WORK:The Writer's Toolbox

Tools Listed By Concept

Art: Selective recreation of Reality. The artist’s eye sees through the veil of details of everyday life into the pattern of reality itself. Most people can’t see any pattern to their lives. The artist’s job is to reveal that structure to those who can’t see the pattern that the artist sees. There is no "right" or "wrong" or "ultimate truth" here – only shared insights. That vision is the basis of the artist’s theme.

Artist: Person who depicts Reality as he/she sees it in such a way that those who can’t see it can nevertheless recognize it. An artist may also depict a world everyone agrees to be unreal, with its own rules of existence, such as the world we all agree to enter when a work begins "once upon a time."

Protagonist: is pro-active; the character who plays white in chess, who is the character who makes the first move. The character the reader is expected to root for. The protagonist is the character who undergoes the conflict.

Objective Correlative: the character (usually the protagonist) the reader can identify with in order to step into the "other" world.

Antagonist: The person/thing/object/force that opposes the protagonist.

Conflict: This vs. that. The exemplification of the theme in terms of two or more opposites that cannot co-exist co-equally. An urgent and necessary MUST pitted against a nearly equally urgent and necessary CAN'T. The classics are Human vs. Nature, Human vs. another Human, a Human vs. Him/Herself, Human vs. Society/Family or Group or Values. Always, for a story to exist, there must be a conflict with an opposing force that fights back to prevent the resolution of that conflict.

Setting: Puts a frame around the story so the reader feels secure within the time and place where the story and conflict will play out to a resolution.

POV: the point of view taken by the writer in order to eliminate extraneous information and focus the reader’s attention on the elements that exemplify the theme. Consider it setting the camera on the shoulder of the character whose story is being told – or sometimes looking through that character’s eyes and learning that character’s heart. Both author’s point of view (didacticism) and universal point of view have been used historically, but from the twentieth century onward a limited POV has become almost a requisite.

Theme: The artist’s statement or question about how Reality actually works and why – what this story says in a nutshell. Theme = Philosophy. The author uses the theme to select the items, elements, and symbols that will decorate and hide the story’s skeleton. Everything in the story from the most irrelevant detail to the conflict and resolution must explicate, elaborate on, illuminate, symbolize or argue for or against the theme. Shorter works must have a single theme. Longer works may have a master theme and a theme derived (logically) directly from it. Very long works may have as many as three themes, but never more than three. In that case two of the themes are directly and logically derived from the master theme. A work will fall apart if one of the three themes is derived from a derivative theme – in that case, you have two novels, not one. Each POV character must have a theme, and all POV characters must have a conflict and resolution derived from their own theme which is derived from the master theme. The main POV character (the star of the show) lives the master theme. Often themes can be expressed as platitudes, such as "Crime does not pay" or "Love conquers all."

Dialog: The words spoken aloud by each character. "Crime does not pay," he sneered. Dialog is not a transcription of actual speech. It is an artform in which the writer selectively recreates the semblance of natural speech in order to achieve other storytelling goals. One great caveat: never have characters telling each other things they each already knows simply and only to convey this information to the reader. All dialog should change the Situation while letting the reader judge for him/herself the character's emotional state. Good dialog is a duel of wits.

Worded Thoughts: thoughts cast in the form of the spoken word. (always italicized) The judicious use of the worded thought, usually at the end of a paragraph, can add emotional impact by shifting from the third person narrative to first person experience of the situation revealing the POV character's internal state. Telepathic conversation counts as dialog. The worded thought is entirely internal.

Climax: The point where one or another suspense line tension releases totally. At the Ending -- the final climax resolves the conflict. At the 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, points of a longer work, climaxes transform the conflict to a higher level advancing the plot.

Internal Conflict: An urgent and necessary must, pitted against an equally urgent and necessary can’t that drives a character’s internal psychology and motivations, thus generating the story.

External Conflict: An urgent and necessary must pitted against an equally urgent and necessary can’t that triggers the characters into action thus generating the plot . Themes based on a view of the universe where reality has structure and order hospitable to human existence generate internal conflicts that mirror the character’s external conflict creating symmetry that is satisfying to most readers today.

Plot: What the characters actually do about a conflict. What happens as a result of their actions, and how they respond to those results. The Plot is a because-line generated by the protagonist's first action, which causes the conflict to be engaged. "The Because-Line" – because the Protagonist did this, the antagonist did that, which caused the protagonist to do thusly, to which the antagonist responded like so – until their conflict is resolved, is the plot. There can be no scenes or chapters that are not on the because-line, (even if they are off the time-line). Stories are about the consequences of the protagonist's action, taken for reasons which are the protagonist's motivations -- which can include his/her opposition to the antagonist's execrable behavior.

Ending: The moment the conflict resolves is the ending. Ideally, plot and story come to an end in the same moment or with the same event. Sometimes that doesn't happen though, and there is a denoument.

Denoument: The short scene after the ending which gives a glimpse of the future, letting the reader down from the explosive climax to a more comfortable "place." The denoument may tie up a loose end, or answer a question the plot and story don't answer.

Foreshadowing: The main tool for developing and sustaining suspense, foreshadowing creates in the reader/viewer the anticipation of events, the expectation that the plot will resolve a certain way, but not the certainty that it will. This uncertainty keeps the reader turning the pages. Sometimes this is achieved by planting an object, or a clue, or piece of information early on in the story so that the reader anticipates that it will become instrumental in the resolution of the conflict. This makes the reader feel smarter than the writer, or the characters, delivering emotional satisfaction to the reader/viewer. Instead of foreshadowing, though, such planting of information to be used later can be used as dramatic irony. To mask a deliberate plant, mystery writers use the "red herring" -- the planted item that seems the obvious solution, but isn't.

Dramatic Irony: Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that the characters do not. Such knowledge may come from the author’s planting information, or it may come from the reader’s knowledge. Commonly, historical novelists create dramatic irony through the reader’s knowledge of past events, as in the hit movie Titanic. The audience knew what was going to happen to the ship, while the characters played out their little stories in blissful ignorance. Dramatic irony creates suspense, as the audience waits either for what use will be made of the author’s plants or for the springing of what the reader knows must happen on the characters.

Information Feed: the process of dividing the information that the reader needs into small pieces and interspersing those pieces artistically between other elements to provide the reader with a gentle and smooth learning curve. Ordering the information logically, then "feeding" it to the reader using various tools -- description, dialog, exposition, narrative, plot events, worded thoughts -- provides the reader with another opportunity to guess a fact before it is "revealed" and thus feel smarter than the writer or characters. The key to great information-feed is arousing reader curiosity before revealing the information.

Pacing: How quickly, or slowly, (measured by number of words) the situation changes.

Business: The characters’ mannerisms, movements and habits that distinguish one character from another. (examples: lighting a cigarrette using a match instead of a lighter. Mopping the brow with a tissue instead of a handkerchief. Columbo’s gesture of putting his finger to his brow before delivering a corker of a question. Spock's steepled fingers during meditation.) Business can reveal information and be part of the "information feed" -- a suspect's eyes flicking to the hiding spot. It can build suspense -- a delaying tactic such as tripping and spilling a drink on someone. It can reveal a character's emotional state -- habitual nail biting. Business and symbolism can be closely allied tools -- a ballplayer who has a lucky cap he always wears.

Exposition: The writer explaining in his or her own "voice" the information the reader needs to understand the situation. The expository lump (a whole paragraph or more devoted to explaining the story to the reader) is the mark of the amateur writer. While all writers produce expository lumps. The professional transforms them into SHOW DON’T TELL, dramatizing the information as plot-action between characters, using FORESHADOWING and SYMBOLISM, leaving only part of each sentence as exposition. (best example is Andre Norton’s YA action novels.)

Situation: The pattern of dynamic tensions surrounding the main POV character. Each scene must change the situation, and each chapter must end in a major change of the situation. Example: Opening Situation: War has been declared. Quarter: Battle erupts. Middle: Progatonist’s side loses ¾: Protagonist discovers the traitor. End: Protagonist’s side wins; they execute the traitor. The best illustration of "Situation" and handling of the information feed for Situations, that I know of is in C. J. Cherryh's Chanur Novels. Also her Foreigner Series.

Blocking the scene: Outlining each scene by beginning (narrative hook fraught with foreshadowing) ¼ point, major change of situation, ½ point – low or high point of tension, ¾ point, action taken, cliffhanger ending implying continuing change of situation because of the action taken.

Rising Action: Start every scene with a lower-tension than the scene will end with - and throughout the scene, sentence by sentence, you RAISE the tension and your RAISE the pace of the action until the scene ends in a CLIMAX and cliffhanger that leads to the opening hook of the next scene via the because-line.

Dramatic Tension: Using all the above listed tools, especially foreshadowing, the writer develops the reader/viewer’s expectations by bringing the abstract philosophy of the theme down into material reality, "dramatizing" the theme in the actions of the characters, and controlling the pacing as the situation changes so that the reader/viewer has time to experience the character's emotions. Example: Mary Tyler Moore Show

Outline: The skeleton of the plot showing the actions that change the situation. Outline here is not the thing you were taught about in school. The Working Outline: each writer developes an ideosyncratic method of framing the story in notes before writing it. This set of notes organizes the material, focusing on what the writer finds most difficult and leaving the easy things to be worked out during writing. This device is most useful for revealing flaws in the structure before wasting time actually writing it. This avoids rewrites. The Selling Outline: this is the sequence of plot-events stripped bare which is the form the publisher wants to see along with about three fully fleshed chapters. This is best created after the story has been final drafted.

Sharpen/Word-Sharpener: Use the one correct word that encapsulates the feeling you want to portray or express in 3 or 4 words to get your message across. Increase your vocabulary. Delete everything that does not directly and succinctly explicate the theme.

Internal Climax Points: The 1/4, ½, ¾ and ending points of a work from 20,000 words on up. Much longer works will have climaxes between these points, but always rising in a straight line of tension to the highest point just before the ending. The shorter the work, the more simplified the internal climax points structure. (example: the points where they put the commercials in a TV show).

Symbolism: An object, image or sometimes an action, which represents a philosophy or thought the reader can recognize from another context. The theme dictates which philosophies such symbolic items may evoke and how to choose them. Example: Stephen Speilberg’s TV miniseries, Into The West : the Wheeler family are wheelwrights building Conestoga wagons to settle the West. The Native Americans already living there have a culture based on the "wheel" concept of reality symbolized by their Medicine Wheel. The central theme is based on cyclicality reticulated through the several generations of the Wheeler family, and on a larger scale, the cyclicality of human history’s mass migrations. Wheels within wheels. The final symbolic image is the Conestoga wagon wheels rolling over a huge, stone medicine wheel built by one of the Native characters at the start of the miniseries.

Symmetry: The same occurrence or type of occurrence happens in various parts of the story, for example x happens at the beginning and also at the end giving you a "full circle" effect. See Miniseries example under Symbolism. If a story opens with a baby being born at sunrise, symmetry would be satisfied if it ends at a funeral or death at sunset.

Archetype/Pattern: The highest, most abstract and most universal patterns behind human psychology. These archetypes, such as The Hero, The Slave, The King, The Priest, The Outcast, The Sidekick, The Temptress, The Trickster, Maiden-Mother-Crone, The Double (doppelganger), The Scapegoat, etc., can be used as models around which to build a story. Readers/viewers are able to enter the story and believe it because the archetype behind it is familiar and real to them. The most commercial novels and films focus closely on one and only one of these archetypes, subordinating all others.

Magical Act of Faith: The psychological point where you give away your last penny when you’re starving to death without any clue where your next meal may come from. You have faith in the Divine forces that if no meal comes, your death will serve a higher purpose. The magical act of faith is also the externalization of the process of letting go of a fear-based conditioning which keeps us locked in a life pattern which impedes spiritual growth and success in life. In a story, this Act usually comes right after the major epiphany at the 3/4 point of the story.

Narrative Hook: the opening words of a story composed of the reason why the writer wants to write the story. That reason is the same as the reader’s reason for wanting to read the story -- and that reason is always an exploration of the story's theme. The Narrative Hook "hooks" the reader’s attention and arouses anticipation that this story will have something to say that is relevant to the readers’ life. That anticipation is based on the main theme expressed in the narrative hook. Example: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . " The Narrative Hook creates an agreement between writer and reader that this story will be of a certain type and satisfy a certain desire.

Artistic Integrity: "Integrity" refers to the way all the parts (theme, characters, setting, conflict, resolution, etc) fit together into a whole that says something that makes sense to the reader. Thus a story that has all its parts fused together into a single whole has artistic integrity. Another definition of artistic integrity is the author’s refusal to violate his or her own personal values to make a sale—for example, a writer who personally abhors slavery writing a story in which slavery is shown as a good thing. Or currently, a writer who thinks all the End of Days prophecy is stuff and nonsense writing a Left Behind novel because it is guaranteed to bring in big bucks. But an author who believes in the End of Days scenario would not violate his or her artistic integrity by writing a Left Behind novel. Stories with great artistic integrity usually derive it from the author's personal artistic integrity -- that is the author has chosen a them he/she believes in deeply and completely.

Style: This most elusive component of art is the least important, yet the one that most writing students obsess on. It cannot be acquired by study or deliberate intent. It develops after mastery of all the other tools in this tool-kit. I, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, learned the meaning of style in writing by copy-typing Andre Norton’s novel STAR RANGERS followed by copy-typing A. E. Van Vogt’s SLAN. But that didn’t give me a style of my own, only the ability to recognize style and understand what it really is. I, Jean Lorrah, grew up on the "transparent" style of Hemingway and Heinlein. Thus you will find no "quirky" components in my style of writing—nothing that distracts from the story and calls attention to how it is written. Distracting style that calls attention to itself is now back in fashion, but I can’t make myself write that way. It’s "not my style."

Composition: The artistic placement of elements in a pattern that tends to lead the attention from one item in an array to another, thus indicating what is the central concept, idea or theme and which items in the array are supportive of that central concept. The "composition" is an arrangement that adds information by the relative placement of elements in time, space or both. A good novel is "composed" around its central theme.

Predicament: "An Excedrin Headache" with a high number. (When you notice that the car you just rear-ended has flashing red lights on top.) A character caught in a predicament (Mother asking Johnny why his hand is in the cookie jar) must do something and thus rivets the reader/viewer’s attention in anticipation of what that character might do and what the results of that action might be. A predicament is any Situation that foreshadows action. Predicaments make good Narrative Hooks.

Goal: The story ends when the goal is achieved. This is usually the protagonist's objective, though the goal may shift and change as information is revealed and successes and defeats are experienced. Example from the two main plot structures:

"Johnny gets his fanny caught in a bear trap and has his adventures getting it out." Johnny’s Goal is to get his fanny out of the bear trap with minimal damage to said fanny. That’s a Predicament Story.

"A likeable hero struggles against seemingly overwhelming odds toward a worthwhile goal." This is not a Predicament Story. How likeable the Hero is may depend on the reader/viewer’s assessment of the worth-whileness of the goal. "To Become President Of The United States" – that’s a goal, but how likeable the Hero may be could depend on why he/she has chosen that goal or the means employed toward that end.

Notice that in both instances, the protagonist starts the story rolling by acting to reveal the goal. Johnny GETS his fanny and the Likeable Hero starts struggling toward his chosen goal -- or chooses the goal.

Plot/Theme Integration: One of the elements of artistic integrity. When every event on the because-line, the plot-line, exemplifies the theme (might makes right, for example – survival of the fittest – the most ruthless wins) then the theme and the plot are "integrated" or made into one seamless whole so that the analyst can barely distinguish plot from theme. Schools often assign students to read classic novels and then ask them to analyze the novel for Theme. This is not a good way for a writer to learn because classics have become classics because of flawless plot/theme integration.

One new classic with usually fabulous plot/theme integration is Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Narrative Direction: Normal narrative direction is beginning, middle, end. There are endless variations on this direction first described by Aristotle, from the entire story being told as one long flashback (the most recent version of Titanic), to that episode of Seinfeld in which the entire show consisted of scenes in sequence from end to beginning. More commonly, a story has no or only a few very brief flashbacks—think the TV show Highlander. Or Forever Knight.

Description: Description tells rather than shows what the senses of the characters present might notice. Judicious and sparse use of description can evoke deeper sensory involvement of the reader in the story when the vocabulary chosen to describe a scene or setting evokes the emotional pitch of the observing character. Example: One character might come upon the old mansion on a "dark and stormy night" and be scared. Another character with a different temperament coming upon the same house might see it in a flash of lightning as his car battery dies would say, "Gorgeously well kept Victorian that has telephone lines attached." He might note that it’s barely drizzling now and the moon is peeking through the clouds while the first character, being in a more frightened mood wouldn't notice those things.

Description is used best to characterize the POV character and his/her mood which is the result of what has happened to him/her.

Resolution: The point at which the conflict no longer exists because it has been resolved. Johnny gets his fanny out of the beartrap. The likeable hero achieves his goal and is still likeable. All threats (or almost all) have been vanquished and everyone is safe (if only for the time-being). The war is over, and the troops march home. The attacking armada turns tail and warps away. The lovers say "I do." The Lone Ranger rides into the sunset. The Vampire's secret is safe. The kidnapped boy is returned alive. The Jedi take control of the Galaxy again.

From lectures given and posted on Sime~Gen by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah

Alphabetical List of Tools

Tools Listed By Concept

Alphabetical List of Tools
Antagonist	Archetype/Pattern:_	Art:	Artist:
Artistic_Integrity:	Blocking_the_scene:	Business:	Climax:
Composition:	Conflict:	Denoument:	Description:
Dialog:	Dramatic_Irony:	Dramatic_Tension:	Ending:
Exposition:	External_Conflict:	Foreshadowing:	Goal:
Information_Feed:	Internal_Conflict:	Internal_Climax_Points:	Magical_Act_of_Faith:
Narrative_Hook:	Narrative_Direction:	Objective_Correlative:	Outline:
Pacing:	Plot:	Plot/Theme_Integration:	POV:
Predicament:	Protagonist:	Resolution:	Rising_Action:
Setting:	Sharpen/Word-Sharpener:	Situation:	Style:
Symbolism:	Symmetry:	Theme:	Worded_Thoughts: