Weapons of Mass Instruction
Therese Walsh on Nov 09 2006 | Filed under: Book Talk, CRAFT
This week’s elections no doubt affected my bloggery idea mill, because this morning I asked myself: Are there any weapons of mass instruction? Do they exist?
My favorite craft book of all time is Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel. This book has a workbook companion of the same name. There are exercises throughout, including “Adding Heroic Qualities,” “Opening Extra Character Dimensions,” “Adjusting the Volume” and more. A gem-tip in chapter 5 (Heightening Larger-Than-Life Qualities) tells us:
As you comb through your manuscript looking for ways to heighten anything your protagonist says, does, or thinks, look for ways to take things up in temperature, but also down. Play against the prevailing mood of a scene.
There are valuable reminders in the workbook, like this on p. 59:
Passages of exposition can be among the most gripping in your novel. Indeed they better be, since nothing is “happening.” When nothing overtly is going on, make sure that a great deal is at work beneath the surface. Otherwise your novel will have dead spots that your readers will skip.
I cannot say enough about how this book kickstarted my drive after it stalled out last spring. A weapon of mass instruction? I guess I’d say it was for me. Hopefully Mr. Maass won’t mind me sharing one more blip from his book with you. This is such a beautiful piece of advice, I can’t resist:
Things can always get worse. Yes, they can. Much worse. In fact, there is no end to the misery you can heap on your poor protagonist. Is he in physical danger? Break his arm. Is she uncertain what to do? Take away her wisest friend. Is it raining? Make it flood. Is there a faint ray of hope? Snuff it out. Alternately, you can raise the stakes by making what might be lost more valuable. Does he stand to lose his wife’s love? Have him find out how much more he needs it than he knew. Does she have a noble principle on her side? Show her how that principle works for the good in ways she had never imagined. Will solving the problem make people happy? Show that alternative outcomes will make folks miserable. Oh yes, things can always get worse.
The book and workbook are filled with valuable ideas that can guide a stuck writer through the unboxing process–and help renew excitement for your story. Personally, I think if you want to invest in only one of them, you’ll get more bang for your Benjamins by purchasing the workbook.
How about you? Is there a weapon of mass instruction in your arsenal of craft books? Which is your all-time favorite?
Kathleen Bolton
Therese Walsh
Ann Aguirre
Porter Anderson
Brunonia Barry
Carleen Brice
Sarah Callender
Keith Cronin
Anna Elliott
Jane Friedman
Robin LaFevers
Donald Maass
Juliet Marillier
Sophie Masson
Jael McHenry
Jan O'Hara
Debbie Ohi
Barbara O'Neal
Crystal Patriarche
Ray Rhamey
M.J. Rose
Chuck Sambuchino
John Vorhaus
Yuvi Zalkow
Sharon Bially
Anne Greenwood Brown
Tracy Hahn-Burkett
Suzannah Windsor Freeman
Kristan Hoffman
Jeanne Kisacky
Erika Robuck
Lydia Sharp
LaRayne Topp on 
I find Maass useful too. Others I use concepts from are Debra Dixon’s GOAL, MOTIVATION AND CONFLICT and Christopher Vogler’s THE WRITER’S JOURNEY. I don’t see any of them as quite WOMI though.
Back to Maass, I think his concepts can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Several other published authors who judge contests were discussing this at a conference I attended recently. We’ve all seen some manuscripts that appear to suffer from too slavish following of Maass.
His exercises force you to stretch. This is the power of his book. The pitfall is that if some story aspect is already working, stretching can create distortion: characters that pass edgy and go straight to unnatural or unsympathetic, conflicts that no longer fit the tone or intent of the story, etc…
I made this sort of mistake myself in one of my drafts. Luckily my CPs caught it, I fixed it and eventually my own intuition showed me where I’d strayed.
My advice would be to try Maass, do all the exercises, but don’t feel you have to incorporate ALL of the results into your work. Though sometimes hard to tap into, the writer’s intuition is the only true WOMI.
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Excellent warning and clarification, Elena, and I totally agree. I used Maass to help get a full “map” of where my story might go. In the end, it was still me–my own two legs–deciding where, exactly, to step.
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I’m reading this right now, and it’s good. I love the whole first few chapters where he destroys all the lies authors have come to believe.
“It’s the publisher’s fault I wrote a lackluster novel!”
He doesn’t pull any punches and I’m loving the book for that so far.
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He has a great workbook too. But I also agree with Elena that caution is warranted; he’s a great advocate of layering, but too many layers can squash out the story. Otherwise, it’s a kick-butt book for writers.
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I just picked up BETWEEN THE LINES: MASTERING THE SUBTLE ELEMENTS OF FICTION WRITING that I cannot wait to dive into.
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I, too, like Maass’s work, and I refer to his ideas frequently at Flogging the Quill. I met him at a presentation in Seattle, and he is impressive. I’m working on contributing my own version of instruction: I’ve a book proposal going out for a book based on my Flogging the Quill posts. The working title is “Jump-start Your Novel with Kitty-cats in Action” with a sub-title that reads “And keep the pages turning with coaching from Flogging the Quill.”
If I don’t succeed with the proposal (it’s a tough market out there), I’m seriously considering self-publishing it. I’d appreciate hearing if there’s any interest among your readers.
Keep up the great work.
Ray
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I’ll do a post next week on blooks and mention it, Ray. It’ll get lost here in comments. Thanks for the idea, though; I wondered what I’d be saying come Tuesday. ;)
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Great quotes. I like Maass as well.
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