easily be replaced by Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal.

…keeping that in mind…

---A little bitabout psychology, the environment your characters grew up in and how to usecore events to create the people you want, or understand the people you alreadyhave.

People live in context, and are a result of the choicesthey've made, the way they grew up and what they've done with their lives. Inother words, people are "me-centric". We have our own point of viewand the world exists--for us--through ourpoint of view.

Ie.

The only-child-college-kid in an upper middle classhousehold might view the world as her oyster. Daddy bought her a Miata for highschool graduation, she's going to University, has good clothes and greathealth--her teeth are white and straight, she's got a nice haircut, and forspring break she's touring Greece (taking it as a given she'swell-adjusted).

"I love life!” she tells people. “Life has always beengood to me. I have no worries and my swim team is going to London thissummer."

But if you take that same nineteen year old and put her indifferent context, the world changes because her focus shifts.

This kidgrew up in a single parent working class household; she shares her room withtwo sisters. They have bunk beds and she has a twin. Her grades were badbecause she worked the night shift at McDonald's to help her mom out, and she'stired all the time. Sometimes she thinks of going to community college, butsomehow she fell through the cracks.

"I wish I'd neverbeen born. My mom works all the time, and I'm tired of taking care of mysisters. People laugh at me because my teeth are crooked and I work atMcDonald's. The first thing I'm going to do when I win the lottery is getbraces."

The same sun rises in the same sky when each kid gets out ofbed, but for one kid, each day has unlimited potential. She gets up, thinksabout eating and decides against it because she's trying to stay a size 3. Theother kid pulls her uniform from the shower rod, makes a face because it smellslike mildew and decides against eating because if she does, there won’t beenough for her sisters.

They were both born with the same basic equipment in thesame way each character starts out as a blank page, but the girl touring theGreek Islands isn't the girl getting written up for a dirty uniform. Thechoices you make about "who" your character is influence"how" they act.

Did you think the rich kid buys lottery tickets? A milliondollars doesn't buy much. But the kid with one discretionary dollar knows amillion dollars isn't “just” a million dollars--it's toys for her sisters, acar for her mom, an end to baby-sitting and a kind of freedom the other kiddoesn't know she has.

Knowing your character's social status in relation tothe world they inhabit is a necessity.

It's the most important of the character building blocksbecause from social background you also get physical and emotional buildingblocks. Each block leans against the other.

The physicalappearance of your character is a combination of genetics and life-choices,both of your character and his/her parents. Let's go back toMercedes. Mercedes is the poor kid who works at McDonalds.

She grew up poor, which brings us to her appearance--maybeshe slouches and gives people angry sidelong looks. Maybe she has acne from agreasy diet and burns from cleaning the fryers. Her hands are rough and hernails are broken. Maybe she wears Medicaid glasses, the big ones with the largeplastic frames, and her cousin Stefani’s hand-me-down clothes, too big or toosmall.

Back before she was born, her parents were poor and I’m notgoing to get into a far-reaching discussion of genetics, it’s enough to say hermom was a teenager when Mercedes was born and Mercedes’ dad wanted nothing todo with a baby and couldn’t pay child support.

Mercedes could have tried to escape by joining a gang ortrying to sleep her way out, but I want “this”Mercedes, the one who works at McDonalds. To get that Mercedes I need to “see”her core events. What made this girl the person she is now?

Something has to hold her at McDonalds and because she’sgoing to be my heroine, I’m going to make her sisters nine year-old twins. Sheloves those little girls and because she loves them, she’ll do anything she canto make sure they have enough to eat and things to wear. If she was a secondaryand just had a minor role, I might have used an alcoholic mother to point upwhat a nice person Mercedes is under her worker-drone exterior, but since she’smy heroine, I want to layer in her anger and give her depth.

So I’ll make her mom a good woman, trying to survive in abad situation. Her skills aren’t valuable, her rent is barely covered bysection 8 and she has food stamps which she’ll lose if her income goes over acertain amount.

Mercedes isn’t stupid. She knows her mother is trying. Shewatches her mom every day, tired and worn-out just like Mercedes. It feelswrong to hate her mother, but Mercedes, like a lot of people, can’t shut downher anger and resentment.

---now let’s fleshher core story event.

And in this instant we can work our story backward orforward. By that I mean, “What do you want Mercedes to do in this particularstory?” or “Would you rather create Mercedes first and then figure out whatshe’s going to do?”

Both are legitimate ways to get to the same point.

Say this story is purely character driven in that I don’tknow what’s going to happen. I want to wait and see.

And if there’s one thing I want you to take away from thisclass, it’s that you can’t create a real person. No one can. Real people are like an Old Masters painting. In ourstories, we create Impressionist paintings of people. We draw them in piecesusing the important parts, so when you step back, you see the whole. In an OldMaster, no matter if you’re close or far, an eye looks like an eye.

In an Impressionist painting, if you get up real close, aneye is a series of small brush-strokes that look like a collage. When you stepaway and look at it from a distance, it looks like an eye. For some stories or in secondary characters, linedrawings work because although not everything is there, the whole isrecognizable and we need less of them.

Let’s say in this story I plan on kidnapping Mercedessisters since that would hurt her most. Mercedes has to have a core event that A) focuses on hersisters and B) will not let her back down short of death.

---quick point?

Core events are backstory. One focal point where everything crystallizes. While you can (if youwant) show them in flashback, or refer to them, they’re like the green beans ina casserole. They need to be there for the dish to be “green bean” casserole,but you pretty much just see the fried onions and mushroom soup—the signatureof a green bean casserole.

If you spoon into a green bean casserole, you’re going tosee green beans. Every spoonful of casserole has green beans and echoes of thecore event in it, mixed in with the soup and fried onions in the same way thatyour character--who they are, what they are, and because of that, what they’llpotentially do--is an integral part of your story. By itself, a green bean isjust a green bean, but “together” with other ingredients, it becomes acasserole-person. You don’t need to show a core event for it to be thedriving force behind your story. You just need to know it’s there, and it’llreveal itself as you write.

And you can simply say, “I’m going to kidnap Mercedessisters and she’s going after them.” And maybe get, “well, she’s also poor” and“I want her to have acne.”

But thinking Mercedes through makes each layer of hercharacter interconnect. She’s poor, she’ll dress like this. She eats a lot of fastfood, she’ll have greasy hair. She has acne on her forehead because of herhair, her mother makes her angry, but she can’t do anything about it, so herfacial expression is like “this” a little sour. So when you get stuck,say—maybe you have her riding in the car with the hero and he glances over ather, description, conversation and situation are all laid out.

Ie?

He’s driving along, glances over at Mercedes. Her greasylank hair falls in her eyes, hard to see behind the horrible windshield-styleglasses. (Description of her physicalperson)

Her arms are folded and locked across her chest (let’s throwsome body language in there) and she’s putting off anger like a perfume. (Emotional state)

Because anger usually responds to anger (and knowing her background) he says,“This isn’t McDonalds and you can’t get your sisters out of dry storage.”

She gives him an angry, sidelong look (because I’ve alreadyestablished that as one of her mannerisms based on how she feels about her lifesituation) and says, “I know.”

Because based on her background, method of earning money (asolitary job versus a social job) and decision to be there for her littlesisters, she probably has little social life, or skills, so it’s highlyunlikely she’s going to go off into a beautiful monologue or engage the hero inidle chit-chat.

So let’s do her core event. The day everything she felt forher sister crystallized in one hot, shining instant.

---when Mercedes was thirteen and her sisters were four, hermom was working. Mercedes was watching her little sisters. Angry because shedidn’t “want” little sisters, she hasn’t been a good big sister. She puts themto bed and falls asleep on the living room sofa. BUT, she’s also beenexperimenting with cigarettes and falls asleep with a lit cigarette. The sofacatches on fire and her sisters wake up at the smell of smoke. They race towake her up. They get out, but the house burns. They made the consciousdecision to wake her up because she was important to them. Unfortunately, theirtabby cat, precious stuffed animals and blankies burn.

Her realization that her sisters sacrificed what theyloved to save her—who they also loved, changed Mercedes. That one crystal pureinstant--visuals, emotions, smells, sounds, everything, all at once,that locks into place is called "flashbulbmemory."

Mercedes got a close up, firsthand look at love (when her sisters stumbledthrough the smoke and fire to save her) and pain (because by then the house wasburning and she couldn’t go back in to save their cat and animals) and theconsequences of her actions.

Out of this one core event, Mercedes develops thedetermination to save her little sisters from pain, a hugely developed sense ofresponsibility and let’s herself admit she loves them in return. To further develop the story, I can also make herterrified of fire and have a hard time sleeping unless she checks the house tomake sure there are no fire hazards and everyone is safe. Some core events have more impact because of flashbulbmemory. Flashbulb memory creates a stronger impact in a shorter time.

Does your protagonist have a core event? What is it, and how does it drive your story?

It's been a long while between writing posts

2011-12-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Over the last eight years, as I've been learning to write--not that I hadn't written, just that I wasn't very good at it--and working through personal issues, what really bothers me is coming up against the limits of what I can and can't do. I read this phrase once, "sheer, unsupported will" and it's stuck with me, since it pretty much describes everything I do. I don't sleep, I eat too much, snarf down fatty foods and salt, drink too much caffeine, work too hard, ignore my circadian rhythms, ignore everything I don't want to think about in regards to my health, and usually have a mullet, since I hate wasting the time it takes to get a haircut. I've been a little sick recently--okay, a lot sick. Lingering on and off, coming back when I don't want it to. My doctor wanted to send me to emergency since I have crazy blood pressure--a legacy of growing up in Hawaii and moving to the South. The thing is--the blood pressure meds I've looked at have side effects and I have this compulsive need to read the warnings. Causes dizziness, impaired motor function, drowsiness, might cause impaired mental functions, will cause tiredness, and the blahs, and...

...don't drive, operate machinery, expect to do anything, or think, lol.

It's a life-long commitment. It's not a one pill will cure everything kind of deal. And I just couldn't deal with it. I don't want to be a tired, rundown, mentally lacking person with impaired motor function and...my God! What would I do?

I never thought I'd get into homeopathic stuff, but yeah--even I'll acknowledge that I'm tighter than a cork in a bottle. I'm walking more, eating less, cutting back (slowly) on the salt and meditating. I like qigong, but it's fighting an even odds battle with my type A personality. Anything to stay away from pills.

I've been on again and off again since August, and recently started getting a grip (fewer headaches). The last workshop probably had a lot to do with it. Maybe why I never noticed until two weeks ago that I've been writing non-fiction like I'm on a deadline, but I haven't archived anything on my blog in months.

I did 35 pages and three powerpoints two weeks ago, and I like to think that's pretty good for five days.

I'm getting ready to retire organic structure and I want to archive it on my blog. An impromptu workshop? lol. If you feel the urge, drop in and out, maybe we can talk about how Mercedes has grown from my earlier posts on organic structure. Do a little bit on core events. Maybe talk about the arc and plot points.

I live in a...pretty nice place

2011-12-14T18:44:00.000-08:00

The first time I ever drove through my town, a cop trailed me down the street and back out again. Having never lived in a small town, I totally freaked; I liked the scenery though. This place is pure eye candy each and every time I drive the incredibly long commute back and forth to work. Rainier on the horizon or not, clouds in weird geometric shapes like they've been photoshopped, the Cascades in real close, full-on color behind me and in front of me and stretching as far as the eye can see.

My kid tells me we live in the Cascade lowlands, which I didn't know. I thought we lived in the foothills. Maybe that's why it's so cold up here.

There are some drawbacks--I hate allergy season. And the smell of cow pies is overwhelming when it's not cold enough to keep it down. But I've gotten used to the cops, and once they realized I lived here, they leave me alone even when I roll into town at midnight. It's a nice place to live--like a time warp where you can step into and out of the seventies, and little kids still ride around exploring, people go to the library, every obeys the speed limit and the entire town ends up at Homecoming and the Christmas parade, which is not called the Holiday parade.

Today, I was working on my workshop when there were sirens and flashing lights outside my window. There was a fire nearby about a month ago and I ran to the window, expecting the worse.

Turns out it was the entire fire department, all decked out in holiday gear, complete with Santa Claus on a throne on top of the fire truck, caroling and handing out candy to any kid who went outside. I can still hear them off in the distance. I think they're covering the entire town.

God, I love this place. The drive is worth it.

December workshop on plot analysis

2011-11-26T01:34:00.001-08:00

I'm getting ready to move some preliminary groundwork over to a yahoo group, although the workshop won't happen until January. Back when I first posted the page I thought a longer format would work, but after doing two weeks during short story structure, I've come to the conclusion I'm not really about a month long course. If I can't keep my enthusiasm for two weeks, there's no way I can do four.

One week, in the middle of January. (date to be announced) Come when you can, participate or just lurk. No structured homework unless you want to do it, although I'll hand it out as an option.

Story structures, why they work, how to "see" them. Various bits of structure that kind of spin it around a little--prologues, bookends and stuff. Plot points, how to understand and use them. Invisible words and events, and what needs to be there and what is probably optional. And most of all--how to understand and work with voice and intent. Story-doctoring 101. Totally free. There might be openings if I can't get in touch with the people listed below.

Drop me an email so I know you're coming (or lurking or just picking up the handouts) jodihenley @ gmail.com

1. Kaige (confirmed)
2. Kathryn (confirmed)
3. Clothdragon (confirmed)
4. Eva (confirmed)
5. Hailey (confirmed)
6. cmtorrens(confirmed)
7. Jeannene(confirmed)
8. Sasha (confirmed)
9. Skylar
10. Julie D. (confirmed)
11. Deanna (confirmed)
12. Janet (confirmed)
13. Vicky Gresham (confirmed)
14. Orion Lyonesse (confirmed)
15. Alison Packard (confirmed)

Alright. Registration is closed. Thank you for your interest.

Sideways rain and a little bit of time

2011-11-22T00:32:00.001-08:00

It's been a long while, a phrase I feel like getting engraved on a stamp or something. Much as I love my blog--and I've backed it up numerous times since I never want to lose it--there are months when I just really don't want to talk about anything, and other months when I have consulting gigs and workshops scheduled too close together. I can only handle so many one hour nights before I do an entire week face down on a pillow, and a non-talking month and a workshop month one after the other makes it look like I died or something. And it's strange, but I let go of my domain name, and for some reason a massage person bought it. Very weird. I'm guessing they're also named Jodi Henley. I mean, why buy a named domain if that isn't your name? I tried checking their "about me" but maybe they want to keep it quiet since whoever runs it calls themselves massage admin. It's almost as strange as finding out every other Jodi Henley in the world has blonde hair, which is just strange in itself.

I'm reworking the content of my workshops. Not that I don't love the material, it's just that I get so many repeats I feel guilty talking about the same things. Craft is interconnected so I'm often using stuff from one workshop in aspects of another, or maybe it's just the way I view things, I don't know. But it feels like a cheat and I don't like the feeling. I do most of my "thinking" in the deconstructions, so I plan on doing Dune sometime next year. I could use a little thought on epic structure, multiple threads and...lol, yeah. More about arcs. It's strange. I spent so much time studying arcs and figuring out how they work I never thought a workshop on them would turn into my most popular offering, but anyway. One thing I've noticed over the last couple of months (after doing Emotional Structure) is how hard it is for people to put emotional components in their work. I suspect a lot of it has to do with not wanting to get all manipulative.

I've been tired and a little depressed. Maybe it's just Seattle. We're headed into winter and it's been gray, rainy and windy. The wind is blowing outside and whipping the rain sideways--a good thing since it cleans my windows.

Funny how I always give people advice about what to talk about on their blogs--their interests, mostly. Knitting, animals, cooking. And I have nothing to talk about but craft since that's my passion. I have a little time off at the end of the week. My kid already informed me I'd be crazy to do Black Friday and she's right, I'd rather do my shopping on-line, so I plan on puttering around in "Velma" and doing another post on practical emotional structure. Maybe work up a powerpoint or something and mess with my next video on lol--the transformational arc.

Is it always there when you want it?

2011-10-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

...or am I just variously blind? A little of both, I suspect.

I've been working on my new workshop, or rather--a new take on the first workshop I ever did, way back in 2008, when everyone thought I was more than a little crazy and stayed away because it might be contagious. Totally in-person, way not-fun and totally not what people were expecting. The last in-person workshop I did was way better, although I have the feeling I still wasn't what people were expecting, lol. Admittedly, a year ago now--maybe it's time to take my show on the road. I dunno. Something to think about.

I suspect the emotional structure workshop is going to be one of my favorites, since it seems to be a missing piece of core events. Organic structure/core events > the transformational arc > and emotional structure. Whatever happens, at least I'll have more material for my tome.

Recently, I was talking to Vicky Gresham, one of the people (like meham), I'm going to blame for my ever-growing obsession with powerpoints. We were troubleshooting the structure of the short story workshop--God, it's nice to have a sounding board--and she started talking about powerpoints. She's got a good, level head on her shoulders and it helped anchor my randomness. She brought up a brainstorming idea that I love, but that would take way too long as a traditional workshop because not content with being random, I've also got a short attention span.

While I messed around, thinking of A) ways to shrink it and B) where to put it, I stumbled across an answer to a question that'd bothered me for years--how people put downloads on their blogs. I figured it was a wordpress thing. But it turns out for blogger, it's a google docs thing. I uploaded the powerpoint I did for Running in the Dark, and I hope it works.

Free to anyone who wants it, as long as you give me credit ( 'cause I'm still growing the material) and maybe say something nice if it helps you, lol. I'm pretty proud of it. Oops, had to rework the link. Apparently I uploaded as a google doc format when I wanted it to remain a powerpoint. It's fixed now and looks better, but to get the animations to run you're going to need to download it and run it as a slideshow.

A visit to the Pie Goddess

2011-09-23T01:30:00.000-07:00

okay, I admit it. I like to Yelp, and review things that get an "opinion" from me. Sometimes bad, sometimes good. According to my distribution chart, I like maybe a third of the places I visit with the rest broken up into hates and meh. Not that I'm picky, lol.

I'd been meaning to head on over to Legendary Donuts in Lake Tapps, but it's a good long drive and a new shop opened up close to me--the Pie Goddess. My God. This woman can cook. I'd been reading reviews for her stuff back when she used to operate out of a shared kitchen with some Italian place.

I never got around to eating at the restaurant, but as soon as I saw her logo go up in a small storefront, I was so there. Nice woman, beautiful pies. No coffee drinks (a rarity for Seattle), no extras, just two cases full of pie and only pie. They let me split a whole pie into a sampler, and the woman waiting on me had the patience of a saint. She'd been doing a sampler as I walked in and then someone else walked in as mine was being made and...I guess that's a good thing, because all of us had big, wide smiles. Lot of good feelings in that store.

I had the lemon cream, banana cream, coconut cream, chocolate chip, mixed berry, apple, sour cream apple, peanut butter cream and pecan, and yes--I was a pig, but a happy pig. The mixed berry was great! Tart, like a real pie, beautiful flaky crust. I was in awe. Better yet, I got pictures.

If you bring in your own garden fresh fruit, they'll make a pie out of it, and the woman told me just recently a man brought in a bag of blackberries (blackberries are a huge nuisance here) and they made blackberry dumplings for him. Small town living, got to love it. I understand they're already taking reservations for holiday pies. I can see why.

Picking up the pieces...

2011-09-19T00:13:00.000-07:00

I've been AWOL for the last few weeks, tying up odds and ends, getting ready to go back to school--wondering if I'll need brakes before winter sets in. It's been snowing up in the mountains. I guess I missed my chance to see Rainier. The air has that peculiar NW smell--moist like it's going to rain any second but not in one of those muggy Southern ways where you just want to crawl into some A/C and shut the door. Cold and wet. Like standing in front of the refrigerator when it's hot outside. Funny how it was ninety not more than a few days ago.

I had some family issues and personal issues, and no clue why everything always seems to happen at the same time, but it had a huge impact on my last workshop. Probably the strangest one I've ever done--on short story structure. It didn't have "umphf." Very weird, although I'm wondering if maybe asking people to write a short story during the workshop had something to do it? Justifying myself, lol. It's better than saying I didn't connect. It's strange though--like standing in a fishbowl. I've always liked it better when people talk to me. Or maybe it was the focus? I'm all about theory, and this was the practical application for stuff I've talked about for years. Interesting thought, since my practical stuff always happens during the deconstructions and they usually don't do as well as the workshops, and the workshops are theory...and, yeah--I can chase myself in circles if I don't stop. Next up is Emotional Structure--another theory workshop. If it does well, I need to take another look at why I got off tangent with the pragmatism, lol.

Ultimately, it's all about the book. Half formatted now, with an intro and everything. I suspect it's going to be the digital equivalent of a tome. Every workshop I've ever done, and all the blog posts and all the bits and pieces I have in folders. I've been poking around, looking at the enhanced e-books that include video and hyperlinks, wondering if I can fit in a power point or it'll have to be done as video. Or maybe just text to start and an enhanced version when I figure it all out. I dunno. Bunches of thoughts, and I don't want to finalize anything before I write the ES workshop. Short Story alone was 35 pages.

I need to spend some down time, and found the perfect "do-something" hobby. Donut shops. I know, kind of goofy, but I'm a big fan of apple fritters and chocolate-covered custard filled. A new donut shop opened up in Lake Tapps, and I'm so there. Anything billing itself as the Washington version of Voodoo Donuts needs a visit from yours truly. Maybe tomorrow.

Lots of thoughts like bubble tea

2011-08-31T22:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of bubble tea, but I like the way the tapioca balls bounce around in the juice. Sometimes you can see them, all squished up like fish-eyes in a jug and sometimes they all slosh away toward the other side. Thank God--I so swear, I'll never do two workshops at one time again, even with the whole week off. I've eaten more fast food than I can handle, and I was so jittery it's a wonder energy drinks didn't come out of my pores.

F1 was a success--probably because none of the other presenters noticed what it was about. I've got that whole stealth thing going on, you know? But for some reason this session felt less...joyous than February's Digicon. "That" was a head rush. I did something on short story structure--teach me right for basing a whole workshop on two paragraphs I'd said to someone a month before--which turned into a huge rolling party whereas F1 helped--I hope it helped, at least a little, and if nothing else, did no harm. There's always a downside to the mania.

I launched right into a couple of consulting gigs and--crashed. Whoa. My head hurts. I need some down time, maybe walking around the Mud Mountain dam or checking out that church in Tacoma. I haven't added to my church pictures for awhile. I did a highly personal look at the rest of the symposium before it leaves and there were a couple of things I enjoyed--some I didn't care for, and a couple I shook my head over. I kind of wonder about the woman with a ton of page views and only one interaction. So many lessons. So much information (all clearly organized and laid out. Very nice.). One person ventured in as the sacrificial goat "Go in," I'm sure they whispered. "Check her out."

I still remember the first time I ever went to an RWA conference. I rushed up to one of my favorite authors (bad case of fangirl-itis) and said, "I love your books! They're so cool." And she said, "There there, honey. If you keep trying, one day...you'll be just like me." Damn straight I went home and threw all her books out. I was offering a compliment, I wasn't asking for a pat on the head. Garlic, I think? Maybe the presenter had eaten aioli or something, because it sure chased away the other eighty-six lurkers. Or maybe it's the way the internet doesn't show a smile or a frown, and interprets words based on the way they're written.

Rules 1-10 of presenting a workshop. Check your tone. No one can see your face, they don't know if you're smirking, laughing or sitting around with a bowl of chips in your underwear. It's all about self-editing.

But anyway. Fall is coming. The air is very crisp and it's a good day for molasses cookies. Corn is coming in at the farm stands. I took a wrong turn coming back from I-5 and ended up in the Ortig valley. I'd never driven that road, and after the first startled, "hey! this looks wrong--" spent a little time checking out the mom and pop farms. Corn, pumpkin starts, tomatoes and okra. Big crisp radishes that I can only stand in dip. Flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. I suspect I might need to spend a little time on a bench somewhere, sunning myself before it turns cold.

The geek spirit is winding down

2011-08-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

okay, maybe that's a misleading title, I meant to say I'm tired. F1 is a workshop tick, and as I told meham, I'd expected it to hang there, limp and disgusting, while other more fabulous workshops glittered in the artificial light. But...now I have a strong suspicion that people are looking for answers--something I've always known, but not in such a personal overview-like sense.

A way to look at themselves and analyze what's holding them back, and if that means they've got to think about some of my very random thoughts on poking around down in their squishy parts--they're going to do it.

F1 is swelling like a blood-engorged tick, making me happy. Continuing to give me new realizations and thoughts I want to scribble in the margins. Can you separate the need for acceptance from accepting the wrong opinions? Is there a yardstick for opinions that work for you and don't? Why doesn't someone tell people that there are many paths to writing and each is equally valid?

I did an exercise yesterday. Because I didn't know how to explain it without sounding more than a little too academic and either randomly weird or condescending as hell, I just created a template and did about six evals on other workshops in relation to my learning style, my right or left-brained tendencies and my myer-briggs type.

It is probably the best exercise I've ever created. Four simple lines.

A Listingof Right-brained and Left-brained workshops with comments

Feelfree to add your own thoughts and "constructive" comments. Personal observations about how your writing processes worked with theworkshop. What you liked, what didn't work and what might work to make itconnect better.

Samplecrit template:

Title:

Left or rightbrain:

Strengths:

Weakness/constructive crit:

In my defense, it looks goofy because I've been averaging two hours of sleep for the last four days and it's looking like another 22 hour stretch of typing--okay, 21, I was going to say eat, but I can eat at the computer, do normal bodily functions is a more accurate thought. Since we're in a open workshop mode with thirty workshops running side-by-side, the template works as a focal tool.

By the second visit, and I had to hold the criteria in mind--be constructive, focus on "me" and apply "my" criteria (does it work?) in addition to seeing if it lines up with what I know about my learning style, I'd discovered I still have hot buttons.

Thought I'd gotten rid of those things.

And I have personal bias against things that either visually bug me, like I can't stand Gary Cooper. Or when the presenter holds a 180 opinion--I'm organic, for God's sake--I did a post on chaos theory! Okay...I see I still can't deal. I had to back out of that one quickly, although I like to think I covered all the bases on why it would work for a strongly left-brained person as a intro to character-building.

Enough brain stuck around for me to think about why I didn't like it. But I fell back into attack mode and there's no way I'm going to mess with someone's baby. Workshops are hard. It's not cool to go in and argue for the sake of arguing. I guess what I discovered is my writing issues are still there, and my hot buttons. I created my own system and processes to work-around my issues, and maybe that should be the last post.

You don't have to fix yourself. You can create a bridge.

The strange occurence of the Big Wheel in the night

2011-08-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

My kid is freaked out by shadows. I have that problem, too. Bad vision does something to moonlight when you take off your glasses. Knowing I'm a wuss I don't watch horror movies. My imagination supplies way too much backstory and all kinds of probable scenarios.

I was working last night--sitting near my window (it's 75 degrees here! My God it's hot!) sometime around 11.45 pm. It's dark, and the entire town rolls up the sidewalks at eight. Streetlights get fewer as you get away from the downtown core. The last time I had to walk somewhere, I was totally in the dark and I mean that literally. I only knew there was a sidewalk because I'd walked it before.

So this noise starts up....

...scree rattle squeal scre scree screee. Rumble. Over and over, rolling down the invisible sidewalk at 11.45 in total darkness. Scree scree rumble.

...and my brain supplies "red rum. red rum. scree!! RED RUM!" and I'm just about falling off my seat, no one else notices. The noise gets louder and louder, until it's right under my window, then it fades away.

Like the mom in Pet Cemetery who can't open the door, "knowing" something that looks like her son is on the other side. I don't need movies, I have books. But I really wish I hadn't read The Monkey's Paw.

Outward and upward

2011-08-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

...while that sounds like the title of some kind of inspirational post, it's actually not. It's the description for my last move. A couple of years back, I moved from Virginia to Washington. And like most people, found there's a big difference in visiting with your parent and living with them; I grabbed the first house I could find.

Beautiful place, lovely neighborhood, twenty miles from the Cascade foothills. I have this thing about trees. Living in a Virginian suburb for such a long time, trees were a rarity. Small trees, sure. Big trees? Not so much. There's a lot of development, and tiny little houses squished up to sprawling big houses. Lots of graffiti and places you know you shouldn't go to at night.

The day I woke up in my last place and discovered every fence in my neighborhood tagged was the day I knew I needed to move. I'd been thinking about it for awhile; every time I couldn't get out of my circle during the winter because the city only owned one snowplow. But graffiti? Nah.

I'd been driving through this one place, way up against the mountains, for years.

They stopped development years ago, and started "re" development. Lots of old Craftsmans, Victorian mansions, funky little fifties row houses and strange forties era "courts", one or two trailer parks and a couple of up-to-date suburbs that got in before they shut down. Huge police presence. Lots of state patrol. Forest rangers. Hobos are politely--ala First Blood--invited to leave. People obey the speed limit, children play outside, and it's beautiful--like a postcard.

It's also twenty miles from any kind of civilization, at the end of an uphill, narrow and potholed road, but I think they like it that way.

Practial Emotional Structure Part 2--Is everything in sync?

2011-08-15T02:14:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been working on emotional structure—something I've been interested in since Dunne's book—wow, has it beenfour years? It fascinated me, because it wasn't, and to an extent, still isn'tsomething people talk about. Writing was more about how to construct a neatlytied off plot and make sure my settings were layered with sensory detail. I still remember the old axiom—make sure you use all fivesenses, and the other even older ax, the character interview sheet. The ideathat there was a way to manipulate emotion startled me. Over theyears, I've moved away from Dunne's more structured approach, and settled into pre-thinking.

I've had Katy's backstory for a few weeks, saving it forwhen I had the chance to look at it. It's interesting, not just because it wentwhere I thought it'd go. While I understand Velma is a gently reared woman of goodbirth, there's still a disconnect between what happened, and understanding whatdrives her. She was sexually assaulted and traumatized to the extent her lifechanged course almost instantly. Everything she is and becomes, flows out of this one instant in time.

Let's take a look at the backstory *warning*while this isn't extremely graphic,it "is" graphic, and I'm going to drop some spaces to give anyone whomight be offended time to opt out.

The redhead nodded and a sudden flurry of black capesswirled and snapped as the other four men surrounded her, cutting off her viewof the door. Panic choked Velma as it became clear these were no truegentlemen.

Rough hands groped and pinched her as she was passed backand forth between them like a child's rag doll. Her limbs refused to cooperateand she stumbled. Surprise and shock paralyzed her voice making it impossibleto cry out.

After allowing his cronies a few minutes of rough play whilehe watched with a hungry gleam in his eyes, the redhead commanded, "Leaveus."

When the men retreated a couple steps, Velma tried to duckpast the leader, but he caught hold of her. His fingers clamped around herwrist like an iron band. She swallowed a yelp of pain when he squeezed tighter.

"Such a sweet sound. You'll stay with me." Heturned to the others and barked, "Go."

The man, she refused to call him a gentleman now, pushed herroughly against the wall beyond the French doors. The shadows pooled deeperhere. They stood well out of sight of the ballroom. Velma swallowed hard as hishands traced the seams of her gown, reproducing that creepy sensation of aninsect walking across one's skin.

When she opened her mouth to yell for help, his mouthclamped over hers, his lips loose and his tongue driving between her teeth.This was no sweet, tantalizing kiss. Instead, it promised harsh punishment. Shecouldn't imagine what she'd done to deserve such treatment.

She could only wonder why Lord Clinton had handed her overto his old school chum. His earlier notice and attentions had signaled acompletely different set of expectations. Was she such a failure at reading aman's character, then?

Her predicament demanded her complete attention as the moreshe struggled and the harder she fought against the redhead, the tighter hisgrip became and the more forcefully he plundered her mouth.

Resistance became an exercise in futility. Writhing beneathhim in an attempt to loosen his grip merely seemed to reveal more places forhim to pinch and stroke through her gown. Places she didn't even dare touch.Not even in the bath. Bile rose in her throat when his fingers pried her legsapart and he wedged his hand against her most private spot, pumping it back andforth in a crude fashion.

Velma and Evilstoke are a core event. His sexual assaultchanges Velma. However, the extent of change is dependent on the magnitude ofthe event.

Ie.? I've always liked chicken. I particularly like chickenthighs, because I grew up in Hawaii and the #5 box of chicken thighs is somethingeveryone had in their freezer. One day my kid—the vegetarian—pointed out allthose chewy black and red tubes near the bone were veins. I'd always known thatbut until she sat there—staring at me, talking about chicken veins, I'd neverreally "looked". I was pretty grossed out.

It was my "chicken" core event.

Nowadays I bone the chicken first and make sure there aren'tany veins. It's a small change on my part and makes the chicken easier to cook.On the other hand, I don't freeze at the sight of Kentucky Fried. The fact thatI had a mouthful of vein when I connected the idea chicken veins=stringy purpletubes, was yuck, but didn't traumatize me.

The magnitude ofthe event was low.

If I wanted to scar myself and shudder at the sight of theColonel, I'd need to increase both the magnitude and my reaction. Maybe I inhaled a piece of chicken into an airwaywhile my kid was telling me about the veins and came down with aspirationpneumonia where the bacteria from the chicken put an abscess in my lungs.Hacking up green snot, can't breathe, fever, chills, fatigue. You can bet fromthe minute I got off antibiotics until the day I died, I'd have somethingagainst chicken. Especially if I had to have a tube inserted so they could pullthe chicken out.

Now let's take it sideways and check my reaction. I'dprobably have issues with chicken a little beyond "yuck" and apreference for boned chicken, but since it was my fault I swallowed the wrongway, I'd probably just shrug it off as something that happened and I dealt with.

The magnitude isbigger, but my reaction is pragmatic. I'm upset, but it's not something I can'thandle. Katy cranked the magnitude for Evilstoke's assault on Velma,but like me, Velma can deal with it.

"Velma?" Persephone's voice called from thedoorway. "Are you out here?"

The brute pulled back to curse and Velma wrestled free ofhis grip. The sound of tearing fabric rent the quiet of the night.

"Over here."

With another curse, this one fouler than the last, herassailant turned and slipped through the next set of French doors down theterrace.

"Velma? What are you doing out here alone?"

"I needed some air." 

"But your ruffle's torn. What happened? Weren't youwaltzing with the gentleman I left you with?"

"Ha! What kind of gentleman abandons a girl on theterrace and sends his old school chums out to keep her warm for him?"

Through her bitter tears, Velma explained how she'd felt sowonderfully alive during the waltz and even when he'd kissed her. Persephone'ssmile changed to a worried frown as Velma described the redhead and thehumiliation she'd suffered at his hands.

"Oh, my. First thing we need to do is go repair thatruffle. Then we can go find you another partner. No redheads, I promise."

"I can't go back in there. I can't face himagain." She didn't know which himshe meant and wasn't sure it really mattered. "I just want to gohome."

"Do you want to go find your mother?"

"Heavens, no." Her mother would never understandwhy she'd been tempted to behave so recklessly. And all she wanted to do waspush the vile memories away, not share them all over again. Her mortificationwas still too raw.

"Here, take this. That should cover your tornruffle." Persephone took charge of the situation, wrapping her cloakaround Velma's shoulders. "We can find Lady Harris let her find ourmothers to tell them I've taken you home with a splitting headache. As hot andcrowded as it is in there, no one will gainsay us."

Velma hugged her friend and pulled up the hood that surelymatched her cheeks before stepping into the ballroom. She refused to make eyecontact with anyone and hugged the walls until they reached their host and madetheir excuses. Lady Harris promised to find their mothers and summoned afootman to fetch a carriage for them. 

Velma managed to keep her roiling emotions under controluntil they were bundled into the carriage and on their way. Only then, did shebury her face in Persephone's shoulder and allow herself to sob unchecked.

She's upset, but she's still using complete sentences andhas the brain power to explain what happened in detail and categorize theexperience as mortifying. Velma is a strong individual and I'm sure once shecomes to grips with making a stupid move like going out on the terrace with astranger, she'll be fine.

As a core event, it's maybe a five on a ten point scale. Bad—butnot bad enough to cripple her.

Now, let's look at how we want Velma to turn out.

Must be terrified of masques. Must have a serious grudge against Clinton. Changedfrom the radiant person Clinton first saw to a woman who—years later—only bearsa passing resemblance to her old self. She beats herself up over her mistakeconstantly, remembers every detail.

And this is where the problem is.

What Velma experienced, how she deals with it, the fall out,and follow-thru fall on two different sides of a line.

Bad:

The incident itself is traumatic.

The fall out.

Capable:

How she deals with it.

Her follow-thru.

The incident has the potential to be traumatizing."But" she deals with it in a pragmatic way that shows me she's incontrol. Even when Evilstoke is forcing himself on her, her brain is working. When we see her in the story, she's intro'd as burning an invitation.A nicely cold-blooded move. She then weighs the pros and cons of giving intoher mother's desire to attend the ball.

Later, she talks to Persephone and says she's going to puke,can't let go of the past, has a flashback and a good long cry with hiccups.Still later, she shows up for a pre-masque dinner, and is cold toward Clinton. It's balanced between "I'm so messed up" and"It happened, it changed my outlook, I don't like Clinton, masques orsocializing." She's flip-flopping emotionally and making herself look like a character with emotions added on afterwards to work with a pre-determined plot.

There are two ways this can go.

One, Katy can take out the hysterics, sobbing and crying andmake Velma a capable woman who, of her own free will, decides society isn't forher. But…she'd have to give her other interests, because otherwise it justseems odd for her to be hanging out with her mom when she's pragmaticenough to find a nice landowner and raise babies in the country. Maybe shedecides she likes managing a household and her mother can't be bothered? Ormaybe she likes city life, the lending libraries, shows and sedate parties.

I like this option, because as written, once we get past thebeginning, Velma is fairly self-possessed.

Or two, we can explore Velma's emotions during her firstmasque, see how they'd get warped by the incident with Evilstoke and extend thatinto the present.

The story would get darker and more intimate, and somepeople don't deal well with angst.

Which pretty much means—regardless of what I think about astory and where I'd like it to go, emotional structure needs to work with theauthor's vision for the story. The reason I asked Katy to write out the backstory is because it's important to see how the author views a core event.

And for that, let's go back to Mercedes (from one of the earliest core event posts) and look at her core event. The fire that almost kills her and her little sisters.

When I think about Mercedes sitting outside while the fire guts her house, holding on to her little sisters (the kids she hated beyond reason for replacing her in her mother's life) "knowing" that they loved her enough to value rescuing her more than what little they owned, including their stuffed animals--I see pain, guilt, love and hate. Emotions strong enough to create the woman who'll kick down walls to get her sisters back when they're kidnapped. It's all a kaleidoscope.

I view the event as a nightmare of fire, smoke, screaming, sirens, and above all, Mercedes holding these kids, her mouth tight, crying and...so very quiet.

For Katy:

She's covered in slobber and bruised, but she doesn't scrub at her mouth or puke.

Was Velma scarred by her encounter with Evilstoke? Or did she discover her inner strength?

Is the tone of your story (not what it is, but what you "see" it as) dark or light?

The times, they are a-changin'

2011-08-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

All my on-line life, I'd heard that you have to have a website. "You need to buy your domain." But on August 5th, I let go. It doesn't seem important anymore, and honestly--I couldn't afford to keep changing it. There's nothing worse than a static site, and I was guilty with a capital "G".

I could have pointed it to my blog, but I have enough web presence. That'd be like double-dipping. Everything anyone has ever wanted to know about me is on my blog. Because of the extraordinary SEO optimization my former design god used, my former domain--currently on hold while they figure out I don't want it--is still #1. Maybe one of the other jodi henley's will buy it, but I really don't care.The times, they are a-changin' or maybe search engines are getting better.

Life is crazy and other randomness

2011-08-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's been "real" is probably an understatement. You can take it so many ways. But let's just say it's been one of those...two weeks, that make you swell up like a balloon, and stare longingly at chocolate. Which I can't have because it carries too much of a histamine load. Anyway, I've discovered iced tea, not the hot stuff gone cold, which I've been fighting for years, but the cold brew stuff that doesn't have any bitterness. I'm slowly climbing out from under, but I'm running into my usual roadblock. I can't squeeze anymore time out of the day.

It's been getting colder up here. A good thing, since this is probably the only place in the country without central air. I still remember back when I was a kid, selling off my first car--the guy said, "What do you mean this doesn't have a/c?" And I said, "Mister, it's Hawaii. We don't need a/c." I was young. And stupid. Everyone needs air conditioning, or at least a couple of really big fans, but I suspect summer is over because I had to pull out my hoodie. And people have started talking about the Emerald City again. That's usually a fall thing. They're doing a costume party this year, not that I have any intention of going. I check out the autographing and do the diva dinner.

Hopefully things will settle down soon. I'd like to get up to Rainier while the snow is melted and check out the wildflowers. I've always wanted to see avalanche lilies.

Q&A with Eric Ruben

2011-07-31T22:13:00.000-07:00

I spend my time at RWA working on my inner drill sergeant. I'm normally soft spoken, and while there's no shame in having the voice of an auntie, over the years I've fallen into the habit of being an appointment caller at the agent/editor appointments. I have this thing about pulling order out of chaos.

If you've never been to the a/e's, picture hundreds of introverts crammed into a space half the size of McDonald's, all dressed up--scared--and ready to use serious Black Friday force against the person stupid enough to get between them and the person they know will buy their book. Now crank up the volume, and load fifty people every eight minutes for three straight hours and make it echo. People leave the line to talk--talk gets louder, people wander, come in at the last minute, get mad when we give away their appointments, and get mad when they don't hear us. I'm cranked up loud enough to pulverize concrete and somebody staring me right in the mouth can't hear their appointment being called? I have no sympathy. Everything runs on a timetable right down to the second. There are stop watches, time clocks, enforcers--and me. The cat-herder.

I was calling for the third row--we always call the agent or editors names because they're the constant, and no one jumped up or made the little hand waving motion. So I put in a final call. "Eric Ruben! Eric Ruben--you're about to lose your appointment, Eric Ruben!" When all of a sudden it got very quiet and a man says, "I'm Eric Ruben."

Talk about red. My God, I couldn't open my mouth to save my life. Luckily he had a sense of humor. Check him out this Saturday at RD when we do our spotlight on Eric Ruben.

Romance Divas presents "Spotlight on Literary Agent Eric Ruben"

WHEN: Saturday, August 6

WHERE: The Romance Divas forum

Join members of the award-winning romance writer's community in a Q&A session with Literary agent Eric Ruben

About the Agent

An attorney with more than 25 years of experience, Eric’s career as a performer appearing in major motion pictures, television commercials, national print advertising campaigns, and Off-Broadway theatre, gives him a unique perspective that benefits his clients.

Eric went to high school with Suzanne Brockmann and was in music groups with her. They co-wrote country music and tried for Nashville. When that didn’t work out, Eric stayed a lawyer and, as a result of a goal-setting workshop he got her to do, she started writing Romance novels. Later, when brainstorming ideas for a series, Eric read an old Newsweek magazine with an article on Navy SEAL training. He called Suz and the rest is history.

He ended up working as her business manager for many years, met lots of people in publishing, went on book tours across the country and attended many writer’s conferences and signings. Soon other authors wanted him to do for them what he did for Suz, so he decided to become an agent. Eric enjoys historical romance, paranormals and erotica. However, he is open to all genres including non-fiction and graphic novels. He does not represent inspirational.

Practical Emotional Structure Part 1

2011-07-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

A while ago, which goes to show if you ask me something, Imight not get to it for months—a friend asked me to take a look at her story. It'svery much a traditional regency, reminiscent of back when Signets were stillthe most popular format and Avon was just coming into its own. There some thingsI thought would benefit from a fix and I agreed to take it on if she'd let meblog it. She agreed and we bothagreed it had a couple of major issues—it was too short, and it was lacking anemotional component.

Quick synopsis:

Lady Velma and theScoundrel (okay, made that up, but it's still a cool title) is a 41knovella about a woman who is traumatized during her first masquerade ball by LordClinton—the man who abandons her to a near rape. She can't "do"masquerade balls anymore. (The chance ofbeing separated from her family or friends and swept away in a crowd ofunfamiliar faces paralyzed her with fear.) Fear of a repeat occurrence andself-loathing color the next six years of her life, turning her into a drablittle mouse who stands a very good chance of being left on the shelf.

Lord Clinton on the other hand, becomes a popular scoundrelwith a drinking problem. He doesn't remember anything to do with Velma—but likeVelma's friend, Persephone points out, no one does.

Or do they?

When Clinton and Velma are pushed together by a meddlingfriend and Velma's matchmaking mother, Clinton is puzzled by a niggling senseof familiarity. Little do they know the evil Lord Evilstoke also has his eye on Velma. The chiefgroper at her traumatic first masquerade, Evilstoke isn't finished with heryet! Will Evilstoke debauch the unwilling Miss? Will Clinton stop him in time?Or will Velma do it herself and grow into the woman Clinton wants and needs?

The good things about LadyVelma and the Scoundrel are that it's almost grammatically perfect and it'sgot a good ending which needs a little padding, but is in otherwise good shape.I suspect after putting 40k into the story, Katy (the author) hit her stride,because the characters act with more confidence and the story is smoother.

Older regencies were plot driven. Either the handsome lordwould fall in love with the governess, or the rebellious/bookish/unconventionalyoung chit would win the heart of a jaded rake. There was a lot of clothingdescription, balls, parties and people eating ices at Gunther's, taking thewaters in Bath or gossiping about Lady Jersey.

Proportion wise, LVS is clean. There's just enoughdescription. Not a huge amount of clichés and the requisite "eating icesat Gunther's" scene is done well. Not a history lesson, but it's notglossed over either. This is very much a stripped down 3 act structure—theperfect vehicle for a character-driven story. Which to me means it was targetedat the regency historical market.

Unfortunately, the characters feel detached, like they don'thave a personal stake, and Velma's insistence on clinging to her pain—which wasn'treally all that traumatic—makes herlook unsympathetic. Even her best friend tells her to get a grip.

While it's important to show change in the transformationalarc—and this story has arcs for both the hero and heroine—it's more importantto create buy-in.

Part 1—CreatingBuy-in.

What "is" buy-in?

Buy-in usually means getting some kind of commitment. I wantthe reader to care about Velma and commit to reading the next hundred pages, butit's hard to care when Velma comes across as emotionally immature and that'spart of the emotional understructure.

When we first see Velma, she's burning an invitation to amasquerade ball. She's crying. Why don'twe care? She's obviously distraught and she's feeling strong emotions.

Miss Velma Louise Danford snatched the ivory invitation fromthe salver and perused the elegant handwriting. Dashing away a tear that clungstubbornly to her lashes, she wished six years of accumulated shame could bebrushed away as easily. Her hand trembled as she crossed the room and flung thehorrid thing into the fireplace.

Then, with her arms wrapped tight about her, she encouragedthe grasping flames while reflecting on how the Talleigh’s annual masquerade neverfailed to transform her into a watering pot.

Burn before Mother seesyou, please.

As she stared into the unobliging fire, cherished memoriesrenewed their endless struggle with those she was unable to forget. First, thevisions of fairytale splendor and extravagant costumes became a phantom flightof swirling, snapping black capes. The gentle masculine hand, firm at the smallof her back, turned into rough paws groping, pinching and lobbing her back andforth. And perhaps worst of all, the feelings of anticipation and freedom werereplaced by the stickiness that had lingered in the wake of their slobberykisses.

Pulling Velma out of her reverie, her mother's footstepsechoed in the hallway only to be followed by the inevitable cheery greeting,"Darling, did you see Lady Talleigh's invitation finally arrived with thismorning's post?"

The Talleigh's Masquerade Ball was the one invite her motherdelighted in receiving each year.

"These violets are shrinking and need replaced. See toit, Sarah."

Her mother's voice sounded from the other side of thehalf-closed door to the hallway.

Velma reached for the poker but her hand never closed on thehandle. Light from the hall flooded the room as her mother swept into thelibrary. Velma spun around to face her and clutched at her skirts, straining toblock her mother's view of the fireplace.

"Mother." After dropping a polite curtsey, Velmastared at the floor.

She stifled a groan and watched in silence as her mother'skeen gaze darted from the empty salver on the side table to the crackling fireonly partially obscured by Velma's skirts.

A rush of blood heated Velma's cheeks but she dared notmove.

Her mother arched one immaculate eyebrow and shook her head.She strode across the room to stop in front of Velma. "Step aside,dear."

Obedience trounced rebellion. Her mother rescued the cardfrom its less than imminent demise. The parchment dangled from her pinchedfingers and she pursed her lips as she dispersed the fine covering of strayashes with a breath.

"Velma, darling, my oldest and dearest friend wouldnever forgive our absence. We shan't disappoint her, shall we?"

"No, Mother." She hated how meek she sounded, butexperience warned that her mother would remain deaf to any arguments againstattending. Each invitation made an explanation of her aversion to masqueradeballs that much more difficult.

One simply did not discuss such ordeals. Even with one'smother.

Especially not her mother.

"I believe we shall forgo a round of visits and stay inthis afternoon. We do want to look our best for the new Duchess of Bolster'sdinner party tonight."

Velma groaned aloud at the reminder. Viscount Carlyle, thebest friend of the Duke of Winfred and the one she held responsible for thatdisastrous night six years ago, was certain to attend.

Her mother swept out of the library and paused in thedoorway. "And do get some rest, Velma. Your color is a tad flushedtoday."

Turning back to gaze at her daughter, the light from thehall illuminated her mother's gorgeous mane of blonde hair, shining like ahalo. Anything but angelic, the glint in her mother's eye promised excuseswould not be tolerated.

Velma is upset, but she's not "upset", you know?Not in the way you'd expect from a six year old trauma that is still as freshand immediate as it was when it happened. So let's take a look at that again—pickingout the important pieces.

This is the trauma--

And this is the reaction—

Dashing away a tear that clung stubbornly to her lashes, shewished six years of accumulated shame could be brushed away as easily. Her handtrembled as she crossed the room and flung the horrid thing into the fireplace.

Then, with her arms wrapped tight about her, she encouragedthe grasping flames while reflecting on how the Talleigh’s annual masquerade neverfailed to transform her into a watering pot.

It's very medium—bothpassages aren't tepid enough to be a non-event, but neither are they strong enough todrive the story. The event wasn't horrific, and her feelings are easy tocontrol. Word choice has a little to do with this, but we can't really get outof the voice of a gently bred lady of this time period.

Suggestion 1. Make the original event bad—we don't want torape her, because that would change the story—but it needs to be"more" Although the event drives the story, we never see it, and I stronglyfeel even if we never do it needs to be written.

So for this first tweak, we're going to write the pertinentbackstory.

Put Velma back at that masquerade—pull the pieces from laterin your original story if you'd like to flesh out the scene—and continue it—writesomething horrible. Something traumatizing. Something so bad and shameful,it'll give Velma PSTD.

I did notice the scene changes from a bunch of peopletouching her during the first mention of the incident—and I thought it was abunch of drunks—to just Evilstoke later in the story. I'd suggest keeping it atjust one person to make the story itself more focused. I like the rivalrybetween Evilstoke and Clinton, and a minor suggestion would be to make themcousins or step-brothers.

Because this is a regency historical, not a classic regencyit's important to go big. Don't hold yourself down by wondering what peoplewill think of you for being able to write something dark and twisted—just letit grow out of Evilstoke. Put them in a corner of the garden, or an isolatedroom—rip the gown from her, touch her a lot more intimately, maybe slap heraround or slam her against the wall. Crank it up to the point you think thewords are coming out of your fingers more purple than purple. Make it scream.Make Velma scream—then send it to me.

We'll make people care.

Quick break

2011-07-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

Why is it that messing around in my life--not writing, not sleeping, not thinking about or suffering through allergies or doing the consulting thing, feels like eating a gazillion calories all at one time? A guilty pleasure.

I spent the day with my kids, driving up to Ballard. I'd always wanted to go to Honore, an artisan bakery with what I'd heard were the most fabulous macaroons in the Northwest. I'm a bakery geek, what can I say? I also yelp, and reading the reviews made me want to go even more. Ballard isn't my favorite neighborhood. Up on the other side of Seattle, through rush hour crowds that start at 2pm and move like sardines in glue. Potholes, narrow winding roads and broken down houses that would sell anywhere else in King county for 100k, but because they're in Seattle, sell for over 300k.

It didn't look like much from the road. Just a couple of Adirondack chairs, some double doors, a little plate glass with the logo and a counter. But omg--it was everything I'd ever wanted in a bakery. Macaroons to die for. Salted caramel coconut, spicy chocolate. Croissants with the texture of a thousand leaves and butter. A lemon tart better than any lemon tart I've ever eaten before. Not cheap, and no pictures. I brought my camera, but I ate everything before I remembered to take a picture. Just one macaroon, I'd said. Ha. One macaroon turned into many, and I wanted to turn back and get more despite being on the Alaskan Way viaduct Friday afternoon during rush hour.

Guess they didn't need a big fancy sign. If you know where it is, you're going to go there regardless. One macaroon the size of an oreo set me back more than two dollars, but it was worth it and the long drive out. We stopped at Maruta Shoten on the way back. Maybe sushi isn't the best thing to go with French patisserie, but you can't go by Maruta without stopping in to load up on sushi. They have the best selection of everything with none of the hype and jacked up prices you'd get at Uwajimaya's, neatly packaged 6 to a tray. I have this thing about flying fish roe and my kid loves eel.

There's something about a can of Hawaiian guava nectar and a tray of California rolls slathered in roe that makes a commute a hundred times better.

Odds and ends

2011-07-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

It never feels like I have time anymore--what with one thing and the other, there's always something going on. As the years go by all the time I spend trying to fit in at work takes a toll. It gets harder and harder to bounce back after a long day of no-thinking. I was sitting around the other day--eating lunch while I read the paper (someone always brings one in to do the jumble), and my boss brings her kid in to work with her. I've done that before--the perils of being a mother. My kids spent years in the back room stripping books when I used to be a bookseller.

This kid spent the day in the break room, eating snacks and playing Angry Birds, until someone felt sorry for him, lent him her ipad and showed him how to play Bookworm. His mom came along a few minutes later and was fascinated. Both of them huddled over the ipad finding words three letter words like "the." It turned out to be the electronic version of Word Find.

Other people came in and wanted to play, until everyone was clapping and cheering. Morning people--all of them. Sometimes I think they should have put that in the classified. "Wanted: Cheerful Morning Person. Good at Word Find." Night owls need not apply.

Is it exciting enough? Plot #4

2011-07-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, cool summer--getting hotter now, not that it's anywhere near the record-breaking heat anywhere else, but still. 80 in Seattle is like a 100 anywhere else. People run around looking for air conditioners and buying fans. Guess I'm acclimatized, because I did the same thing--going to Target for something to push the air around and finding out the shelves were bare.

Maybe people think the heatwave in the rest of the country is going to spread, I don't know. I just know that I'm happy to wake up in the morning, when the wind is pushing at the blinds and everything smells crisp and cool. One day when I have time (my mantra) I'm going to stop running and take some pictures. The trees make my eyes happy when I can see them. Just wish I'd known I was allergic to grass pollen, sitting here with a big open pasture next to my window. Allergic conjunctivitis, not a fun thing.

I'm crossing posting with savvy since I had to put up a blog post and had no idea what to talk about. Hopefully I won't freak out the people who're reading and wondering what on earth I'm talking about.

Recently, interrupted by the conference and random things, I've been talking about how much plot is too muchplot, stuffabout proportion, keepingit real, and the limitationsof an author's pov, when Hailey asked me how stripping a character-drivenstory down to relationship conflict and a teacup-sized plot in a contemporary workedfor stories like urban fantasy and paranormals. (lol, I didn't forget) I love questions and itgot me thinking about expectations and exactly what defines a character-drivenstory. Other than a contemporary or something where the focus is on one character's actions.

I wonder how thisapplies to fantasy/PNR? Since conflict grows out of your characters, thepotential for conflict in fantasy is enormous. While I'm content to focus onthe characters, there's this sense of "more" hanging over my head.

In a character-driven fantasy or paranormal there's always more going onbecause character-driven stories change according to the sub-genre. The world, peopleand potential story events are different, just like reader expectations.

In a contemporary Jane and John are just regular people withissues because that's what contemporaries are all about. In a paranormal, Janemight be a disenfranchised goddess cut off from her powers which would give hera whole different set of potential reactions, issues, and story events. Andthat goes back to “Is my plot exciting enough?”

The woman who picks up the latest installment in Debbie Macomber'sBlossomstreet series, wants to read about the relationships and interactionsbetween people just like her, her family and neighbors. While the woman whopicks up the latest installment in Harry Dresden's continuingfight against ghouls and the Dark Council isn't interested in a cancer survivorwho opens a yarn shop—she wants to ride along while Harry saves the world.

Although Lydia from the Debbie Macomber's contemporary has asister, and spars with her in the same way Harry spars with his brother, Margaretis a real person in a setting with no paranormal elements which means theparameters of Lydia and Margaret's interactions are limited to what mighthappen in real-life. Harry, on the other hand, is a wizard, and his brother,Thomas, is a White Court vampire. While they might talk about girlfriends,draining your girlfriend's life force to the point of putting her in a comabecause you fought a bunch of dead people doesn't happen in mainstream fiction.

The characters are more,which means the story events will also be more. A wizard and a vampire are verydifferent from a cancer survivor and an embittered mom.

So while the bookcould be about the hero/heroine meeting in a small village and talking abouttheir lives in the local tavern, sparking a connection, it feels like it'salways more important to talk about the dragon they were each hired to killwhich led them to the small village and to their eventual meeting. You knowwhat I mean?

True. Backstory, environment, cultural mores, and a millionand one other things that make the characters who they are, and theinfrastructure of their sub-genre—the expectations, shared knowledge, andworld-building—create probable scenarios. If the backstory you put into yourworld involves rogue dragons, it's highly unlikely the hero and heroine, whoare both dragon killers, would talk about something else unless your world istotally Machiavellian and people naturally talk around the subject instead ofconfronting it.

Which means plot—which can be a few sentences long in acontemporary where the focus is on the growth of the relationship between characters—changesshape and proportion depending on what you're writing, as well as who you'rewriting about.

A short story that focuses on Harry and Bob sitting around watchinga football game while they talk about life in general wouldn't work because that'snot what people expect from Harry or the sub-genre. However a shortstory Jim wrote to promote the series can be about Harry and Bob talking, becausethe reader understands it's a promotional piece, (what you're writing) and thecharacters are true to themselves and their world (Harry is stressed out overhis ad).

As I type this, itoccurs to me that scenario feeds the character-driven aspect because if theywere both hired to kill the same dragon, you've got competition. You've alsogot attraction. Is killing the dragon and winning the purse more important thanthe connection the h/h feel? Can the hero let the heroine collect the prizeeven though it's not about money for him, it's about the dragon that ate hisparents when he was a small boy and his crusade to rid the world of the vilebeasts so other children can sleep soundly at night?

lol, knitting a baby blanket is not an option for your hero and heroine. Theminute you set them loose in your story their huge range of probabilities narrow;think of a bubble gum machine. There are lots and lots of gumballs, but to geta piece out it has to fall through an ever-narrowing chute. Only one goesthrough the actual dispenser.

The way you build your people—making one a dragon killerwith childhood trauma, or another a cancer survivor whose father died, and the genre you put them in has adirect impact on the amount of plot sliding down the bubble gum dispenser. Lydiaand Margaret can let go of their anger toward each other and create more thanenough excitement without throwing a serial killer into the last third of thebook. But Harry and Thomas can't just "be" brothers, because the veryfact that their relationship exists creates issues in their world. Characters createscenarios, and staying true to them—wherever they take you, wizard or yarn shopowner, creates more than enough excitement, although the definition of excitement varies within sub-genres.

It's usually better in retrospect

2011-07-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I had withdrawal, because I was walking around the conference with my netbook looking for a clear spot where I could use the phone or get internet without being disconnected. It took almost forty minutes to upload my last post, and I fidgeted the entire time. I'm not used to dial-up speeds and it totally gave me flashbacks to when I hated using the computer. My roomies bought hard-wired internet in the room. Considering there were over twenty-five hundred of us, all with computers, all with increasingly frantic needs to get on-line, it's no wonder we overloaded the system. There was a whole day when nothing worked at all. One connection bar in New York city? All it took was a passing breeze and I couldn't place a phone call or check email to save my life.

The hotel was the normal RWA Marriott. Hugely overpriced, seriously overcrowded and packed with people who'd never attended a conference before and were overwhelmed. Nationals isn't someplace you want to go if you don't have friends, or white-hot determination. Every time I'd turn a corner and see someone tucked into a corner reading, I had this incredible urge to yell, "Get up! Get moving--this thing is costing you an arm and a leg. Take advantage of it now, while you still can." You can read at home or on the plane. RWA only lasts for a few days.

I didn't have a lot of money, and suspect most people didn't because by the end of the conference I saw a lot of people hitting the free water hard. The closest food option was Junior's

Two sandwiches cost me and a roomie more than forty three dollars, not including tip. Glad I yelp, because once I got my bearings I found a couple of cheap bagel places and some food trucks within walking distance.

Kati rolls--omg, sheer heaven.

Hot, greasy, chewy--three bucks, and a everything bagel with a gigantic scoop of the world's most fabulous vegetable cream cheese--three fifty. By the fourth day, after Teresa and Laurie had eaten their way through Ruby Foo's, I was craving some chinese and found a hole in the wall with genuine NY style chinese. Chicken wings and noodles with a drink. Fried halibut and noodles. Fried hot dog with noodles. It reminded me of Hawaii.

The conference had chicken...

...and polenta. Although what it didn't have was iced tea or desert. More chicken.

Thank God for rolls, because I felt like I was on a diet or something.

I tried to go to the autographing, but couldn't get through the crowds. I remember sitting on the floor with the signing about six hours before they opened the doors, eating a kati roll and talking to Gina Ardito--God, what a small world--and these girls come up and ask if "that" is the ballroom where Sherrilyn Kenyon will be signing. They wanted to sit in front of the doors, even though they were still wheeling in books and bottles of water, so I suggested (since I'd heard the public was being restricted to the ground floor) they cruise the lobby bar. It's where everyone hangs out and a good chance for them to see their idol ahead of time.

Afterwards I found out the line stretched outside, down the street and didn't stop coming for hours. Everyone who was there told me it was pandemonium, and I agree. I couldn't even get close. Usually I cruise into the autographing after the mad rush goes through the doors. It's quiet, and I hang out and talk to people I know. This was just insane.

I did go to a few publisher signings (closed to the public), because my roommate Laurie had collected over two hundred books and my competitive streak was killing me. But the lines were long there, too.

I hit the book blogger event Harlequin put on, because I'm a blogger and I'm always curious. Back in '06 they were just focusing on their e-platform and I remember thinking they were way ahead of the curve--and that they had delicious sandwiches. Fast forward five years and I wanted to see how far they'd gotten. They're right that book bloggers are the gatekeepers. Now that everyone has a say, magazines just aren't as important as they used to be. I wonder though--how people maintain credibility if it's known they're getting free books? I blog books, but only if I love them. If you have lots of books, does that make your rating system suspect? I mean, not every book is a 3 or 4 star. Some are godawful 1's or 2's. Cred is important. Once you abuse someone's trust, most people won't give you another chance. To this day I can't read an RT review without going, "yeah, right." Although shame on me, it took at least ten rotten buys before I stopped trusting them.

Back in the early days they were right on top of everything and their rankings meant something. Now...I dunno. Over at RD I get to see a lot of people freak out over bad reviews, and there's always someone being talked about for attacking reviewers. Taking down Amazon reviews, taking down goodreads reviews? No wonder most of the people at the Harlequin tea went by user names.

The woman in the daisy print is Harlequin's digital person, Malle Vallik, still going strong after all this time. Got to admire her. And the sandwiches were still good.

I cruised the goody room. Every year RWA says not to bring paper goods, but it was pretty much all paper goods.

Except for Nancy Berland's wonderful magnets (I'm collecting them)

some pins and a few notebooks.

Sidney Ayers had one of the more inventive promo items. I'd taken one and was explaining how unique they were (personalized charms and mini magnets that weren't from Vistaprint) to Teresa when the woman behind me said "Thank you."

Duh, I'd walked right into the person who'd made them. Luckily she was a good sport and agreed to do a workshop with Romance Divas. Charms for bookmarks are expensive, and personalized charms are through the roof. Cheap promo? I'm so there.

I didn't do many of the speeches this year. I think a lot of people skipped out on them because the conference room was fairly empty. I took pictures though, and so did other people.

I got to listen to my absolute favorite speaker ever--Michael Hauge, and it astounds me that the room wasn't wall to wall people like it usually is. He had a lot of new insights and I was thrilled.

And I took a picture of the Algonquin. Just because I was passing by. Funny how I always thought it was somewhere else.

I usually enjoy Nationals, but this was crazy-insane. Maybe I just know people now, or maybe I've just relaxed enough to take it one thing at a time, but if I can make it--I'll be in Anaheim. I want to do it again.

Pictures from RWA NY 2011

2011-06-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

Times square.

MG and the horse

Jax and the same horse

the neon MacDonalds

me and MG and the "statue of liberty"

RWA NY 2011 Tuesday

2011-06-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've always liked RWA. Flying off to cities I normally wouldn't go to, eating chicken, suffering in upteenth zillionth heat--and being normal. I know normal is relative, but being surrounded by 2000 other people who think just like me is pretty damned cool.

I've never wanted to go to New York, but now that I'm here, it's not so bad. Laguardia was so dinky-small it made Milwaukee look good. Broken tile, potholes, cracked mirrors in the bathrooms. The stall was so small I had to hang my carry-on from a peg so I could put my feet down. And it took more than 2 hours to travel the eight miles to the hotel. Around and around and around, passing the same Europa cafe. I'm still trying to figure out why, but I'm damned grateful I took the shuttle.

There was trash everywhere. In the roads, in the gutters, around the trash cans and under the overpasses. And the pigeons were black. Not gray or white, but soot-black. I thought they were crows or grackles until I took a second look. And they were opening bags! Pigeons are stupid. What's up with that? Maybe NY has intelligent pigeons, I dunno.

I found Jax and MG and they talked me into going for a walk. We got lost, but we had a good time.

I can't seem to load pictures. In the middle of the "greatest" city on earth I have less connectivity than I did in Orlando. There are huge dead spots.

We walked all up and down Times Square and I took lots of pictures, which I might have to wait to post. Tonight? The autographing.

It's Free! I like free....

2011-06-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

A very long time ago, (way before I started my plot blog posts, lol) I was weighing the benefits of money v. going to a local writer's conference. I decided on the conference, where I listened to two workshops, pitched to a publisher that had just opened and closed soon after--and ate chicken. I suspect if you google the phrase "writer's conference", there'll be a picture of a boneless skinless chicken breast on a bed of ~~mush~~, I mean polenta. Or maybe it's just me. I have RWA chicken pictures going back for years.

While I was researching I noticed one of the chapter members had co-founded a website for romance writers. There are lots of RWA loops and I already belonged to KOD, the Kiss of Death, which of course--had their own loops, but you had to belong--pay national dues, chapter dues. Put in time so people would talk to you. And this place was free.

I joined and never left. Like a lot of other people I consider it my chapter. Unlike any other on-line group I've known, it's troll-free and flame resistant. It's a good sign that out of the six people who joined at the same time as me, two are still there. We've all grown and changed. RD isn't just a place, it's an incubator, hatching people who are web-savvy and industry forward.

They're having a free (don't you just love that "free" word?) conference next week, to coincide with RWA Nationals and you're more than welcome to join and attend the workshops.

There are lots of FREE doorprizes. Thanks to the generosity of Divas, Joey W. Hill--who was kind enough to help us out--savvyauthors, Angela James of Carina, Jen Traveler of Audiolark, The Wild Rose Press, Freya's Bower, and vaiadesigns, we have enough goodies to run door prizes every single hour, day and night, for the length of the conference.

So come on over. You might never leave.

Not Going to RWA NY?
Attend Romance Divas' Annual Not Going to Conference Conference Instead!
June 28-July 1
Where??? On your computer!

Romance Divas annual virtual conference features workshops, publisher spotlights, pitch-your-book opportunities, fabulous doorprize giveaways and more.

It's FREE!

And nobody says you can't wear pjs while you're recharging your writer batteries from home.

LIKE the NGTCC on Facebook for future updates in 2012 and beyond.

I suspect it's nothing

2011-06-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

But I've been wondering why we've been getting so many tremors. I live on a mountain--not that it's lahar central, but it's close enough. There'd be a few days warning, sort of like Mt. St. Helens, but--what's up with all the 2.7 quakes in Shoreline?

"Gentle shaking??"

Anything strong enough to feel isn't gentle shaking. It's sort of...clustering. Not that I'm panicked or anything, but with this 5.2 quake in Alaska it sounds like the PNW is headed for a good sized quake really soon. Just hope it's thirty years down the road.

Plot #3: The Limitations of POV

2011-06-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

Back during the last post, Janet left a fascinating comment.

I tried to create a character who'd subconsciously trained himself not to show his emotions. He feels emotion but shies away from revealing his feelings to others. (The heroine never has a clue what he's really thinking and often jumps to the wrong conclusion thinking he's indifferent to issues that matter to her) Then I got stuck because I couldn't work out why he'd believe that letting people see inside you brought pain.

He'd lost a brother and his mother when he was a young teen. I thought maybe his father had been the sort who believed in keeping a stiff upper lip and had refused to discuss the deaths and his and the hero's feelings.

But I'm struggling to see why the hero would think revealing your emotions brought pain.

Would the father have had to be the sort of man who made the hero feel ashamed of revealing his emotions (the sort of man who derided any show of emotion and made the boy fear appearing weak?)

Would I need other core events for the adult hero to come believe so strongly that he must keep a lid on his emotions? He hides a rush of pleasure too not just painful emotions.

Although it appears to be one question—how do I motivate a desired trait? It’s actually a statement of limitations in addition to a question.

There are a lot of things I can’t do—write code, fix my car—and I don’t understand people who go to spectator sports because I can’t imagine sitting still long enough to watch a bunch of guys chase a ball around. I see it and know it happens, but if there’s some kind of motivation involved, it takes serious effort for me to wrap my mind around it.

I suspect it’s a value statement and a part of my—not cultural upbringing, because my parents are huge fans despite being Asian-Americans, but personal upbringing. No one cared if I went to a game so there are a lot of things I “still” don’t know. How many men are on a team, how the leagues are broken down. Why you’d invite people to your house to watch a game on your tv, eat your food and drink your beer. Does it make the experience better? Is it a group thing? Can you watch by yourself or is that a no-no?

It could also be a statement of personality type, because I’m so far to the left on the introvert scale the idea of inviting relatives to my house is beyond me, much less people I barely know. Which means going to someone’s house to watch the game is something I know “happens”, but I don’t understand on a very fundamental level.

Janet understands the trait and how it works, but because of the way she grew up, her values, cultural mores, and personality type, can’t figure out “why” someone could be like her hero, although she can follow the logic.

These two sentences >

Then I got stuck because I couldn't work out why he'd believe that letting people see inside you brought pain.

But I'm struggling to see why the hero would think revealing your emotions brought pain.

…are windows into her soul. She's a good person, who has never been hurt because she showed emotions. And the people around her—her environment—is also good. It’s difficult for her to imagine a scenario outside logical progression.

This >

He'd lost a brother and his mother when he was a young teen. I thought maybe his father had been the sort who believed in keeping a stiff upper lip and had refused to discuss the deaths and his and the hero's feelings.

Would the father have had to be the sort of man who made the hero feel ashamed of revealing his emotions (the sort of man who derided any show of emotion and made the boy fear appearing weak?)

...is good. There’s a cause—the deaths. And reasoned effect—the father is a silent, manly kind of guy who isn’t into emotion and works the psychological angle.

…derided any show of emotion and made the boy fear appearing weak?

But, the kid is in his teens, and I’m guessing he had a fairly normal life until that point. The kind of walls that prevent someone from showing pleasure in addition to other kinds of emotions need a serious core event and probably a layering event to twist it. Mind games work to an extent, but if the kid had a normal personality it would simply mess with that particular relationship. In other words, you’d get damage, but not the right amount.

This isn’t just about the kid, but his dad. His dad is in pain. His wife and son died. Some people have the kind of personality where instead of turning inward (which would manifest in a psychological attack)—they explode outward, smashing things, screaming, finding fault and a target.

Even if his wife and son died when their car hit a patch of black ice and slid off the road into a really deep lake, it’s not the dad’s fault for sending his wife out because there was a game on television that he wanted to watch—it’s the hero’s fault. “He” should have died in their place. “He” should have seen the ice. It’s all his fault.

The first blow is easy; the second blow, even easier.

If you traumatize the hero by killing his mom and brother, then have his dad beat him bloody for crying and “keep” beating him, you’ve created an abused child. Abused children don’t show a lot of emotion, because emotion is a trigger to start another round of abuse. Every time the dad feels guilty, or sorry for himself, he’s going to be looking for an excuse. When you’re walking on eggshells you want to be a ghost.

This is a great article about children who kill their abusive parents.

Let’s take the hero’s scenario a little farther. What would make him deny pleasure?

Give him something to care about. Maybe a dog or a cat—something he feels pleasure in, and give the dad a beer.

The dad isn’t going to care about some animal that’s been around for years. But “if” he’s drunk and guilty and feeling sorry for himself, that cat and the pleasure the hero takes in petting him is a trigger. Why does the hero get to keep something he loves when the dad has lost his loved ones? People kill pets all the time. Next thing you know there’s blood on the floor, a dead cat, and a hero with serious issues. Letting people see inside you brings pain. If I hadn’t let my dad see how much the cat meant to me, it’d still be alive. Control means less pain. If you love someone, (or something) they’ll die.

It’s a jump from the death of the hero’s mom and brother to becoming an abused child, because—like me and football—it’s not who you are. Writing is the most intimate form of expression in the world. If you have issues, you might not touch on them in your writing, but people can always see “your” themes and personality matrix. If you're a really nice person it colors your writing.

The key to writing stuff you aren’t familiar with is self-knowledge. Know your blind spots and fill them in. GI Joe said it best, “Knowing is half the battle.”

Whew! Where does time go?

2011-06-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks and one workshop since my last post. I have half a post written and another tucked into my "plot" folder waiting for a little time. School is winding down and there's a free week before the summer quarter. A good thing since I'm headed to Nationals. Like everyone I know, I'm cleaning out my wardrobe, doing the cut and dye and making sure my kids won't starve without me.

Dinner, laundry, groceries and mom's taxi. I'm trying to stockpile clean towels and negotiate a ride to the airport. Not an easy task now that I've moved farther into the foothills. I'm literally two blocks west of the Cascades and Sea-Tac is a punishing two hundred dollar shuttle ride, each way.

Over on RD people are talking about the fabulous restaurants they're going to visit, and I don't know what universe they live in, but my universe is full of underemployed people and bills. Just the sight of a triple dollar listing is enough to scare me out the door and down the street so I've been checking out Midtown Lunch and Yelp. Love Yelp. If it wasn't for Yelp I'd have never found the Waffle Window--omg! Strawberry-rhubarb with coconut panna cotta and whipped cream on a sugar glazed Belgian waffle--for $4! *Yelp, I love you*

I found a really good Cuban place less than a block away from the hotel, tucked down the street behind the McDonald's and it's looking like dinner. A full meal for six bucks? I'm so there.

Part Two: Are My Characters Doing Enough?

2011-05-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

The average person has a lot going on in their lives--family drama, relationship drama, work drama. Character-driven stories do need plots; it’s just that the plots are more…bag-like. Plot flows out of character and since you really can’t nail people down until you start writing, story events and the general direction of the plot go into and out of the bag. Sort of like if you started with a tomato, went to the store, added a can, reconsidered it—took it out, and added a box of pasta and some garlic instead. It all started with a tomato, could have gone toward tacos or goulash, but ended up spaghetti because that’s the tomato “said” to you. Plot is defined by what’s in the bag when you check out. You can’t really go wrong with a tomato because a tomato is the beginning of a meal.

Since John and Jane are already having dinner, let’s start them off with a simple green tomato. One of those hard ones.

John and Jane break up because Jane is overly controlling and need to talk about their problems to have their happily ever after.

Remember that old cliché? All they needed to do was talk and the story would have been over? It’s a cliché because it’s true. Most relationship stories end when the hero and heroine work things out. The difference between an agent or editor saying, “You could have wrapped this up on page fifty if the hero and heroine had simply talked,” and “enough plot” is Benny. Remember him, Jane’s mobster uncle?

Jane’s uncle, Bill the undercover cop and Busby the flying monkey are all story elements. If John and Jane don’t talk because Lucia wants Jane to talk to Benny, and Bill wants John to spy on mob, then what’s going on between John and Jane isn’t strong enough to support the story by itself.

Which means fifty pages in, John and Jane are still arguing with Bill and Benny, the mob is closing in, Lucia is having horrific visions of blood and death--and suddenly—a car blows up because the story really isn’t about John and Jane. It’s about John, Jane, Bill, Lucia and Benny and what happens when Lucia talks about her visions. Dinner was just an easy way to separate John and Jane so they can run around trying to stop something bad from happening, make up at the end because it’s a romance, and finally have a happily ever after.

Jane isn’t important because the story isn’t about her. It’s about the plot. The plot grew, dropped Busby, added Bill’s point of view, made him incredibly hot to set up for the next story, and turned into what the writer thought was a romantic suspense. If John and Jane had talked the story would have been over, so instead of putting the focus back on John and Jane, the writer added more complications. The mob boss is related to the mayor, the entire city council is on the take and the cops are all dirty—except for Bill. After all, don’t complications mean “something happens?”

It’s always easier to make something happen than to think about relationship stuff. Isn’t Bill hot? Isn’t it easier to describe his abs and Lucia’s visions than to figure out why Jane is such a control freak?

A story that follows John and Jane’s relationship is a lot different from a story that follows a psychic aunt and a hot cop. For a relationship based story, it’s enough that John and Jane interact in a way that shows why they “can’t” talk.

Maybe John has some kind of core event trauma that deals with being controlled. And Jane has a core event that makes her need to control the one she loves more important than anything else which means all along, John has been fighting his trauma to be with Jane and Jane has been working to protect him because of her past trauma.

People do things when they have issues. They fight to deny them, continue doing the same thing, try not to do the same thing, and in general—act like people.

Maybe for the whole time they’ve been together, because of her behavior, John has slowly started identifying Jane with his mom—the source of his issues. By itself, that’s probably not going to stop him from talking to the woman he loves, even if it comes out in a horrible tidal wave of “YOU that! And YOU this!” Which means the degree of trauma needs to be jacked up a notch. If he identifies Jane with his mom, then his mom has to have done something so horrible he “can’t” talk about it.

Maybe his mother was one of those overly controlling moms who didn’t allow GMO products or sugar, chose his clothes for him and only allowed him to associate with the right kind of people. And to make it even darker, maybe she also used him as her punching bag and kept him locked in his room because of the time he tried to sneak some candy. And he has a little sister—the apple of his mom’s eye, who can do no wrong, and the bad thing is, he loves her too because she loves him, and she’s a nice kid.

One day, while he’s locked in his room, which fronts a busy street, he watches her wander into the front yard and despite yelling and screaming at her to come back, and yelling and screaming at his mom to let him out and trying to break the door down, his kid sister is hit by a car just as he jumps out the window and breaks both legs. Which means, he doesn’t just get to lay there and watch her die, he gets to spend the next couple of weeks flat on his back thinking about it.

There’s a reason core events are called core events. A core event is a catalyst that creates change and motivates behavior.

If his sister hadn’t died, John would probably have dealt with his dysfunctional life and left the day he turned eighteen. But because of the way she died, he rebelled and ran away from home less than a year later which put him on the street, later in the military and still later made him a private security consultant.

He equates love with pain and loss but overcame that to be with Jane but this whole thing with his mom and Jane is bringing it all back. After being raised in an abusive home, he doesn’t want any self-knowledge, and he’s not going to sit down and talk about his kid sister to a woman who reminds him of his mom. He isn’t just freaked out and upset, he also feels betrayed. He trusted her.

Jane on the other hand, had something bad happen to her because she was too slack. Maybe Jane is also ex-military, and as a bright young officer lead her entire crew of techs into an ambush because she didn’t follow through when she heard someone say the city they were going to was about to fall. Stuff happens to other people, you know? She was support—not front-line. If she’d only….

She was responsible—although she was cleared—for leading five of her best friends to their deaths. She “needs” to control the people she cares about, because if she doesn’t, they’ll die. She buried her trauma and hasn’t talked about it for years.
She loves John and doesn’t want him to die—can’t he see that?

Which means this story isn’t just about John and Jane talking about their issues. It’s about John and Jane, their ghosts, self-knowledge, personal growth “and” talking through their issues.

Just because it looks simple on the outside, doesn’t mean it “is” simple.

If you throw in the death of John’s dad, a career military officer, a local tech start-up founded by his PSTD group, and a little kid, you’re talking a seriously emotional story about two people who have to overcome and accept their past issues before they can reach out and love each other the way they deserve to be loved.
Everything flows out of their issues because the story is about John and Jane. There’s nothing big going on, but once we’re at the funeral...it doesn’t matter.

Next up:
“It’s not exciting.”

Part One: How much Plot is too much Plot?

2011-05-23T04:42:00.000-07:00

You’d think there’d be a rule or something. God knows, there are rules for everything else. Is there a percentage or specific technique you have to use when you plot? How important “is” plot and is plot-heavy a bad word?

Plot-driven writers rarely struggle with an overabundance of plot because plot takes precedence over character, but character-driven writers are always struggling with the three biggies.

1. “It’s not a story if it’s not about something.”
2. “Are my people doing enough?”
3. “It’s not exciting.”

And in a huge amount of ways, the reason there isn’t a single pat answer is because there are many, long answers that touch on a lot more than plot.

So let’s look at the first statement—it’s not a story if it’s not about something.

A story shouldn’t just be about two people having dinner, not because you can’t write about two people and dinner, but because there’s a limited readership. If John and Jane eat dinner it actually “is” a story. There’s a beginning, where they decide what to eat, a middle, where they eat, and an end, where they stop eating.

By itself, John and Jane’s dinner isn’t interesting, so maybe the statement needs to be: A story should be about something interesting enough to hold a reader’s attention.

You “want” the dinner in there, in fact—you want to open with the dinner, and that’s okay. You can keep it if you know why you want to keep it.

A. You just like writing about dinner. No reason. It’s good word count and eating is sexy.

Is John feeding Jane strawberries dipped in champagne while she’s straddling him and she’s tearing each one off the green part with a growl and a toss of her head? Then it’s not sexy. Unless your people are actually doing something that an independent reader considers sexy—it’s not, and it needs to be reworked.

Look at the proportion. How much food preparation, food description, and weasel-wording adjectives do you have in there?

Does it start with Jane walking into the kitchen?
Jane walked into the kitchen, pulled out a pan and set it on the stove.

Continue with her getting out some food and cooking it.
Then she opened the refrigerator, pulled out two sirloin steaks she’d bought at the butcher yesterday knowing John would stop by, and deliberated over the butter. Butter wasn’t as healthy as olive oil, but olive oil didn’t taste as good.

--which is guilty of a couple of sins.

There’s no reason for Jane to walk into the kitchen. Dinner with John doesn’t count. The first sentence definitely “shows” Jane getting ready to cook, but it’s stripped. There’s no color or emotion.

What’s going on, other than Jane and her pan? Does she feel anything about John or the situation? And what’s up with the mini info-dump and butter? Are they just leftover thoughts--stuff your mom told you about butter and olive oil that you wanted to get in there because you were writing about steak? And where’s John?

Scenes operate on more than one level. If this is simply a scene about John and Jane eating dinner—and it doesn’t do what you want it to do, then it can condensed.

After John and Jane ate dinner…

…because it’s not important or interesting.

But, you want to keep the scene because it’s important to you.

When you feel something is important, it’s simply your subconscious telling you it “is”. Character-driven writers don’t always know why something is important because until recently plot was way more important--story is about something, remember--which meant there had to be a solid, plot-backed reason for dinner to happen.

You’re writing the scene, wondering why your characters aren’t jumping off the page, wondering if maybe you should have great-aunt Lucia, the half gypsy fortuneteller drop by, or maybe Uncle Benny, the guy who works for the mob. Or maybe you already thought of it and Lucia and Benny, one dog, two cats, John’s childhood friend, Bill, the undercover cop and Busby the flying circus monkey are already sitting around the dinner table waiting for steak.

Little do John and Jane know, that Lucia is really clairvoyant, and can “see” Benny and Bill facing off at the circus where John will try to rescue his friend and Jane will run between John and Benny who will shoot Jane so John can realize just how much he loves her. But luckily, Busby the flying monkey also loves Jane and throws himself in front of her, which knocks her to the ground giving her the appearance of being killed so John and Jane can have their happily ever after.

It’s like that bumper sticker, “Got Plot?” There’s a lot going on.

What’s your gut feeling? You want to show the relationship between John and Jane? Or the inciting incident for the story? The reason the characters aren’t jumping off the page isn’t because it’s lacking plot, it’s because there’s no emotional investment.

Why should I care if Jane uses butter? She’s not a thinker, she hasn’t shown me she’s got hidden depths, and “..knowing John would drop by” what does that mean? Does she hate John, love John, want to kill him?

The scene doesn’t need extra people; it needs focus and the right proportion.
Maybe Jane looks out the window, watching for John’s car or hesitates over the butter because of John. That leans the focus a little more toward John and Jane’s relationship.

Then she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a sirloin steak for her, and a piece of flounder for John. John liked butter, but she hated the thought of him with clogged arteries. Olive oil was healthier for him.

There's a higher proportion of Jane's feelings about John, and she feels a little more controlling.

That’s because John and Jane break up during dinner—he can’t stand her controlling ways and she can’t understand why he doesn’t see it’s her way of showing love.

You can have two people eating dinner if you feel it needs to be in the story, “and” it shows something about the people or starts something in the story—or continues something in the story.

It’s not a story if it’s not about something.

Relationships and characterization are something. Adding in Lucia, Benny and Bill--that's just overkill unless the story you're trying to write is an over the top romantic suspense with comedic elements.

Next up:
Are my people doing enough?

On the contrary, I know exactly how much I'm worth.

2011-05-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

Let me present myself. I am called Jodi Henley and I am worth precisely 40 dollars and twenty-six cents. I know it because that is the sum mima paid for me. It is not every woman has the same opportunities of ascertaining her real value.

You'd think a book I can quote verbatim would be some great and fabulous thing, better'n St. Expuery and more profound than Basho, but it's a sad reflection on my lurid taste that I'm a sucker for pirate novels and own a first edition of Captain Blood.

I love Arabella and Peter's first meeting.
"A lady should know her own property," said he.

I grew up with the seventies version, where Peter is this hot guy with a vague resemblance to Errol Flynn, but this 1922 version is cool. There are plates from the "PhotoPlay" and the guy they got to play Peter is an actor by the name of J. Walter Kerrigan. He "looks" a lot like the cover, but he's short. Guess I'm used to westerns where the hero comes shoulder high on a horse. Kerrigan is so short it's like Arabella is riding a Clydesdale.

All joking aside, I'm glad mima bought me. There's a big difference in selling yourself and putting yourself up for auction. I think I do fairly well, and at this point I'm nowhere near the cheapest name in the book, but I told Hailey I'd have logged into my pseudonym and bid on myself before I started a post with, "I'm worth precisely one dollar and twenty-six cents." :)

Subtext in Dialogue

2011-05-02T01:42:00.000-07:00

Back in 1991 I read a book that blew me away. It was hot—although Loveswept was always a hot line—sexy and full of subtext. Shortly afterward, although I don’t know if it was because of this book, a whole slew of books came out that copied its opening.

I’m paraphrasing wildly:
“It’s too big. It won’t fit.”
“Wiggle it around and push harder.”
“We need some kind of lubricant!”
“It’s moving!”
“Ouch! That hurt--I’m bleeding.”

The way the author originally had this scene, you really couldn’t tell what was going on. Just that it involved a couple and something that needed to go into a hole. Depending on your worldview, you were either totally clueless or figured you were in on the beginning of a sex scene gone wrong.

Because Loveswept was Bantam’s now defunct line of hot contemporary romances most people assumed the second. Hot romance? A man and woman? Size, lubricant and bleeding—pretty obvious the woman is a virgin. It turned out they were just trying to fix the hose on a washing machine and the woman cut her hand when the man shoved the hoses together. The thought strings (size, pushing and lubricant) and the way the author kept some information back, made the dialogue come across wrong, although it was ultimately right for the story because of what it implied.

The trouble with implication is that it only works if the author and reader have the same knowledge base. If you read the story without thought strings and out of context, you “might” realize the hero and heroine are talking about sex, although then again, you might not. Like Mae West’s famous line, “Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” Subtext depends on who’s speaking, what they’re speaking about, the knowledge base of the reader and their understanding of context.

In a scene where the hero and heroine create sexual tension, it’s understood—by the reader—these two people “want” to get together, but something is stopping them. It could be that neither of them is willing to take the first step, or they already have but it’s not working out, or they can’t get together because of extenuating circumstances which means a lot of times subtext is only shared between “in” people and the reader. The hero and heroine because they share a specific knowledge base. And the reader, because of her position outside the story and knowledge that the hero and heroine are co-protagonists.

Occasionally, in a romantic suspense or thriller, subtext is shared between the reader and one person to create story tension. Something the hero or heroine “should” know, but doesn’t--the textual equivalent of a woman going down into the basement where a crazed serial killer is waiting with an ax.

Perhaps the character is a cannibal, and he’s eating women who trespass on his land. The heroine is a waitress and notices the whiteness of his smile, so she says, “My, you have gorgeous teeth.” And he says, “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

Regardless of whether they’re both laughing, he smiles, she smiles or she pours him a free cup of coffee. The “reader” knows this guy isn’t just eyeballing her assets; he’s sizing her up for a rib roast.

The dialogue at the beginning of the post is another way to look at story tension. Although on the surface it comes across as sexual, it isn’t because only one of the participants has a specialized knowledge base. He loves her, which means everything he says to her is shaded with the subtext of his love.

When Sam Spade talks to his partner, Miles in the Maltese Falcon he uses subtext to stay in the one-up position. Instead of dialogue that implies sexual awareness or foreshadows important story events, sub-textual one-upmanship implies character.

What kind of person would say such a thing? What kind of person doesn’t notice? And if it “is” noticed, what does that say about the relationship between the two participants.

Subtext in dialog is what the characters are really saying to each other and can reveal everything from their needs and desires to their conflict and story elements.

A much better year and maybe some mead

2011-04-29T02:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago--because I'm like that guy on The Outlaw Josey Wales with the piece of rock candy--I bought a bottle of mead. I like mead, or I think I do. I tried it once at a food show. The lady asked if I wanted to try some wine and my grandma, who is a foodie and sample person, convinced me I wanted to try every sample in the place. I hate wine. I don't like the astringency.

But, wow--I loved Volcano Honey Wine. It didn't have any kind of bitter taste and it came from my favorite place on earth--Volcano, Hawaii. Turns out honey wine is mead, and I had these horrible memories of making mead when I was a kid. Same way I made every cowboy bean recipe when I grew out of Robin Hood and into the Sacketts.

There's a meadery maybe thirty miles from here, and I love the way they package the mead and it's color. It's a deep ruby and when you hold it up to the light the world is beautiful and rosy. Raspberry mead. I have occasional thoughts about drinking it, but it was a limited edition, I'm not a drinker and I'd feel funny drinking by myself.

The other day I was sitting out on my balcony, watching the snow come down on the deeply forested Cascades. I feel comfortable here. It's like I stepped through a time warp and ended up thirty years ago in a time when people didn't lock their doors, there's a one screen movie theater with a soda machine in the lobby and going to the library--right in the middle of town--is a big deal. I only wish gas was a little cheaper. I might live in the boonies, but I still work in town.

Long week, lots of randomness

2011-04-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

Back when I switched over from my old blog to the current format, I remember a friend told me not to speak of personal things. "You're a professional now," she said. And yeah--that's true. But try as I might, I can't be anybody but myself and it's my blog. I have years of archives. Everything from trying to get published (ninety nine rejections on a single title) to sniffling over edits, and taking that first step toward doing a workshop.

I miss talking about stuff. There are a couple of blogs out there I used to read on a regular basis but stopped because there wasn't a break--just dry informational posts. Nice as those are I like the randomness of interacting with "people" and sometimes the blog gets so popular it's obvious the blogger can't keep up with the comments--and what's the point?

God knows I never want to get to the point I can't say hello to everyone.

It's been a long week of trying to stay on the straight and narrow. I came really close earlier today when I forgot about the hives and ate some ham. My entire hand turned into a lobster claw and I couldn't write. Luckily it went away after I calmed down and took a nap. Not that I want to trade Benadryl for self-induced narcolepsy.

I'm sadly behind on everything, although my house is finally coming together. Moving was a good thing. And this place is just too cool.

On-going signup until it's filled and random thoughts

2011-04-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

In case you'd like to check it out, this is a link to a workshop I'm in the process of writing. It's called plot analysis, and it's pretty much how to explain what you're looking at and fix it to the extent it "needs" to be fixed. Some don't and that's also part of the workshop--knowing when to let go.

I'll take the first ten people who explain why they want to be in it.

On the other hand, the Maltese Falcon turned into a workshop on subtext--lol, like trying to hold water in my hands. It keeps running, trying to escape. So far, I've done two powerpoints, two decent sized posts--and a couple of random posts although they don't really count. Funny how something that shows as a thousand words in Word only looks like a snippet in a forum. I still have to work on noir as a setting. I have most of it sketched out on the back of a plate since I did it during lunch yesterday. Thank God for Chinet.

I've been breaking out in hives on my hands, but I'm trying to stay away from antihistamines. The last thing I want is cloudy thinking when it's taken me four days to starting posting seriously.

I hate Lays potato chips, even if they "are" the only things I can eat right now.

Theory?

2011-04-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

I know I do a lot of theory, but I'm starting to think that's just the way I am. Lots and lots of "why". I finally got around to reading some feedback on last year's workshops and the part I really liked were the bits that asked what people want to see workshop-wise.

One woman asked for plot analysis and got me thinking. I do plot analysis on a gut level when I edit--it's always easy to find holes afterwards, and in a lot of ways it's simple because I'm not involved with the manuscript. The hard part comes later when I hit consulting gigs and have to explain.

That isn't simple. We're all products of our worldviews, and doing it professionally means doing what's best for the story and author. I'm a big fan of active voice but some people don't connect and I'm not here to force them.

I dunno. Just thoughts circling around now that I "have" thoughts again. I guess it'd work--almost like an advanced class or something, because it's not one size fits all and part of the process would be learning to take that all important step back. Maybe...nasty thought...there'd be homework.

We'd have to deconstruct a story or two--maybe three. In different genres. Thoughts and thoughts. Guess I'm hooked. I'll have to think about it. It'd be too intensive for a workshop, so it'd have to be one of those yahoogroup things or maybe I'd wake up my facebook page and use the...are there forums there?

A month long freebie for Christmas limited to the first ten people who sign up? Damnit. Still thinking. Maybe brains aren't always a good thing. Now I can't sleep.

No school, no work, but a tasty meal

2011-04-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't have to work today. A god thing since I'm still in recovery mode. Too much moving, too many boxes--way too many stairs. Although I had a can of spackle, so it really didn't matter that we tore a hole in the wall trying to get the couch through the front door. Pity I don't have matching paint.

Since my computer was down and I had to wait for my kid to get home I took my daughter out for retro Chinese. Got to love this town. It's like it's caught in a time-warp. Old-fashioned drive-ins, walkable streets. A hiking trail, mountains and forests--huge empty fields and barns everywhere. People leave their bicycles unlocked and cars at home. There's a movie theatre with one screen that shows two shows a day and has a soda machine in the lobby.

There's also a State Patrol office a block from me, and a genuine in-town police department, complete down to one of those "police" lights that light the entry in case you're looking for it late at night.

We walked over to the restaurant. It didn't look like much, since it must have been built back in the sixties, just a big barn of a place with a wooden slab door and a couple of Chinese symbols on the outside. There were two cars and if it wasn't for Yelp, I'd have kept going.

*happy sigh*

What a throwback. I haven't had food like that in decades. Fast, hot, kitschy. Tiki lights hanging from the ceiling, Richie Valens on the sound system. Fried rice shaped like a bowl and egg rolls like whopping big chunks of fish.

There weren't any chopsticks!! A good thing since I have carpal.

And at the end, the woman scooped all our leftovers into a regulation (circa 1972) Chinese takeout container and left us fortune cookies.

That red stuff in the dish is ketchup. :)

Lemon chicken. Delicious and day-glo yellow. Just like I remember from back in the day.

There were tikis.

And way too much food. It was a good move.

The Day the Virus From Hell Ate My Computer

2011-04-19T01:24:00.001-07:00

So...guess that string of bad karma is still there because today I downloaded a trojan. Not just a trojan, but something so bad it ate my Kaspersky, destroyed Windows Security Essentials and laughed at me while it crashed my computer--every two minutes.

I'd been writing my workshop, maybe about halfway through, getting ready to post and...hours of trying to get rid of the thing only to have my computer crash when I tried to run a scan. I suspect it was the script to the Maltese Falcon. It was from a site I trusted, but that doesn't mean anything. Who knows where they got it from?

To make a long story short, even my kid couldn't get rid of it and needs to wipe the whole thing clean. For the first time in years I visited the library computers and they're just as bad as I remember--cheek to jowl, coughing, people talking on the phone, heavy filtering and a thirty minute maximum.

And the keyboard was sticky. No clue, but I think it was sweat.

Luckily my other kid had a spare laptop. I don't have Word, but I have internet. For now, that's good enough. I also have a pencil.

Doing a Rip Van Winkle

2011-04-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

It was two weeks ago Friday, as I was watching the Maury show--the one about the guy who was baby-daddy to six different women at the same time--that I realized something was wrong with me. Two judge shows later, some Jamba juice and a long, relaxing foot massage with that nifty shiatsu thing my kid got me for Christmas and I knew something was wrong with me.

Late February, I was hit with an IRS typo. I always do my taxes manually, and even though I filed correctly, back in 2008, data entry entered my husband's date of death as 2007 instead of 2008 and some kind person fixed my filing status for 2008. Maybe she thought grief lead me to file married joint instead of qualifying widower, I dunno. Seven hours on the phone, days in the IRS office. Forms on forms on forms--it took a long time to figure out, and a longer time to convince them there was a mistake in their database--thank God for my anal-retentive paperwork tendencies, since I had everything from the actual forms to the scratch paper I'd used to do them.

I'm guessing I had some kind of bad karma because everything tipped over like a row of dominoes. It's been a bad couple of months and the hives came back with a vengeance--this time on my face and neck. I coughed and gagged and wondered if I was going to die, and popped Benadryl like candy. Check the wrists, feel around the hips, cough to check my throat--the mirror for facial swelling. Try to eat a low histamine diet, stay calm. Not easy with bills piling up, Social Security asking to see me in person, my kid's health going down the drain, and a week off for spring break.

Benadryl literally saved my life.

I still remember the last time it saved my life. I relaxed out on the deck, watched TV with my kids, made dinner--family stuff, you know? I got along so well at work...like I fit in. It was nice, and so totally "not" me.

I don't watch TV, I don't relax, I don't sleep and most of all I don't have the time to sit around for a foot massage.

I carry Benadryl in a pill container, just in case and thought nothing of using it, although I wondered why I didn't have a thought to spare. No blog posts, nothing to say...nothing at all.

A few years back, I remember this discussion thread on RD where someone asked about the best drugs for depression, and I thought about chiming in but didn't, because I'm afraid of antidepressants. I don't want to be someone else. Someone who watches Maury and Judge shows, makes a nice dinner and gets enough sleep.

Turns out the Benadryl molecule--diphenhydramine--is the base ingredient for Prozac. The National Highway Traffic Administration says, "All first generation antihistamines, including diphenhydramine, have been demonstrated to diminish cognitive and psychomotor performance in healthy volunteers. Impairment might even be of greater clinical significance in patients when the allergic disorder per se adversely affects CNS function, as suggested in studies in which a reduction in cognitive functioning in patients was exacerbated by diphenhydramine . Laboratory studies have shown diphenhydramine to decrease alertness, decrease reaction time, induce somnolence, impair concentration, impair time estimation, impair tracking, decrease learning ability, and impair attention and memory within the first 2-3 hours post dose. Significant adverse effects on vigilance, divided attention, working memory, and psychomotor performance have been demonstrated."

Yeah, well--I sure couldn't learn anything new, and the old stuff was beyond me. It took weeks to come down off it, and for the record, I've been Benadryl free for about five days.

Lots of stuff piled up, lots of things to do. I have a workshop I couldn't form until yesterday, and more things to do. But my brain is back, and I missed it. Normal is fine for other people. Although I might still make dinner.

The theory and practice of pantsing in 1000 easy lessons

2011-02-20T22:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a long month. I have no clue why I back-to-back my workshops, except maybe I think better that way. Dust has piled up on my bookshelves, and laundry in the hall. My kids have turned into trolls, barricaded behind a wall of empty soda cans and old plates.

My daughter says she knows when the workshops are ending, because chocolate chip pancakes show up for breakfast and the sink is clear. She also says she knows I'm gearing up for another consultation, because the freezer is full of frozen dinners. She's probably right. I'm a couple of days behind.

I feel a little lost and depressed, headed back to work. They just got another shipment of Wordfind magazines, and my boss put out fresh pencils. I was doing a jumble the other day, and after staring at it for five minutes, I still couldn't figure out what it meant. Maybe I need to get a different job. The job happiness quotient at work seems directly tied to how well you do wordfind--in the proper way, circling each individual letter so you can figure out the jumble at the end.

I got some sleep last night--a rarity nowadays, and woke up with a black moment. Maybe I'm just older or something, but image doesn't mean as much. I used to have this dream--way back when, that one day I'd write a hardback book and show it to my parents so they could finally, after all this time, be proud of me. We all dance to the tune of childhood issues. My version of conscious want and subconscious motivation--like Janet says, combined as one goal.

But, the whole hardbound reference book thing isn't me. It'd be nice and all, and something spiffy for my bookshelves, but most NY, writer's digest, and self-pubbed craft books carry a fairly decent price tag--hell even the lecture packets from some people cost upwards of twenty bucks. And I'm not trying to gouge anyone. I was thinking...maybe a 6.99 kindle/e-book? At a 70 percent royalty rate, that gives me five bucks, which I think is a fair price.

Nice cover--no clue, but something nice. I like the blueprint paper on the Story Structure Architect. And I lean toward abstracts--which doesn't make sense since I also like the idea of fire in the darkness, although it'll probably end up being blue.

I also like the way I can update things, and maybe continue the series--do a few multimedia tie-ins on my needs-to-be-updated site. All I had to do was let go of what I wanted and think about "why" I wanted it.

I probably just needed to talk to people who could see core events as I saw it, and for that I'm grateful to everyone in my Transformational Arc and Running in the Dark workshops. It's hard to think "movement" when everyone else is thinking "crazy".

I hope to have everything formatted--all the bits and pieces and connecting chapters--soon. And get it out there in an accessible way. Lol, I always told Deanna I was writing the Theory and Practice of Pantsing in a 1000 easy lessons.

Quick trip to Portland

2011-02-05T21:58:00.000-08:00

I rarely go anywhere these days and I'm not sure whether it's because I have so much to do, or whether my priorities are skewed, but my kid finally forced me out of the house, into the car, and down the road to Portland with the promise of a trip to the Waffle Window.

This time, instead of driving around in the dark--not a cool thing to do in Portland where most of the streets are one way, we simply GPS'd it.

love this place. Down a deserted side street. A window cut in the side of a blank brick wall. Fresh hot Belgian waffles.

I got the banana hot fudge and caramel sundae with cinnamon whipped cream, and if it hadn't been 45 degrees, rainy and already late, I'd have stopped to take a picture.

I did take few pictures around Powell's City of Books. My favorite, because I thought it was hilariously funny, Noodles and Company.

Just inside Powell's in the cash wrap area. That place is swimming in books. Way too many to look at in one day.

One of the signposts...

And pondered the question. "There are five floors of books. Why is romance stuffed behind the vegan potato salad in the cafe?"

I bought a couple of books, ate a pastrami sandwich and had a waffle sundae. In all, a very good day. I need to get out more.

Re-visiting inner needs, external motivation and a bunch of subconscious stuff

2011-01-17T06:06:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I revisited some of my older blog posts, although I’ve been thinking of re-doing the stuff on emotional structure. I still remember being all dead-serious with my thirty buck Post-it easel. My first and to date only in-person workshop. They’d come to hear easy tips for Nano and got some kind of weird garble--I was way too inexperienced, trying to be all academic.

But, I got a question, and I love questions...

In one of your blog posts you said something about making the character's external goal a symbol of their inner motivation (inner need) In the example you posted, you had a boy fighting for a cat (his external goal) because to him this cat represented the feeling of self-worth he got from his grandmother (who had a cat.)

…and I love this post. One of my favorites.

I love the idea of linking the characters external goal and inner need, and using that need to drive not just the external goal, but all the character's decisions actions. But in some romance novels the character's external goal seems to take them right away from fulfilling their inner need eg the hero's unconscious inner need is for a close loving family, but his external goal is to take a job travelling from place to place and avoiding all emotional entanglements.
I can't work out what is driving the character in a case like this. (apart from fear ) The character's core need is a loving family . (He won't admit it and doesn't even realise it, but this is the only thing that will make him truly happy) but he's acting as if his need is escape.

This is actually two questions, one that deals with layering the transformational arc and another that deals with core events.

What do we know about this guy? (let's call him John)

*John needs a loving family to make him happy.
*But what John really wants and is actively pursuing is a wandering-man kind of job where he can keep all his emotional entanglements shallow.

Lots of people know what’ll make them happy so why does John have this disconnect?

Depending on the sub-genre, and the kind of person John is, it can be all kinds of things so...let’s say this is a straight-up contemporary and give him some background. John grew up with a loving, wonderful family. His mom and dad finally took off last year RVing around the country. He has a brother named Cal, a great sister-in-law and a niece who just turned eight. He's well adjusted, stable and ten years into a job at the hospital where he’s an anesthesiologist--rock-solid, right up until the day he decides to go winter camping with his brother and sister-in-law.

Because of a faulty GPS they end up in a ditch. Cal and his wife die in screaming agony while their little girl and John are trapped—unable to do anything but watch. By the time they’re found, the kid is all but catatonic. John’s parents can’t cope with Cal’s death, and there’s this girl—once the apple of their eye—who just sits there.

John is carrying huge survivor’s guilt—not helped by the fact his mom blames him for Cal’s death. If you’d been the one driving, if you’d pointed out the road, if you’d been able to tear free and get everyone out of the car…Never mind he was trapped in the wreckage.

Flash forward eight months. His mom and dad put the kid in a nursing home, leave for Arizona, and John has issues. His parents can’t stand the sight of him, he’s in serious emotional pain and he’s got crippling guilt. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s that he should have died instead of Cal.

…in some romance novels the character's external goal seems to take them right away from fulfilling their inner need eg the hero's unconscious inner need is for a close loving family, but his external goal is to take a job travelling from place to place and avoiding all emotional entanglements.

John “wants” to run, can you doubt it? His parents hate him, his niece is a visible reminder of his failure, his beloved brother is gone—and it’s all his fault. He’s in pain. And when people are hurting, they try to avoid the source of that pain—which in John’s case is his family.

I can't work out what is driving the character in a case like this. (apart from fear ) The character's core need is a loving family . (He won't admit it and doesn't even realise it, but this is the only thing that will make him truly happy) but he's acting as if his need is escape.

He’s afraid to love, because love got him into this mess. No one can hurt you like a loved one. John loved his brother, but Cal died, he loved his mom and she rejected him. His niece is catatonic and with every passing day, John slips deeper into a downward spiral.

He doesn’t “want” a family, what he really wants is to get the hell out of Dodge.

People are enormously complex and have lots of motivations, many of which go back to a trigger or core event. If Cal hadn’t died, there would be no story—if John’s mom hadn’t done an Ordinary People on him, John wouldn’t be so messed up.

Deep down, John needs someone—a family or just the heroine—to accept him and give him the space to heal. It wasn’t his fault, but when the people who say they love you turn their backs on you, you don’t think logically. Right now John equates love with betrayal. He’s afraid of opening himself up to love because he’s in pain, angry at being betrayed by his parents, angry at himself for not being able to help his brother. Angry because he knows there was nothing he could do and guilty because deep down he knows he should have been able to do something. He’s not just running from the situation, he’s running from himself.

By the end of the story he'll realise what he needs to make him happy, but in planning my story do I make him motivated by escape -- or by family (his true need) ? Or maybe I should have him driven by escape until the midpoint, but then he begins to veer towards his true need (a loving family. )

It’s not that easy, and that’s the trouble with character-driven stories. They’re hard to plot because motivation isn’t always linear. John has issues only he can take care of. So it’s probably better to say his motivations are in a process of push and pull.

Internal conflict.

Although the trouble with internal conflict is that it’s often subconscious. The John Cal's death has turned him into versus the John who can accept love and become the person he was meant to be.

Which means this…

…the idea of linking the characters external goal and inner need, and using that need to drive not just the external goal, but all the character's decisions actions.

...needs to be more complex.

The kid and his cat are a fairly simple way to link external goal and inner needs, because the kid has a single motivation and there are only two layers. The kid’s external goal—getting a cat, and his inner need—the self-worth represented by the cat.

Just like the kid, John’s external goal and inner need are in sync. He wants to get away because he wants to stop the pain. Everything he does flows out of that. But he also has stuff going on that he doesn’t know about—a subconscious need for love and family complicated by the fallout of his issues, which is cool because you want your people to be multi-dimensional but the trouble is—how to show it?

By giving him a goal that represents his subconscious need.

Think one layer down. Not something that represents his inner need—which is to stop the pain, but his subconscious need, which is for love and family.

In short, he needs his niece to get better.

Remember her? In a coma, totally unresponsive—locked away by the people who should have loved her? John loves her too, and visits every week. He can’t do anything for her—but he desperately “wants” her to get better.

She’s the symbol of everything he lost and everything he can gain. Her recovery is a visible manifestation of his transformational arc. And that’s what this question was all about—how to show John’s arc.

John was never motivated to actively seek a loving family, because through the entire book his motivation was always to get away. It’s through the process of coming to know and care for that family (or heroine) that he changes enough to start the healing process, accept and return love--and at that point, the end of the book, his motivation finally changes to actively pursuing his subconscious need because it's no longer subconscious.

A new start and a new year

2011-01-02T01:23:00.000-08:00

Anytime you start a blog post with, “It’s been a long time...” it’s not good. It has been exactly one month and four days since the last time I blogged, and I’m pretty sure that was sometime after Thanksgiving.

I changed my blog again, and I think it kind of put me off. Not that I don’t like the stripped white look, but that’s me you know--leaning up in the corner like I have something to say other than stream of conscious craft stuff. I started out—God knows, years ago, messing with blogger—hiding behind logos and avatars, terrified of all the people out there who all knew more than me and weren’t afraid to tell me so.

I was pretty green, and the sheer volume of info was like a paper tidal wave, because I kept saving things and printing them out, and tucking stuff into folders, and entering contests like if I just kept sucking down what was out there I’d finally figure it out. Nothing ever seemed to work. I still have piles of scenes on index cards, character wikis, lecture notes and snowflake plot diagrams lying around my room like thought bunnies.

It’s been a long haul and recently, a new beginning, and I want to thank Briana, Jen, Kimberly and Guy. In particular Guy—who still has no idea what his act of random kindness did for me.

It’s good to have friends who don’t see what you are, but what you can be.

Core events and flashbulb memory

2010-11-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

Maybe it’s because I have this focus where everything is filtered through core events, but I was watching TED the other day, and ran across a talk by David Griffin, the photography director for National Geographic.

It was mostly pictures, and a little bit about how perspective changes when you stay with a subject long enough and how to communicate that to other people, but what really struck me was his swimming story. I’m not strong on images—I’m more text-driven, but when he described how his son was learning to swim and he turned away, just for a second and the riptide swept his kid away...out toward the rocks. And everything crystallized into this one "image" the rocks, the wave about to crash down on his son and his kid, arms outstretched, screaming, “Help me, Dad!”

It’s called "flashbulb memory." One crystal pure instant--visuals, emotions, smells, sounds, everything, all at once.

And I think it’s the reason some core events have more impact. A core event is still a focal point, but a core event that contains a flashbulb memory would be even more of a driver because there’s a stronger impact in a shorter amount of time.

When I was a kid, I used to get drunk and party—lots of people do, but I have this flashbulb memory—falling down drunk, hanging upside-down, drooling in my hair, this big gray cat, an old-fashioned kitchen that smelled like kitty litter and this woman. My future mother-in-law. Can’t say I didn’t make an impression. Right after she chewed my boyfriend out for bringing me home, she told him to throw me back in the car and dump me somewhere.

Every time I reach for a drink, I see her face. So help me, I stopped drinking right then and there, and sometimes I wonder if my control issues also flow from that core event.

It's all about intensity. Like alcohol, you get a stronger effect when it's distilled.

Maybe that was a little too much all at once

2010-11-25T02:24:00.000-08:00

Life is way too short and no one can accuse me of sleeping--there isn't enough time, all the more so as I get older. I know people say, "Hey, look at your grandma. She's still alive and she's 96," but that's my grandma. I suspect it has something to do with walking, and I'm the kind of person who drives a car across the parking lot.

With the accident and four back to back workshops--it's been one hell of a ride and this is the first time I've had a chance to do anything, much less clean the bathrooms or go grocery shopping. It was probably the storm. It's not everyday Seattle gets slammed with everything from 4 degree temperatures to 50 mph wind gusts and 3 inches of ice. My power went out during the wind storm, and I sat there--in the dark, wishing I'd bought one of those hand cranked lanterns.

I'm not really a candle person, and all those cappuccino, gingerbread and evergreen candles I bought last season made me queasy. Glad I didn't give into branding and buy Yankee candles. My kids sat around, messing with their half charged laptops and flashlights. I don't think I'd have made it back before electricity, because I started getting the disconnected fidgets and the candles made me sleepy.

I had pages of workshop notes and tried to put them in order, but every time the lights would jump, I'd doze off and wake up drooling.

By the time they shut this place down on Monday, I was willing to trade candles for cold. I'm "not" good at driving on ice, and neither is anyone else. It took my kids over nine hours to travel twenty three miles, and some people were so fed up they abandoned their cars on the highway and walked. I live on a hill, and even if it "is" shallow, ice means everyone parks at the bottom.

I have one consulting to knock out, a few things I want to do over the holidays, and then it's back to consulting, but for now--I'm going to crash and when I get up, I'm going to put my turkey in the oven and thank God I went to the store Sunday.

Extra-chunky

2010-11-14T00:40:00.000-08:00

Back during the spring quarter, I took Business Law. An eye-opener, since I wanted to be a lawyer as a kid. Not that it was a total waste, since I got to learn about contracts, but what I really didn't like was being forced into a study group. I was number six and so were five other people. I set up a wiki, so we could communicate and not one of them could figure out how to use it--or email. But they were big on meeting face to face.

I'd almost managed to do brain soap, but watching the "extra chunky" video brought it back.

If you haven't seen it, it's hilariously funny, even if it "is" about food science.

I'd never listened to Gladwell before. A good thing, because it's easier to form your own opinion when no one is trying to tell you what to think.

The people in my study group were a lot like early Ragu. Stuck in their high school mindsets, rolling on to take "study skills" in college. Trained--you know? To think a certain way and do things right. To conform.

Conformity, group work, and respect for authority figures--the system perpetuates itself, over and over as people leave school to become authority figures.

What brought it home to me were the presentations. Each month we had to pick a case and rotate through different parts. The first month, I got the conclusion, which included implications and possibilities.

To me, implications and possibilities meant ripples, and what that might trigger. Since we were number six, there were five presentations in front of us. I spent the whole time shaking my head. I'd gotten it wrong. Obviously, implications meant a summary of the facts and what happened next.

Five times. Five summaries.

By the time our presentation rolled around, everyone else in the class had gotten crappy grades and I was thinking, "Great." I sighed, clicked the powerpoint--and launched into my spiel. This might happen, that might happen--see here? Since this did happen, right here, sometime in the future, this might also happen, given things don't change, but if they do, this might happen over there.

Appalled silence. I kid you not. Thirty five faces, all staring like I'd let out a fart. Squinched up and pained.

Then the teacher asks me a question. He was the only one who understood implications and possibilities--out of the entire room, all thirty-five people, from all walks of life, at all levels of education. He could "see", but no one else could.

When you do it in the real-world, it's called out of the box thinking--when you do it in a system, it's called non-conformity. I got a good grade, but the rest of my group were freaked out and I was rotated into questions where all I had to do was parrot the facts. I slept for the rest of the quarter, head down, full out, and truthfully--let the group carry me. It made them happy.

Gladwell says back in the seventies, Ragu did a lot of market research. They'd put people in focus groups and ask, "What do you want in a spaghetti sauce?" and people would say "authentic" and "Italian"--you know, all the normal stuff you think when you think spaghetti sauce, when what they really wanted was extra-chunky.

Every time I hear someone say, "I don't have a degree in English." I wince. You don't need a degree in English to write. You don't even need to know the difference between Dickens and Bradbury, or what all the devices are named. Because none of it matters.

The reason the teacher could see was because he was old, and maybe that's why they used to say old people are wise--because it takes decades to get rid of behavioral conditioning. Whether I have a system, someone else has a system, a doctorate in English, or taken classes in creative writing...it only works if works for you.

Everyone is different.

The auto-response to writing is "English degree." I remember English. There were study groups there, too.

...why did it have to be emotional structure?

2010-11-08T15:58:00.000-08:00

...so there I was, working on the Dance with the Devil workshop. Happily trucking along, doing the blurb thing--and it hit me. It's all about emotional structure. The one thing I've been putting off for...has it been two years? Wow. I'm a procrastinator.

Back in 2008, I did a little work on it--not much, since I visualized it as some sort of double arc running just beneath the character arc. Like Dunne said, the under structure. I did a workshop on it for Nano. Only five people came. None of them romance writers. Two of them wrote children's picture books, and I wondered what they were doing in a geeky craft workshop. I don't think I connected, but it was good practice for my later videos. Doing the live-in-person stuff is hard.

Looking back on it, I shouldn't have started with such an obscure subject, but at the time, it was my blue soapbox--the one I jumped on even when people didn't want to listen.

Nowadays I sort of visualize emotional structure as spackle, or a layering rewrite. It fits all the crevices and bald spots, and expands--not an under-structure, but more integral. Thinking...

Wrapping up the odds and ends

2010-11-07T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm getting away from myself--too much time working out craft angles and trying to figure out what to do next. I do know--for now at least, I'm not focused on writing. Probably a genre change. Romance doesn't call me like it used to. I've been thinking about something Hambly-esque. Low fantasy, magic. Urban fantasy without the urban trappings. I dunno. Just thoughts.

I did have a little spare time today and made cookies. The seasons are turning, and I don't have molasses, so I settled for chocolate chip.

I'm a big fan of chocolate chip.

I also cleaned out my camera--guess I've been busy, since I found a lot of stuff from the GSRWA conference. And--one solitary picture from flying out of Orlando. Because of the thunderstorms, I missed my connection and spent the night crashed at the departure gate in Houston. Me and some other guy who'd had the misfortune of being on the same flight. Airports are pretty damned lonely when there's no one around.

More thoughts on world-building

2010-11-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

Using Casablanca, since that's what I'm working on. An interesting movie if you've never seen it. I thought it'd be cheesy or boring, so I put it off until about five years ago--and fell in love. Good movie, great plot, strong ending. Probably the best example of how to co-author a book or movie with more than two writers.
---
Back when Casablanca was filmed, there were a lot of people who never left their hometown, television was still in its infancy and the vast majority of people didn’t have much of a worldview.

Morocco was just as foreign to them, as Hogwarts and Middle Earth were to us. They needed to “see” it to understand the story and place the action in context, which means there’s a lot of world-building in Casablanca.

The film opens on a globe and spirals down to a map. Casablanca is in Morocco and Morocco is in North Africa.

Desperate people push through the streets, the world is at war. There’s voice-over narration, just in case. Very much like a newsreel from the same time period, and because of the way the voice-over is used, it establishes an air of verisimilitude.

The framework that contains Rick’s story—the world at war, the Nazis, the refugees and resistance—is very big, in a lot of ways like the set-up for the original Stars Wars trilogy, but when the camera sweeps over the street outside Rick’s bar, what you see are people.

The external story--that of the war, arcs over the individual arcs of Rick, Ilsa, and Lazslo, and encloses them. In other words, they’re held together, in one place, because of outside forces, but once the setting is established—the story follows Rick and his arc.

Do you need to have the world in place first? It depends. Has your reader been there before? Is it an alternate history or different dimension? Do the laws of nature operate differently—in an open way? Is it a historical?

A historical might not be an alternate world—but your reader hasn’t been there. The cold biting through a canvas tent and picking weevils out of the flour are things that add to the world.

Maybe they’re in a gold rush? Can your reader smell the stench of a thousand unwashed bodies, hear the screams, or feel the pounding rattle of wagons?

In Casablanca, we see the crowded streets and people trying to raise money. Nazis, the police? Danger everywhere. Music pours from Sam’s piano. People drink and smoke.

Rick’s bar doesn’t look like the standard American bar, but once the elements are in place—the servers, drinks, and music. Little tables, dark corners? It “becomes” a bar.

Is the clothing consistent with the time period and place? Are the accents real or consistent with your vision?

Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks with an Austrian German accent. And while filming Conan showed the world all Cimmerians speak with the same accent. Later Cimmerians also spoke with an Austrian German accent because that’s how Cimmerians speak. Consistency is an important part of creating the world your characters inhabit. All Cimmerians dress in a loincloth—check. All of them sound alike. Check again.

The only thing “missing” from Casablanca is Casablanca itself. There are mosques, the tallest minaret in the world, beaches, but none of it shows. Not even as painted backdrops.

Because it’s not important to the story.

There's no point in creating something if you never mention it. If somewhere, sometime over the course of your writing, you "might" mention it, start a file. Get a notebook, or open a folder, and start collecting bits and pieces. By the time you’re ready to use your knowledge, it should be easy.

Build what you need.

If your hero is going to cross an ocean, and your reader has never “seen” that particular ocean, you need to create an ocean--stuff in the ocean, colors and smells, clouds in the sky and people on the boat. Are the people important enough to mention? Are you going to tell your reader about them? Then who they are, where they come from and everything associated with their culture "in regards to that person" need a little thought.

Everything interlocks, but "everything" doesn't need to be there. The size of the ocean is good, but if the tallest minaret in the world exists in Casablanca and no one other than the writer cares, it's a waste of time. If Rick meets Laszlo at the top of the minaret, the minaret “becomes” important.

Stuff—like the minaret expands outward, so now we have clergy and callers. Perhaps an ointment seller to sooth tired feet, a road leading to the tower?

So world-building yes--an encyclopedia? No. Not unless you personally know how everything works. Most people don't. I know if you do "this" thing you get "that" result. But I don't know everything and your hero doesn't have to know everything too.

Basic rules, like the water is wet. People drown (or don't drown as the case may be) Magic works "this" way (however it works in your world), wizards wear pointy hats (or don't). The King is the boss. But if there's a minaret and your hero never goes near it--then it's just procrastination. World-building needs to work for the purposes of the story.

Reflection Characters in the Transformational Arc

2010-11-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting week. Not half as stressful as I'd expected. A good thing perhaps, letting me catch a breather before I do that deconstruction of Dance with the Devil. I love Zarek and want to do him justice. Good stuff, and very much on the same level as the early JR Ward books. It kind of reminds me of Lover Awakened, maybe it's the similar world-building? I dunno. Got to think about it.

Knock on wood, it hasn't showed yet. Every time I read the news, they say, "Brace yourself. It's going to be a bad winter." But so far it's rained, and today was a glorious 65 degrees with clear skies. The last time it snowed, it started in late November and kept on going, hard and heavy right through January. I know it's early November, but you'd think it'd show signs of being bad if this was supposedly the worst winter since forever.

I love my new job...to an extent. It's a great job. Decent money, fairly close. In some ways, the accident was a good thing. I'd never have gotten out of my rut if I hadn't totaled my car, and I'd still be stuck in car payments.

I've been doing some work on the transformational arc, and after a rocky start--my kid is sick and I guess that's a different kind of stress, one I can't think through--I got it in gear.

Jodi's thoughts on reflection characters--or why is it that I can't spell to save my life?

Hague says a reflection character is someone that “reflects” something about the protagonist and supports them in their quest. In a lot of ways I think that’s true, although Hague uses the word “support” in a very literal sense, and I think the usage is broader. A better way to say it would be to say the reflection character does what he or she needs to do to get the protagonist moving through his arc in the right direction. Even if the reflection isn’t doing a whole lot themselves.

In Casablanca, Lazslo is Rick’s reflection. The guy Rick would have been if everything had worked out in his life.

Lazslo doesn’t do much. He shows up, has a past and a potentially noble future—he encourages people to stand up for what they believe in, and sings the French National anthem. He also shows Rick two things Rick needs to know. He loves Ilsa and values her safety more than his continuing fight against the Nazis.

In other words, Lazslo is very much a hero in the old-school, Dudley Do-Right sense. Good, kind, honorable, self-sacrificing, and the leader the resistance so desperately needs. To make him even better, he has a beautiful wife, who when push came to shove left Rick once she discovered Lazslo was still alive.

Lazslo “reflects” all the good qualities dormant in Rick. A really strong transformational arc can be even stronger with a good reflection character to show your reader the potential in your hero.

Reflection characters can also be used to reflect qualities and life situations or fears, and a good example of that would be a fear reflection.

What is your character afraid of?

Maybe your character comes from a background of domestic abuse, and has “fixer” tendencies. She wants to fix things and make them better, or protect others in her care. Maybe—because of her own abuse, or factors outside her control—she’s afraid of not being there, or being unable to help someone when they desperately need her.
Maybe she has a mother or sisters, or a little brother who is being abused and puts herself in harm’s way and takes the abuse on herself—but what if one day she isn’t there?

What if one day she’s working and her little brother is killed? But her mother and little sisters are still in the same situation?

A fear reflection would “embody” everything your heroine is afraid of. All the guilt that she couldn’t be there, the fear she can’t protect the others, and maybe—a very deep, very subconscious fear that she comes from the same genetic stock and might have abusive tendencies of her own. Therapy is a fairly recent thing, and even today people don’t always have access.

Maybe she leaves to escape the abuse, but takes the sister she can’t leave behind.
That makes her sister the fear reflection. The one person who makes the heroine’s fear real.

Fear for her sister, love for her sister—terror if anything looks like it might hurt her, and a desperate need to make sure her sister survives and lives happily ever after.

There are so many emotions and situations tied up in our feelings, and in a character-driven story sometimes you don’t want to spend a lot of time digging into internals. Using someone as a fear (or any kind of) reflection would help to show change, progress, and the struggles your character is going through.

To have your character sitting, thinking about how she’s been having these “feelings” of wanting to hurt someone when she’s angry might not work, depending on what your story is about, “but” showing your character sitting around a campfire, rubbing her cold hands, staring at her sister—hating her, wanting to hurt her for one bright red moment, brings it all home in a way that connects on a visceral level.

Maybe the reflection gets sick, or hurt—and your heroine couldn’t prevent it. Love, pain, and the fear she’s going to lose another person she loves is all there in the way her hands shake making the thin watery soup that’s all they can afford. Subtext yes--but also a great way to show your character's arc.

Contingent Causation or the "weight" of events

2010-10-30T01:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah--academics R me. It's another one of those dry titles. It'll probably always be a problem. I've been doing that workshop on Taken, and it's been fascinating. Love workshops. I have the feeling I'm close to reaching integration, where the inside me and outside me match up like dots on a pattern.

Someone asked if every scene had to have conflict, and I know I'm out there--but I'm a firm believer in contingent causation.

Contingent causation is the effect a lot of little things have on a story event. A good example would your hero quitting his job right out of the blue.

In a plot driven story with direct cause and effect, maybe every day is a fight. He argues with a co-worker. They both want the same promotion. It’s more money, better hours and the hero is clearly the right person. No one can doubt it because it’s blatantly obvious. The only trouble is that the other guy is promoted which makes the hero quit right then and there.

It’s a very linear, direct way of creating a story event. Everything is explained in a way that makes sense. Cause and effect. It’s very much logical progression. The next thing that “should” happen, like when Bryan asks the girl where the house with the red door is. You know he's going to find it. She told him the street. Next scene opens on the door. It's very linear.

Contingent causation is things that “could” happen and sometimes do.

Maybe the hero has the flu. Maybe he’s had the flu on and off for months. People keep getting sick. Maybe his wife lost her job. Maybe they’re three months behind on their mortgage. Maybe he argues with a co-worker and every day at work is horrible. He’s stressed out, sick, angry. He walks in—his boss asks him for something, and he walks out again.

Nothing happens that’s directly linked to his job, other than a normal request to do something. He just can’t take it anymore.

You know that pressure you get when you’re upset, tired and ready to start screaming for no reason? Something has put you on edge? You don't "know" why you feel the way you do, or abruptly got mad at something. You just are. A lot of little things.

Contingent causation is very much the torture scene in Taken where Bryan has tortured the information out of Marco. He can leave, or call the cops and have Marco picked up. He’s not a bad guy. There’s been a lot of collateral damage, but it’s been in the course of fighting his way through a situation.

But,killing Marco is done in cold blood.

Because of contingent causation—the accumulation of a lot of things? Kim’s disappearance. Marco’s “good luck”, the other girl, Amanda’s death, and simmering anger. Bryan simply turns the switch.

It flows out of character and accumulated weight.

A scene without conflict would be Bryan “seeing” Amanda. She’s dead. There’s nothing he can do for her. He didn’t know her and his only connection with her is that she was with his daughter. He isn’t trying to overcome anything. He's scared and frustrated, but there's nothing he can do. The only point is to provide information and to add “weight” to the buildup in Bryan’s head.

If the heroine in a story is eating dinner, it also needs to have some weight to it. There doesn’t need to be conflict, but it needs to be important in some way.

Maybe the heroine is trying chocolate mole for the first time and loves it. She’s full, she’s happy and she’s safe. There is no conflict because nothing is stopping her from eating the mole, she's not against or for anything, has no stress. She’s sharing her food with friends, they talk a little, maybe some personality comes out. She discovers a new taste and likes it. Maybe she's attracted to the person she's eating with. Maybe we simply see her brush her hair behind her ear--something that will show up later in an important way.

Later when she goes to camp and the person cooking makes dinner and it’s frog legs, the heroine will try it and because she was okay with the mole, which isn’t directly linked to the frog’s legs, she will be more open to trying the frog legs. An action that "is" important to the story.

Eating the mole was the set up that made the heroine’s action of eating the frog legs one of a bunch of probable things she might or might not have done. Which makes the simple action of her eating the mole important in retrospect.

In essence, it’s a very human way of handling story events. Stories about character aren’t always A causes B. They’re usually A, B, G, H which create a situation where “I” is an option. And in the process, you learn something about the person.

Which pretty much means character studies have a little less plot because more space in proportion is taken up by development of character.

The Professional has a very small plot.

The heroine wants to kill the people who murdered her family, but the villain finds out she survived the massacre and tries to kill her. The rest is taken up with things that deepen Leon.

Playing and making each other laugh doesn’t need to be there. There’s no conflict. It’s simply to show Leon’s gradual thaw and make it possible for him to grow. It also adds weight to his later decision to sacrifice everything for Matilda.

Contingent causation and scenes without conflict create layered work. A good example of this kind of deep character building is the Molly and Jones subplot in Suzanne Brockman’s Out of Control.

When Jones keeps visiting Molly, they already know they’ll be sleeping together. The same goes for actually sleeping together. There is no conflict anywhere. As Molly says, “I’m so easy.” And she is. But, each time these two get together, it shows character and lets us get involved in their world. It’s only when WildCard shows up and the story impacts Molly and Jones that they “now” have conflict. It would make perfect sense for Jones to leave Molly to die, but because of the scenes where they talked and had sex, its “understandable” that he does a silly-stupid chivalrous thing like sacrificing himself to set Molly free. It makes sense in the context of his character.

The Branching Aspects of Core Events

2010-10-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

…or why it is that I can’t seem to get away from academic titles.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—not just about the workshop I’m currently writing, but core events. Someone—who if I could remember who it was, I’d give credit to—once said that the problem with “building” characters, creating spreadsheets and doing character interviews is that it makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something but all you have is a character.

Just because you know the character says, “sugar” every second word doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot to your story—and what is the story about anyway? Is it about his favorite childhood toy, or his first day on the job, or his fondness for purple?

There’s a disconnect, because as that forgotten guy (does anyone know who I’m talking about?) said, then you just sit there, feeling all accomplished and blocked—like everyone else is racing ahead and you’re a loser or something.

Uhm, you can tell I’m paraphrasing. I don’t think it was a blogger. Most non-bloggers are painfully edited and don’t say things like “loser.” But you know what I mean.

Where’s the missing piece that shows you to connect the character to the plot? And I don’t mean in a turning points, why the hell isn’t my character doing what I want kind of way. I mean in the “what happens next” kind of way. There are many probable core events for a story, but only a handful work for what you want to do with the story, and if that sounds like the end of my last video, yes—it is. I wanted to do a third video to explain it better, but video is hard when the words are tumbling out.

Take two core events. Both important to a character because of some kind of self-realization.

A good example would be work and school.

If you’ve had a good, solid work career and one of your key memories is the day you walked into your “new” corner office—the one with the windows and polished mahogany desk—and realize you are that good. And you’re not just “that good”, but the best, all the thoughts associated with work—how you view yourself as a worker, your abilities. How you walk, talk and conduct yourself in connection with work and your personal life flow out of the fact that you “know” you’re good. And not just good, but the best.

You walk straight and tall, you dress well. You look people in the eye and when you interact, confidence makes you so attractive it doesn’t matter how you really look.
Fast forward to the day you realize you have enough money. The topper on your cake would be that English degree you always wanted. You go to school at night.

The last time you were in school, Regan was president. People don’t know you. When they look at you they don’t see “successful businessman” they see old. Why “don’t” you have that English degree? Could it be that you didn’t sync with formal learning? Maybe you didn’t get along with the teachers. It could be a lot of things, but all of a sudden things are coming back and you remember the day you argued with your freshman English teacher and he told you in no uncertain terms that you couldn’t write.

It could have been that the teacher was having an off day, or something else was going on, but—it hit you in the most vulnerable part of your psyche and you dropped out a short time later.

Going back to school triggers that core event. And for the purposes of this story, you hear, “You can’t write.” Over and over again. It doesn’t matter that you’ve reached the top in your chosen field. The minute you walk into that classroom, you’re back in that teacher’s office, re-living the heat, smelling the chalk—remembering exactly how it felt to get the legs kicked out from under you.

Your shoulders start to round, you don’t look people in the eye. You can’t think. You start to feel self-conscious. Maybe people are right, maybe you are old, maybe that English degree is stupid. Maybe you were wrong to think you could be successful at anything.

It’s self-talk.

And it’s a core event.

The psychological reason you react to things in your story in a certain way. Core events aren’t just one thing, they are the one thing you picked out of many things to focus your character in the story you’re working on.

If you want a strong action hero type, who are you going to pick? The guy with the office, or the guy hunched over, chewing his pencil in the back of class?

Random thoughts on arcs

2010-10-13T04:44:00.000-07:00

Lol, real-life trickles in on me sometimes. Now that I’m thinking of the transformational arc again, I’ve been wondering about people who don’t seem to have “any” motivation, and just walk out the door, brain out of gear and react all day long.

Not really a static arc, because they’re not unchanging, but obviously not going anywhere. A random factor?

Random factors work really well for certain kinds of stories where you want your quirky Uncle Fred to talk about the time he was in Texas and ate corned beef, or discuss light bulbs. Which leads me to believe people like Fred are walk-ons. The real-life equivalent of quick character sketches.

They don’t really “need” an arc, or to be fully fleshed, because they’re built shallow. Each element is given equal measure because nothing has happened in their lives to create a core event.

Although maybe I need to back that up--some people don’t have a “recognizable” core event, because their core events were so small all they did was steer the course of a life, like a rock thrown into a stream changes the flow just enough to create a change but not enough to make it overflow its banks or find a new stream bed.

A good example of that would be the person who does moderately okay in school and gets a moderately okay job because they haven't figured out what to do yet. But…they’re okay with that. And years pass, watching series television, hanging out with friends, going to work, maybe a couple of beers on Friday night.

Thoreau said, Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. But some people never develop a song, or have only the barest note before covering themselves up like a termite, content passing each day much like the day before. The old curse says, “May you live in interesting times” and it might be that they’re waiting for something to happen, but it could be that some people sail through life until the boat docks and they get off.

One year and counting

2010-10-09T22:01:00.000-07:00

It’s been exactly one year—this month marks the anniversary of my first workshop. It’s not like I hadn’t talked to people before, but only as a blogger. RD, much as I love them, treats me like their crazy Aunt Mabel, the weird one who doesn’t follow the rules and “travels” on her vacations.

This blog has always been part of my journey, because I’m short on sleep and stutter when I’m tired. Talking to people is hard. I sound like an idiot, and I know the people at work feel sorry for me ‘cause I don’t know how to do jumbles.

Egri said, and I love me some Egri—that a fish out of water is a dead fish, and a genius kept from his art is often a simpleton. Not that I’m calling myself a genius, but there are a lot of people out there way more balanced than I am. I still remember “walking” into the Black Diamond RWA workshop—I’d tagged it with the totally overwhelming title of Running in the Dark: Organic Structure for Character-driven Stories—and wondering if it was just me and the mod. If nothing else, I figured I’d be able to say I’d done it, and use it as a credit.

The first day, I got a lot of sleep—and when I woke up, some brave soul, intrigued by my stuff had said, “Hello?”

I was so utterly, absolutely grateful. I knew the mod and the workshop chair, and I didn’t want to look like a loser.

I jumped up on my soapbox, threw my arms out and...discovered a calling. People use the word “calling” to mean something you’re drawn to, like the people who become revolutionaries or religious figures, but I think it means something you can’t step back from.

It took ten minutes for me to realize that even if this woman hadn’t been abused in the physical sense, she’d been a victim of emotional bullying.

Many of us are.

We’re writers, and no matter what happens, we’re going to keep trying. The trouble is that there are a lot of tin-pot dictators out there, all with their own agendas. And even the people who mean well get caught up in the whole promo thing—go, throw a workshop, talk about your book. Or think holding a workshop is a good way to make money talking about stuff they know only casually.

Someone had downed this woman’s book and her process, and I was amazed she had opened herself up again. By the time the mod checked in three days later, there were about two hundred posts. Later, someone had to explain to me most workshops—especially the short ones—are pretty lonely and the mods are there to encourage people to talk.

Lol, guess that’s the blogger in me. If you like something, you comment.

The next workshop, I did for a friend—and it was one of those chapter things where it was open to everyone. Nobody cared and I have the sneaking suspicion nobody bothered to cut and paste or download the pdf either. My friend—a woman I admire greatly, was totally mortified. It was a high profile chapter and she’d hoped great hopes.

But, it couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ll never say I’m the end all and be all, because I’m not. I connect with some people, and other people still think I’m crazy.

To date, I’ve done six workshops and one actual in person lecture. I have three deconstructions over the next two months, and my first real opening is next June. It’s mostly thanks to Sharon, who found me right before the BDRWA workshop and sent me a totally random email. Whenever I get around to publishing my “tome” I’m parking that right up front.

“You’ll do.” lol...

Yeah, well...prologues aren't the most popular things out there

2010-10-05T02:09:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a workshop on prologue structure, and while I love them--perhaps they're not the most popular stylistic device. I'd love to know if I have lurkers, because I suspect I do. I always comment wherever I go, but my kid tells me that's rare. I figure, if I enjoy it, I need to leave something in return, even if it's just a couple of words.

On the flip side, I'm lurking through someone else's workshop. I was totally curious how other people did their deconstructions, because I have the feelings I'm way over thinking it. When I think deconstruction, I think of a screen-writer style breakdown mixed with an Egri style analysis. How everything is set-up, why, what the writer used to do it, "how", and how to duplicate the elements.

I'm doing Taken, and if that's not the perfect case study for core events, I don't know what is. It's all on the nose, so it's easy to understand, and it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

My hands still hurt, and I've been doing the hunt and peck with my fingers. Now that my chest is mostly healed, I'm feeling all the bits and pieces that still hurt. My thumbs and index fingers ache, along with my elbows--probably from holding on to the wheel, and my little fingers on both sides feel like someone smashed them with a mallet. It feels like I'm taking tea, walking around with a pinkie out.

I don't think it would be so bad if all I did was go to work, but I "want" to type. And this whole 10 wpm thing is killing me.

I did go up to the Emerald City conference. I crash it every year to do the diva dinner, and this year--someone said hi. Not that I was too clear on who it was. I know a lot of people casually, and I figured I'd say hi back. So she says, "Oops, I thought you were attending the conference." And "I" not suspecting her until later of being a passive-agressive dickhead, say, "I always crash the conference to meet up with friends." To which, she says, "Oh! Yes, we're going to dinner too." And I ask where, and we talk for a minute. Me being my normal overwhelming self. Her being moderately okay like any other casual acquaintance.

So I wave, she looks a little blank and I go off to Azteca like I do every year. It's only later I realized she was an officer with the conference, trying to get a dig in. "Oh! You're here, "but" you're not registered or paying us money." Guess I threw her for a loop, admitting I was a party crasher. Another reason I don't belong to their chapter.

Maybe I'm just totally oblivious, but I like it that way.

Not quite three weeks out

2010-09-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's my first day off since the accident. "Yesterday" was actually my first day, but I got home on Friday, hit the bed with my face and didn't get up until a few hours ago, so today it is. Seventeen days without a break. Stressed out, sore and hurting. My chest still aches. Probably from all the upper body work I've been doing. Like Russell Crowe pretending his hand wasn't broken in Cinderella Man, I've been muscling boxes and doing the two-handed Ginzu chopper.

With my old job trying to kill me, and my new job trying to kill me--it's been a long haul. Thank God, I'm through the transition. My new boss lost interest two days ago, and thank God for that, too. The last thing I need is someone trying to see how far he can push me. I fit in like I've been there forever, "and" I don't have a car payment, which means that I haven't just doubled my money, but added a couple hundred dollars back into my bill money.

On the down-side, my car still smells like baby powder, and my thumbs feel like sausages. Because I'm using them, they haven't had a chance to heal.

I also called my mom and asked if anything seemed odd. I've been having a hard time thinking and I'd started to wonder if being thrown around rattled my brain. She told me it was probably stress and the new job, and most of the words came back last night so she's probably right. I like the new job because it's nonstop. Go in, run, then it's time to go. There isn't a lot of time for deep thoughts or practicing my videos.

On the other hand, I've been connecting with people--talking about Word Find and Jumble. These people love Jumble. I can't do a Jumble to save my life. And Word Find is beyond me. Something about looking for words in a block of letters makes my brain spaz. Chimney? Backwards and upside down? Can't do it.

I've never been able to do it. Not even back in fourth grade when the teacher would hand out the "fun" worksheets.

I did manage a trip to the farmer's market, since I discovered some were open during the early evening.

...life and stuff

2010-09-15T00:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a week. Exactly seven days, give or take a few hours, since I wrecked my car. My fault, I know. Not much I can say about going too fast on 512, home of the Puyallup demolition derby. I was headed toward the Fair and everyone else was headed to Sumner.

If I hadn't froze. If I'd had faster reflexes. If I'd just started out at a different time, or decided against taking a part-time job. I wanted to get my kid a birthday present. Something nice. And the Fair was an easy fifteen days, with a start and end time. No commitments. I blogged when I got home, all depressed and hurting. No car, no money. Dependent on my kid for a ride. No sick days.

I once asked Luke, "If I'm so smart, why do I have a crappy, go-nowhere job?" And he said, "It's not about how smart you are. It's about life choices."

I wouldn't trade my kids for the world, but sometimes the only thing in your corner is pigheadedness, and I have that in spades. I applied everywhere. For all the jobs I didn't want. I went back to school to escape restaurants, but the world--or at least "this" world, doesn't need another entry-level accountant. On the other hand, it does need cooks, and a good line cook is like gold. A solid, kick-ass grill is ruby-studded platinum.

My accident was on Tuesday. I had a new job on Thursday. Six weeks of vacation. Paid holidays. Forty five guaranteed hours every single week. I've doubled up, transitioning out of my old job, and it hurts. It's been a long time since I've played Superman.

Three days after

2010-09-11T02:12:00.000-07:00

I still can't get the pictures off my phone, but my kid probably can, once I pin him down. I love Geico. It's been nothing but a pleasure. They took care of everything. I don't have a car, but the process could have been a lot worse. Probably the reason I've stuck with them for so long.

My car was totaled. The Verizon truck's trailer hitch went through the radiator and pushed the engine back until it hit the fire wall. When I went down to get my stuff out of the trunk, the collision guy showed me where they had to pry it apart to get the mileage counter out, and where the engine compartment peeled away from the frame. He also showed me where my knee had gone through the kick panel.

Funny how I didn't feel that.

I still don't, even though I have a bruise the size of an egg on my kneecap.

Adrenaline and determination kept me going for the last couple of days and abruptly ran out. I crashed like an elephant in a Ferris Wheel. Eighteen hours, straight through. My chest still hurts, and the marks on my shoulder look like rope burns. I also have badly bruised ribs, elbows, wrists and thumbs.

I'm glad I took pictures, because I've had to show them each time people ask why I'm moving so slow. Not that "I" think I'm moving too slow. I'm still faster than a lot of people, but it's been a long day and I really need to lie down.

Maybe a good thing

2010-09-09T01:04:00.000-07:00

I have a bruise the size of a Smithfield ham over my left shoulder and across my chest. I'm lucky I wasn't wearing an underwire, lol. It hurts, although at this point it's just me whining. I don't have any upper body strength and it's driving me nuts.

I tried to disjoint a chicken--an easy job that used to take five minutes and recently took ten, with me swearing and sawing away at the breast like a lumberjack. I also couldn't grab the detergent. Another one of those, "What do you mean, I can't?" moments. My car is totaled. Those Geico people were fast. Less than a 24 hour turnaround.

I thought about life, writing and my kids today, and how sometimes it feels a little bit like I'm running in mud. I'm going nowhere fast, but there are no regrets. I'm spending time I should have spent years ago, trying to connect with the people who mean the most to me. And I'm writing again, always a good thing. Although I think that's just because I'm afraid to lie down.

Gratitude

2010-09-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

My car looked very sad, all scrunched up with the doors hanging at weird angles and the front bumper missing. The trooper said every accident people walk away from is a good accident, and I guess it was a good accident. I didn't just walk, I ran.

It might have been the way the engine was hissing and spewing, but all I could think was--"Get out. Get out. Now!" Although--yeah, pragmatic me--first thing I did after I made sure nothing was bleeding or broken was grab my purse and glasses, and make sure I had my registration. Then I got out. The door was stuck and that's probably where I got the bruised knee because I almost ripped it off the hinges on my way out.

After they towed me and my car to the impound yard, I stood there looking. In the soft twilight and drizzle, out on a quiet side street by the river. There was a Burger King bag in the back seat, a couple of napkins--a map book and crow food. An old Krispy Kreme hat from VA and a few packets of salt. Barely forty thousand miles. I rarely drive long distances. New tires, only two thousand miles old. Winter's coming, and I'd thought about chains.

I'd had thoughts the other day, about bumper stickers and paint jobs. Thinking about a nice dusty gray-green. Not many more payments. Only another two years.

I'm grateful I walked away although I'm afraid to lay down. Adrenaline trickles out and pain trickles in. My shoulder hurts, my chest really hurts, and my knee just wants to curl up on a bed, but the great thing about doctors is that they can make you feel lucky. I didn't burn myself on the air bag. I didn't shatter my forearm in eight pieces. I didn't break my nose and cheeks, and I didn't die. I'm most grateful for that.

I might not have a car anymore--the very first one I'd bought on my own in my favorite color with the seat that was just the perfect fit, but I still have things to do and places to go. Maybe later. Right now, I'm going to pop a vicodin and go to sleep.

wow, sometimes they come out of nowhere...

2010-09-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

I vaguely remember writing last night's post. Vaguely. I think I was frustrated--reading a contemporary that had absolutely none of the trappings of "being" a contemporary. It's a very weird field and contains everything from chick-lit to the Cowboy's Hidden Baby. Funny how chick-lit comes the closest to being "real-world" while the other stuff just sort of putters along like it's caught in some sort of fifties time warp. No cell phones, TVs or computers. Everyone listens to stuff decades out of date and savors their rich aromatic brew (coffee) in a world where no one has tattoos or incontinent cats.

I've been working on my next class. It's a short riff on prologues, probably one of the least liked and most used stylistic devices out there. And yeah, I'm probably over-thinking it, but everything I do needs to make me happy because passion shows. I love prologues--epilogues too, and if I can't create some kind of connection with the people talking to me, I might as well not bother.

The days are getting shorter, and maybe it's just Seattle, but it's been cold Fall weather. The air has a nice nip, and the leaves are starting to curl at the edges. I've been thinking about moving my laptop out to the deck so I can enjoy the sky before it turns a permanent gray. It's been cold enough to break out the hoodie and fuzzy socks.

I got a part time job working at the Fall fair--my kid's birthday is coming up and I'd like to buy her something nice. I've never been, and maybe that says something, but just the thought of braving crazed gridlock and people intent on buying a fair scone makes me nervous. I couldn't resist--the name of the concession is so totally pun worthy and it's only for a couple of days.

I'm going to take lots of pictures.

Cell phones

2010-09-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

My mother has a cordless phone, it's big and bulky, and sits on the kitchen counter next to her analog clock. According to my twenty-eight year old son, analog clock tutorials are becoming very popular because most people use their cell phones to tell time.

I still remember a world where phones came with cords, but my daughter doesn't. She can text, talk, play games and listen to a podcast at the same time on a phone little bigger than her hand. The world is full of people texting, talking, listening to podcasts and showing people their virtual photo albums. When I go into work, you can bet I whip out my phone the minute someone shows me pictures of their kid, all the better to show mine.

We've gone from hand cranks to smartphones everywhere except contemporary romance. Most contemporaries are about twentysomethings, but the trouble is, they're not written by twentysomethings. If you're dialing "0" on your ten digit Jitterbug to talk with a live operator you might want to spend quality research time checking out current behaviors.

Memories are static. A contemporary happens now.

Everything we write is colored by our experiences and attitudes, and while it can be changed, sometimes it's unconscious. The person who doesn't use a phone isn't going to think of providing one for her heroine in the same way a writer's use of swearwords or her handling of controversial subject matter reflects her comfort level.

We are what we write, although that would probably be better as "we write what we are."

Tired, I guess

2010-08-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my facebook account--and I can finally talk about it because it took until now for me to realize "how" to link back to my blog in a way I'm comfortable with. I'm not the most public person in the world, even if my kids complain that I'm way too "open". Guess having a mom with on-line presence is a little disturbing.

I've always used my blog to talk about what's going on in my life, even if it's crappy or upsetting--and yeah, it's true that my angst level is 77 on a scale of 100. If I were a regency hero, I'd fit right in.

The more research I do into writing, the more I realize how vast the subject is, and like Kate says--I'm a theory person. It took me awhile to figure out that I'm not really some kind of laser accurate scalpel fixer-upper, but more like a...well, maybe I had it right a long time ago...structuralist. I believe in systems, patterns and the big picture and I trust people to handle their own details. There's a structure to pansting, even if it's hard to see, and today--I'm not going there.

I'm having some minor health issues triggered by stress. Like the entire year I wasted strung out on antihistamines because of full body hives--issues are sucking up my time. I started halfway down that workshop at RD only to realize the presenter was right--it's hard to do anything when you're on the bottom of the Maslov hieracrhy because primary needs take precedence.

To paraphrase Thoreau, I come to this blog to spend borrowed time, robbing my creditors of an hour. As of now I'm breaking the rss link to my author page so I "can" come to this blog. I tried to tone it down so people checking me out wouldn't be turned off by my Jodi-does-Hamlet imitation, but it's who I am.

I like to think I have periods of stability, but...yeah, they're pretty sporadic. I probably wouldn't be the same person if I wore pink, anyway. *patting the blog* missed you, baby.

If you've come to check out my writing, I have archives. If you're curious about what I'm working on now--I have a facebook author page. If you don't mind the fact that I'm still on my journey--thanks for stopping by. You've been warned, lol....

Why is it always "random thoughts" if I'm not talking about a specific issue?

2010-08-27T02:48:00.000-07:00

lol--guess that got me away from geeky titles, although random probably describes my train of thought. For the last five minutes I've been preoccupied with presentation style. Anyone who has ever followed one of my soapboxes over on RD knows that I only have two styles--all out, and outta there. I'll usually keep screaming into the wind until I work things through--not so much for other people as it is for myself, because questions keep me sane. Or I realize there isn't a point, and sometimes it might be because my stuff or thoughts aren't really the best fit. I don't kid myself --and hope I'm not so puffed with my own conceit (you can take the writer out of the regency, but you can't take the regency out of the writer, lol) to think the gems that fall from my lips "are" gems and not cubic zirconias or something.

What works for one person doesn't always work for another. It's easy to tell when someone has connected with something that really resonates.

So this person asks if I had asked a rhetorical question--and before that I'd only vaguely thought about how I got information across. In the last workshop someone mentioned the Socratic method, and I'd vaguely agreed, but knowing and living it are different.

I do give back questions, and yeah-- it "is" the Socratic method.

I ask because it triggers focused thinking. Most people have the answers, they just need to dig down and look for them.

Terrible beauty? Data visualization and random thoughts

2010-08-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

Yeah, back to the geeky titles. I can't get away from them--it probably says something about me. But every week--sometimes twice a week, depending on how much time I have, I listen to a TED lecture. And this week (because I subscribe to their updates) there was a lecture on data visualization.

I actually wanted something light, so I tried out the Axis of Evil vid first, but--like some books, some speakers are hard to get through. David McCandless is different. I think (and yeah, I've been thinking about it) that there's a certain "something" to those speakers who know their subject cold--and this guy knows what he's talking about. Data visualization and patterns. What I hate about TED is the comment forum--it used to be interesting and somehow turned into a bunch of people trying to one-up each other with point counts, and thumbs up and down. I guess the idea is trying to get a conversation going. Not always a good thing if there are conversation hogs. And how can you respect comments where some of the members are graded on a negative point scale? Is difference of opinion or getting a thumbs down from the people who want to be on top grounds for being labeled a second class citizen?

The "concept" of TED is cool. Some of the lectures are way beyond cool--but the way it's been adopted, and what it's become as a multi-layered elitist closed door clique is a little hard to stomach. Information should be available to those who want it--and maybe I'm just leaning toward it becoming a little less. Less audience. Fewer power plays. A little less of the ivory tower elitism that the speakers themselves don't project.

If the ideas are worth spreading--maybe there needs to be a lecture on how to spread them in a way that reaches a bigger audience. Uhm...yeah, guess I didn't realize I felt so strongly about it. Love the content, hate the delivery system. But I still like David McCandless. He made me laugh.

Woot! Going live with "Using Core Events to Create Organic Plot Points"

2010-08-22T03:17:00.000-07:00

...which pretty much means that no matter what--I'm always going to have issues with long, wordy titles. The good thing is that it sucks in the people who are interested in randomy craft geekery, while the bad thing is--it turns "off" people not interested in random craft geekery. Not that it's going away or anything since it looks like it's turning into the theory and practice of pantsing in two thousand easy lessons.

I did notice that the more work I do into organic structure, the more it grows. Questions trigger questions, and thoughts just keep unraveling, spilling into other thoughts--building on themselves and growing into, yeah--well, a big organic structure.

This video is all about how a core event works and how to use it. The next one will be how to use organic plot points to create organic plot. Now I've just got to write it.

More thoughts on core events and creating story...

2010-08-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm a geek. What can I say? All that work clearing out what I mean for the videos is making me think. Organic structure is so...huge. And I know I keep saying that, but I've barely scratched the tip of the iceberg. It's the whole theory behind pantsing, why it works--how to make it flow, and how to shape it later, and I'm only now starting to realize the reason there's been so little work done on it is because pantsers and plotters are vastly different kinds of people.

I always pictured a core event as a bullseye. A center? Made up of bits, pieces, rings and wrappers like Saturn and a Vietnamese spring roll. I'd never put thought into the "mechanism" that pulled the bits and pieces out to interact with the story. If the pieces of your character drive the story, then something needs to go through the core event like a two-pointed arrow with one half pointed inward at the tangled wants, needs and emotions that make up the character, while the other half points out, at the story.

And they spin--because characters aren't static. At any given time, the points that face outward toward the story, aren't the same, which means characters are always in flux.

Jane doesn't just wake up and decide to be jealous, she needs a specific trigger so the point facing outward will hook out the jealousy in reaction. In other words, if Jane met a woman, she'd be indifferent, but if she met a secure, pretty pageant queen she's going to be jealous, because she has self-doubt locked into place by her core event.

Back to the script, because it needs a little work.

Gah.

It's been a long time coming

2010-08-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

Just because you identify a need, doesn't make it easy, or yeah--I guess everyone would be doing it. I've been working on videos. A ten month promise on my part, and something I've come to realize can only happen once a month. I have the content, but trying to squish all of it down into five minute sound bites is hard. Each video triggers other videos.

Craft is so interconnected. Core events flow into using core events for organic plot points, and that made me want to talk about using environment and population movements to create characters before their core events. I started out thinking ten and I've already sketched out twenty. I have no idea where I'll stop, but setting up an archive is tempting. I've been watching youtube, looking for the same kind of stuff--y'know, so I don't duplicate what's already out there--and it surprised me that nobody's explored characterization in detail.

There are books on character building, but I dunno. I've never been a fan of lists, and a lot of them don't really "say" anything. Sort of like that Ueland book. People have been telling me for years, get If You Want to Write, and I finally did. Great book, if you don't write genre fiction. After the fifth slam against "mindless fluff" I got tired of it. If anyone wants a brand new copy of If You Want to Write, a book about independence and spirit, let me know. It didn't really say much and it's got no great insights, but it's shiny and makes a good paperweight.

It's got to be point of view...

2010-08-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time talking about pov--yeah, 'cause I'm like that--but, I was over at Karen Knows Best, reading Azteclady's conference blog posts, which, if you get the chance to read them are way cool, and thinking how different our povs are. To me, Nationals are this huge whirl of "Run! Run! Run! Faster, quicker--before anyone else." And because I think that way, I see all the other people like me.

We show up every year, hoping and praying that this year--this one magical year--will be "our" year. The year we finally come out on top. Like lottery players blowing our last two bucks, we throw down conference fees, airfare and hotel, and top it all off with new clothes and antacids. Deanna is right, in some ways, it's very sad.

Over on RD someone asked whether RWA was worth it, and someone else said--very honestly--it depends. It's a very rigid, tiered system, and moving from tier to tier is difficult. The hardest jump is from PRO to PAN, and even then--after cruising the autographing, there are tiers within PAN. The big names, the mid-list, and all others.

For Azteclady and all the other reader/bloggers, Nationals are upbeat and happy. All their pictures are...so happy. Everyone smiles and has a good time. It's not like RT, where the big names are mobbed everywhere they go. In some ways Nationals is a very intimate conference. Everyone is up close and personal--and there, like everywhere else, readers are treasured.

I remember the days when I stood in line for publisher autographings. It was cool and fun, and magical. Getting to meet people I'd only read about in RT, and have my books signed. I still have my copy of Lady of the West from the Savannah RT back when I was part of the early Bookstores that Cared network. We hit that conference like a ton of bricks--squealing, shrieking, and eating complimentary bookseller snacks at bookseller parties. Then we all jumped on Fabio and took tons of pictures, all the while trying to squat down and pretend we were shorter, lol.

The last time I was at Nationals and stood in line for something non-food related, we dissected the speakers entire backlist, argued about the multiple story arcs, how she'd changed, whether this workshop would be any better than the last one, and whether it was better to sit near the front hoping it'd be good, or near the back in case it sucked.

From magic to mechanics. Not the best change.

It's been a long conference...

2010-08-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

I've never been pro-RWA, although I've often been neutral. When you add up the numbers: 750,000 in dues, 60,000 for the GH, 60,000 for the Rita, 850,000 for 2000 conference fees. And the people. You're talking a lot of money and influence.

Romance Sells. Half the New York Time bestsellers and most of the mid-list belong. As the organization grew, so did the writers. RWA is the biggest professional writer's organization in the world--nine times bigger than SFWA. The last few years have been hard; with e-pubs, digital publishing, Horizon and Change, and what used to be fresh became stodgy. I thought we'd schism, but nobody pushes revolution on deadline.

I got sucked into this last conference and it finally clicked. Maybe it just takes me a really long time. It's not the organization, like the Grinch says, "It's something more." Something intangible that only happens when you get three thousand women--chapter mates, on-line friends and crit groups--together in one place at the same time. It's energy to the millionth power, serendipity, and belonging. It's standing in the elevator talking to people whose names you've only seen on the covers of books, sharing a shuttle with a rising star in cutoffs and a tank top, big name editors who give out five minutes of critique for no reason and agents willing to talk about the shift to informal language because you asked. And seeing the same people over and over again, because they believe in the same things you do.

We all have common ground, and whether we're hardcore RWA, part of Change, or virtual personalities in our on-line chapter, RWA exists because for four days a year--somewhere in the country--we don't have to be alone.

Bookmarks and the RWA Goody room

2010-08-05T00:16:00.000-07:00

Back when conference registration first opened there was a thread on RD. "What kind of promo should I bring for the Goody Room?" "Does anyone know a good printer? How many bookmarks should I bring?"

I've never been a fan of bookmarks even though they're industry standard. I like the mavericks. Hand-poured candles in tins. Wedding favors. The woman who plastered her book cover and info on energy drinks, and my favorite--the erotica writer who printed her info on cherry red condoms. I got a couple for my cp and wonder if he ever used them.

During that in-person workshop I did a few months back, someone asked me about bookmarks. Not that it's my "other" favorite soapbox, but if you had to have them at least make sure they have value added. Like Michael Hague's "Six Stage Plot Structure" bookmarks. They're on good heavy stock, easy to use, and showcase his contact info. I still have mine, I keep it taped to my whiteboard. Maybe a recipe? A knitting pattern? A genealogy if you have a complicated story tree. Pictures get old fast, and in a sea of similar bookmarks, disappear.

The same goes for flyers and brochures. Want to come across wrong? Think one-sided black and white on colored paper and then, put it next to someone with color on high gloss.

People sort of segregated themselves. Bookmarks next to bookmarks, flyers next to flyers. And Romantic Times--of course, front and center, next to the only free book.

Although, occasionally you'd get someone who'd pick one up. I caught this woman looking at Kate's.

She said she was a reader. That's pretty cool.