Raising the Stakes...

...Before Driving Them Home in the Breast of Boredom.

He was dying from boredom. It's better this way.

I always have a book on the table while I eat. My kids think it's unfair because I won't let them read while they eat, but they are much more likely to have a spill, so it's just too bad for them.

This morning that book was Story, by Robert McKee. Easily the best book about how to engage an audience that I've ever read. I'm reviewing conflict and act design.

Here're a few tidbits-

Here's a simple test to apply to any story. Ask: What is the risk? What does the protagonist stand to lose if he does not get what he wants? More specifically, what's the worst thing that will happen to the protagonist if he does not achieve his desire?

If this question cannot be answered in a compelling way, the story is misconceived at its core. For example, if the answer is: "Should the protagonist fail, life would go back to normal," this story is not worthy of telling.  

Ouch. Not worthy of telling. Sound like any memoires you've read? I kid, memoire-writers. Or is this one of those jokes that reveals my true feelings?

Okay, let's take this concept down to the scene level. In a particular scene, what happens if your protagonist fails? If it's a return to real life, that's a problem, too. There are building scenes where the conflict is increasing without coming to a conclusion, sure, but there must be risk for the protagonist. There must be stakes, and they must be high.

A crit partner told me that's what her agent commented to her over and over in her edits: Raise the stakes.

In behavioral psychology, there's this term for increasingly desperate behavior called an extinction burst. We all do it. You put a few quarters in the vending machine, press the button. Your drink doesn't come out. You press the button again, a little more firmly. When you press the return change button, it's the same. Nothing. You lift the door, maybe the drink was released and somehow you didn't notice the loud thump as the can landed in the trough, but there's nothing there. So you press the button again, ten times real fast, each time getting harder. Maybe you're a little mad now. You hit the side of the machine, sure that somehow this will work.

In a lot of novels, the protagonist is operating in this way: trying with increasing desperation to get the Coke out of the machine. They would never just walk up to the machine and punch it, but because they are blocked over and over again, they are willing to try just a little bit harder, then a little more, hoping that it will finally work.

Incidentally, giving in when a child is in the midst of an extinction burst is the best way to teach them that desperate behavior works. It sets you up for years of buying candy in the checkout line at the grocery. So don't give in when kids are kicking and screaming. They are so close to giving up and getting on with their lives. That makes for a boring novel, though. In writing, we want to increase desperation.

Here's one more quote from Story:

A story must not retreat to actions of lesser quality or magnitude, but move progressively forward to a final action beyond which the audience cannot imagine another.  

You can't have your protagonist discover a baseball bat, and walk toward the Coke machine at the end of the chapter, then have them find 75 cents in their pocket at the opening of the next chapter. Wouldn't they have checked their pockets for more change before they considered destroying the machine? Raise the stakes, one step at a time. Lead the character to the climax, where they will do something they never could have seen coming on page one.

I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving. I love having a few days off to be with the family and revel in all of my blessings. Happy Writing!
Glutton for Punishment?

Georgia O'Keefe and Writing Smut

I emailed a friend this prelude to a kiss scene, asking if the comparison of her skin to a seashell was too "Georgia O'Keefe".

Georgia O'Keefe, besides being one of my favorite artists, was famous for her large scale oil paintings of flowers, such as these Calla lillies. Her art is incredibly sensual, and one reviewer  saw her attention to flowers as representative of the female portions of the natural world. If you know what I mean. (Which, for the record, caused her to say, "I almost wept. I thought I would never face the world again." But still, the comment stuck and sexuality one of the things that people read into her work.)

In my view, our bodies are beautiful and amazing, but sacred. I wouldn't post pictures of nudes on my blog, but these lillies- aren't they gorgeous?

So I decided I'm comfortable writing in the style of Georgia O'Keefe. I can talk about the lillies, about hands and skin and cheekbones and lips. And that's enough for me. I trust the reader to make the connections, that the emotion will come through.

Here's my Georgia O'Keefe writing. (My protag is an empath whose skin changes color as she experiences her own and others' emotions. She's pleading with Agent Hatton to explain the secrets of mortal life life to her. Her skin turned black as if she were being burned in a fire in a previous scene.)

Agent Hatton looked at me with pity in his eyes, pity and something else I couldn’t name.

“Your body already knows what to do.” His words were soft and intimate. I tried not to think of how they would have tasted to me before. He stepped closer until our toes bumped into each other, but I didn’t move away.

Mother help me, I wanted to lean in.

“I think that fire is your body shouting at you.” He took my face in his hands and touched his forehead to mine. He smelled of woodsmoke and grass gone to seed. “You don’t even know what you’ve done to me.”

I couldn’t move even if I’d wanted to. His thumbs rubbed in broad strokes on my cheeks and his touch calmed me. I still couldn’t feel what was behind his twisted expression, but the motion itself was powerful in a way I hadn’t expected. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You’re the psychic or whatever, but I know when a woman wants to be kissed.” He looked peculiar, but it wasn’t bad, just powerful. “Whenever I think about kissing you, your skin turns this beautiful purple, like the inside of an abalone shell.”

I peeked at my hands; a rich eggplant color was creeping into my fingers.

He released me and trailed his knuckles down my face. “Kissing you was the last thing on my mind, so I know it was your idea, but I should still tell you no.”

I suddenly wished for my empathy to return; I was blind. “What’s a kiss?”

His eyes slid off of mine, down to my mouth and then back up. “Part of the dance.”

I love reading a good love scene that isn't crude. Stephenie Meyer comes to mind- I think she's pretty much the master of not-in-the-room sensuality.

Any thoughts?

And as a bonus, here's one of my favorite O'Keefe paintings, with strangers thrown in for scale. I'm not sure what the clouds represent. Cellulite?

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Georgia O'Keefe - "Sky Above Clouds IV", Chicago, United States

Glutton for Punishment?

Likeable Characters

How to take silly, whining, self-absorbed, and/or weak main characters and make them thrive!

Have you watched 'The Wizard of Oz' recently?

Dorothy is a bit of a brat in the opening. And she develops an opium habit.

I've been reworking my query and realized that I have the same trouble explaining the premise of the story as I do in the actual manuscript. There's not enough action inside the MC in the first section of the book. Things just happen to her and around her for the first forty pages.

My MC is introduced as limp as a piece of spaghetti because her character arc is to learn to stand up for herself. She has to start out as a bit of a push-over so that she can learn to make her own decisions.

Enter protagonist: Mother uses Lara's empath against her, using guilt to force obedience. Lara even helps Mother to 'delve' her sisters so they will follow the rules, too.

I had some reviews on early chapters that said that they didn't connect to the MC because she was spineless. But that's the point, so how do I get around it?

She yearns to be stronger. That's it.

We imperfect human beings tend to have a lot of sympathy for people who want to do what is right, who want to control their destiny, rescue their friends, save the world, etc. BUT can't do it...

Yet.

Or they can't do it alone, or they can't do it until they care about others more than themselves, or they could do it all along if they'd only believed in themselves, or whatever moral is being expressed.

Still, you want to find out how they succeed, so that you can believe it's possible for you, too.

I've added some blurbs of Lara trying to resist Mother. Here's a section I adjusted recently. You tell me if Lara is likeable or not.

“Please, Mother. Don’t.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I wouldn’t look.
“I have to be sure.”

I opened my eyes and glared at her shoulder. I wouldn’t look any higher.

“Lara,” she chastised. “You will not go near the orchard. Or inside it.” Her eyes narrowed on me, and I leaned away, tilting the rocking chair back as far as I could. I looked up into the skylight, letting the sun scorch my eyes. She pressured me and my breath caught in my throat. I lowered my eyes to her face, letting her look. Her face was blotted out of my vision by the sunspots, but I could feel her probing, finding my fears and crowding them out of my mind with contentment.

She relaxed. My throat opened and I gasped, quietly, though. I didn’t want to make her feel bad; her guilt would infect me, too. Besides, she didn’t like to force me, but we both knew the welfare of the geroth was too important. She dropped her eyes and stood, then laid my veil across my knees. She left as silently as she’d come.

I hope this isn't too far out of context to make sense and please remember this is a middle draft! (could I use the word 'look' more?!) I also see some areas where I need to be more specific about what Lara is experiencing, but I think she is relatable now. That the reader might root for her.
 
How do you balance your characters?
Glutton for Punishment?

Beta Readers Comment Form

I'm trying to wrap up my edits by the end of the year so I can let my beta readers tear my manuscript up. That means I won't get it to them until February at least, but that's why it's a goal :)

I've had some friends read a few chapters, but I haven't gotten the detailed responses that I would like. So I'm playing with "Beta Reader Comment Form a-1".

Here's what I'm considering-

• A page at the beginning of each chapter so they can have it out when reading to make notes on.
• It will be preprinted with the reader's name on it so they will 'own it' and feel obligated to fill it out.
• Every sheet will ask things like (this is still tentative):
• Is there any events/actions that were confusing?
• Did the character do anything that felt "wrong" for their character?
• Did you ever think "That's dumb. Why didn't they just (fill in the blank here)?"
• Could you clearly see the action when reading? What was confusing?
• Did you skip/skim any? (Please mark where)
• Do the chapter titles work?
• Is any of it too slow? or feel like a summary (too fast)?
• Were you pulled to keep reading in this chapter?
• At the end I will ask for feedback on the title and if it matches the book. I may give a few options and ask which one they like best after reading the book.
• I will ask if any books they've read remind them of my book.
• What were their favorite scenes?
• What were your least favorite scenes?
• I will hug and squeeze them and tell them they are my good, bestest friends for life. Possible beyond.

That's what I've come up with thus far. I'm hoping this will help me completely avoid wasting their time and my paper. And I will tell them about the comment forms before they commit to reading. Just a few thousand changes to make and it will be ready!

What am I missing? How do you help your readers help you see potential problems?
Glutton for Punishment?

Review of 'BUY-OLOGY' by Martin Lindstrom

I'm reading the recent books on marketing and neuromarketing in the public library, and I started with BUY-OLOGY by Martin Lindstrom. At the end, I relate this to keeping reader interest. It's basically the same skill set.(I got the cover from Amazon. You can't really click to look inside. Sorry.)



A few things stuck out-

1. Warning labels and pictures of tumors etc. on cigarrette packaging light up the craving centers of your brain.

2. Sex is Extremely Interesting- too interesting, in fact, for people to remember the product clearly.

3. We are emotional creatures, pretending we're rational.

First, a message from our sponsors. Ivory Soap. Is it a little warm in here?


Okay, back to cigarrette packaging. Back in the day, I had a developmentally disabled client who picked the skin on her fingers until it bled. My job was to determine the cause of the behavior, and give her caretakers a procedure to follow to decrease the behavior.

I discovered that the mere sight of a bandaid would start her picking. In behavioral terms, this is called a discriminative stimulus. A really great example of this is the Krispy Kreme "Hot Now" sign. That neon lights up, and you get hungry.

It sounds like the same mechanism. Your brain doesn't look for appropriateness when it makes associations. It looks for reliability. And the warning labels--designed to be noticeable--are very reliable at predicting a nicotine rush. Can you imagine seeing this and getting a jolt in your brain that it's time for a smoke?

Warning--yucky picture of a tumor below.

The hair is kind of nasty, too.

THIS PHOTO ACTIVATES PLEASURE CENTERS in smoker's brains in the UK, where these labels are used. If advertisers were smart, they'd plaster these health warnings all over billboards and magazines as public service announcements. Oh, wait...they do. It seems like a warning, but acts like a trigger.

It appears the most effective advertising is low level and insidious. Lindstrom writes about American Idol and Coke. The judges drink it; I knew that. But did you notice the warm-up room?

Concerning point number two-Sex. Our brains get so jazzed looking at sexual images that few brain cells are left to remember our names, much less which restaurant has these burgers. Seriously. I checked McD's, Burger King and Wendy's before I did a general search for "sexy hamburger commercial" and came up with Hardees. Don't click on this if you are a recovering pornaholic.

Overtly sexual advertising is less effective, according to Lindstrom, than merely being sexy, and he predicts that in ten or so years, after things have gotten MUCH more blatant, there will be a down swing in sex in commercials.

I doubt we'll ever go back to the simple sexuality of Schrader Universal Valve Caps, but advertising will be more integrated- though not neccessarily more subtle. Like the product placements in 'Heroes'. The cameo of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" made me poke my husband and say, "Ohh! That's an ad!"

Why is this so interesting to me as a writer?

Covers are their own type of branding. There's a well-muscled man with shoulder length hair, and buxom woman held tight against his chest. You know EXACTLY what you are getting when you buy a romance. A dude on a horse with a sword, a slightly grizzled, gray-bearded man in cloak beside him, and a thin woman with pointy ears and a long bow. Epic Fantasy. Etc. If you're a well-known author, the prominent feature of your book is your name (I can read KOONTZ on my bookshelf from across the room).

Covers do the same thing an ad in a magazine does. A cover should be familiar so you have some positive associations, and fresh, so it offers something new. Which is what agents seem to want in manuscripts. Different, but not too different.

The most effective covers will tell a story on their own. They will make the reader FEEL.

Third item gleaned from Buy-ology:we are emotional first, then rational.

Psychological phenomenon like Sour Grapes and Sweet Lemons are a part of every intro psych class. We talk up what we have, and downgrade what is unattainable, i.e.- I never wanted that promotion. I'm better off without him. I'm glad I got in a car accident; my car was old.

We roughly value things based on how much we pay for them. The interesting thing is, according to Lindstrom, we also enjoy them more. We enjoy them even more if we perceive them as high value, and perceive that we've gotten a deal.

Thus, the existence of 20% off stickers that drive me nuts. Can't people see through this? Do people think a store could stay in business if they weren't getting money to cover costs plus a mark-up?

This also explains why carpet stores are perpetually going out of business. But it still helps us assign value as we make a decision. It makes it easier for the consumer to feel good about the purchase.

So, I'm thinking about offering my book on Amazon for $34.99. And the 'perfect condition' used books will be $19.99. What a deal!

And I'm going to infuse the pages in Chapter Nine with the smell of campfire. Maybe Chapter One will have vanilla and frangipahi. Scented books are coming, I promise. (Scent is the biggest portal into our emotional brain. Sensory BrandingTM. Publishing example- Paper books have a sensory brand that is vastly different from eReaders.)

Marketing has parallels to basic storytelling. Don't let your character sit alone, musing about the terrible situation he's in, let him interact with another character. Better yet, he thinks she is hitting on him, but she's saying he's hot temperature-wise, not hawt. Interaction is interesting to our brains.

I get thirty pages into my book before you know my character's hair or eye color. I'm not sure if that will stand once I get editors and agents involved, but it's deliberate. A hundred pages in I give a concrete age for the protagonist.

I want women from 14-40 (and beyond) to be able to easily fit into her head. I don't want to put up a barrier in a first-person narrative, and I deliberately start with a scene that is familiar across the world- climbing a tree, afraid of falling. I'll let you know if it works.

If you find this interesting, please let me know and I'll keep writing about it.

One of life's disappointments is discovering that the man who writes the bank's ads is not the one who makes the loans.

Glutton for Punishment?