Category: Elements of Novels

Appendices and Story Bibles

Quan

When crafting a story, especially a novel or series of novels, a writer will accumulate a lot of background information on his or her characters and setting. You could possibly come up with pages and pages of extensive character study and research to flesh out your characters and settings. If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, then you’re doing heavy amounts of worldbuilding, research and ideation on how to make your fantastic worlds believable. You could be charting magic systems, or creating maps for your lands or even inventing new languages. Yet for all of the extensive work you’ve down to build the foundation of your story, there’s a good chance that only a fraction of that information will make it into your novel. So you may be asking yourself what to do with all of that extra information? You have a number of options, including the option to not make any of it publicly available.

One good place to put the extra information is in the back of your book, as an added bonus to readers. It’s not uncommon for a high fantasy story to have a map of the world in the back, or a series that has an extensive history to contain a timeline of important events. This adds extra value to your story and provides a good reference point for readers who are intrigued by certain details of your stories.

There’s also a chance you could use the material as a marketing tool. On the website for my sci-fi horror novel Godmode (www.godmode.quanwilliams.com), I have sections specifically set aside for bonus information on my characters, monsters, and setting. You will find Character bios, a sample bestiary (with sketches), some background information on BAAL Pharmaceuticals, as well as a listing of some of the more important weapons used in the story. People stumbling across this can see these items and want to know more, which will lead them to checking out the book. If you are promoting via website like I am, the added content will also boost your SEO.

Be very selective in which of your materials you make available, especially if you plan on revisiting that setting in future stories. You don’t want to give away important plot points or character development beats too early. The secret is to have just enough background information to flesh out and tantalize, while drawing your readers – both new readers and repeat readers who will reread your story armed with new information that will put the story into a new light. For instance, Donnie Darko’s special edition features include actual text from a book on time travel and alternate dimensions, which explain the meta of what is happening in the movie to people who don’t understand the significance of certain events.

You must be careful in that you don’t give away information that will lock you into an inflexible continuity. There is always a chance you might want to change certain details for future stories but if the old information is out there, you might have a hard time explaining any inconsistencies. This is a reason why many of Magic: The Gathering’s story bibles for their various worlds, as well as the universe bible for popular anime series Tenchi Muyo, are very seldom published. As those franchises grow, details may change, and keeping those bibles close to the vest helps avoid discrepancies.

Regardless of what you decide, you should consider your notes and background information a valuable resource that will help in growing the readership of your story. Used wisely, you can greatly expand your universe, bring new readers in, and create a loyal fanbase of your current readers.

Here’s a Star Trek Compendium that illustrates my point.

Writing Action Scenes

Quan

A good action scene is almost like a miniature story unto itself. I particularly enjoy writing action (I like writing dialogue too), and I have a pretty simple approach to it. Action is conflict, and conflict is the crux of what drives a narrative forward. 

I use a rather simple formula when mapping out and choreographing my action sequences. It’s really just a matter of figuring out your character’s immediate goal, then asking yourself what could possibly go wrong within the parameters of the setting and situation your character is in, and making that scenario happen. After that, you have your character react to the situation,  and then your situation reacts to your character’s action. This is one of the few instances where Murphy’s Law is your friend. 

Whatever the worst thing that can happen to your character is in that moment, make it happen. Then you have to figure out how your character can overcome that problem, after your character has overcome that small setback, make something else go wrong. Rinse, wash, and repeat until your character either works his or her way towards accomplishing their goal, or it becomes clearly evident that there is no way they can possibly, logically complete their task. Then you go inside that character’s head and record his or her thoughts and feelings during this whole sequence. That way you get to relay how high the stakes are in that character’s mind.

Keep your sentences relatively short, because that speeds of the pace of the story. Also, writing with some uptempo, aggressive music in the background helps set the mood too. The goal is to have your reader constantly thinking “Wow he’s in a tight spot! how’s he gonna get out of this?”

Let’s break down each step of this process.

1. Your character’s immediate goal. 

This does not have to be some large or grandiose goal. You’re writing a scene, not a book. The goal can be as simple as getting from one end of a room to another. Just ask yourself what the character needs to right now, and how do they intend to accomplish that goal.

2. What could possibly go wrong?

The key here is putting an obstacle in front of your character that will not only inconvenience them, but prevent the goal from being accomplished altogether. Remember that you’re writing drama here, so trivial obstacles won’t be enough to keep the reader’s attention. Go Big.

3. Make the worst case scenario happen.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Take into account the setting and situation so that your obstacle happens organically. You don’t want a dude trying to go to the store, and then have some aliens come out of nowhere shooting lasers at him if you didn’t set up that possibility earlier in the story. The obstacle has to be logical, and you have to be fair about it: there has to at least appear to be a solution to the obstacle that the character can get to, even if they have to do some thinking and problem solving to get to it. The guys that write MacGyver always made sure that whenever MacGyver needed to cobble something to get out of a fix, the necessary ingredients to do so were within reach.

4. What does your character do about it? And what is going through their mind as they do it?

Writing your character’s response is the crucial element of moving the narrative forward. Be sure to stay true to your character’s personality and mode of operation. A character that is a planner reacts differently from one that is used to thinking on their feet. You want to make sure the actions are consistent and fluid within the setting. Make sure everything flows.
The thoughts and emotions going through your character’s mind is also crucial. The reader wants to see how that person’s mind is working their way through the dilemma. That will give a lot of insight into your character’s personality and thought process. It also lets the reader know what the stakes are and how important it is to the character to figure out how to solve the obstacle.

5. Now what?

Now that your character has made their move and overcome that obstacle, the environment and situation have changed. Every action has a reaction, so this changed environment now creates a new challenge blocking your character’s path. What is that new challenge? Perhaps your heroine escapes from bondage only to now have to find her way out of the building she is being held in without being noticed by her captors. After she finds her way out of the building, now she has to figure out where she is and get some transportation to safety. What dangers are posed by the method of transportation she finds? And so on. This process repeats until either the goal is complete, or there is absolutely no way the goal can be completed.

EXAMPLE TIME: One of the scenes in Godmode features Elijah trying to escape a room full of minotaur-like creatures. His first obstacle in the maze of cubicles he finds himself in. So he has to navigate through that to find the exit. But his curiosity takes him to one experiment chamber, where he is then confronted by his second obstacle, the minotaurs. So his immediate goal of getting out of that room is met with the biggest thing that could go wrong at that moment, which was these savage beastmen looking to slaughter him. So how does Elijah react? He runs, zigzagging through the room, trying to find an exit, some refuge, or a way to fight them off. He finds the latter in the form of a dead security guard with his gun still in the holster. Now the goal is get to the gun before the minotaurs get to him. He reaches the gun…but wait, he can’t get the holster to unclasp so he can get the gun out. And the minotaurs are still coming. So what does he do to react to that? He rips the gun out of its holster and shoots at the minotaurs….and misses every single shot. Now what?

Incorporating this method should bring you some clear, concise action sequences for you to build around. Give it a try and see how well it works.

Oh and if you want to see my example in realtime, grab a copy of Godmode here.

The Osh Moment

Quan

Here’s a little tidbit for all of you writers out there. This is something that I feel is essential to any good story, and something that you must be able to master for your stories to reach their full potential. I personally use it quite a bit.

I call it “The OSH moment.”

What is the OSH moment, you may ask?

The OSH moment is, simply put, the moment where the feces hit the fan. This is the one moment where everything is either going wrong or is about to go wrong, and your protagonist is wondering “what the hell am I going to do now?”

If you look at basically any movie – let’s say a love story – you’ll see this principle in action. You have your boy meets girl moment, but there’s always some twist to the meeting, some secret or tidbit of information that the protagonist has that his or her love interest isn’t privy to. The two have their ups and downs throughout the movie, but everything seems to be progressing along. Then that little tidbit becomes public knowledge, and the truth comes out, and this moment puts the whole relationship in jeopardy. That is the OSH moment, the crossroads where things can go either way.

And it doesn’t just work in romance stories. You have it in your spy novels where the spy’s cover is blown, or in action movies where the hero meets the foe he can’t beat. All of those old “wanna get away?” airline commercials are based on the OSH moment.

You especially get this moment in real life. For instance, I was working at the plant many years back, and the machine I was working on was acting snarky. The maintenance guy comes around to try to fix the durned thing, but can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with it. So he goes out to get some more tools. I’m standing there waiting for him, and I don’t like standing around when I’m getting paid to work. So I pick up one f the components he was looking at, thinking “Well, maybe he missed something.” Yeah, like I’m going to find something a trained mechanic missed. Complete brainfart on my part, but I digress. Almost as soon as I pick the thing up, little bitty parts of the component fall out, bounce off of the machine, and roll over the floor. And when maintenance guy comes back, I just knew he was going to be livid that somebody messed with the part while he was gone.

In my book The Hand You’re Dealt, Tika was tasked by her roommate and best friend to watch over her prized pet goldfish while she was away on Spring break. Tika had stayed behind in the dorm to hang out on campus with her boyfriend. So on the day when her roomate was expected to return, Tika is hanging out with her man and their circle of friends, when she realizes she had forgotten entirely about those fish for the whole week. She rushes back to their dorm room, and finds her roommate there, standing over her dead fishies, with tears in her eyes. Those fish had extra special sentimental value to her roommate, and she trusted her best friend to take care of them. And now they were dead. This does not bode well for Tika.

This is the OSH moment; the moment where you’re most likely to yell

“O’SH…!”

Get it now?

As a writer, you want to have as many of these in your story as possible, especially at the end of chapters or acts or commercial breaks. It’s a crucial element to help ramp up the tension in your story. And you want to have at least one big OSH moment towards the end. Give it a try, and I guarantee your stories will be that much more fun to read.

By the way, there’s a song you should be listening to that illustrates my point perfectly. Check out “Oh Sh*t,” by the Pharcyde. It encompasses everything I just mentioned, and it’s even named after my new term. Check it out.

The Secret of a Good Title

Quan

For me, one of the more challenging aspects of writing has surprisingly been coming up with good titles for my stories. It’s not as easy as it would seem. You have to remember that whatever title you give to your work will be the label that work is known under for its entire shelf life, and will be one of the first things people think of when they think of your book title.

With that in mind, you want to have the right title, and it is something you need to put some thought into.

So what are the elements that make a story title the right one?

1. Resonance. First and foremost, the title has to “sound” right. Titles within themselves have cadences and rhythms to them, and it shows when you speak them out loud. That’s why many iconic titles have three syllables or less. A shorter title just flows better.

2. Relevance. The right title will have a direct relation to the story it describes. Ideally you will be able to get a good idea of what the story is about just in the title. This isn’t a hard and fast rule (none of these are. You can find more than enough exceptions), but as a rule of thumb if someone reads your story, they should be able to get a good idea of where you got the title from. It doesn’t have to be a literal representation of the story, but it can be an allusion to a major plot point, character, setting, or some other aspect of the story that is worthy of making a title. Sometimes you can take an actual word, title, name or passage in the story and use that as the title. Sometimes the subject matter of the book, if unique enough, will suffice. For instance, “The Leopard Man” was my title for that book from the start because there was a literal man that changed into a leopard mentioned within the story. But the idea of a “Leopard Man” was unique and guaranteed to stand out. The title of “Godmode” came about because the book was originally going to be a literal written video game, and Godmode is a popular term in gaming.

3. Catchiness. This is hard to quantify, but it is nonetheless very important to the marketing of your story. How sticky is the title? Does it have some aspect that makes it stay in the reader’s mind? There are lots of ways to give a title that extra “it.” Some titles are clever plays on words. One of my favorite books is Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal.” The title has a double meaning which ties directly into the story, but the fact it is also a quirky cliché makes an interesting juxtaposition against the established world the story is set in. A title like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” has a grand, adventurous tone to it that feels like a dangerous quest which sounds like a fun story to get into. In this instance, word choice becomes very important, as different words have different psychological and emotional attachments to them that help craft the reader’s attitude towards what to expect from your story.

There is always a possibility that the right title comes right to mind immediately, or may even be the starting basis of your story. A potential reader turned off by your title might not give your book a chance. No pressure, right?

So if you’re having a hard time coming up with a title, first ask yourself a few things:

1. What is my story about? This is where coming up with your vaunted 30-second pitch will come in handy. If you can describe the essence of your story in a couple of sentences, you can possibly find a word or phrase to encapsulate that summary.

2. Who are my central characters? Lots of stories are simply named after one or two of the principal characters. Are your characters strong and engaging enough to where you can name the entire story after them? Or does a character have a unique enough name to where that can stand out?

3. What are some key details and moments of my story? You can name your book after an aspect of  the book that is crucial to understanding what is going on. “A Song of Fire and Ice” works because of the two big details of the Game of Thrones world: the fact that “winter is coming” and the looming presence of fire-breathing dragons. On top of that, the “Fire and Ice” cliché is known and relevant and evocative, which makes it catchy.

4. What are some of the more memorable quotes of my story? Do your characters or your narrator say something profound or memorable in the story? Many of James Bond’s best titles come from something that one of the characters said during the story.

5. Is there something outside of my story that can refer to something in my story? This is a clever way of entitling a story that might require a little more work. Basically, you are taking a word or phrase that really has nothing directly to do with your story, and finding something in your story that it can reference.  It could be a song title or lyric, or a quirky, unique word, or a catchphrase, or something that has more meaning to the pop zeitgeist than to your story, but can be used to refer to some aspect of your story. Once again, Godmode was a simple video game term to refer to the player having the ability to play the game without any of the normal challenges of the game. When in Godmode, you are invincible, or you have unlimited ammunition, or you can jump higher, or some other hack that makes the game a lot easier for you to play. Conversely, in my book, my protag gets to experience his own twisted “Godmode” whenever he is consumed by rage. He becomes stronger, faster and much more dangerous…but this only happens in short, infrequent bursts. For most of the book, he is running for his life, running out of ammo, overmatched and out of his depth…which makes calling the book “Godmode” rather ironic.

Aside from Godmode and the Leopard Man, titles were something I struggled with for some of my books. Double Entry was a story I wrote because I wanted to write a semi-romantic drama set in a corporate entrepreneurial environment (something I hadn’t seen a lot of before, especially with African-American characters), but it was hard coming up with a title that referenced that. I chose Double Entry because it is a literal Accounting term and the protag is a CPA. In hindsight, I should have realized that the phrase can have entirely different connotations, especially when applied to a romance novel. I’ve had my share of disappointed readers due to that.

That was an issue I tried to avoid with The Hand You’re Dealt. The book was originally going to be called “Spades” because a lot of the story involves people playing the card game of Spades. It was a simple and catchy title that would have been perfect…had there not been so many negative racial undertones attached to the word “spade.” And the fact I was using it for a book written about primarily African American characters. So I had to come up with something else, and I had a really hard time doing it. I tried “Queen of Hearts, King of Spades” to tie in to my two protags’ relationship, but Spades continued to be a toxic word. So I just used Queen of Hearts, but that implied the book was entirely about the female protag, when she was the focus for only half the story. I found my solution in my thirty second pitch for the book that I wanted to use in my query letters: “it was a book about finding love, keeping love during tough times, and playing the hand one is dealt.” The book’s theme is perseverance and adapting to whatever life throws at you, which plays perfectly with a card playing cliché that ties in to the many card games that are played throughout the story.

Currently I am working hard on deciding titles for two manuscripts that I just finished, with the added challenge of them both being the first books in planned series. So I have to come up with a title for the series as well as for the individual book. This presents an added challenge of coming up with a catchy series title that can encapsulate everything that happens over the course of the saga. I also like titles of individual books being consistent throughout the series, which makes them more memorable, like Sue Grafton’s letter-themed Kelsey Milbourne book titles, or The Early Alex Cross Novels from James Patterson that referenced nursery rhymes. So I wanted book titles that were like that. So far, I’ve settled on entitling my urban fantasy thriller “Needle of the Southside,” with the follow-up book being “Jewels of the Eastside.” The overall theme of the title is the name of the big macguffin that the book centers around, with the dangerous area that the macguffin is hidden in. The title of the planned series as of this post is either “American Artifacts” or “The Reliquary.” I haven’t decided yet.

For the other book, my working title of the series is “Aftermath Saga,” because the saga is literally a sequel to an untold story. But to me it’s not quite catchy enough. It doesn’t have that “it” factor to me like a “Lord of the Rings” or “Books of Swords” or “Song of Fire and Ice.” Problem is, I can’t think of anything better. The titles for the three books came easier, though. I wanted each title to get shorter, while describing a key element or moment that drives the story. The first book is called “Return of the Tyrant.” The second book, which I am developing now, will be called “The Queen’s Betrayal,” while the finale will simply be called “Extinction.” Hopefully a better series title will come to mind before I’m done writing all three books.

So my advice to you is to be very cognizant of your story’s title and put a good amount of thought into what it will be. It might be the difference between your story being forgettable and being a classic.

There Has To Be A Payoff

Quan

Like many others, I’ve always been fascinated by stories that have sad or dour endings. There always seemed to be something deeper, more profound or cathartic about the Protagonist NOT getting what they were striving for the whole story to get. But as a writer, you have to be very careful with how you handle sad endings. It can often be a cop-out because you wrote yourself into a corner and gave your protagonist a problem they can’t solve without some sort of deus ex machina interference. In that instance, you have to better plan your story in advance so your protagonist will have the skills and resources available before hand to find a way out of their ultimate predicament beforehand.

But even if you choose to have the bad ending, there still has to be a payoff of some sorts for the journey that the reader took with you for this whole story. There has to be some modicum of closure, even a small one. As a reader, when you follow a story, you are taking this immense journey through the ups and downs and trials and tribulations of the protagonist as they work to solve the big problem that set the story into motion. You are suffering along with them, experiencing their highs and lows with them, and investing a lot of your emotional and mental energy into their plight. To not get some form of payoff means you had essentially a wasted trip.

This does not mean every story has to have a happy ending. But it does mean that something the protagonist sets out to accomplish must be fulfilled for your reader to feel that the journey was worth the emotional and time investment. Even something minor.

Case in Point: The Empire Strikes Back. We all know that as the movie where the bad guys win. The Rebellion is sent reeling, Han is gone and Luke lost not only his hand but his innocence. But there is still some amount of closure in the film; Luke has enhanced his Jedi Training and faced his first real test. Leia and company were able to find and rescue Luke from Bespin and they gained a new ally in Lando. So it wasn’t a total loss: there was still hope that the good guys could come back and win in movie 3.

This is the advice Dave Barnett, Publisher of Necro Publications and author of “Dead Souls,” Gave me in one of my early drafts of Godmode. This led me to completely overhaul the ending of the book:

“I feel there is absolutely no payoff for the reader. There was no
climax and therefore no denouement. You establish the villain and he just gets away, no real tension or battle. I realize you’re trying to set this up to be a series, but there needs to be some sort of emotional payoff for the reader at the end. You basically have a book with no ending.
I know writers are told to write something that can be a series because it’s easier to sell. This can be a series, obviously, because of what you set up with the cityscape in ruins, but does it need to be? You could have just wrapped it up nicely in this book by at least killing the secretary then there’s a struggle and he almost kills the main villain or does, gets his wife and kid back, THEN is faced with having to survive in this destroyed city or world? Then the rest of the series is trying to get somewhere safe while finding out there’s something even bigger and more sinister at work. So you have something, but to repeat myself, you just to deliver more of a payoff, then set it up for the next book.”

I am currently writing a story where the heroes get their asses kicked at the end of the book. But there is an important side mission they manage to be successful at in the process of said ass-kicking, this is the feelgood moment so the reader doesn’t feel like the story is a total loss.

So next time you think of writing a story (especially a novel or screenplay) with a bad ending, consider giving the reader at least a little something to smile about amidst all the dourness.

Starting Off With A Bang

Quan

The old cliche says you never get a second chance to make a first impression.  I’m quite sure many writing gurus have told you that especially applies to novels. Well, I happen to agree. The first sentence, the first few paragraphs,  the first few pages, and the first chapter all set the tone for the rest of the book, and it is critical for you as a writer to nail them. I for one know I’ve put away a few critically acclaimed books because the first few pages didn’t capture my interest. Your story has a very limited time frame to grab and keep the readers attention. Slow builds are fine, but there still has to be something there to make the reader want to turn the next page.

Once, I had critiqued a friend’s manuscript after Beta reading it. My critique was that the story started too pedestrian. The protagonist spent the first few pages going through the motions of her daily life, and there was nothing particularly engaging about what was happening or who it was happening to. I was not compelled in any way to read any further. If your story suffers from that, then you will have a hard time attracting an agent, publisher or new reader.

So now the question becomes “how can I tailor my beginning to grab the reader’s attention?” There are a few different approaches you can take, and they all work well, depending on the context of your story. Here are a few.

1. Start With Some Action.

If your story has heavy action in it, you can’t go wrong with starting the story with some insane high octane action scenes. The James Bond franchise had practicality made this an art form. You start the story by getting the adrenaline flowing and injecting that sense of excitement and danger right at the outset. This is a great option for Thrillers.

2. Start At A Crucial Moment.

For this one, you need to find one of the most pivotal moments of your story, where everything is hanging in the balance, and start your story right at that predicament. That way the stakes are established right off the bat, the reader is thrown right into the story, and there is even a little mystery added as to how the characters got to that situation. A High Fantasy story I’m working on actually starts at the “Final Battle” between the main hero and his nemesis.

3. Establish The Character

If you are looking to have a slow build for the core situations presented in your book, or your story is more character-driven, then you need to establish who the characters are immediately, and why a reader should care what happens to them. That means giving them an opportunity right off the bat to showcase their personalities, their quirks and their lifestyles. I did this for the first chapter of The Hand You’re Dealt. The story was more about Jay and Tika’s growth as characters than any major plot, so I started the story by introducing Jay (and a bit later Tika), allowing them to talk and interact with people and adjust to their new surroundings. You get a good sense of who they are as people and the charisma they possess, so you are compelled to follow them around and see what happens to them.

4. State The Problem

Another good way to start the story is to dive right into the problem at hand. Every story is really a chronicle of someone trying to solve a problem. So why not just cut to the chase and let the reader know right at the outset what the problem is? I did this for both The Leopard Man and for Double Entry. The Leopard Man started with Ashlynn’s dream about meeting a dangerous man, and Double Entry started with Dana’s ex-boyfriend and baby-father hiring her at his firm. Now the reader is automatically asking themselves where this story is going, and maybe even how did your protags get to this point.

5. Build The World

If you have a compelling, unique, vibrant or quirky setting, you have the option of starting with a description of that world. This one can be a bit tricky to pull off, because you are trying to make your reader care about your setting and that world before they even meet the principal characters. But with this approach, the key is to really highlight what makes your setting different. And you could also immerse your reader into the world, letting them experience all of the sights and sounds and other aspects of life in that setting so they really feel like they are there. This is what I did in Godmode, where the first few scenes were spent with Elijah exploring his bizarre new surroundings. There wasn’t a lot of character exploration at that time, because he was already disoriented by his new surroundings, and a lot of time was spent just reacting to the things he saw, heard or smelled as he made his way through that first floor.

6. Play With Time

This is an expansion of starting at a crucial moment. A trope of storytelling is to start the story near or at the end, and then once the reader/viewer is hooked, rewind the story back to it’s true beginning and go from there, explaining how the protag got to the point where the story started.

Try implementing one or more of these at the start of your story, and you should be able to put together an engaging sequence to grip the reader’s attention and keep them turning the pages. One thing is certain, though: by the end of the first chapter the reader should know what the central problem is, and have a good idea of what the stakes are.