Pick two people on the same side of a conflict, but give them completely different motivations for fighting on that side.
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.
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.
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.
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?”
A good log-line is ironic. Irony gets attention and hooks interest.
A sparkly vampire falls in love with the one girl in the world whose blood might tempt him to break his vow not to feed on humans.
“Let’s just say I will give you $50,000 if, in the next hour, you can find 5 people who would love your book.”
...Now, with $50,000 on the line for a mere hour’s worth of work, your mind begins racing. You get super specific. You think of the core themes or topics in your book; you think of competitive books who have an already established audience. Then you consider the exact physical places you can go to reach these readers; the ways these people are already organized – already self-selected and filtered based on previous behavior and interests; you think about who has access to these people; you consider where these people are online and off; you focus on actual names of people you can call at this very moment.
how close you are to the action, what you allow your reader to see vs. what is left out, what you linger on narratively, the speed through which you move through the action. . .This all affects the reader's perception and mood.
If you’re just getting to know a narrative world you’re creating, think of yourself as a camera moving through the action, and try to write down as much of what you see as you can. Then, after some time has passed, look at that piece of writing again, and edit down the details so that they serve the primary story you want to tell and ideas you want to convey.
When you have limited space to entice a reader one of the biggest challenges is making your main character sound enticing... When I want to tell people about Charlaine Harris, I don't start with her success. I start with how nice she is. How generous... the stuff that makes her special to us all.
When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.http://io9.com/5916970/the-22-rules-of-storytelling-according-to-pixar
My classmate had written a list of all the elements at work in the story. (Cancer! Affairs! Car accidents! Oh my!) He stripped the story down to its bare bones and read it back to me.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.http://io9.com/5916970/the-22-rules-of-storytelling-according-to-pixar
“Who’s your reader?”...http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/who-is-your-target-reader
When an editor or agent asks... they aren’t just looking for a demographic – they’re looking for your motivation.. the implied question...“why are you the right writer to tell this story?”
See this question as an opportunity to show both the businesslike and passionate sides of yourself – i.e., why this is a marketable book and why you alone of all the souls on earth were born to write it... {to e}xplain where your ideas come from and how they develop over time.
“Who’s your target reader?” ... “9-13 year old girls. It really bothers me how they’re pressured to grow up too fast. Last Christmas I was talking to my niece and it hit me that her childhood is so different from mine, that….”
two friction-causing, conflict-creating, mutually exclusive needs.
in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane’s primary need is to marry and live with her soul mate, Rochester.
... Jane’s need to remain true to her moral duty, as well as her need to grow into the strength to truly stand as Rochester’s equal, impedes her from remaining with Rochester after she learns of his insane wife.
Most genres carry a target audience with them like a parade float... there’s an ambiance that readers expect when they enter that world. As a novelist, you violate that expectation at your own peril.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who always wore a red riding hood. . . .”
{T}ell it as a spy thriller... as a historical romance... as a deep-space science fiction.
We’re biologically geared to take notice of things in motion. Anything that moves of its own volition is either potential food or a potential threat... So instead of having your character “sitting” in a perfectly still forest, describe the trees swaying in a soft breeze... or show the squirrels racing up the boles of pine trees, or tell of the sound of a branch snapping, which might portend danger.
One writing exercise that I find that works well for the opening of tale is to describe the scene using only active verbs (no was, or were, or anything that shows a static setting.)
looking at passersby in the street or surreptitiously at other people in the cafe. Pretend you're them: do they move comfortably or in distress?... Where is their attention fixed, and why might it be so?... Check expressions on faces... Who looks comfortable in themselves, and who doesn't?... What would it be like to be twenty years older? Twenty years younger? What worlds do they look out on and do they see the same things you do? What might be their fears? Hopes? Dreams? What do they want from life... and on and on.
list... the first ten things each significant character says or does... to see who those characters are
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
using a memorable line from the beginning of a piece later in another context... is an excellent tool for creating a feeling of completion in readers’ minds.
