Therese here. Today, we kick off our month of reader-Q-and-contributor-A, beginning with two reader questions answered by agent Donald Maass. Enjoy!
Lin Wang asked: When starting a new novel, how do you turn your ideas (characters, images, phrases) into a coherent story? Any advice for writers who want to find a balance between outlining and writing without any plans?
Elizabeth asked: How do you pull a plot out of characters?
Where does plot come from? For many writers it feels like a rabbit plucked from a hat. If you’re lucky it’s there. It it’s there, it’s magic.
Over my last several posts I’ve posed questions to help build characters’ inner journeys. Journeys require steps and each step it strongest when it has its own delineated meaning.
A plot is built of pieces too; pieces which for convenience we might call scenes. But how do you pluck them from the hat and make sure that they’re alive when you do?
If your novel is the plot-driven sort, say a mystery or thriller, the trick may feel easy. Each step your protagonist must take to discover a killer or save the world is the basis for a scene. Build into it a step in the inner journey and you have a scene that will feel powerful.
But what if you don’t have that easy framework? What if your story is at first nothing but ideas, intentions, a vague sense that stuff is going to happen and your protagonist will change? What if the hat is truly empty?
Organic and intuitive writers usually hack through a first draft, hoping to discover the events that will dramatize what’s in their hearts. They may have markers for which they aim, known events or moments to include. Generally, though, it takes many drafts for this method to produce the rabbit and sometimes that rabbit is skinny and malnourished.
While I don’t advocate outline writing for authors who hate outlines, there are even so ways to conjure a healthy, fat rabbit. It starts with this recognition: Any scene which occurs to you to write has hidden in the heart of it something important, and if it’s important then it’s something that can be externalized.
That’s the trick: Take every moment in your character’s experience and externalize it—strongly. Ask, what is my character undergoing right now? Suppose that I could not use dialogue or interior monologue to express it…how can the reader know what’s happening only through what they can “see” visually, of “hear” audibly? What’s the strongest external and outward thing that can happen to show the change that’s happening inside?
There’s a hierarchy in externalizations. Things that your protagonist actively does are stronger than things that are done to him. Human actions are stronger than symbolic, poetic or atmospheric evocations. Friction is strongest when it’s interpersonal. Make your protagonist rub up against others rather than just her own self.
Think always: What is the strongest thing my protagonist can do right now? What is the worst turn this scene can take? What is the strongest conflict with someone else at this moment and what is the strongest way in which that conflict can play out?
That approach may sound to you like the antithesis of what is artful, subtle and strong in fiction. But remember, what we’re looking for here are external events. What I observe in most organically written, character-driven manuscripts is a paucity of drama. Turn outward what’s inward. That, really, is plot.
The rabbit is in there, I promise. And it’s not magic. It’s the step-by-step, outward dramatization of what’s burning inside you.
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York. His agency sells more than 150 novels every year to major publishers in the U.S. and overseas. He’s the author of several craft books for writers, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Breakout Novel and The Fire in Fiction.
Photo courtesy Flickr’s MarcelGermain
About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Beautifully answered. Couldn’t agree more. :)
This reminds me of something I tweeted just yesterday, while thinking about this very subject. “I think my best stories come to me in little odd/random pieces. And then it’s up to me to figure out how to connect all the dots.”
One novel of mine in particular has been in the works since March, and I’m still only three chapters into it. The reason? I rewrote the first fifty pages three times before it felt like I was on the right track.
In stark contrast to that is the novel I started the very next month, this past April, which has already been written, revised, edited, polished, queried, and requested by agents since then.
But with both of them I had pretty much the same process. Idea + characters + events, writing a few chapters to see how it flows, sketching out a rough outline, writing the rest of it and adjusting whatever necessary as I go until it’s done. And that’s just for the first draft.
Sometimes it feels like magic. Sometimes it feels like waiting backstage for the rest of the crew to show up so the performance can begin.
And by the way, this is getting stickied on the side of my computer monitor:
“Think always: What is the strongest thing my protagonist can do right now? What is the worst turn this scene can take? What is the strongest conflict with someone else at this moment and what is the strongest way in which that conflict can play out?”
Thanks for another great post! :)
Any scene which occurs to you to write has hidden in the heart of it something important, and if it’s important then it’s something that can be externalized.
This is so true. And what’s magic is when you finally understand it.
Thanks for a great post, Don!
I’m at the point in my revisions of breaking down each individual scene, and it’s been exhausting. Your words about externalization and upping the drama are tremendously helpful. Great post!
You are so right, Mr Maass. Thank You for a great post. :-)
Don – this is intriguing. I’ve always used my own incarnation of what you’ve described here, since so far, I’ve always been inspired first and foremost by characters. Yet the result has been a lack of “loud” events. Which has meant books that are too “quiet” for publishers today.
In this post you talk about “strongly” externalizing charcters’ inner experiences. But you don’t say “loudly.” That leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and I think it’s something people talking about writing need to be more explicit about these days.
In my present book, serialized on my blog, the strong externalization of the MC’s inner conflicts is acute tension with her spouse, the discomfort of which ultimately forces her to seek change that comes only from within. Nobody gets sick, goes crazy or dies. More than one agent told me that it’s a good, well-written book, but simply too quiet.
On the flip side, I’ve read too many books that are beautifully character-driven yet suddenly include a seemingly way-out-of-the-ballpark loud event, almost as if it’s been inserted for the sake of making the book loud.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on this, and particularly, on how it fits in with your use here of the word “strongly,” as in, “Take every moment in your character’s experience and externalize it—strongly.”
Thanks.
I’m an outliner, but I doubt I’ll ever pull a fat rabbit from the hat. I love the image of producing a skinny and malnourished rabbit…my new favorite term for “first draft!” (Maybe SMR for short.)
Your comments on fattening things up through externalization are gold–can’t wait to get started on my next project. Thanks for another great post, Don!
Sharon-
I’d say “strongly” and “loudly” are the same, but perhaps a better word would be “visibly”.
Now, you rightly take to task “loud” events that seem imposed, phony and tacked on. Agreed. So how can you make a character moment more visible while at the same time natural and organic? Especially when no one gets sick, goes crazy or dies?
Take your marital strife. Is there a scene in which your husband and wife hit an impass? Where’s it set? Kitchen? Living room? Bedroom? Those are quiet choices.
What if such a scene was set in the family car stuck in a miles-long highway traffic jam? The setting now works as metaphor. Does the scene end with no change between them? Great, have your heroine leave the car and walk away–with the keys–leaving the husband symbolically and literally stranded. (Your heroine “wouldn’t do that”? Well, what if she did?)
Even with a loud event, tepid prose can dampen the effect. Strong nouns. Active verbs. Sharp observation. Heightened emotions. Beneath-the-surface tension. All the stuff we call good writing can make dramatic what objectively could be called ordinary events.
American literature is loaded with domestic novels that are high in drama. Anne Rivers Siddons, John Updike…gosh, we could go on for pages. I’d love to hear from folks examples of novels about marriage that are “loud” even when the story’s events (objectively described) are ordinary.
-Don
Thanks Don!
“Turn outward what’s inward.” I think that’s my favorite line in this post. Gives a lot to think about… thanks!
I love the line: “Any scene which occurs to you to write has hidden in the heart of it something important.”
For me, though, I have to ensure that I do have something ‘important’ going on (and that I know what that something is) before externalization can be effective.
Over my computer I have a sign, done in big black letters asking “What’s the Point?” It’s not a nihilistic statement but a reminder to stop loving my words and start thinking about the significance of what they are describing. Until I answer that question for each and every scene, the setting and externalization of it fall flat.
“Take every moment in your character’s experience and externalize it—strongly.”
Thank you for this. Jennifer Crusie has been extraordinarily generous in her teaching about writing, and this quotation concurs with one of the big take-home messages I got from her. I won’t say I’m always good about applying the principle, but when I do, I can feel the difference in my writing.
And Sharon, thanks for asking your question. The Q & A on that are gold.
Every one of your posts helps me tremendously! As a sage Bette Midler once sang, “Did you ever know that you’re my hero?” ;)
And Jeanne, I love that sign! Great idea!
Thanks! Very useful post that thoroughly answered my question. :) I will definitely be rewriting scenes from my wip with an eye towards externalizing the main characters thoughts.
“Turn outward what’s inward. That, really, is plot.”
YES! That’s it exactly! What a perfect, and perfectly simple, explanation. Thank you. :)
Seriously… your tips, your posts, your books cause my brain to spark in exciting and fun ways.
Thank you.
Margo Kelly
Don,
Because your posts (and craft books) always hit a mark dead center, I mistakenly assumed you poured over and edited these gems before unveiling them to the public. In your answer to Sharon, I see that you literally think in cohesive, constructive ways that speaks to the heart and soul of a writer. Wow. I wish you could be in my conscience 24/7. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and expressing it so eloquently.
Much of my technique in writing is turning inward what is outward. My plot is built from outward events and how the characters understand, interpret, and respond to them. What matters is not the event but the significance of the event. A big event my hero doesn’t understand is small. A small event that he sees every consequence of becomes big. As the character understands more, he learns more, grows more, and the events mean more, regardless of what the events themselves are. And what events occur will more and more depend on what the characters do. Police dramas do this all the time, as they gather clues they come up with better questions. Better questions provoke the bad guys into revealing themselves, etc.
Marc Vun Kannon
http://authorguy.wordpress.com
Marc-
Fabulous! What you’re doing in practice is what I call building both the inner and outer journeys. It’s the foundation of powerful, high-impact fiction. Now I’m going to have to read your stuff!
Don
Donald – Thank you so much for your tips. You have just given me great advice on how to piece together some ideas for my next novel.
Mark’s comment and your post remind me of the Stanislavsky method that was taught when I was training as an actor. Sometimes you build a character from the outside-in, beginning with the costume, the walk, the voice, etc.–exterior stuff that helps you find the character’s emotional interior. Other times you build the character the opposite way, from the inside-out, seeking the character’s emotional make-up and personal history before you start figuring out how he or she appears in the world.
It strikes me that fiction can be built both ways, too–beginning with a structure/story that you then fill with the characters it needs to make it valid, or starting with characters and their needs and wants, then creating the story/plot that takes them on the journey on which they need to go.
Am I making sense?
Thanks, Don. Timely advice for me. :-)