{"id":26102,"date":"2015-02-11T20:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T01:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=26102"},"modified":"2015-02-11T13:40:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T18:40:03","slug":"marshall-ryan-maresca-five-things-i-learned-writing-the-thorn-of-dentonhill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2015\/02\/11\/marshall-ryan-maresca-five-things-i-learned-writing-the-thorn-of-dentonhill\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall Ryan Maresca: Five Things I Learned Writing The Thorn Of Dentonhill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"9780756410261_large_The_Thorn_of_Dentonhill\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Veranix Calbert leads a double life. By day, he\u2019s a struggling magic student at the University of Maradaine. At night, he spoils the drug trade of Willem Fenmere, crime boss of Dentonhill and murderer of Veranix\u2019s father. He\u2019s determined to shut Fenmere down.<\/em><\/p>\n

With that goal in mind, Veranix disrupts the delivery\u00a0of two magical artifacts meant for Fenmere\u2019s clients, the mages of the Blue Hand Circle. Using these power-filled objects in his fight, he quickly becomes a real thorn in Fenmere\u2019s side.<\/em><\/p>\n

So much so that soon not only Fenmere, but powerful mages, assassins, and street gangs all want a piece of \u201cThe Thorn.\u201d And with professors and prefects on the verge of discovering his secrets, Veranix\u2019s double life might just fall apart. Unless, of course, Fenmere puts an end to it first.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

ONE: I AM NOT A PANTSER; IN WHICH I EMBRACE OUTLINING<\/h2>\n

I wrote two now-trunked novel-resembling-things before I started working on Thorn of Dentonhill<\/em>. They were not novels. Novels have a structure, a plot. These were more \u201ca collection of things that happen to people who may or may not be characters\u201d. I\u2019m saying they weren\u2019t good, but in a way I could learn from. One of the things I learned was to abandon my romantic notions of \u201cI\u2019ll just write and see where it takes me.\u201d It took me to a mess that only looked like a novel if you squinted and looked at it sideways. So I realized I needed to outline my next attempt at a novel.<\/p>\n

TWO: I HATE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE; IN WHICH I FIGURE OUT HOW TO OUTLINE<\/h2>\n

I found a lot of guidelines and advice out there of \u201chow to outline a novel\u201d fantastically unhelpful. Because so many boiled down to \u201cThree Act Structure: That\u2019s Your Outline.\u201d What\u2019s three act structure? It\u2019s a beginning, a middle and an end. Frankly, that doesn\u2019t tell me much I didn\u2019t already know. Especially since the \u201cmiddle\u201d part of three acts tends to be \u201cRising Action: More Stuff Happens\u201d. What kind of stuff? STUFF. Stuff that RISES.<\/p>\n

I also studied the Hero\u2019s Journey, but I also found this less than helpful in coming up with an outline structure\u2014 it was a tool for analyzing stories, but not for building them. It was like trying to bake cookies using only the nutritional information as a guide.<\/p>\n

So I did my own story-hacking, studying books, movies, comics, television\u2014 taking them apart and figuring out what all the moving parts were. I emerged from this with a powerful, flexible outlining tool at my disposal: a twelve-part story structure.<\/p>\n

THREE: EMBRACE THE HERO\u2019S FLAWS; IN WHICH I GO WITH THE STUPID CHOICES<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a pair of tropes out there called \u201cthe idiot ball\u201d and \u201cthe idiot plot\u201d. The gist of both involve plots and twists that only work if the character is stupid. However, this isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing\u2014 sometimes your character needs to do the stupid thing. Sometimes it\u2019s the most in-character action they can take.<\/p>\n

Veranix is a guy who keeps doing the stupid thing. He can\u2019t help himself.<\/p>\n

There are several points in the story where the smartest thing Veranix could is just walk away, let it go. He knows that getting himself involved in stopping drug dealers or street toughs or even a sociopathic circle of mages is incredibly stupid, and on any given night it would be best for him to head back to campus, get a good night\u2019s sleep and study all day. But then he\u2019ll see one more dealer working, one more addict overdosing, one more victim crying for help\u2014 and off he runs into the fray.<\/p>\n

FOUR: LOVE EVERY CHARACTER; IN WHICH EVERY PLAYER HAS HIS DAY<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s an adage out there that every villain is the hero of their own story. Way back in the day, I was a stage actor, and more than once I played \u201c2nd<\/sup>Soldier\u201d or \u201cCitizen #4\u201d. Small parts, but I treated them like they mattered. I considered every role to be someone who has a rich life outside of the scope of the play. That was the same mindset I took with every character, regardless of their role. The obnoxious prefect who keeps getting in Veranix\u2019s face; the grizzled street boss who wasn\u2019t expecting a fight, but is ready for one; the three Rose Street Princes who are part of Colin\u2019s crew; even two random constabulary officers who wander onto the scene. All of them could be their own hero. And more to the point, I let myself really enjoy getting into each and every one of them.<\/p>\n

FIVE: SIZE MATTERS; IN WHICH I BULK UP<\/h2>\n

I started the process of querying my finished manuscript, woefully unaware that I had made a glaring mistake, until I got this response from one agent: \u201cI really like <\/em>the book. I read it all today. Bad News: It’s too short for sale at this point. It’d need to be at least 20k longer for most houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, I had absorbed bad information about how long a novel needed to be, and Thorn <\/em>was way too short. So I had to make it longer without losing pacing or tightness. Add muscle and bone. Armed with that knowledge, I dove back in, whipping it into shape and proper size.<\/p>\n

When I had that done, you better believe that agent was the first one I sent it to. He\u2019s who represents me now, he\u2019s who sold it, and it\u2019s thanks to him that the book is what it is today.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Marshall Ryan Maresca grew up in upstate New York and studied film and video production at Penn State. He now lives in Austin with his wife and son. His work appeared in Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction and Rick Klaw\u2019s anthology Rayguns Over Texas. He also has had several short plays produced and has worked as a stage actor, a theatrical director and an amateur chef.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marshall Ryan Maresca: Website<\/a><\/span> | Twitter<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thorn of Dentonhill: Amazon<\/a><\/span> | B&N<\/a><\/span> | IndieBound<\/a><\/span> | Goodreads<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veranix Calbert leads a double life. By day, he\u2019s a struggling magic student at the University of Maradaine. At night, he spoils the drug trade of Willem Fenmere, crime boss of Dentonhill and murderer of Veranix\u2019s father. He\u2019s determined to shut Fenmere down. With that goal in mind, Veranix disrupts the delivery\u00a0of two magical artifacts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-6N0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26105,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26102\/revisions\/26105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}