in language... subjects act, objects are acted uponhttp://www.upworthy.com/being-a-sex-object-is-empowering-oh-wait-no-it-s-not-here-s-why-2
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.
Suspense is generated by the reader caring about what happens next.
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
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
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
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
Added link to the great articles webpage.
If nothing (and no-one) else, your protagonist should end the story in a different state of mind to the one they began in, unless you're deliberately putting them back exactly where they started to show their lack of change or to emphasise small changes...
Going from a negative to a positive emotion gives the ending a greater positive impact because the reader is subconsiously aware they've been on an positive emotional journey with the protagonist.
Biggles and Tintin frequently follow this arc:
Boredom -> Increasing Determination -> Satisfaction
Some of the Nancy Drew books often do something similar:
Curiosity -> Increasing Fear -> Relief
The Harry Potter books are much more complex, containing multiple arcs, one of which is:
Alone -> Increasing Friendships -> Loved
when you're a first level character in a game a wolf is a really impressive challenge... once you've leveled up... an army of kobolds can't take them out. {The gradual scaling of challenges alongside the scaling of character ability as they grow from their experiences} needs to be built into your rule system right from the start... else the story gets boring.
Does the plot build from... inciting incident to an inevitable climax?
The before is the yardstick that allows the reader to measure the protagonist progress toward after.
I’ve recently become enamored with the notion of restraint. The idea that you can hold back your most vivid descriptions, your most wild gore, your most violent emotional explosions and unleash them at a key point to guarantee maximum emotional investment and subsequent shock from the audience.http://samsykes.com/2012/03/literary-kitty-litter/
you can really mess with the reader by choosing the right point of view... some peoples' perceptions are really off.
The {First Plot Point} shifts the context of the narrative from the Part 1 SETUP to the Part 2 RESPONSE... {It is} a change imbued with a quest and journey for the hero... With problems to solve, foes to conquer (including the dreaded inner demons), obstacles to navigate, with stakes in play... it defines the revisions of your Part 1 and the very nature of the rest of your story.http://storyfix.com/the-moment-that-makes-or-breaks-your-story
scenes... are defined not by our words as much as they are by what happens in them.
theoretically I knew that chapters don’t all have to be about the same length. Eric {Flint} made it real to me... Five hundred word scenes became chapters. A single telegram became a chapter... I discovered this was a technique that would make a particular scene or elements in that scene stand out and be more memorable than they would have been had they been buried in longer chapters.
I literally skim through the work... {to} create an outline of all the major plot points by chapter for the novel... It really does force you to ignore character, dialogue, description and boil the story down to its plot skeleton core... pacing and story arc.
The approach that I take is to visualize the shape of the story, and establish the patterns in it. I apply a visualized shape/pattern to both the narrative structure (length of story and scenes, for instance) and the thematic structure (what the story is about).
