A Fly on the Wall

Highlights from the Richmond Children's Writers September Meeting

Our September meeting was fantastic! Everyone is back from vacation and ready to rock and roll. Here are a few of the more interesting things we discussed:

We all like wacky picture books, but how wacky is too wacky? Can a picture book be too far out? Take this book for example: Dinosaurs Love Underpants. Dinosaurs are a perennial kid favorite, true. And underpants, as discussed in our August meeting, can work for a kids' book. Having said that, Dinosaurs Love Underpants, for me, was just too wacky. But . . . it is a published book, which is nothing to sneeze at. Just goes to show that one person's too-wacky-for-me is another person's book deal. We had some wacky submissions this month, and predictably, those stories drew a variety of reactions from the group.

After reading a chapter from a young adult novel, we discussed this concept:

"The wind howled" is stronger rather than "She heard the wind howling." This is due to fact that in the second sentence, the main character is inserted between the reader and the action. The first sentence makes the reader feel he is the one who is hearing the wind howl. That translates into a more engaging text, which is another way of saying the writing is stronger. Fiction writers would do well to take a good look at sentences phrased with "She saw" or "He felt" or "I heard" or any verb that tells what the main character is perceiving, and rewrite it in a way that allows the reader to experience the sensation as directly as possible.

A submission from a different young adult novel led us into a discussion about novel writing technique. Writing fiction is a complex task, and requires finding the right balance of a lot of moving pieces. Each scene has to move the story forward. It has to do at least one or two other things too, like develop character, set the scene, infuse a mood, build tension, and such. But the primary job of a scene is to move the plot forward. All those other things can be worked in. Each chapter, each scene, has to accomplish several different things at once.

If there were a goddess of multitasking, I imagine she would look something like this.

We will conclude with the September writing prompt:

Write a wacky action scence that weaves in two other elements (choose from character develoment, setting description, mood, or tension). Bonus points for including either dinosaurs or underpants.

Now, write away!

Story Elements Series: Got Plot?

by Hazel Buys

You’ve come up with a great plot, one you know will keep the reader’s interest. It will surprise, fascinate, scare, amuse and even educate the reader. A real winner!

But is it logical? Developing a plot that is rich with twists and turns and still makes sense from beginning to end is one of the most difficult tasks a writer faces. It’s easy to put in a plot twist and never get it turned back to the original problem you devised for your protagonist.

Ask yourself, does the solution presented at the end of the story match the problem set up at the beginning? One way to test this principle is to state your premise and your conclusion in a sentence or two. For example, you want to write a story about Rover, a puppy. At the start of this story, Rover, more than anything in the world, wants a home where there is a little boy to play with. But there are no little boys where he lives. The conclusion is that at the end of the story, Rover finds a home with a little boy who, more than anything else in the world, wanted a puppy to play with.

Compare your statements with your story. If you’ve written a story that concludes with Rover finding a home on a farm where he learns to herd sheep, that’s a great outcome. But it doesn’t match the problem you set up. If Rover is taken in by a family with three little girls who love him and give him lots of attention, that’s also a great ending. But you are still missing your mark.

Some mis-matches are obvious, like the ones I outlined above, but many are subtle and easy to overlook. And even the little misses make a difference. Your story will seem off kilter and, although they may not be able to tell you why, readers will not enjoy it.

AAA = Ask An Author

Today's question is:


How do you come up with a plot?


Hazel: One of my favorite ways of developing a story line is to ask “what if?” I use this anytime, anywhere, in response to something I see on TV or from my window, read in the newspaper, or observe while sitting at a café drinking coffee. It’s a one-size-fits-all plot generator and works especially well if I let myself be really silly and outrageous with possibilities for a story. From the loopy, unlikely series of images, I sort and blend and edit until I have something that I can commit to paper as an outline or story board. If nothing develops, the only energy I’ve expended is in exercising my imagination and that’s a muscle you can’t over use!


Lana: I'm always looking for ways to complicate things. That's basically what plot is, a series of complications that builds toward a resolution. So I ask myself, what is the worst thing that could happen to this character (short of dying, that is)? What would make him or her the most uncomfortable? How could the decision he has to make be more difficult? Those are the things that have to happen in order for a person to experience growth. So next time you have a bad day, just tell yourself you're experiencing growth!

Plot is a series of complications that build toward a resolution. Can't you just imagine the plot of this book?

Pat: I never begin with plain flat plot. Instead, I listen to interesting characters. Just as I choose to listen to interesting people, especially those with good stories, I will listen to one or more characters involved in a drama. Plot grows out of what these fascinating characters do and their perspective on the events of life—their own and others. What’s more, I seldom follow a story from beginning to end. Instead, I write in scenes and then play with the scenes to develop a well-structured story. Many scenes fail to make the cut, but that’s true of writing anything. I think this process lends more immediacy to the action and authentic voices among characters.

Brian: I usually start with a character. I get to know everything about that character: what he likes, what he loves, what he fears, what he desires. Once I know a character and know how he’ll act in various situations, I give him a goal. Plot is simply putting obstacles between my character and his goal.

Leave a comment--we'd love to hear your ideas about plot.