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WorldCrafters Guild

Workshop:When Your Story Stalls Out - What Do You Do? 

 

- [ From: Jacqueline Lichtenberg * EMC.Ver #3.0 ] --

Folks:

It's been a while since I posted a long lecture to this workshop. One of our Workshoppers sent me a story-fragment of the beginning of a S~G story (novel probably -- at least novella) that stalled after the opening scene and died, even though she knows the whole scenario all the way to the ending . The same thing had happened with a couple other pieces she'd started, so she asked, "Why is this happening to me?" Implying, "What am I doing wrong?"

I finally got around to reading it and saw instantly what had happened to her. (takes one to know one, guys and gals!)

Here's the basic scenario: (1999 comment: This is a Sime~Gen Universe story, but even if you don't know the Universe, you should get something out of this.) 

In a Householding around a couple decades after Unity -- a seventeen year old Companion (with lots of training yet to go) born and raised in the House , packs his bags, gets on his horse and leaves to make his way in the world, working at a trade rather than being a Companion.

The piece opens with him riding out through the gates, his mother standing on the wall above and watching.

He rides on down the road.

The fragment stalls out when the young man makes camp for his first night on the road.

This is about two pages into the piece.

The author goes on to describe to me the rest of the planned drama -- that the young man will go into a semi-junct town, find a place for himself and meet people, have maturing experiences (which the author detailed well enough to show she's got a solid story here), and finally opt to return to his Householding, complete his training and accept a serious career dealing directly with what bothers him most about his world.

(ASIDE: notice how I'm workshopping this story - giving you the bare bones without any particulars. Every one of you could write this story, and we could publish every one of the resulting stories, and readers would never get bored reading this story over and over because no two would even vaguely resemble each other! In fact, you could write this story as non-S~G and if anyone was publishing anything, probably sell it. Thus everyone here will benefit from analyzing this scenario and the stall-out point and why it stalls.)

Now, notice the author has taken all my nattering on here about structure to heart and mastered the art of the outline. Her outline of the rest of the story is PERFECT -- enough to keep a writing project on track to a satisfying climax, but not so much as to throttle her creativity as she discovers the story with the ready.

She has nailed the BEGINNING (young man leaves home to find his fortune in the world), the MIDDLE (young man has his head handed to him by LIFE and learns Valuable Lesson In Maturity) and the END (young man returns home to take up responsibility).

That's all you need to structure a novel length work, and the beginning, the middle and the end GO TOGETHER -- they track -- they are on a cause/effect line that is unbroken.

She is working in S~G a setting she knows, and has carved out a small area of the background and a salient major conflict to work with. She has all the elements laid out, firmly planted in her head, and can describe the entire thing in a few paragraphs. If she were working with a publisher on a series, this much on paper would get her a contract (if the editor trusted her to deliver a suitable ms. on deadline that is).

So why can't she write it? Why doesn't she know what happens at that campsite the first night?

Why does the plot not HAPPEN right before her eyes, faster than she can type it up for us?

What is the missing element in this piece?

Think about this before reading the rest of what I'm going to write here.

I'll give you a clue. Whenever this kind of stall-out happens, it is always because one of the structural elements we've discussed on this Workshop is missing or (as they say in computer software -- has become corrupted and needs to be reinstalled.)

In this case, the author knows this young man inside and out, knows his life -situation (the Householding), and knows the kind of culture that Householding is embedded in. She has also demonstrated a fair knowledge of the mental condition of the 17 year old human.

He packs up and leaves his House because he has a subconscious conflict that spurs him to view semi-juncts as simply messing up the world out of cussed stubbornness. He has an intellectual understanding that they can't help Needing to live on the Kill. But emotionally, he can't wrap himself around that notion to the point where "they can't help it" is an excuse as well as a reason. He can't find the charity in his heart to be compassionate toward their condition, nor to honor their sacrifice with his personal respect. (because he's 17 and just hasn't gotten there yet)

This is one hellishly potent conflict, well defined, and well understood -- more than enough to hang a novel on.

Why do the words die aborning?

OK, here's the answer:

FICTION IS DRAMA, which means that the internal conflict of the protagonist has to be DRAMATIZED. And that's what's missing here.

HOW do you dramatize an internal conflict?

YOU EXTERNALIZE IT. And that's what's missing here.

The missing element is EXTERNAL CONFLICT -- a PERSON or PERSONIFICATION or NATURAL FORCE which OPPOSES this young man's aims, goals, wishes, dreams, etc. I saw that after 2 paragraphs of the introduction of this piece. We have a character, but no opposing force. He's leaving home, but nothing is trying to stop him from leaving. He may have a goal, but nothing is trying to prevent him from accomplishing it. He is in repressed torment, but that torment is not reflecting into his environment (until he reaches the campsite which is soon enough -- only when the author got to the campsite there was a person there and the story died -- because the author hadn't formulated the EXTERNAL CONFLICT and didn't know how to project the INTERNAL into the EXTERNAL).

Without that element of an external conflict -- a concretized representation of the internal conflict that exactly reflects but does not resemble the internal conflict -- there will be no PLOT.

And that's what's missing here. What she was asking is "Why Don't I Have A Plot?" -- but the words that came out were, "Why Don't I Have Words?" "Why Don't I Know What Happens Next?"

What happens next = plot.

Conflict generates plot.

Story does not generate plot. Story just sits there. Story is INTERNAL CONFLICT, and it won't grow, change, transmutate, or resolve WITHOUT the traction of the external situation that exactly mirrors that internal conflict.

What causes human beings to grow and change (which is part of the definition of the protagonist of the novel and why we know this fragment did not stall out because she chose the wrote POV character -- she chose the one who grows and changes and whose internal conflict resolves so this fellow is the protag of this story) -- what causes humans to grow and change is DEALING HEAD ON WITH REALITY outside the self.

This kid's whole 17 year old crisis revolves around a mismatch between his internal reality and his external reality -- and that mismatch has to be eliminated in the resolution of the conflict.

Therefore, LEAVING THE HOUSEHOLDING is not the opening scene to this novel.

FORMULA for generating the OPENING SCENE of any story:

The story starts where the elements that will conflict to generate the plot first come together, eyeball to eyeball.

Check this out. In MZB's Hugo runner-up, HERETAGE OF HASTUR, the opening scene is a group riding over a hill and stopping to look down into the valley. Below them the Comyn Tower confronts the Terran Spaceport Tower.

Then a group rides up on them from behind and they go on into Thendara.

It is a long long novel, so it opens with a symbolic statement of the THEME -- Darkover vs. The Galaxy. And then defines what is Darkover (telepath- based technology) and what is The Galaxy (science-based technology). The hero has this conflict inside him. The opening moment of the story is when he visually confronts the image of that conflict.

Check out every Darkover novel you own. Read the opening 2 paragraphs. Then read the final two paragraphs. There is only one of the books that does not follow the exactly perfect artistic paradigm I'm trying to teach you here -- and that's because the editor tacked on a couple paragraphs without MZB's permission. You'll find the actual ending on the last page though. If you understand this lesson, you will find it. "The rest is left as an exercise for the student."

THE OPENING SCENE IS WHERE THE TWO ELEMENTS THAT WILL CONFLICT TO GENERATE THE PLOT FIRST COME IN CONTACT.

That contact starts the cause-effect chain which is the plot. The story can't start until that has happened. The story is the sequence of changes inside the character caused by his changing internal conflict. It is SPURRED by confrontation with the external conflict.

The middle of the book is where the protag. NOTICES that what's going on outside himself is exactly mirrored inside himself -- but he/she may not notice this consciously.

From that moment on, MZB says the book just rolls down hill, gathering speed into a smashing climax, and the writing is easy. Writing the first half of a book is like climbing a hill; writing the last half is all downhill and like riding a sled down a snowy slope.

If you stall out going up that hill, the PROBLEM is always in LINE ONE of the story. The absolute beginning is WRONG, or you've fallen off the conflict line you began at the beginning. Either get back on the conflict line, or change the definition of the conflict to match the story you want to tell by changing the opening.

Now, how would I fix the problem with the 17 year old Companion Leaving Home ?

I would start with the explosive scene INSIDE the Householding walls, where someone dies dramatically and it causes a terrible mess inside the House (maybe the Sectuib's brother? or a Sectuib who's gone junct?). I would force this kid into a direct confrontation with that terrible mess and an explosive parting of the ways with the primary Virtue of this House.

I would have him leave heading for another Householding (which is what happens when a youth matures and finds himself at odds with his own House -- he doesn't go into town (except maybe in Gulf) but to another House, and another and another until he finds a House that's Home.

I told you, no two of us would write the same story from this outline.

What I can't help this author with is CHOOSING what externalization this particular internal conflict will develope. That externalization is called KARMA.

How you choose the externalization -- the dramatization -- of the internal conflict is to look at the THEME. Why do you want to write this story? The reason you want to write it is the reason the reader would want to read it.

You pick an externalization that would best exemplify your theme.

Once you have that, you can develope the CHARACTER who meets your protagonist and CONFLICTS with him in mirror image to his internal conflict. (i.e. his worst nightmare made flesh -- possibly candy coated but still flesh).

How do you develop the character the 17 year old needs (karmically needs) to meet?

Well, this fellow has a problem with emotionally believing that people can't help their shortcomings.

Therefore he probably has some rather short shortcomings of his own that he can't help at all. But he's acquired an Attitude toward himself about his shortcomings which say, "I should be better than this! I shouldn't have this shortcoming." It might also say, "Therefore I do not have this shortcoming."

So he needs to meet someone who has an Attitude toward his shortcomings that's wholly the opposite of his own attitude.

Since the issue that's bugging him the most right now is semi-junctedness, the particular shortcoming inquestion has to be something apparently, on the surface of it, very different from semi-junctedness.

It could be a mental or emotional impairment. It could be someone wholly unsuited to Householding life.

As this scenario was originally written, the boy just rides out of the House . No reason is given, and he has no positive goal.

There are two basic plots:

1)Johnny gets his fanny caught in a beartrap and has his adventures getting it out.

2)A likeable hero struggles to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles toward a worthwhile goal.

Neither one is suggested by the opening as it stands.

Notice how each of those one-sentence plots contains the conflict and the plot-line.

The boy riding out of the Householding does not contain a GOAL, nor an OBSTACLE (no one is trying to stop him, and he has nowhere to go and seems unconcerned about that) nor does it contain a BEARTRAP element. Therefore, it has no PLOT.

Now, leaving his warm, safe, known Householding to leap into The Unknown World would be a BEARTRAP plot IF THE READER COULD SEE (i.e. by foreshadowing) how the boy had made the decision to leave, and how the beartrap he doesn't yet see himself is about to close on his fanny. That mechanism develops suspense.

The element that would do the foreshadowing is missing from this scenario -- it is the CONFLICTING element.

Or the boy could leave the House because it's Virtue and Philosophy are Evil and MUST BE DESTROYED. That would be a worthwhile goal if we had seen enough of the inside of the House through his eyes to know the place needed destroying and he Is The Only One To Do The Job.

The obstacles would be all the people whose livelyhood depend on the House and they would act to stop him. So he'd leave -- escape at night maybe -- and run for his life.

Then he'd return to destroy the place and exterminate the vermin who live there.

You CHOOSE your conflicting element (the person who personifies the internal conflict for the Protag) from the THEME.

I know the author of this little fragment would be going "NO NO that's not the story I wanted to tell!" at the idea of a House gone Evil.

But we have another author on this workshop who is working on a complex S~G novel using that concept.

We could all write one of those and never have two alike.

I can't choose this conflicting element for this fragment I'm workshopping for the author because the CHOICE is where the Art comes into writing.

But I can tell you how to test your choices to see if they're "right".

Check to see if the Antagonist (and that's what we're talking about here -- the personification of the Protag's Conflict is the Antagonist by definition ) you have invented is both the FIRST element to confront the Protag with this particular conflict, and the element that is OVERCOME at the climax where the conflict is RESOLVED.

The plot and the story have to RESOLVE (it's like how your browser "resolves" an Internet Address by looking up the URL and finding the corresponding numerical address that goes to it -- if the two match, it's resolved; if they don't match it's not resolved and you go nowhere -- i.e. your plot doesn't progress.) The plot and the story have to RESOLVE in a single EVENT where the protagonist discovers that THIS EQUALS THAT and that discovery is the last event. The next words you write in the middle of the page are THE END.

How you tell if you have the correct antagonist is by checking to see if when the antagonist is overcome (or absorbed internally or whatever) the story stops. You've finished saying what you set out to say. I.e. the THEME is completed.

OK there are dozens of other ways to write stories, true, but this is the most basic, beginner's structure. All other structures (such as the one used by Marion Zimmer Bradley for Heretage of Hastur) are built on this basic building block.

If you can't write this, you can't write that.

As a seriously aspiring professional commercial fiction writer, you must master the elements of the craft from the ground up. If you have other ambitions for your writing, you can go about it any other way you want. 

And what I've been describing here is the ground. Up we can do after I see mastery of these elements. You have to practice until you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Verify what I'm saying here by watching a few one-hour episodes of television shows. Make the show you study something you really DON'T LIKE so you don't get so caught up in the details and can see the structure.

What I've described here is the primary formula for all 1 hour episodes of tv series. (except the protag doesn't get to change and the antag comes back next week to do it all over again. It's growth and change that tv shows lack, and thus climax and resolution are a bit pale. I have, however, HIGH HOPES for Prey because DALLAS and then B5 and then Lois and Clark have paved the way.

And for the basic novel -- Romance, Action, even mainstream - you name the variety, this structure is the basic internal building block for it.

Once you've convinced your subconscious of that, then subconscious will cooperate in learning to formulate your own fiction in these terms.

And make no mistake, subconscious is where all the real work of writing is done. It's where the discipline has to happen -- before you're aware that you have an idea for a story, it has to be formulated in these terms by subconscious.

You teach subconscious just the way you'd teach a dog, gently, consistently, and with love. Subconscious is eager to please and will learn if you treat it right.

So when you've analyzed a show you really loathe -- you get to watch one you really like as a reward.

When you can see how a story works when the antag accurately reflects the protag's internal conflict and resolves it, (which tv shows rarely demonstrate) and you can see how a story fails for you when that reflection is "off just a hair" or missing altogether, then you can apply this lesson to your own writing.

When you have a firm grip on your protagonist and the THEME -- what this protag's story is about -- then your next question to your subconscious has to be "and what opposes him? Who opposes him/her and why?"

If you've mastered the lesson, you'll always know the answers to those questions because subconscious will have formulated it for you.

While you're learning, you have to make up a few answers and test them to see if they work to generate a plot that will stay on the conflict line.

If you've mastered this process, and subconscious won't serve up a useable answer, the methods you use to coax subconscious to confess can also be learned. But they are different for each person. Some people pray. Some meditate. Some walk the dog. Some soak in hot baths. Some go out to lunch and a movie. Some take a minivacation for a weekend. Some veg out before the tv. Only practice can teach you what works best for you.

Me? I read Tarot or do astrology charts, and/or meditate, and/or watch TV and read books. But I'll tell you the real secret of where the craziest ideas come from -- (psst - come closer now we don't want this to get out all over the place) -- the idea-drawer is in the shower and it only opens when you're covered with soap.