You’ll each then take a piece of paper, go off alone for 15 minutes, and write your answer to the question: What happens next? [...]]]> Today’s exercise works best if you can do it with at least two other people. You’ll all read the passage below from Hilda van Stockum’s wonderful book The Winged Watchman. (http://www.amazon.com/Winged-Watchman-Living-History-Library/dp/1883937078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265747756&sr=8-1_)

You’ll each then take a piece of paper, go off alone for 15 minutes, and write your answer to the question: What happens next?

Come back together and compare your answers.

He was beginning to feel more at ease when a creaking board above startled him.  There was something moving in the top attic [of the abandoned windmill].  What should he do, run down?  He wanted to, but Father always said: “Face difficulties, don’t avoid them.  That way you’ll conquer them.”  Clasping the cat, whose warm purring gave him courage, he crept cautiously up the stairs.  After each step he listened.  There was no more noise; instead, it was so still that the cat’s purring sounded like the drone of a bomber.  Moisture broke out on Joris’ forehead and the skin of his scalp prickled.  He quickly mounted the last few steps.  He did not know what he had expected to find, but all he saw was broken machinery.  The mill’s windshaft lay abandoned on the floor, and the hole in the cap in which it had fitted was open, letting through clean daylight.  A current of air swayed the cobwebs which hung everywhere in garlands.  A roll of moldy sails lay tucked away, in the shadow, with coils of rope beside it.  Joris was just beginning to laugh at himself for his fears when the sails heaved.  Something was stirring under the roll.  Probably another cat, Joris told himself.  Again he felt the temptation to run.  Why did that obstinate tyrant inside him drive him on?  He’d explored as far as the top attic now, hadn’t he?  Why should he have to poke his nose under the sailcloth?  No one would know.  He could sneak off…

But he’d know it himself.  He’d always know, till the end of his days, that he’d been a coward at the last moment.

Drawing a deep breath, he moved forward and lifted up a sail.  It was wrenched out of his hand as a dark figure dashed from underneath and made a bolt for the stairs….

What happens next???

Discuss among yourselves why you each made the choices you made as you crafted your resolution to the mystery.  You’ll learn that you can give a group of writers the same plot and characters, and you’ll never end up with the same story twice!

(Note: If you can get a copy of the book prior to doing the assignment, you can skim through the first half of the book to find the passage quoted above – then discover how the author resolved the mystery. However, it’s better if you don’t know the story to try this assignment.)

For more writing help, visit Michelle Van Loon at www.homepagewriting.com.

No matter how you hammer them on the page, that’s a lot of words.

When, for the first time ever, [...]]]> A Novel is More than a Beginning and an End

Here are some novel facts:

• Most average novels run between 55,000-80,000 words.
• A “long novel” is considered to be a novel upwards of 80,000 words and stopping at about 100,000.

No matter how you hammer them on the page, that’s a lot of words.

When, for the first time ever, we come upon an amazing idea for a story or for a character that won’t leave us alone and we think to ourselves I want to write a novel, the second thought that often pops into our heads is, but how will I fill up all those pages?

It’s not that we can’t think of a wonderfully tragic beginning, or a dynamically thrilling ending, but it’s all that stuff in the middle that has the power to stop us in our keyboarding tracks. I like to think of this part of the writing process as the Maddening Middle. It’s the part where the story really should begin to pick up pace rather than slump off into a bunch of disjointed scenes or sagging events. It’s where characters stop being “characters” and are shaped into actual people whom readers begin to care and think about even when they’re not reading. What a great challenge to the writer, to create such lives!

What makes up the middle?

The middle is more than the hefty section of the book where this and that happens to simply fill up space. It is the section that weaves all the threads of plot and pace and people together. There, everything that happens has to have a reason. Even small events that seem singular at first, must eventually bind their way into the scheme of the big picture and push the plot toward the story’s conclusion. Here, the writer uses action to expose the motives of the villain, the passions of the heroine, the flaws of the hero. Here, the reader eavesdrops on dialogue meant to set their hearts quivering with anticipation or dread.

Writing the middles is definitely the hardest part, but it’s without doubt the most lively and emotional place to grow the story. In the middles, characters often begin making decisions without the writer’s help. They begin to move forward and create their own dilemmas, their own successes. They become their own personalities…if the writer allows it, and she should.

So if this is such a dynamic part of the process, why is it maddening? Why all this trouble with middles? Usually it’s because of pacing.

What is pacing, and how do we accomplish it?

Pacing is moving the story forward at the right speed so that the reader will keep turning the pages without getting bored or side-tracked. It’s the process of revealing secrets and actions in a way that makes a book hard or even impossible to put down. It’s letting each scene unfold to its fullest, and then stopping when it does. This means we can’t simply tell the reader what’s happening in a scene. We have to lead them along, allowing them to experience the emotion and the action.

Imagine a scene without words, and only actions. How do the actions convey the emotions and thoughts of the character? If you know, then you can draw the scene out to its fullest.

It’s easy to want to rush through scenes instead of letting them play out. Sometimes when we write, we visualize the story like a movie reel unwinding in our heads, and like watching any good movie, we can’t wait to get to the best parts. So, sometimes we rush through minor scenes in a hurry to get to the big turning point or the climax.

But if we take the time to milk out the small scenes, not only will the story become more fleshed out, and the characters better developed, but we may also find that we don’t have to hunt for more “stuff and fluff” to fill those pages. In fact, we may find out that we can easily exceed a reasonable word limit for our novels as the people we’ve created begin to live out their lives fully in those middle pages.

EXERCISES:

• Look closely at a scene you’ve written, and begin asking yourself a lot of “what-if” questions. Is this scene necessary? Does it move the story forward? What would happen if I wrote this scene from another character’s point of view? What if this action or conversation were to take place in a different location? Have I shown what the characters are feeling and thinking by their actions? In other words, have I milked the scene for all its emotional worth? For example: (nervousness/anxiety) He began rubbing his hands together as though he were working them over with an invisible paper towel. (Shyness/fear) She glanced at his waist, then over his shoulders; anywhere but into his eyes. (Anger/resolve) He planted his hands on his hips and hunched his shoulders forward as his lips tightened into a straight line.
• Try one of my favorite exercises, one that happens to be useful for lots of reasons, including that of getting the feel for pacing. Grab a book that is one of your favorites and find a scene that will live in your memory forever. The scene should be at least two pages long. Usually an action scene is a good choice, or a scene where something is at stake and the emotions are high. Now copy the scene. In longhand. Word for word. Copy it out so that it feels like its coming from you. Let the words sink into you as you write them. Pay attention to what’s happening and how. Notice the senses used to help the reader feel what the author is trying to convey. Do this from time to time, as often as you can. It will help you learn how a good, fleshy scene is developed.