Rewriting Your Story

“Good stories are not written. They are rewritten.” Phyllis Whitney

“The first draft is a skeleton….just bare bones.

The rest of the story comes later with revising.” Judy Blume 

Judy Blume knows a lot about writing for children and understands that revising is part of the writing process. Do check out her site as she has a lot to offer new writers.

The topic today is revision or rewriting. From books for the very young to fiction for adults. All writers share one common practice–rewriting. I have learned this first hand with the publication of my new book Stink Bomb.

Telling you that a book must be rewritten, revised, edited, etc. is one thing. Doing the hard work of rearranging the words is another task entirely. Revising seems like a daunting task, but in the end the well crafted manuscript is worth the effort.

Elmore Leonard put it this way- “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

In my book Stink Bomb, the rewriting process meant seeing the story more clearly through the main character’s point of view. Often, that’s what the process of rewriting entails–following yourPOV character more closely as they wander through each of your scenes. Revising can also mean removing a minor character, changing the setting, or making the dialogue sound more relevant for your audience. Revising usually means cutting parts of a story as well.

A tip if you’re about to do some rework on your current novel or essay. Print it out, grab some colorful pens, and go to a different location. In other words, get out of your normal work environment as you attempt to look at your writing piece with fresh eyes.

Share this:

Plotting Your Story

Not every story writer is a plotter. I wasn’t until I began to struggle to keep track of complex story elements. Plotting your story can be an arduous task. Still, if the idea of writing out a hundred scene cards or even following the hero’s journey, makes you want to have your nails ripped out, maybe a simple plot planner is for you. I can speak from experience, a little forethought can save you from a lot of confusion and discouragement.

The first step when designing a plot planner (Clothesline Planner), is to decide on the opening scene, inciting incident and climatic scenes. Your opening scene may show the character in his ordinary world–how things are before the events of his story change. The first step might open on the inciting incident–the event that either puts the external goal for the story in front of the character. The climatic scene is where your hero will face the antagonist  on the page. It’s the BIG scene at the end everyone is reading toward.

Once you have these three scenes you will be at stage 1 of your clothesline. If you are really anti-plot, you can stop here and still be better off than you were without plotting at all.

In stage 2, you add your mid-point/point of no return. The mid-point is where things change so drastically the hero can not go back to that ordinary world even if he wants to. He HAS to go forward.

It can also almost be as if a new story is starting at this point. The character’s fear will be the same, and he still won’t have his core need met, but his external goal may change or his method for getting to that external goal may change so drastically it is like a new story in many way. The mid-point needs to be a BIG shift in direction for your hero. If there is no turning point here, the book will have a  sagging middle.

In stage 3 we add a scene where the protagonist (your hero) engages and a dark moment. It can be tempting when writing a book to let events push your hero along. Bad things happen to him; he reacts. Isn’t that enough? No, it isn’t. Strangely, this too makes for a boring read.

So in the first quarter to third of your book, your hero needs to engage. He needs to say “I’m going to do something about this.” Think of a scene where your protagonist does this and put it in between the inciting incident and the mid-point to prop that little sag there up. Then go to the end. You have this beautiful climax all thought out and you can’t wait to get your hero to that point. But if he gets there too easily, your reader just won’t care.

The dark moment is the place where your character thinks everything is lost–where there is no way he can win this fight. Let us see him suffer. Then kick him in the pants and make him realize he CAN win. He is a proactive protagonist after all. He is just going to have to give up something that up until this point he didn’t think he could stand to lose. And once he makes that decision, he is off and running again.

The Plot Twist

Think back over the books that you’ve read. There have been a few. Maybe you’re a John Grisham fan or perhaps you like science fiction. Perhaps you love a good tragedy or comedy. Which book or books come to mind first? What’s are the two works of fiction that jump out at you?

Two books grab my attention. One is Ender’s Game and the other is The Testament. Two completely different genres. Ender’s Game (EG) is set in the future and The Testament (TT) is set in the present. The fate of the world hangs in the balance in EG and TT is about greed, money, and an inheritance. EG has an anti-hero who is 5-6 years old. TT has a woman missionary as the heroine with an alcoholic lawyer.

It is hard to say why we remember certain books and why other works sink into the recesses of our minds. Why do these books stand out? Perhaps it is because of the plot.

I have been writing about different plot types lately and it’s got me thinking.

Do the same drill with yourself right now and see what conclusion you reach.

One reason books catch our attention is because of bigger than life characters, but that alone is not enough. The book must have not only a great plot, but a twist as well.

In EG, Ender is set at a battle school. He is trained, passes on to new levels, and finally plays a strategy game that pits him against the buggers. The ending of the book will leave you breathless.

In TT, a billionaire leaves his money to his illegitimate daughter. While his immediate family are contesting his will, a lawyer is trying to find the heiress who is in Pantanal, South America serving as a missionary.

The writers of these books know how to lead the reader down a certain path until they surprise us with an unexpected twist. Bigger than life characters plus great plotting plus an unexpected ending equals great literature.

Let me know what you think about the plot twist.

Ender’s Game

It’s film adaption Friday!

Yes! They finally made the movie. I’m so excited! I actually read Ender’s Game late in life only a couple of years ago. The book instantly captured my attention. Naturally, I had to get the other books and read them too. What a series!

The Ender’s Game novels are a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card. Ender’s Game started out as a short story, but was later expanded into the novel Ender’s Game. There is a whole story behind the first book that is very interesting. It currently consists of twelve novels, twelve short stories, and 47 comic issues. The first two novels in the series, Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, each won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and were among the most influential science fiction novels of the 1980s.

The series is set in a future where mankind is facing annihilation and total destruction by an aggressive alien society known as “Buggers” or “Formics”. The central character, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, is one of the child soldiers trained at Battle School and eventually Command School to be the future leaders of the protection of Earth.

1. Ender’s Game
2. Speaker for the Dead
3. Xenocide
4. Children of the Mind
5. Ender’s Shadow
6. Shadow of the Hegemon
7. Shadow Puppets
8. Shadow of the Giant
9. “First Meetings” (short story)
10. A War of Gifts: An Ender Story
11. Ender in Exile

Overcoming the Monster Plot

There is an evil overshadowing the land. Who will push back the tide of anarchy and free us? We need a hero! One of the oldest known stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is set in this style. Some James Bond movies borrow this theme as do countless video games and one of my favorite movies, Jaws.

Here is the way this plot plays out.

Anticipation Stage and Call

The fearsome monster makes his presence known, either from a great distance or from closer. The monster is elusive, shapeless, and nightmarish. The creature can be a humanoid, an animal, or a combination of the two. If it’s a type of human, it will have some deformity or abnormality that shows it as not quite human. If an animal, it will have qualities that make it partly human.

The monster may take on any of three roles:

Predator:

Protector:

Avenger:

All three are found in the pattern story “Jack And The Beanstalk”: First it’s “Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman,” then it’s the sleeping giant guarding his treasures, and finally it’s the angry giant pursuing Jack across the clouds and down the beanstalk.

Who’s going to stop the monster? The hero will after he or she receives the call to Adventure.

Dream Stage

This is the part where the hero prepares for battle.

Frustration Stage

The monster arrives and shows his power. Can the hero beat the monster?

Nightmare Stage

Time for a climactic battle. The hero may be outmatched, but will have to defeat the monster for the good of all.

Escape from Death and Death of the Monster

Finally, the monster’s power is broken, and it dies. The people are saved and the Hero emerges victorious.

The Hero receives three things:

Treasure

Kingdom

A Princess

And you know the rest. They live happily ever after.