Pick two people on the same side of a conflict, but give them completely different motivations for fighting on that side.
That which is unspoken defines the relationship.Given examples:
Those things you won’t talk about.http://writerunboxed.com/2013/12/13/things-left-unspoken/
The apology never given.
The explanation never provided.
The promise never followed through on.
The secret never shared.
The unspoken things that affect our relationships can also be those truths we keep from ourselves rather than the other person. We often hate most in others things that we fear in ourselves.
Your protagonist and antagonist don’t know when they’re in the middle of the story... they should be doing everything they can to end the story on the very next page
There are very few situations where every human being on the planet will respond the same way, so the cascading series of unique choices they make — each time altering how the story goes — is what makes them — and the story — come alive.
When you’ve done it right, you’ll look at your story and realize that it would have been an altogether different story with any other character in the same situation.
feed your characters / readers a steady diet of... cues that begin to add up to some conclusion... But the pieces don’t quite add up—so the reader must continue on. You keep your reader guessing.
I think one of the most important transitions a writer makes is when they stop relying on the idea to prop up the story and start thinking about how the story reads as {a whole}... In fact, most writers don’t get that far, and you can tell that their fiction is all a lead-up to the reveal of the end, or in support of a strong moment that isn’t actually a whole story.
Desire + Conflict = Dramahttp://www.danacameron.com/for-writers.html
Suspense is generated by the reader caring about what happens next.
when you’re looking for an opportunity to create surprise in your plot, ask yourself, “What couldn’t possibly happen?” In other words, stretch your imagination... you’ll probably come up with some surprising directions for your story.
When... critical information is woven into the story in a way that feels like it’s doing something else in the story, readers, in general, both miss it and remember it when you reveal that it was actually important. If you just mention it without it appearing to do something important, readers wonder why it’s included and are more likely to remember it.http://www.aisteach.com/blog/?p=1127
What makes the revelation so effective is not that we’ve been waiting for it, but that we never actually suspected it was there to begin with (although of course it was carefully set up for us from nearly the beginning of the film*).http://www.annleckie.com/2013/09/05/basis-suspense/
AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER WE HAVE A PROBLEM IN THAT WE HAVE BASE WANTS AND YET ALSO HAVE GREATER INTELLECTUAL NEEDS. SURE, WE WANT HEROES TO SUCCEED AND BE REWARDED AND ALSO WANT THE WICKED TO BE PUNISHED. WE WANT THESE THINGS BECAUSE THE AVERAGE MOVIEGOER IS SO READY TO PLACE THEMSELVES IN THE PLACE OF THE MAIN CHARACTER. SO READY TO EMPATHIZE AND SEE THROUGH THAT PERSPECTIVE. AND AS PART OF THAT, WE INSTINCTIVELY DEMAND THAT EVERYTHING FALLS IN LINE PERFECTLY WITH THE SUBCONSCIOUSLY INGRAINED EXPECTATIONS OF "HOW STORIES WORK." NOW, SOME PEOPLE MISTAKE THOSE EXPECTATIONS FOR THE CONVENTIONS OF THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE (WHICH DOESN'T EXIST) OR A HOST OF DUMB RULES, BUT IT'S MORE THE SUBCONSCIOUS RULES OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. THERE'S A RHYTHM AND INHERENT TRUTH TO THINGS AND WHEN A MOVIE VIOLATES THAT UNSPOKEN CODE OF ETHICS WE REVOLT
Plot is simply the actions the characters take, the results of their action, and what they decide to do next. Except this can’t be any old action and result. It has to be action and result that builds the anxiety of suspense, surprise, and the mystery or puzzle...
There are four possible answers to the question of “did the hero’s action solve the problem?”: yes, no, yes but, no furthermore.
For example. Yes, you killed the monster. No, you didn’t. Yes, you killed the monster, but it bit you and now you have the virus that’s going to turn YOU into a monster. No, you didn’t kill the monster furthermore you woke up its mumma.
Of those four possiblities, only the last two build suspense and curiosity. The first removes it totally. So it’s out{ except at the end}. And a no answer leaves suspense unchanged. All you’re doing is delaying things with that. What you want to do is ratchet it up.
Don't ever make another writer's journey harder than it has to be.
pick a word that describes your character. For example: He’s compassionate. Then find another word that can also describe your character, but make it a polar opposite—terrorist... Giving a character a dual nature creates an instability, a lack of balance, that probably can’t stay forever.
Cultural appropriation takes place when a privileged group takes elements of an oppressed culture and uses them as it sees fit, without regard to their importance in the oppressed culture, often deforming them beyond recognition or distorting reality to the point of making the appropriated cultural practice take the place of the authentic one.
Your inciting incident... might have as few as one scene or as many as twenty—little snippets where your character discovers that he has a problem and that the problem... is life-altering
Any... fiction writer, in attempting to present a fleshed out world, will probably several times need to reference something outside the actual story, some past kingdom or mythical animal, some hobby of the lower classes, some religious detail, or a line about, “That time when grandmother got into a drinking contest with a Giant Stoat…” ... making the world a bit more solid.
Each person that you meet has something of an emotional tone about them. Some people are stern most of the time, while others might be thoughtful, pleasant, or excited.http://www.davidfarland.com/writing_tips/?a=271
Try to leave out the part{s} that readers tend to skip.
How far will that character go to fulfil their desires? Will he sacrifice the life of a member of his family to stay alive? Will she sacrifice her own life to kill him?
We know that if you experience the same thing over and over again, you get diminishing results. We have to constantly switch things up. That could be with story, characters, environment, or it could be with this "set-piece moment"
There are many different reasons for a good battle scene. Am I trying to give a proper end to a beloved character? Am I trying to resolve the grudge, or to determine who, in the end, is better? Am I using a fight to leave a cliff-hanger...? Am I writing a personal fight between two enemies, or a grand-scale battle which can determine the fate of a city? Or am I simply trying to wake up the readers after a long pause in the action? I do that. I admit it openly. There are times when I just want a reader to get his or her pulse pounding.http://blog.shelfari.com/my_weblog/2011/08/ra-salvatore-on-how-to-write-a-damn-good-fight-scene.html
Keep in mind that the injuries sustained during a fight will linger... Even if a person is never touched, and inflicts all the damage, there can be an emotional toll that character will walk away with
Try imagining the book that would light your heart and mind on fire if you came across it in a bookstore—the one that would quicken your pulse and keep you up all night reading. What would it be? Details, details: when, where, what, who? Think it up, imagine it fully, then bring it forth. That’s the book you should be writing.
if you are writing a novel and creating your own world... consider whether to include your own legendary beasts and monsters, things that aren’t real but which some of your characters could conceivably believe in. ... A culture’s myths and legends... [can] serve... to warn the reader that they would encounter many a strange thinghttp://www.davidfarland.com/writing_tips/?a=254
imagine watching your scene, but in a foreign language with the subtitles turned off. What does the talking feel like? What’s the emotion behind the words? Who’s in control?
...
Let’s say Bob needs to tell Mary that her dog has been eaten by a python. As the writer, you need to decide not only what facts Bob knows, but how he’s anticipating Mary will react to the news. This will determine not only how he starts the conversation (“Say, you were talking about how you wanted to get a new dog, right?”) but every subsequent decision along the way.
PIRATING DIGITAL PROPERTY IS... taking something that someone has put effort into, in the hopes of making a living, and giving them nothing in return.
to sift through an array of possible motivations... The way to do that is not to ask, “What would make one man kill another?” Unless you’re a telepath... Better to ask, “What would make me kill someone?”
at some point in anything you practice, you stop learning new things--until you start teaching what you already know to others.
if your characters are doing things, even small things, those things will {often} change your characters.
Brick walls are not there to keep us out. Brick walls are there to show how badly we want something.
Nothing worth doing is easy... Writing is a LOT of work. Breaking into the industry is a torment worthy of the fifth or sixth circle of Hell. Face that. Expect it. Deal with it... It's difficult from the get go
...
The true reward of breaking into the industry against all the odds isn't money. It isn't fame. It it isn't respect.
It's you.
It's confidence. It's satisfaction. It's well-deserved pride. Suddenly, the other challenges in your life are going to dwindle as well, because you know you'll be able to handle them.
in moments of action, when people are breaking down doors or ducking a bullet, they aren't feeling any deep complex emotions... In the moment {of preparation or aftermath}... there are deep complex emotions at play... {it} shows so much more than just a battle...it shows character and relationships.http://sevencamels.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/picking-right-moment-to-illustrate.html
A powerful story motif occurs when the anti-hero, because of the unfolding events, is forced to join the community.
Audiences don’t love set-pieces. They love characters who do amazing things during set-pieces.
often you find your voice when you look to what was the most difficult part of your life.
instead of (or in addition to) killing yourselves trying to concoct a great first line... how about giving some thought to what your opening scene looks like? It takes a lot of the pressure off that first page anxiety — because you're focused on conveying a powerful image that will intrigue and entice the reader into the book.
What do we see? How does it make us feel? How might it even be a miniature code of what the whole story is about?
One of my favorite opening images/sequences is the credits scene of The Shining. I don’t think there’s a creepier opening to be found anywhere in film. It’s all aerial camerawork of those vast, foreboding mountains as that tiny little car drives up, up, up toward what turns out to be the Overlook Hotel. It’s vertiginous, it’s ominous, it emphasizes the utter isolation of the hotel and the circumstances, and somehow, through the music and the visuals and the constant movement, Kubrick establishes a sense of huge, vast, and malevolent natural forces.
The opening image will sometimes —often — set up a location that will return in the final battle scene or in the resolution scene of the story — only at the end there will be a big visual contrast to show how much the hero/ine has changed.
I am a sneaky writer. I like to think of writing less as something that should be done (and done with a capital “W”) and more as something sort of naughty that I absolutely should not be doing because there are other capital letter (and lame) things to do like Cleaning.
In my story, I want to highlight how exceptional a particular relationship is, so I’m making sure to include horrible relationships in my plot as well.
Added link to the great articles webpage.
One technique that I find helpful is at the end of each story, I go through in editing and make a “dialog pass.” If I have a character, Bron, I will search for instances of “Bron said” so that I can pinpoint his scenes and make sure that his dialog sounds like it is coming from him.
"WRITE ONLY WHAT WE CAN SEE."
...IF YOU'RE WRITING "HE GREW UP IN A SMALL TOWN BACK..." IN YOUR ACTION LINES YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG... ANY GOOD DIRECTOR WILL SIT DOWN AND LOOK AT A PARAGRAPH THAT HAS NOTHING BUT CHARACTER HISTORY AND SAY "HOW THE FUCK CAN I SHOW THAT?"
MERYL STREEP'S CHARACTER IS ON A PLANE AND SHE'S ABOUT TO BE HANDED FOOD. SHE GOES TO GRAB HER WALLET TO PAY, BUT ATTENDANT INFORMS HER THEY'RE FREE. THE MEANING IS CLEAR: SHE'S NEVER BEEN ON A PLANE BEFORE...
IF YOU WRITE SOMETHING WE CAN'T SEE, IS NOT JUST MERE FAUX PAS, NOT JUST A COMPLETELY WASTED OPPORTUNITY, BUT A WRITING HABIT THAT WILL ACTIVELY MAKE THE MOVIE WORSE. YOU'RE PUTTING AN IDEA INTO THE FILMMAKERS HEAD THAT WILL MAKE TOTAL SENSE FOR YOUR STORY, HELP THEM GET IT, BUT IT WON'T HELP THE AUDIENCE GET IT.
