By DeAnna Knippling
I just picked up a copy of The Four Hour Chef, by Tim
Ferriss. Which opened up a box of worms
with respect to writing. The beginning
of the book claims to lay down a basis for learning anything--it's a meta-learning
primer. Great! Except none of the examples he gives are for
writing.
The first step is to deconstruct the thing you're trying to
learn into the fewest, simplest, smallest number of parts. The example he gives is learning Japanese
kanji, which are the characters that mean words (rather than hiragana or
katakana, which are syllables). It
seemed an insurmountable task...until he found out there were only about 2000 specific kanji he needed to learn in order to be considered
"proficient." Which is still a
lot, but it's doable.
So I got to thinking: what are the 2000 kanji of writing
fiction?
What is the smallest possible unit of fiction writing? How do you even break FICTION down into
smaller, yet still useful, parts (other than the alphabet, obviously)?
After quite a bit of de- and reconstructing, here's what I
came up with, which comes down to a) how to write a scene, and b) how to string
scenes together. I challenge you to do
the same: the smallest, simplest number
of tools a newbie writer needs in order to write and submit a short story to a
professional market. You don't need to
try to cover every possible story.
Just a short story. Oh,
and to make it fun? Set the instructions
up so that the only revision necessary is a manual spelling/grammar check after
the first draft is done.
2)
Decide what type of story you're writing: using
Duotrope or some other market listing,
determine the genre/subgenre, the type of setting, the type of story, the type
of ending, and the length. For example,
Mystery/cozy mystery, contemporary, amateur detective solves crime, crime is
resolved/upbeat ending, 3000-4000 words.
If you're not sure what to pick, go to the highest-paying market in the
genre and look at their guidelines and/or read a couple of issues to see what
the most common answers are.
3)
Read the
Lester Dent master plot
formula. Mentally translate it to
fit the requirements of #2. You don't
have to fill in all the blanks before you start.
4)
Determine a particular character, setting, and
problem for the opening. Anything that
fits the constraints of #2 will work.
For example, pick three websites you like, and skim the first for a
character, the second for a setting, and the third for a problem.
5)
Write from a "he/she" perspective, not
from an "I" perspective, and never write anything the character can't
sense or think themselves (third person tight POV). No need to tell the reader "She
thought..." "She looked..." etc.
6)
Open every scene by introducing or reminding the
reader of the character, setting, and problem (1-3 paragraphs).
7)
Use one scene per plot step. You can use more than one scene if you break
the steps down into sub-steps. But no
more than one plot step or sub-step per scene.
8)
Include all five senses at least every two
manuscript pages, but especially at the beginning of every scene opening. Yes, taste.
9)
In every scene, the character should be worse
off than when they started the scene. If
good things happen in the scene, then the reader needs to be aware that things
are getting worse elsewhere.
10)
End each scene with a twist, by increasing
danger, by revealing something new about a character or their emotions, by
introducing a new plot element (either good or bad). Or any combination thereof.
11)
Put a break in time between scenes.
12)
End the story by assuring the reader it was
worth the character's time to have gone through that whole mess. This assures the reader it was worth their
time, too.
If I were looking at this list the first time, I don't know
that I'd work on the steps in this order, either. Once I knew all the steps, sure, this would
be a great order to do them in. But if I
were just starting out, I'd do it like this:
#8. Pick a setting
(#4) and write a description of something in that setting using all five
senses.
#5. Pick a character
(#4) and rewrite the description from #8 so it's from the character's
perspective.
#9. Pick a problem
(#4) and rewrite the scene from #5 so the character's worse off than when the
scene started. Do this by making the
character try to solve the problem and fail.
#6. Rewrite your
scene from #9 so the character, setting, and problem are all hinted at within
the first three paragraphs. If the
character thinks about their backstory, then it happens in real time,
interrupting the action and making the character gawp around, drooling.
#10. Rewrite your scene from #6 so that the scene ends with
a twist or two.
#2. Decide what genre
your problem and character fit in, then look up the top-paying market for that
combination and fill in the rest of the blanks for #2.
#3. Fit in some plot
steps based on the Lester Dent outline, as tweaked to fit #2. Either fill in the whole thing (but be
willing to change it) or just fill out the next step.
#11. Break in time before the next scene. Just do it.
#7. Write the next
scene the same way you wrote the first scene, following the plot step or
substep you outlined in #3. If you get
to a good twist of one type or another, consider breaking off the scene.
#3. Keep writing
according to the plot formula.
"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only
as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
--E.L. Doctorow
#12. After the character solves the main problem at hand,
reassure the reader that it was worth it.
#1. Put everything
into a template.
Sadly, this involves a lot of revision; I would only use
this order of things as a teaching tool.
It's too much work, and after a few times, you'll be doing most of this
automatically anyway.
Obviously, this doesn't cover every possible way to write a
story. And it wouldn't cover every
possible short story. But (aha!) it does
cover both plotting and pantsing, so I'm proud of it.
If I had to guess, the items that would boost your writing
the most in the shortest amount of time would be:
#3, picking a solid, time-tested plot formula; originality
is overrated by new writers.
#6, opening by nailing down character, setting, and plot
right away, without backstory.
#8, including all five senses per two pages (it ends up
weeding out a lot of garbage after you do it on a few stories. No need to overdo it with lengthy
descriptions, though).
I'm sure as I go along, this list will change. I'll learn new tricks, I'll condense old
tricks into simpler formats, I'll learn how to explain things better. A friend of mine has this great rule that
helps her write awesome stories, but she can't explain a word of it; she just
keeps speaking more...slowly...and....loudly and expecting me to
understand. I know it works, but I have
no idea what she's talking about. I'm
sure I have a dozen of those things--things I haven't identified, things I
haven't worked out how to communicate.
But here are things that I know, that I know how to explain.
What about you?
About the Writer: DeAnna Knippling started freelancing in May 2011 and wouldn’t be able to do it without her wonderful family and friends, especially her husband. In fact, she owes a lot to Pikes Peak Writers for helping her be a better writer, especially through the Write Brains, both in the lectures and in meeting lots of other writers.
Her reason for writing is to entertain by celebrating her family’s tradition of dry yet merry wit, and to help ease the suffering of lack of self-confidence, having suffered it many years herself. She also likes to poke around and ask difficult questions, because she hates it when people assume something must be so.
For more kicks in the writerly pants, see her blog at www.deannaknippling.com or her ebook How to Fail & Keep on Writing, available at Smashwords, B&N, Amazon, and OmniLit.
