Lori Devoti, paranormal romance and urban fantasy author

I am in the process of reading Scene and Structure by Jack Bickham. I really recommend it, if you haven’t read it yet. It takes a lot of information from Swain’s book and makes them much easier (at least for me) to digest.

Anyway, Bickham talks a lot about the story question. Reading what he has to say made me realize that has been the problem with a number of books I’ve tried to read (and given up on) lately. The writing was fine–nothing wrong with how the sentences were crafted or the balance of dialogue to description, but as I was reading I’d think–what is the point?

Now I realize these authors hadn’t clearly laid out the story question for me (the reader). And not having done that in the first place, made it pretty much impossible for the scenes to pull me through the story. Yes, perhaps the POV character had a goal in each scene, but since it didn’t really tie back to an overall story question–why should I care?

This also gave me cause to think about the story question/questions in my own work. My upcoming Nocturne release (Unbound) had three main plot lines–the hero’s, the heroine’s, and the romance. There is a story question for each of these. His: Will he escape his bond to the immortal witch who has owned him for 500 years? Hers: Will she find and save her sister? Romance: Will they get and stay together? With three strong story questions it made writing the book a lot easier. Also by knowing the story questions in your work, it makes it a lot easier to know whether a scene should stay or go.

Conventional wisdom is that a scene should have at least three purposes, that it should start with a goal, involve action toward that goal, and end with some form of a disaster. I’m going to add to that that the scene’s goal should also, in some way, tie back to one of the story questions. It is not enough that the POV character has a goal for that scene, if that goal will not take him/her closer to answering the question laid out in the beginning.

So, that’s my take on it–and what I want from a book. Anyone else see it differently? Anyone else read a book lately that didn’t seem to have a clear cut (or at least clearly defined) story question?

Lori

Hi, everyone. We have another speaker lined up for the Yahoo group Plotspot. Todd Stone will be stopping by the week of October 22 to 28. He is going to sharing parts of his Novelists Boot Camp– “Take 3 Steps Toward Story Line,” “Turn On Your Turning Points,” and “Develop Your Exit Strategy”. You can preview some of his posts here.

As always tell any friends who might be interested in joining us. Or if you want to be added to the loop, just post me a message here. If you put your email address in the normal field where it asks for it, I’ll get it so I can sign you up. In the body just indicate that you want an invite.

It should be fun!!

Here is Todd’s bio: From mystery to military to making better fiction, from a tour de force through wealthy suburbia’s wholesome facades and sordid realities to tanks and infantry, multiple award-winning author and screenwriter T.A. (Todd) Stone has made his mark on the book world. His acclaimed guide to the discipline and creativity of writing NOVELIST’S BOOT CAMP—101 Ways to take your Fiction from Boring to Bestseller (Writers Digest Books, April 2006) provides the writer who desires to complete a book-length fiction with proven techniques to “take command of your novel,” Stone’s most recent mystery NO PLACE LIKE HOME debuted to 4-star reviews. He is also the author of the Digital Literature Institute Best of Fiction Winner and INDIE Mystery Winner CLOSE TO HOME and the NY Times Review of Books acclaimed military technothriller KRIEGSPIEL. His second military thriller, THE BEST DEFENSE, has received bestseller status and acclaim from around the globe.

Stone is also a contributor to the best-selling Electronic Publishing, the Definitive Guide. His articles regularly appear in nationally know writers’ magazines such as Writers Digest and on writing websites across the Internet.

The Head Writer for the interactive mystery website Crime Scene, Stone is a member of the Author’s Guild, Mystery Writers of America, EPIC (the Electronically Published Internet Connection), the National Writers’ Union, the Crime Writers’ Guild, and is a graduate of his local Citizens Police Academy. He is a founding member of the Board of the internationally renowned mystery/dark fiction conference Love is Murder.

Stone also consults on corporate communications in Chicagoland, teaches craft of writing workshops at the College of DuPage, and presents at writers’ conferences throughout the country.

An avid motorcyclist, Stone is a former Army Airborne/Ranger Infantry officer whose military assignments included duty as an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has his undergraduate degree from Indiana University and his MA in English from Northwestern University. He lives with his family in a perfectly normal suburb outside Chicago, IL. For more information see http://www.storytellerroad.com

Ever wanted to pick the brain of a NY Times bestselling author? Well, here’s your chance. Allison Brennan, author of The Prey, The Hunt and The Kill, will be answering questions on Plotspot NEXT week starting the 18th. And she is going to let all of us know the secrets of her plotting–or not plotting as it may be.

So, don’t miss it! To join Plotspot, go here…

I had a good writing day today. By good I mean I went over the word count goal I have set for myself–although I had raised it for today so I could reward myself tomorrow by finishing up another proposal that I really like and that is almost done. Strange reward, I know. (G)
Maybe a better reward is that now I get to go upstairs and read some more of a Fistful of Charms, so I can think, “Wow, she’s a good writer.” Big sigh.

Oh, and I survived back to school shopping at Target. Although I would really like to know how these places (like Target, Walmart, Shopko) manage to run out of the basics two weeks before school starts EVERY YEAR!! Anyone have an answer for that? What an extra 1,000 kids moved into the district? The fact that they ran out of glue sticks three weeks out last year didn’t clue their buyers into thinking “Hey, maybe we should buy more this year?” What, what? I really want to know. Maybe giant glue-stick eating trolls rampaged their warehouses snapping up big erasers and steno pads for late night fun and games. You think?

Lori

not bitter, really

With that in mind, I have a doozy for you. I like writing synopses. There I said it.

Okay, here’s the deal. In the beginning I HATED writing them–just like many of you do. But, that’s because I did them at the wrong time. I wrote them after I finished the book. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

To have fun writing a synopsis, you have to do it first–or after only writing the first three chapters. If you do it then, it’s just like playing make-believe as a kid. You are just making up a story and telling it to someone. It’s fun–I swear. Okay, there are rough moments, but trust me these are a lot easier to get through when you just have a few pages to look back over and cut and rearrange and momentarily curse—rather than a few hundred of pure crapola that just isn’t working.

Right now I am working on a synopsis for my “mom lit meets urban fantasy.” And it is just fab–really. It started out rough and I have gone back and forth on who the killer should be at least three times. Right now I have settled on choice number two and am making the necessary adjustments to make that work. Then I will go back and revise the pages to fit all the stuff I discovered about the characters and the story while writing the synopsis.

So, don’t be afraid–relax, enjoy yourself and just let the story roll. You will be glad you did. :)

Lori

In case you aren’t familiar with these two series, Charmed is the story of three sister witches who fight demons, date (sometimes the demons they wind up fighting), and in general look way better in crop tops than any of us could ever dream of. Hex is a new series on BBC featuring a teenage witch with a lesbian-ghost friend and a fallen angel who quickly becomes the father of her child. Charmed is more chick lit with a dark side. Hex is dark with the occasional smile.

My real question though, isn’t whether you like dark or light–it’s the basic set up of the series. In Charmed, each season there was one major overlying story arc. Then within each show there were smaller story arcs. So, at the end of each show you felt like you had a conclusion of sorts even though the major arc was still unsolved. In Hex this doesn’t happen. It is much more a true serial. There is only the overlying story arc–when the epispode ends they could very easily tack on the old “tune in next week to discover…”

So, which do you prefer?

Okay, and I’ll throw in another choice–police dramas, like CSI or Homicide. Also a series with recurring characters, and best watched in the intended order, but not like either Charmed or Hex in how they do this. In police series the story arc that overlies the whole season is the small stories–someone is having an affair, someone can’t get pregnant, a daughter is fighting with her father. The big bang story with the hard emotional punch is within the epidsode–a man is stalking teenagers, will they catch him? At the end of the episode the affair is probably still going on, the woman still can’t get pregnant, but maybe dealing with this stalker brought one of the characters closer to his own troubled teen.

See the difference?

So, which works for you?

• Hex-One main story arc and that’s it–tune in next week (or next book) (Books like this don’t exist much anymore. Although I will say occasionally a trilogy author does this with the second book–drives me batty by the way.)
• Charmed-Big emotional pull story goes for whole series–small stories conclude each episode/book (Harry Potter)
• CSI-Big emotional story is new each week, but smaller stories pull you from one episode/book. (Mystery series like Susan Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone mysteries.)

Hey, everybody. As some of you know I have a Yahoo loop called Plotspot. Every so often I get off my duff and get some one to visit and chat with us about different things to do with plotting. Well, I’m really happy to say Ann Voss Peterson, a multi-pubbed author with Harlequin Intrigue, is going to stop by the week of July 17th to the 21st. She is going to talk about plotting for suspense and balancing the romance and suspense when writing a romantic suspense.

It should be great and it’s free.

If you would like to participate or know someone who would just have them email me and I’ll get them signed up. (It’s a private invitation only loop.) My email addy is lori @ loridevoti.com. (no spaces)
Oh, and feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested–the more the merrier.

Here’s Ann’s bio–>
Ann Voss Peterson writes fast-paced romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. A creative writing major in college, she adores chewing over writing craft, even when she should be attending to her deadlines. And she’s had a lot of those deadlines lately. Look for her Wedding Mission series this summer: SERIAL BRIDE (June), EVIDENCE OF MARRIAGE (July), and VOW TO PROTECT (August)! Happily ever after never seemed so deadly…

Thanks!!

Lori

A few months ago my husband and I discovered Firefly, a very short-lived series created by Joss Whedon of Buffy fame among other things. The series originally aired in 2002 on Fox, but somehow my husband and I completely missed it–never even knew it existed. I think I’m glad I didn’t, because last night we watched the last episode. (Thanks to NetFlicks we’ve been watching them start to finish on DVD.) I KNEW the series was short, but C’MON! I was left feeling bereft–disbelieving that they could end something so great. Can you mourn a TV series?

Okay, so what made this so great? Just about everything. It’s a combination of science fiction and old west. The characters are great, layered and not at all cliche. There are mysteries galore. It is an exemplary example of how story-telling should be done. And it’s also an example of how commercialism can be a real threat to great stories. If you watch the “Special Features,” you’ll learn how the powers at Fox didn’t like the series from the beginning because they didn’t think it started out fast enough–with enough bang. They actually ran the series out of order so they could start with a more fast-paced episode than the intended pilot which had a lot of backstory and set-up.

Backstory can be a drain on a story–but it isn’t always. It’s sad that the powers that be underestimate all of us so completely, and dictate by the “rules” rather than what works in the individual piece.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s one DVD worth buying and watching over and over–especially if you are a writer. After you see the series, you’ll want to check out the movie too. We saw Serenity first (that’s how we discovered Firefly), but now that I’ve watched the series, I plan on going back and watching the movie again–if I can stand the pain of saying good-bye to all those characters yet again.

One last comment on the movie, I almost didn’t pick it up the first time because the image of River (female on cover) was so well, the way it is. In the story she isn’t a sexy Hollywood siren at all–just a tortured complicated youth who looks a lot more like Wednesday in the Addams family than a sultry heart-stomper.

I’ve discovered a couple cool new tools to share with you all. Both are dictionary related.

I used to go to Merriam-Webster.com hourly, but they have some new pop-up thing that sends my pop-up blocker into spasm trying to load Frontpage. I find this beyond annoying, SO I had to find an alternative. After many stressful hours (really it’s true, I obsessed) I purchased the Concise Oxford English Dictionary on CDRom. It was affordable and works great. You just have it open in the background and when you double click on a word-Voila! it pops up with the definition/spelling. The only complaint I have is sometimes you are highlighting a word to move it or delete it or whatever, and the COED still does its thing, but that’s not too annoying.

My second find is a good one–it’s free and on the Internet, the Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/ You can search by first letter or use the search function. If you use the search function it works like a theasaurus bringing up all entries with that word in them. I was looking for an alternative to twit that would have been used in 1790 Missouri. Thanks to etymonline, I found dolt and ninny, and I now know the time period is good.

So, go forth and lookit up words–enjoy!!

Lori

I know we are talking about pirates here right now, but here’s a recent article from the Chicago Tribune I thought might interest you. Fellow Your Virtual Book Bag Author Lucy Monroe is quoted. :)