| __/\/\__
_(_¬ ¬)_ \__\/__/ |
|
| __/\/\__
_(_¬ ¬)_ \__\/__/ |
|
In other words, you must unlearn, what you have learned, and begin to understand that punctuation is only one part of writing mechanics. There other, is architecture. The use of paragraphs, page brakes, chapter brakes. How to structure your sentences.
Most high schools teach you essay writing. That is writing to convey information, ideas, and concepts. As well as to explain examples and pose questions.
If you look at an essay. You will see large paragraphs, consisting of many sentences each. The first sentence contains the general idea of the rest of the paragraph. It's so you can find information the most efficiently by not reading each paragraph all the way throw. Only the paragraph with the first sentence closets to what you are looking fore. Quotations are not vary common. It looks a lot like what you are reading now. Large block of sentences.
But we are interested in writing a story here. Not an essay. In an essay, you are trying to be as clear and as efficient as possible. The reader of an essay has a mission. A specific question that needs to be answered. The reader may only read a few sentences, skipping over chapters and paragraphs to find specific information.
A story, you are trying to entertain, a keep your reader. Your reader is just as likely to toss you away as read you. The novel is linear. The reader needs to start on page one, and move throw each sentence in turn. Efficiency is sacrificed for clarity. Clarity achieved throw simplicity.
To do that. You must apply different rules than what you use for an essay. Understand this, and you will quickly, and easily turn a zero and one star fiction, into two, three, even four star with a good idea.
|
|
|
|
|
When I approach a story, I like to think of in terms of several different maps over the same stretch of page. Unlike a map however, witch tells you that is, looking at a story in this way helps me to engineer a story to be both athletically pleasing, while still remaining functional.
It's not really that hard to do; once you understand the different "layers" there are to a story. There are even layers to a story that doesn't necessarily cover actual space in the story. But I will discuss those things later.
|
|
| [ Main Table | TOC2 | Home ] |
The big change, is the heavy use of dialogue, the act of some one speaking. Something that doesn't exist in essays. (The closest that an essay has, is the quote.) In fact, close to 50% to 90% of a story, will be dialog.
When you have heavy dialog, the only thing that should be outside the dialog is something called a name tag. This is vary important, and the most common error I come acrose.
| Example. |
| "Hi Joe. How are you doing today?" Bill said.
"Hi Joe," Bill said, "How are you doing today? |
Another change, is the use of the "but" and the "and". In an essay, ether can be used to start a sentence. In dialogue however, "butts" and "ands" are uses as an addition. Sort of spoken equivalent to PS found in letters.
| Example. |
| "I went to the store and they didn't have any aspirin. But, I did find this nice new hat." |
| "I went to the store and they didn't have any aspirin," Jenny said, "But, I did find this nice new hat." |
| Proper English. | Here is how it's done. |
| "Can I have that?", Jack said.
"No you can't.", John snapped. "I think he should, John.", Bill replied. |
"Can I have that?" Jack said.
"No you can't," John snapped. "I think he should, John," Bill replied. |
Sentences are always separated by punctuation.
| Example: |
| "Say Jack, did you catch the game that was on last night?" Allen said, "It was the Bucks against the Bullies. Man, what a game that was. It went right up to the wire, didn't it." |
As a result, you will have large chunks of work that consists of one sentence paragraphs. They may even be vary shot sentences consisting of only a few words. No sweat, this is normal. The idea that a paragraph has to have more than one sentence are not the case when it comes to dialog.
Actions made by the speaker can be included. Things like taking a drink of coffee or something else just as simple to brake up the dialog. However, if the speaker is going to perform a complex series of tasks. One that has several steps and takes some describing (something like examining a crime scene) then this needs to be its own paragraph.
Paragraphs are separated by two methods, tabbing over the first line of each paragraph (usually done for hard copes or written forms) or double spacing (usually used for web pages or files to be displayed on the Internet).
This is strictly a tool used by the writer. Unlike a paragraph or sentence. There isn't any thing that separates exchanges. But I writer usually separates exchanges by actions, change in seen, or a change in act. It's also a great tool to measure the relevance of specific dialog, and to help you edit out dull dialog.
What is geometry? Well, as a building has a floor, walls and ceiling, the geometry of a story consists of beginnings, middles, and ends.
Obviously, page one is the beginning. But beginnings, middles, and ends will flow throughout the entire fiction, and the scene is part of this, because each scene consist of all three.
I like to think of this as the Intro. You are introducing the characters to the new informant or new characters. A mini beginning, as it were.
They can actually be vary short. Like so.
| The turbo-lift doors opened, and Captain Kirk stepped onto the bridge. |
| Captain Kirk matilised on Riloes 5. At once, his face was assaulted
by the stining blast of the sand riding the wind, and the three suns whipped
his back without mersrsy as the sand at his feet seemed to even glow with
the heat around him.
Looking around him, all he could see, was sand. There wasn't any vegetation or wild life that he could see. Just the blowing sand dunes. He was alone. |
Change in act usually takes place when you change P.O.V. (points of view) from one character to another. Acts also change with major changes in scene or time. Moving from one room to the next can be done within one act. The same is true for a few hours of time. But moving from LA to New York, or the passing of a day would probably constitute a whole new act.
Again, each act has a beginning, middle, and end, but usually in context of each scene. In other words, the begging of the first scene, is also the begging of the act. Same thing with the end.
Chapter brakes are so significant that they are usually numbered, and even bear there own titles.
The chapters main function is largely one of logistics. They allow the writer to brake up long works into manageable sections. They also allow the reader excellent stopping points, since it is unlikely that a reader can read the whole work in a single sitting.
But a chapter is a lot more than a larger version of an act. The truth is that a chapter has a geometry of it's own. The intro for a chapter may be as long as several exchanges, where the intro to an act is rarely longer than a few sentences. Extra attention must be given at the end as well.
For this reason, you need to assume that the reader will read the end of your chapter, and put down your book. Like wise, you have to assume at the beginning of each chapter, that your reader has been away from your story for about a day or even longer.
Chapters in fan fiction are even more critical. Usually, for larger works, a fan fiction is posted a chapter at a time. As a result, your reader will be "forced" to put down your work until you post the next chapter. You have to rely on the ending of your chapter, to have them to look out for the next.
But if you plan on posting your work on a public bulletin board, size is much more critical. Most news boards will only allow a file less than 25K, witch makes a chapter rather tiny. Some news boards my allow larger files.
If you're positing on your own page, these restriction no longer apply, but the size of each chapter is still critical. Making it too large may force the reader to quit, mid-chapter. When they return, they will have to search for the starting point. Not to mention that you will not be able to control the intros and ending as you would want to. I was tell you to short to around 50k or so, but its no big is your a little under or a little over.
(Note that size is for ASCII files. Other formats will give you larger files for the same amount of text. A DOC file at 80k may be equal to a TXT file at 50k.)
Chapter 1: In the Beginning/ Get the Ball Rolling
Chapter 2: Set the Stakes.
Chapter 3: Raise the Stakes.
Chapter 4: All Is Lost
Chapter 5: Tuning the Tables/ Victory Party
All right, five chapters are isn't the minimum number of chapters you need to have. What you see here, is an example of that a fiction consisting of five chapters would look like in the most general of terms. It's also to give you an idea of how you should look at your chapters.
Do note that Chapter #1, and #5 consist of several section. This is because the "Beginning" and the "Victory Party" are tiny, and should not be any larger than one act, and are probably smaller. Other than that, the idea of each plot will be fairly uniform.
But there isn't any really special architecture for the whole piece as is with the chapter. Think of each chapter as a building in an of itself, and the whole novel is the collage campus. Your education is not complete until you have visited each building in turn. And yet, each building stands alone.
A Volume is any number of whole stories. Volumes consist of a collection of vary similar stories, usually including the same characters.
A Spin off duplicates a story format, usually with only minor changes and with just a few changes in plot background a new and fresh cast of characters.
Star Trek, the Next Generation is an example of a Spin off, along with its sister spin-offs. Each one is considers a world in it's own right.
Star Wars, is another universe entirely. Not just consisting of different characters, but different plot strategies and even rules governing the universe (for science fiction and fantasy).
Are you done yet? Good. Now that you are finishes WASTING your time. We can now sit down and get to work. As you may have already realized, being able to dissect a book isn't all it's cut up to be. A bit like chopping up a body and spreading the organs around you. That's nice, but what to they mean, what are these organs that you just strung about you?
Well keep in mind that the building blocks is only one layer. Like an onion, we have a long way to go.
| Second Layer: P.O.V. arrangement |
| [ Main Table | TOC2 | Home ] |
Chapter I talked a little bit about POVs, manly about what they are, and the types of POV that you have at your disposal. But that was really only scratching the surface. After all, knowing what something is doesn't help you to make use of it. And a POV is something that you MUST master if you are ever going to find any rewords with writing.
At the same time, just understanding POV can be a reword in itself, because if is nothing short that the technique of turning what you want to write, into how you want to write it.
To give you a better idea of what a POV is, think of a play, and the audience watching it, or even turning on the TV to watch your favorite show. The observer watches the action throw two senses: sight, and sound. When a character picks up a bowling ball, or says, "Put your hands up." you are basically observing the real thing and can perceived these action throw a common frame of reference. The median of reality to some extent.
But when you read a story, you aren't even really using sight. The only thing you see, is a long chain of symbols. Your brain converts these symbols into words, and then you must comprehend these words to paint their meanings for the inner eye and ear to perceive. The common frame of reference no longer exists between the reader and the writer.
A POV is a strategy used by the writer to "mimic" a common frame of reference for the reader to understand. What you are really trying to do with POV, is to direct your character throw text to behave more like a character on TV, in a play, or even as if your reading your character's journal. It is painting your characters and action in such a way that they envision what you write in a way not unlike how they would be observed in reality. When you master this, you will literally have the power to not only breath life into your creation, but make them jump off the page and grab the reader in a way that TV or plays never could.
(If you didn't get all that, be patient and read on. The rest of this section may make it clearer for you.)
Now lets just say your talking to a particularly cute girl (if your already a girl, just add hot water) that you really like. But you don't know if she likes you. You can hear your own thoughts on how good looking she is, or admire her teeth, but try as you might, you can't read her mind. Or any one else's mine for that mater. Oddly enough, you can read your own mind with ease.
You are basically one person, and can only perceive the world throw your eyes. This is the common reference point that you will take advantage of with POV base your reader will also share this same realty of perception, even if they don't realize it.
If you can't see throw walls or be in two places at once, than nor should your character be able to do so as well. As you can only pass throw one room at a time, your character can also pass throw only one room at a time. As you can hear your own thoughts, but not the thoughts of others, so too should your character be able to hear his/her own thoughts, but not be aware of the thoughts of the other characters around you.
Another way to look at it, is to think POV as an phantom observer who will transcribe what he "observed" into text. Where this observer is, and how he perceives things is also POV.
A 1st person POV is literally making your observer your lead character. If your lead character was to retell his action he would say [And I told him to put his hands up, or I would shoot him.] or ["Put your hands up," I said, "Or I will shoot you."]
Third person is a little more tricky, but basically the same. Here you observer is some one completely outside the order of your story. Think of this observer as a narrator who wonders around the stage at will, always looking over your main characters shoulder. Here you will preserve things as "he, him, her, and she." But this observer also has the power to read the thoughts of just one person, and no one else. Think of his as a guardian angel who is only there to watch.
Omniscient is even more different. Your observer sits on high, observing all aspect of the action taking place. He knows every thing, all the secrets and can understand the thoughts of every character. Of course, he is very much outside the action and is disconnected from the story in any real personal way. And yet this power can come in hand at times.
The trick is at the end, call in these observers, and have then tell you what they saw and observe. You translate that into words for you reader.
POV is the theory of how to present the observations, actions, and thoughts of your characters to your readers.
As I have said before, POV's in fact can be there own form of inspiration. Understanding POV is being inspired of way to write something down, as oppose to just what you want to write about.
You should general stick with a POV type threw out the entire work, but there are exceptions. Usually, if you working with a 1st person, switching to third person looks a little funny. But you may want to make use of omniscient for brief segments to "look in" on what the bad guy is doing, then changing from 3rd (or 1st) to omniscient makes sense. Regardless, change POV types with only great deliberation, and with great care.
Is there an advantage for 3rd person over 1st person? Not really. The difference between the two is largely an issue of style and experience.
There is a school that says that target characters is something that is not flexible. That you must stay with one character throw the whole work. Nothing can be further from the truth. Changes in target take place in all other forms of medium, especially in TV and movies.
Take Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back for example. Our heroes (Luke, Leia, Han, R2D2, C3PO, and Chewbaka) all start out together in the Ice Planet Hoth, but after the evacuation, the plot forks into two paths. For one plot, we see Luke and R2D2 go to meet Yoda to learn about the force. The other sees the others all tricked into bating a trap for Luke on Cloud City. It is impossible to cover two vary divergent plots without changing POVs. After all, Luke is not there when Han and the others try to flee throw the asteroid field and Han is not there while Luke talks to Yoda. If it can be done in the movies, then it can also be done on paper.
But failing to define the target character and the reader starts to draw all sorts of funny conclusions. When you start up, the reader could essentially clime into the wrong person's head. They might think the target POV is the girl, and then start reading about "wow, she has a great chest, and her hips are so fine." A funny thought coming from a girl talking to a guy, right? Suddenly, the reader has to jump out of the girls head, and climb into the guys head, but the action has already started. The reader is now playing catch up.
Even worse still is if you're not consistent with your target and keep switching target characters. Suddenly, the reader keeps jumping from one character to another, trying to keep the thoughts separated. Imagine a tank operator running from tank to tank during a battle.
The smallest any passage of one particular target POV can be, is an act. If you change target POV's, you have just changed acts. As a result, you must make a significant brake in the text, and reestablish the new target POV. When I talked about acts in "Building Blocks," I had mentioned that each act needs an introduction to it. Establishing POV is one of the functions of that introduction.
Of course, you could change POV targets and types only with chapter brakes, or follow the establishment, and never change them at all. It all depends on your style, the demands of your story, and what you want to present.
Again, changing POV targets and types are a great way to brake writers block.
Take our Star Wars example. How could you cover just one plot and have the whole thing work out. The situations of both impact the other. If we left out Han & Leia's flight from Darth Vader, then how would we come to know how then ended up in Cloud City? If we left out Luke's training with Yoda, how could we have known of his dilemma with his fear? The two branches are vary important to the story as a hole.
My experience tells me that the duration you stick with any one target character can vary greatly from one section of the story to the other. It depends on the pace of your story at your given point. If it's slow, such as for a romantic mood, then it works better to stick with one target for the duration of the chapter. However, if you are doing an action sequence, vary fast paced, then changing target POV's in rapid order is one way to ratchet up the tension. Some times the acts can be as short as just a few sentences, and establishing can take up an A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C approach.
Exclusive character view point exclusively follows only the senses of your target character. In other words, your reader can only know what your target character knows, see what your target sees and so on. It's like you've climbed into your target character's head, and closed the hatch behind you.
Lets say that you have a boy and a girl talking to each other in a room, and that you have chosen the boy as you target character. With an exclusive view point, the girl will completely nominate the boys attention (and thus, this is all the reader will observe). Every thing other than the girl escapes even basic notice, but you can also focus on the boy's thoughts, actions, and emotions in detail.
Cinematic view point is actually a vary old school that long predates the cinema. The old school called it third person observer. The modern day interpretation basically replaces a live observer with a camera, but the principle is the same.
Take the example from above: Your talking to the cute girl. Or more accurately, your target character is talking to the cute girl. You are standing behind your target character observing the action and listening in on the dialogue. You can clearly see every thing that your target character sees, hear every thing that he hears.
But you are not rooted to the spot. Your observer can step back and see things that your target character might not see. For example, you could notice that the cute girl has her fingers crossed behind her back. You can see her boyfriend approach your target character from behind ready to slam him with a chair.
Unfortunately, this comes at a cost. You are no longer in your target character's head, and thus are no longer able to directly observe his thoughts and emotions. After all, how can you observe the boy's reactions to the boyfriend's surprise attack if he is not aware of it?
Combination of exclusive and cinematic view point is nothing short of the best of both worlds. Your observer is free to roam around the environment to observe the crossed fingers as the approaching boy friend, but you can also take a peek under the hood as it were to see what your target character is thinking.
Example:
John opened the hatch, and stepped out of the habitat. The first
thing he did was take in a deep breath of fresh air. Air that he
hasn't tasted in three years. Oh, the long forgotten memories that
flooded his mind that he had once thought he had forgotten. Memories,
that probably would have been better off being left undisturbed.
The passage above could start a chapter, or an act, and it's vary first task, it to establish John as the target POV character. Your target POV is really the only critical thing that you must define quickly for the reader, because this defines who the reader is observing.
