Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

Year: 2012 (page 45 of 49)

Flash Fiction Challenge: One Small Story In Seven Acts

The “write in the present tense” challenge is just wrapping up. Won’t you check it out?

Earlier this week I was all like, “Blah blah blah, here’s 25 things about story structure.”

And in there I offered one particular structure for a story —

A seven-act spread.

There I wrote:

Behold, a rough seven-act structure: Intro (duh) –> Problem or Attack (duh) –> Initial Struggle (character first tussles with source of conflict) –> Complications (conflict worsens, deepens, changes) –> Failed Attempts (oops, that didn’t work) –> Major Crisis (holy goatfucker shitbomb, everything’s gone pear-shaped) –> Climax and Resolution (duh).

…and now I want to see those seven acts put into play.

In a 1000-word example of flash fiction.

From you.

Yes, that’s right. I want you to take your 1000 words and orchestrate a full seven-act arc from intro all the way to the climax and resolution, not missing a step in the middle.

You have, as always, one week. February 10th by noon EST.

Post your story at your blog or online somewhere, then drop a link to the comments so we can find it.

One story.

Seven acts.

Get writing.

Myke Cole: The Terribleminds Interview

All I gotta say is, Myke Cole? Bonafide bad-ass. Furthermore, an all-around nice guy. He’s also a guy with a book out this week — the military-meets-magic CONTROL POINT (AKA “Black Hawk Down” meets the “X-Men”). I managed to get a moment of Myke’s time in between, I dunno, punching tanks and playing Frisbee Golf with landmines, and here he sits down and submits to the terribleminds interview. Read it, and then visit his site — MykeCole-dot-com — and follow him on Twitter (@MykeCole).

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

During my first tour in Baghdad, I was sitting in my hooch at around 0200. I couldn’t sleep, so I was playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on my laptop. It was over 100 degrees, so I was sitting in my underwear.

Whoosh. Bang. Whoosh. Bang. Incoming rounds. From the sound and the shivering impact, I guessed they were 107s.

And I panic. Instead of doing what you should do (hit the deck), I grab my go-bag and my pistol and go flying out of the hooch, racing for the bunker, making myself a giant upright target for any low-flying shrapnel.

A round comes in danger-close, just on the other side of a cinder-block wall. It doesn’t detonate, but the bang is loud and the shaking so dramatic that I can swear that it did (if it had, I surely would have died).

The attack is over. I’m lying in the dirt, completely coated in dust. My ears are ringing and there’s a cloud of sulphur/cordite hanging over me. I’m only wearing underwear. I have no idea where my go-bag and weapon are. I think I may have pissed myself.

I’m one of the lucky guys who has a cellphone. When it rings, I find my go-bag.

It’s my mom. She’s calling to let me know how frightened she is that I’m in Iraq.

Why do you tell stories?

To communicate. To get a reaction. To know that other people are hearing what I have to say and that it is impacting them. I am no Emily Dickenson and I absolutely cannot understand people who operate like that.

I also do it to pay back. Stories saved me, reared me, created me. They are the reason I live. I know there are people out there who are the same way. They need them as much as I do. If I can add to the body of work that makes lives wonderful, then I have truly done something worthwhile.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Cowboy up. Novels don’t write themselves. Don’t wait for your muse. Don’t wait until you “have the time.” Don’t wait for inspiration to strike. Don’t worry about whether or not you’re wasting your time, or if you suck. Shut the hell up, and get to work.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

I’m going to Confusion (a convention in Detroit) this coming weekend. At that con, I will be sitting down with many of my favorite authors: Peter V. Brett, Patrick Rothfuss, Brent Weeks, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch.

We will be playing a game of 1st edition D&D, with a classic Gygax-written module, probably KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS.

The fact that I get to do crap like that is, frankly, transcendent.

The worst thing is poverty. Even with a major book deal, full-time writing is uncertain at best. If it weren’t for the health insurance and slight income stream I get from serving in the reserve, I would be homeless. I frequently tell people that I love everything about my life except for how poor I am. But I also firmly believe that money is the easy-part and you can figure that out eventually.

I suspect a lot of authors are or were gamers — tabletop in particular. What did gaming teach you about writing and storytelling? Positive or negative lessons.

I was *just* talking about this last night. I really feel that DM’ing D&D campaigns taught me incredibly important lessons about storytelling. I played with Peter V. Brett in college and watched him craft incredible campaigns that were as engaging as any novel, and then I tried to match them. You have to be willing to do a TON of worldbuilding that your “readers” will never see. I would pour hours into drafting incredibly detailed NPCs, only to have my players just come out and kill them without so much as saying hello. You also have to willing to change course on a dime. Your players can just decide that they don’t want to open that door when the campaign DEMANDS that they OPEN THAT F*&KING DOOR! That agility is critical to being a good novelist.

That author game sounds fucking phenomenal. Let’s extend that. If you could play D&D with, say, five different authors (living or dead), who would they be?

Oh wow:

– Gary Gygax (yes, he’s an author, by god).

– George R. R. Martin.

– Richard K. Morgan

– Naomi Novik

– Ernest Cline

And the module? Tomb of Horrors. Because I’m fantasizing, there’ll be this mind-ray that makes us all forget the module, so that none of us know where any of the traps are and how to get around them.

I get to be the Human Paladin. With at least a +3 Holy Avenger. That’s very important. Dude. Seriously. I’m not f$#king around here.

Gaming is big in the military, or so I hear. What other games have you played?

Gaming is HUGE in the military, as is all other SFF-genre loving activities (most importantly, reading). I love any tabletop word game (Scrabble and Boggle) and also the classic board/card games (San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Settlers of Cataan. Though, I should admit that I’m new to some of them). Talisman (with all its expansions) is OUTSTANDING.

I will play Magic if someone brings their decks, but I don’t own any of my own.

Then, there’s wargaming. I am a big fan of historical ancients/medieval games (I prefer 15mm) and my favorite rule set for that is DBA. I don’t really do napoleonic, but I will if I have a good mentor.

And, of course, there’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. There are no words for how unspeakably cool that universe is.

But the most important thing in gaming is the players. I really don’t care what I’m playing, so long as I’m at a table with a bunch of really cool people who are fun to hang out with.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

My favorite word, hands down, is “Contact.” There are SO many awesome meanings and implications, both science-fictional, military, and every day.

My favorite curse is “Balls.” I know, it’s not technically a curse, but I like the fact that it can be used in both positive and negative ways.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

Hard cider (best I’ve ever hard is Hornsby’s). I love going to the UK because they take it seriously there. In America, if I have a drink with my sailors and order a hard cider, inevitably one of my chiefs will ask, “Why don’t you just order a Flirtini, sir?”

Okay, so, tell us about CONTROL POINT — what is it, and why did you write it?

CONTROL POINT is a book that asks the basic question “What if the modern, counterinsurgency-focused military had magic? What would a fire-team look like if you had 2 riflemen, a support-weapon and a sorcerer?” Now that’s the fun squee part “how does an Apache helicopter gunship match up against a Roc?” But it also raises bigger issues about the nature of big bureaucracies and how they handle sudden and dramatic social change. A lot of these questions were asked by the X-Men comic book series. I expand on those in SHADOW OPS.

I wrote the book because I was walking around the Pentagon in 1998, wondering how these regulation obsessed bureaucrats would handle magic. What if the monsters from D&D were real? How would the law deal with that? Those questions HOUNDED me. CONTROL POINT was my way of getting them to shut up.

How is CONTROL POINT a book only you could’ve written?

I’m probably flattering myself here, but I feel like I have a somewhat unique blend of loving-to-write, nerd-roots and military experience. I have been to war and responded to major domestic disasters. I am raised on comic books, D&D and mass-market/spinner-wire-rack fantasy novels. I have been writing all my life. I am sure there are lots of folks with two of those attributes. But all three? Well, maybe so. Maybe CONTROL POINT *isn’t* a book that only I could’ve written. But I’m the guy who wrote it. Here’s hoping folks are happy with that.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Book: Peter V. Brett’s Demon Cycle series, which is (so far) The Warded Man and The Desert Spear. He is, hands-down, one of the best writers I’ve ever read. I frequently use those books to woo non-fantasy readers who I am trying to get into genre, and it has never failed me.

Comic Book: Ed Brubaker’s Captain America Omnibus. It’s as thick as a phonebook, and you’ll wish it were twice as long.

Film: Les Pactes des Loupes (The Brotherhood of the Wolf). Watch the extended edition, in French, with sub-titles.

Game: Sword and Sworcery for the iPad. Beautiful, haunting and the Jim Guthrie soundtrack doesn’t hurt either.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

I’ve been to Iraq 3 times. I was a responder to both the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Irene. Crisis is what I do. I’m a good shot and was a competitive swordsman in my halcyon days, both in kendo and the SCA. If there’s a guy you want on your six when the chips are down and the undead come calling, I’m him.

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

A NYC deli style BLT, but only because they’re held together with those little plastic swords you see in cocktails. I’d use that to carve up the place and escape.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I’ve just turned in FORTRESS FRONTIER, the sequel to CONTROL POINT. I have recently been commission to write a novella in a media tie-in universe, and hopefully that will lead to novels. I am turning and burning on my efforts to get the comic book and video game industries interested in my work. A Hollywood agency has picked up CONTROL POINT and is trying to get film/TV folks interested in it. The long and short is this: I want to be able to write full-time, in genre, without having to do anything else besides serve in the reserve (which I love), for the rest of my days. A failure scenario sees me having to go back to a full-time day job.

Okay, so, tell us about CONTROL POINT — what is it, and why did you write it?

* CONTROL POINT is a book that asks the basic question “What if the modern, counterinsurgency-focused military had magic? What would a fire-team look like if you had 2 riflemen, a support-weapon and a sorcerer?” Now that’s the fun squee part “how does an Apache helicopter gunship match up against a Roc?” But it also raises bigger issues about the nature of big bureaucracies and how they handle sudden and dramatic social change. A lot of these questions were asked by the X-Men comic book series. I expand on those in SHADOW OPS.
I wrote the book because I was walking around the Pentagon in 1998, wondering how these regulation obsessed bureaucrats would handle magic. What if the monsters from D&D were real? How would the law deal with that? Those questions HOUNDED me. CONTROL POINT was my way of getting them to shut up.
How is CONTROL POINT a book only you could’ve written?
* I’m probably flattering myself here, but I feel like I have a somewhat unique blend of loving-to-write, nerd-roots and military experience. I have been to war and responded to major domestic disasters. I am raised on comic books, D&D and mass-market/spinner-wire-rack fantasy novels. I have been writing all my life. I am sure there are lots of folks with two of those attributes. But all three? Well, maybe so. Maybe CONTROL POINT *isn’t* a book that only I could’ve written. But I’m the guy who wrote it. Here’s hoping folks are happy with that.
Ah, you’re a gamer. I suspect a lot of authors are or were gamers — tabletop in particular. What did gaming teach you about writing and storytelling? Positive or negative lessons.
* I was *just* talking about this last night. I really feel that DM’ing D&D campaigns taught me incredibly important lessons about storytelling. I played with Peter V. Brett  in college and watched him craft incredible campaigns that were as engaging as any novel, and then I tried to match them. You have to be willing to do a TON of worldbuilding that your “readers” will never see. I would pour hours into drafting incredibly detailed NPCs, only to have my players just come out and kill them without so much as saying hello. You also have to willing to change course on a dime. Your players can just decide that they don’t want to open that door when the campaign DEMANDS that they OPEN THAT F*&KING DOOR! That agility is critical to being a good novelist.
That game with the other authors sounds fucking phenomenal. So let’s extend that out — if you could play D&D with, say, five different authors (living or dead), who would they be?
* Oh wow:
– Gary Gygax (yes, he’s an author, by god).
– George R. R. Martin.
– Richard K. Morgan
– Naomi Novik
– Ernest Cline
And the module? Tomb of Horrors. Because I’m fantasizing, there’ll be this mind-ray that makes us all forget the module, so that none of us know where any of the traps are and how to get around them.
I get to be the Human Paladin. With at least a +3 Holy Avenger. That’s very important. Dude. Seriously. I’m not f$#king around here.
Gaming is big in the military, or so I hear. What other games do you or have you played?
* Gaming is HUGE in the military, as is all other SFF-genre loving activities (most importantly, reading). I love any tabletop word game (Scrabble and Boggle) and also the classic board/card games (San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne and Settlers of Cataan. Though, I should admit that I’m new to some of them). Talisman (with all its expansions) is OUTSTANDING.
I will play Magic if someone brings their decks, but I don’t own any of my own.
Then, there’s wargaming. I am a big fan of historical ancients/medieval games (I prefer 15mm) and my favorite rule set for that is DBA. I don’t really do napoleonic, but I will if I have a good mentor.
And, of course, there’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. There are no words for how unspeakably cool that universe is.
But the most important thing in gaming is the players. I really don’t care what I’m playing, so long as I’m at a table with a bunch of really cool people who are fun to hang out with.

The Experiment Ends (And Other News)

As noted on Monday, I was trying a little experiment: I flung my Atlanta Burns novella, SHOTGUN GRAVY, up onto Amazon’s exclusive Kindle “KDP Select” program which purports to offer authors two key benefits: first, the ability to take part in Kindle lending which further grants authors access to a large “pot” of money monthly; second, the advantage (or, some might say, “advantage”) of putting your work up online for free.

As of late, a number of folks have noticed a phenomenon. You put your work up for free, and then when it once more re-enters paid gravity, suddenly the book becomes a Purchasing Magnet whereupon droves and flocks and herds and gaggles of Amazon readers come out of the woodwork to buy the recently-free book. A lot of authors have been attempting to jump this promotion’s bones (evidenced by the sudden flurry of “My work is free suddenly!” broadcasts).

Well, I figured, let’s try it.

SHOTGUN GRAVY‘s a novella that did well in its first month but kind of tapered off — it gets a sale or three a day, which is fine and adds to the whole pile, but it’s not exactly a rocketship to the money moon. Further, if I’m going to justify putting out the sequel, BAIT DOG, I figured I damn well better get the book into people’s hands. Free or not.

I originally put the book up for five days. You only get one five-day-period during your 90-day reign of exclusivity, however — so, I figured, I’d better chop it down to two.

Here’s how it went.

Putting the book up for free amassed a sudden burst of books distributed (I dare not use the word “sold” since, well, you don’t pay for a free book with anything but a stab of your finger on a mouse button). Right out of the gate, had about 100 people nab the book. Which was curious — where the hell did they come from? Are they real people? I don’t even know.

Over the course of the next 24 hours, I amassed over 5000 copies distributed free to readers. A nice enough number. Happy to have the book on a heap of Kindles, though one supposes that a good percentage of those will never read the book — perhaps I’m being cynical, but I know that the less I pay for a book, the lower it falls in my To-Be-Read pile. By yesterday morning, the book had reached #44 in the Top 100 Free and so I thought, now’s a good time to cut short the five days to two days. I went to end it thinking that I’d still get two full days of the promo — but within 30 minutes of asking the promo to end, it ended, lickity-split.

Which is fine, but I didn’t expect it to work that fast. Amazon can be notorious for veeeeeery sloooowly updating things — even a simple price change can take up to 48 hours to populate.

So, then. Results?

I did not initially see any boost in sales. Hour or two went by and the e-book didn’t move one whit. But then, ping — a sale. Okay, fine. Then another, and another. Steadily — and slowly, mind — the e-book sold about 60 copies. (This is as of 7:00PM last night.) It’s since not moved again in about an hour. The book crested to Amazon ranking #1,793. Further, it garnered another six reviews during that period (all four- and five-star).

(I’d politely ask that if you procured my book — or any book! — for free, leave a review upon reading it?)

Now, many have reported that a bigger sales boost occurs two to three days after the free promo ends. Not sure if that’ll happen here, but I’m damn sure gonna keep my eyes peeled.

Assessment of results?

Good, I guess. I’m happy to have the novella in the hands of 5000 more theoretical readers. I would have preferred they pay the buck for it, but if that means I’ve got more folks willing to chip in for BAIT DOG or other work of mine, that’s great.

This leads to the question, did I experience a sales boost of my other e-books?

I did not.

Quite the contrary, actually.

Soon as I triggered the free promo, my e-book sales over that two-day period were cleanly halved in twain. That’s kinda weird. I mean, I have no evidence that it has anything to do with the free promo — why would it? Surely it’s coincidence. Only thing I can think of is that there seems to exist some strange internal Amazon promotional algorithm that us Human Beings cannot access lest it overload our mental circuitry. Something about how books achieve rankings and show up under other books and appear on the main page and so on and so forth. If this is true, one could theorize that triggering the SG free promo… I dunno, rearranged the promotional eggs in the digital egg basket Amazon built for me.

Which makes little sense, but there it is.

We’ll see if sales rebound. Gods, I hope so — January has been a really stupendous month in terms of getting the e-books out there. Which leads me to…

Brand New E-Book Promo

Buy any of the following books on writing during the month of February:

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER

And I’ll comp you a copy of:

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING.

If you procure via PDF, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll get 250 Things automatically.

If you procure via other methods (Amazon, B&N), send me proof of purchase to:

terribleminds at gmail.

Other Stuff

Let’s see, let’s see…

Just finished the first official (third unofficial) draft of MOCKINGBIRD. Off to the Robot!

Will today also finish the first draft of DINOCALYPSE NOW.

The Washington Post calls me a “death blogger” and “macabre mastermind” in a piece about my collaborative storytelling and art Tumblr project, This Is How You Die. Reminder, of course, that the How You Die blog is always taking submissions — text, photo, song, art of any variety, all about how you might die. (More information here.)

I also get a shout-out at Huffington Post courtesy of Amy Edelman and Melissa Foster in a piece called, “The Big Reasons Indie Authors Aren’t Taken Seriously.”

BLACKBIRDS gets its first official review (from Fantasy Nibbles, tee hee) — and it’s glowing! (“…a truly unforgettable heroine driving the action. The writing is razor sharp throughout, and I’m genuinely concerned that I might be a little bit messed up for enjoying this one so much.”)

Oh, and then the book gets another glowing review from New York Journal of Books! Woo. (“Author, screenwriter, and writing advice guru Chuck Wendig creates a compelling tale with an even more compelling protagonist in Miriam Black: a tough, street wise survivor who finally escapes her troubled childhood only to find that she can’t escape herself. Despite her fairly macabre lifestyle, Miriam has a strength and sarcastic wit that makes her very likeable and strangely sympathetic.”)

And My Bookish Ways throws DOUBLE DEAD into the review machine and gives it a 5 outta 5, baby. (“Double Dead is a terrifying, violent, American road trip through zombie hell.”)

Finally, TALES FROM THE FAR WEST — a rad-ass Wild West Wuxia mash-up short story collection based on Gareth Skarka’s Far West storyworld drops in e-book format (and soon, print). I’m in here surrounded by some of my favorite people — Will Hindmarch, Eddy Webb, Ari Marmell, Matt Forbeck, Jason Blair. My story — “Riding the Thunderbird” — is about a girl, an outlaw, and a herd of storming thunderbirds.

25 Things You Should Know About Story Structure

The other day, I asked where lots of folks had problems with their stories. “Plot” and “structure” came up a lot (and I feel your pain). Hence, here we are with 25 things you might wanna know about narrative structure.

1. Every Story Has Structure

Whether you put it there or not, no story goes from start to finish without structure. Structure is either something you design as a storyteller or something that just happens. Sometimes the structure is the right one. Sometimes it’s the wrong one. (You’ll know it’s wrong because the story will suddenly feel like it’s got a dick growing out of its forehead. “Something’s off,” you’ll say. And the story will respond, “Maybe it’s the swinging forehead dick?”) If you have a good gut for a story, then you will intuit a strong structure as you go. If your instincts aren’t that sharp, it helps to design the story’s structure before moving forward.

2. Think Of It As Story Architecture

Structure serves story; story does not serve structure. A cathedral is built toward certain considerations: the beauty of God, the presence of God’s story, the need for acoustics, the accommodation of seating, the sacrificial altar, the DJ booth, and so on. You design a structure to highlight the type of story you’re telling. Using a non-linear structure in a mystery story is so that you maximize on the uncertainty and use the rejiggered narrative to create suspense. Structure has purpose. Structure is where art and craft collide.

3. The Two Essential Pieces

Most stories have at their core two critical components: The Fuck Up, and Trying To Fix The Fuck Up. Something goes wrong or something changes — a divorce, the Apocalypse, a lost child, someone puts ALF back on the air — and then one or several characters strive to fix that which has gone wrong. (In effect, reversing or correcting — or sometimes exploring — the narrative change of state.) Maybe they succeed. Maybe they fail. Maybe they achieve a Pyrrhic victory where they succeed but not without significant cost. What this really reveals are the most critical components to structural storytelling: a conflict is essential as is the character agency to correct that conflict. Without those, your structure is naught but a straight line. A straight line is the most boring construction a story can take. Aim for any shape but straight.

4. Said Differently, From Order To Chaos

Storytelling is the push-and-pull of order and chaos, the horny tumble and tangle of limbs as each struggles to overcome the other. Signal moves up and down, transitioning from a clear frequency to an inky squiggle of chaotic uncertainty which in turn reveals the structure. And that structure highlights the up-and-down and push-and-pull. The flat lines of order give way to the ascent (or more properly, descent) into chaos.

5. Narrative Measurement

I have explained this before, but fuck it, you’re duct-taped to that chair nice and tight and I know you can’t squirm away HA HA HA: narrative, like all things, can be measured. You don’t have to measure it, same as you don’t have to measure that fish you caught or the fishing rod that caught it (insert your own keenly-veiled sexual metaphor here!). If you do measure, know that beats make scenes, scenes make sequences, sequences make acts, and between each act is a turn of sorts, a shifting of the story’s hips, cocking this way, or that. Ignore it if you like, but if you’re building a house, you might want to know what a brick looks like.

6. Sliced In Thrice Nicely With My Knife

You could argue that all stories fall into three acts — and, in filmmaking, if they don’t fall that way they’re damn well pushed. Act One is the Set-Up (first 25%), Act Two is the Confrontation (next 50%), Act Three is the Resolution (final 25%). It’s an imperfect description and damn sure not the only description, and in the grand scheme of things you could, if you chose, distill it down to beginning, middle, and end.

7. Microcosmos

Whatever structure you give to a story is also a structure you can give to an individual act. In this way, each act is like a story within a story with its own ups and downs and conflicts and resolutions. As an act closes the tale told there either evolves or transforms entirely to manifest new aspects of the tale. For an example, look to the stages of our lives: child to teen to adult to doddering Depends-wearing gadabout (or at least that’s how I hope my own final arc plays out). While we remain the same person through such life changes, our story grows and shifts and becomes something else. Thus is the way a story’s acts flow into one another.

8. Complexity Breeds Complexity

The more complicated your story, the more acts that story is likely to feature — it’s like how you get gremlins wet, they just make more goddamn gremlins? Like that. A bigger, stranger, crazier story is likely to demand a bigger, crazier, stranger structure. Reason a film tends to only have three acts is because a film is around 100 minutes long — and because audiences crave the comfort of simplicity for a number of reasons good and bad. Shakespeare, for instance, rocked a five-act structure.

9. Omne Trium Perfectum

That’s Latin for, “I’m sorry, there are two girls in my bathroom.” *checks notes* No, wait, that can’t be right. Oh! Oh. Here it is. Loosely translated, “Every set of three is complete.” Even if you ignore all other structural components, this is a good one to keep an eye on — the Rule of Threes suggests that all aspects of your story should have at least three beats. Anything that has any value or importance should be touched on three times and, further, evolve a little bit each time. Every character arc, ever act, every scene, every setting, every motif or theme, needs you the storyteller to call it back at least three times.

10. The Power Of The Pivot

The story must from time to time pivot — as the saying goes, the tiger must change his panties. *checks notes* Damnit, who wrote these? Stripes. Stripes. The tiger must change his stripes. Jesus. This is true of characters, too. Or the world and its rules. Change is a critical element to storytelling, but you cannot change aspects wildly and completely. It must be gradual and believable, moving only a single phase shift over, the way water becomes ice — it’s an expected and believable shift. It’s why I prefer to think of this and call it a pivot. That word intimates a turn of the body, not a dizzying backflip. Pivot points will mark those narrative moments when your structure turns and things change. When one act becomes another, for instance, that is when the story pivots for the audience. This could mean an evolution of conflict, a revelation of new information, a major character life change. Any major shift in the story will do.

11. Escalations And Reversals

Again, if you don’t care much about formal structure, just tune your intestinal frequency to these two ideas: first, the story must escalate, or in all-caps-speak, SHIT GOTTA GET DOUBLE-BIG FUCKED UP YO; second, the story must feature occasional reversals where One State (order, victory, hope) becomes the Opposite State (chaos, loss, despair), or in all-caps-speak, YO BRO THE STORY SWITCHED IT AND FLIPPED IT AND BOGGLED MY SHIT SON. Dang, if I could write a novel in all caps, I would.

12. Why The Ejaculatory Arc Works

We’ll talk a wee bit more about Freytag and his arcing glob of narrative jizz (it was Douglas Rushkoff who I first heard use the term “male ejaculatory arc” to describe the standard structural shape of modern narrative) in just a moment, but the reason this general shape works is because it reveals escalation — things grow worse or more complicated or more intense as the tale moves forward. A story in the reverse would be anti-climactic, which is I guess to say, like an ejaculation on rewind.

13. The Arc As Microstructure

Hard time thinking about plotlines or subplots or act structures? Think instead of how a story comprises a number of smaller and larger arcs — an arc just being a component of your story that begins and ends (or, even better, rises and falls). Characters, themes, events, settings — these can have arcs. Some fill a whole story, some are just little belt loops popping up here and there. Some arcs begin where others end. Many overlap, rubbing elbows or shoulders or other filthier parts. Television is a great place to study arcs (and if I may suggest a show: Justified, on FX). Comic books, too.

14. For Every Story, A Structure

Every story demands a different structure. No universal structure exists. It’s why that mopey old saw about there being only seven plots or some bullshit is, well, bullshit. If you distill them down to their barest (and in many ways most meaningless) essence, sure, that’s true. But the art is in the arrangement. The structure you build around the plot to support the story is where the elegance lies.

15. I’m Talking Motherfucking Freytag, Y’all

One structure you can look at: Freytag’s Pyramid. Or Triangle. Or Pubic Thatch. Whatever you care to call it. Gustav Freytag said, Mein Gott, all diesen plottenheimer schmeckt der same to meinein mouthenpartsen. Translated, every story features five key structural beats mirroring five acts: Exposition (introduce characters and world) –> Rising Action (conflict creates tension) –> Climax (confrontation leads to a major change) –> Falling Action (conflict resolves) –> Denouement (dangly bits are all tied-up or trimmed away). It is, like all structural explorations, equal parts “useful” and “a garbage scow set aflame.” Not every plot fits. Further, modern storytelling (which usually trims five acts to three) pushes that climax further toward the end, which means the falling action and denouement get squished, as if between two Sumo wrestlers.

16. From Five To Seven

Behold, a rough seven-act structure: Intro (duh) –> Problem or Attack (duh) –> Initial Struggle (character first tussles with source of conflict) –> Complications (conflict worsens, deepens, changes) –> Failed Attempts (oops, that didn’t work) –> Major Crisis (holy goatfucker shitbomb, everything’s gone pear-shaped) –> Climax and Resolution (duh). Not a bad look at the way many modern stories play out.

17. Ain’t Nothin’ But An Aristotle Thang

Two words: anagnorisis and peripeteia. Both from Aristotle’s theory of tragedy (and two words that if you get in Scrabble, you automatically win a balloon ride or something). Anagnorisis is a discovery made by a character. Peripeteia is a dramatic change (either positive or negative) within the story. Each feeds into the other in the same way I spoke of order and chaos earlier — a character’s discovery may lead to a change in fortune, or a change in fortune may lead to a new discovery. These two things tumble around and around like a pair of hedgehogs battling one another in a washing machine until finally they reach catastrophe, which in Aristotelian terms is what closes the story — either the character wins or is defeated by the conflict or by himself (and in true tragic form, the character often defeats himself).

18. The Monomyth: Storytelling Epiphany Or Sublime Bullshit — You Decide!

Ever since Star Wars hit, a lot has been made of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey — AKA, “The Monomyth.” It is neither The Best Thing Since Blowjobs or The Worst Thing To Happen To Modern Fiction. It’s just a thing — one more structural consideration you can choose to use or toss in the medical waste bin at your local health clinic. While it’s got a lot of extra fiddly bits, the Monomyth can be distilled as: Departure (hero leaves normalcy and comfort on an adventure spurred by some call to action) –> Initiation (hero meets trials and tribulations both personal and impersonal) –> Return (hero comes back to the world changed and brings with him boons for his buddies). It’s got 17 total steps (or 8, if you want the distilled version). Want to examine its application? Fuck George Lucas. Seek James Joyce.

19. The Morphology Of The Folk-Tale

I do not have the space or the time in this list to explore all 31 of Vladimir Propp’s structural steps which are meant to explicate the narrative nature of folk-tales (Russian folk-takes in particular). I mean, dang, I got shit to do. Like eat a sandwich. Or stare at the floor. Or gloomily masturbate. It’s a very specific rendering of narrative structure, but it could be enlightening in some fashion. I’ll trust your Google-Fu to get started.

20. Did You See Last Night’s Episode?

And no, by “episode” I do not mean, “that time when Chuck went apeshit at Arby’s and started slathering his nude goblin body in Horsey Sauce.” Different kind of episode. No, here I mean episode-as-narrative-structure. Television and comic books tend to be episodic, with any serialized elements packaged away as story arcs (noted earlier). Episodic storytelling tends to chop up each tale in neatly-packaged plot pieces, with each piece theoretically resolving by its end and then together forming a larger story. Generally, television works on acts separated out by commercial breaks. Episodic narrative may make your story feel more manageable — but, at the same time, placing an episodic structure inside a non-episodic format (say, a novel or a film) is likely to feel artificial and/or inauthentic.

21. My Porn Director Name Will Be “Therefore Butts”

Click here and get schooled by the South Park guys. The key thing they’re getting across with this is that scenes and events in storytelling don’t happen independently of one another. There must exist a chain of cause and effect, of action and opposite reaction, of consequence. Dominoes do not fall separate from one another. They fall against one another. Embroider that profound shit on a throw pillow.

22. From Aperitif To Digestif

Fuck you, I like food metaphors. So, here’s one — consider how the structure of a seven-course meal works in terms of storytelling. You start with a Aperitif (guests become acquainted over a drink) and progress through a series of dishes meant to both embody the meal and challenge the palate, with certain contextual shifts in taste (sorbet and/or cheese) to punctuate larger events. Dessert rolls along as kind of a climactic moment and then coffee and the digestif appear to give one final strong dose of taste-punching goodness in order to help the eater digest the meal he just consumed. You could chart it on a graph and it might look similar to narrative structure. Then again, maybe I’m just hungry.

23. You Can’t Structuralize Me, Man

Non-linear storytelling would seem to have a non-traditional structure, and that’s true, to a point. But what you’ll ultimately find is that, while the plot events may bounce around like a meth-cranked dormouse, the structure that occurs is still one that you can identify. (Which tells us that plot and narrative structure are there to complement one another but are not actually the same thing.)

24. Tend To Your Organic Story Garden, You Goddamn Hippie

Writing without structure is a challenge equivalent to writing with structure — if you do it right, you get something that feels organic and unexpected. If you do it poorly, you’ll end up with the storytelling equivalent of the Winchester House: doors that never open, stairways that end in walls, rooms that serve little purpose. If one method’s not working? Duh, try the other. Which leads me to…

25. The Final Word

If the application of structure helps you tell a better tale: use it. If you find it artificial and it only hampers your efforts: kick it in the mouth and chuck it down an open manhole cover. This stuff isn’t here to oppress you — it’s a tool for when you need it and invisible when you don’t. Some stories will call for the strong spine of structure. Some stories need to be altogether hazier, stranger, less pin-down-able. Just know that if you’re having some trouble grasping how the plot moves from one piece to another, it might be time to take a gander at borrowing from the many structural storytelling examples that exist. Either that, or maybe you need to eat a baggie of magic mushrooms or something. Your call.


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Shotgun Gravy Is Free For The Next Five Days

I’ve taken the plunge.

SHOTGUN GRAVY is now on KDP Select.

Meaning, for Prime members, you can take the book out as a “loan.”

Also meaning, right now, the novella is free.

Now, I don’t know how I feel about KDP Select. On the one hand, I do appreciate that it expands options for authors and readers alike in terms of getting new fiction into their greedy little eye-holes. On the other hand, I don’t like that this only further foments the decrease of competition in the marketplace by increasing Amazon’s advantage and market share, which as a result does little good for readers with other platforms (or a desire to support bookselling entities beyond Amazon).

So, why now?

First, I’d like Atlanta Burns to meet some new readers. If this does that, win. I’m keen on finishing and releasing the sequel, BAIT DOG (now likely a novel, not a novella), but I’d like to get this book in more hands before I do so. If this does that? Then hey, score. Because honestly? Atlanta Burns needs some help, I think. This might provide just the sales boost she needs — she’s got 28 great reviews going for her. I get emails now and again telling me how much people really love her as a protagonist and love how the book tackles bullies. But, then again, it may not provide any boost at all. I’m not in the habit of expecting.

Second, this novella’s been out now for, what, four months? And during that time it’s been available at B&N and here as PDF — so, readers outside Amazon have hopefully had the opportunity to get on board.

Third, it seems like at least trying KDP Select will give me a better understanding of its relative merits and concerns. None of my other books at present are going that way.

So —

If you’re looking for a chance to nab the story of a troubled girl going up against some local bullies with her .410 shotgun in order to help a couple friends, here’s your shot to do so for a price that’s Cheap As Free.

If you dig it, then let others know.

Further, if you have thoughts on the KDP Select thing, feel free to talk about it in the comments.

Finally, worth a read: “How KDP Select Saved My Book,” by David Kazzie.

Shotgun Gravy at Amazon (US).

Shotgun Gravy at Amazon (UK).

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Present Tense

(Last week’s challenge, “Random Photo Story,” says, “Come look at my entries! They’re super!”)

So, maybe you saw an article on io9 yesterday — “10 Writing ‘Rules’ We Wish More Sci-Fi And Fantasy Authors Would Break.” It’s a very cool article. And I pretty much agree with all of it. In fact, BLACKBIRDS (which gets its first official review right here!) features a potentially unsympathetic character (though I love her dearly) and is written entirely in the present tense.

Now, for this challenge, I’m scraping all that away and saying —

Write a piece of flash fiction, 1000 words or less, in the present tense.

Doesn’t matter if it’s sci-fi or fantasy. I’m not asking you to write an unsympathetic character that yet remains compelling (aka livable over likable) — no, that’ll be a separate challenge.

Why do I love the present tense? It feels fast. Urgent. In the moment. It feels like you’re telling a story that’s evolving as the reader reads it as opposed to a story whose events have come and gone.

I am a big fan.

So, do that with your story this week.

Write whatever you want. Whatever genre, whatever character, whatever story.

As long as it’s in the present tense.

Post your stories at your site and drop a link into the comments here so we can come read ’em.

You’ve got a week.

I’ll see you back here on Friday, February 3rd, by noon EST.