Category: Word Craft

Through language and structure, starting from the sentence up through paragraph, passage, chapter and book, learn the best way to deliver the story, characters and world you’ve crafted to your audience.

  • Inconspicuous Plants: Setup the Reader for a Surprise

    There’s nothing more disappointing for a reader than to see the surprise ending coming right from the start. The best way to prevent this is to disguise your plants when they’re introduced.

    When you plant something that is going to be used later on, make sure it still makes sense and belongs in the present context of the story. This doesn’t mean just work out a reason to mention it, like having a character notice it or a conversation drift to reveal some bit of information, actually make the plant belong in the plot as soon as it’s introduced. This will make its later use more surprising since the true reason for it was masked by its first-time use in the story.

    This also just improves the story’s flow instead of creating a speed-bump with information that doesn’t fit. Every piece of story should pull as much weight as possible. Be they scenes, characters or plots, always think multi-use, not single use. The more you can do this, the tighter your story will be.

    A good example is the poison berries in The Hunger Games. They were actually eaten by Foxface and proven to be poisonous as soon as they were introduced (the idea of questioning the safety of berries in the arena was brought up twice even before this), even though Peeta didn’t know and thought they were good for food. After this, the final twist of the berries is disguised again when Katniss pockets them and says they might use them to trick Cato. This is happens just a couple scenes after the beginning of Act III, which is usually the cutoff for any climax plants, but because berries come up several times before (even the very beginning when Katniss and Gale are picnicking before the Reaping) it still works.

    Comedy

    The surprise pay-off of a of well placed plant is key in comedy. Take a look at this joke by Emo Philips.

    I was walking home one night and stopped to watch three men working on a house. And the guy hammering on the roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In Morse code.

    The plant “man hammering on the roof” is perfectly in context in the story, disguised as a bit of description, yet it is key to the punchline. It wouldn’t have had nearly the effect if it had said, “the man working on the roof… …in Morse code with his hammer.”

    The proper use of a plant is vital to any good comedy because it’s only a surprise if it’s been well disguised.

    Mystery

    Clues, suspects and red herrings. These things make mystery stories heavily reliant on well placed plants. More than in any other genre, the audience is actively trying to figure out the answer, so you have to be extra careful to hide it. The pieces for the solution still have to be in plain sight or the reader will feel cheated when it turns out there was no way they could have solved it alone.

    Even though Columbo is not a whodunit, mystery is still what keeps us watching. We know we’ve seen exactly how the murderer committed the crime, but still we want to see how Columbo will prove it. Whatever evidence he uses in the end, we know it’s something we’ve seen.

    How, then, can the audience be surprised? It works because every piece of evidence was disguised when it was introduced. Either it was part of the murderer’s plan, or it was something that by its self is no proof so doesn’t seem a threat. Even if we have an inkling about what will get him, we’re not sure exactly how it will happen. Satisfyingly, the thing that clinches it is usually the thing that was the murderer’s strongest protection. When it was introduced, it was disguised as the murderer’s strength and it turns out to be his weakness.

    Series

    Any series that handles multiple story lines needs to have good plants to prepare the audience for the transition. Here the idea is not so much to trick the reader as to make the plant pull its weight in the current story line until it becomes useful in the next one. The British soap opera Eastenders is great at this (at least the episodes from the early 2000s that I watched).

    One example was the transition between Zoe’s story of struggling with the idea of giving up her unborn child for adoption, and Sonia’s story of having giving up her own daughter five years before. Backstory needed to be reintroduced both for the benefit of new viewers and also to refresh the story in the minds of longtime viewers. It was done in a scene where Sonia tells Zoe about her choice to give her daughter up, and how even though it was hard, afterwards she was sure it was the right thing to do. This forwards Zoe’s story and at the same time gives Sonia a starting place in a new character arc when she later discovers that the adoptive parents were killed in a car wreck and her daughter might be all alone.

    Most of these plants and pay-offs also have a structure of coming full circle. This is always very satisfying to readers and a great way to bring the climax of a story together.

    Other kinds of plants don’t have to involve the main plot. They can establish a subplot, like showing the weakness of a supporting character and then having it challenged and overcome in the end. Whenever you show potential for conflict between two characters, that’s a promise to the reader. They’ll expect you to deliver with that conflict coming to a head. Make sure to always ask yourself what the reader might be asking themselves throughout the story and make sure those questions are answered before the end. Following up every lead isn’t necessary and can actually drag down the story, but every plant that ties in with your theme and through line should be addressed.

    Plants and payoffs can be found in every good story. A story that doesn’t seem to fulfill its full potential probably failed to balance its plants and payoffs and deliver on its promises. When planning the climax, take a moment to look back at everything you’ve planted so far in the story, especially before Act III. Every character’s strength and weakness, every item, every piece of information. Write them out as a list of “game pieces” you can use to win the story. Readers love to be surprised but they also love to feel clever when they just knew that little detail would turn out to be important, and they were right.

  • The Story Game

    You can read stories, and read about writing all your life, but until you practice writing every day, you’ll never see your craft improve. Things you’ve learned only really become knowledge when you implement them. Flash prompts with word limits are great ways to work with a variety of worlds and characters and styles of writing because they’re so short. There is also very little pressure as it’s easy to keep every scope of your writing in mind as you work, from the concept, theme, character, beats and word choice.

    The Story Game is a turn based flash prompt meant to be played with a writer friend (or even a friend who writes will do) and can have any sort of prompt or rules you want. The only must-have rules I recommend are a word limit of no more than 500 words and a deadline of no longer than a week. I usually play with a target word range of 90-110 words and a 24 hour deadline. That way it becomes a daily habit to craft a little story beat every morning.

    The biggest lesson I learned play this game is how to budget words. I had to learn to forward the story while keeping my word count between 90-110 words. You’ll be amazed after spilling out your first draft and turn to the word craft level of the Story Game. I realized how much space I waste writing unnecessary description, actions, even restating things I had written clearly enough before. I was even surprised at how much I could leave unsaid and come out with an even more effective narrative than if I had held the reader’s hand throughout the story.

    So take a look at these ideas for prompts and rules, grab a writer friend (or group!) and start playing the Story Game!

    Prompts

    You can find prompts of all sorts by doing a web search for “writing prompts” or you can make your own.

    • Word prompt: This is what I use because its easy to come up with and can result in some interesting twists when homonyms are used. You can have as many words as you like in the prompt, but three to five is probably best. These could be just for inspiration or required to be used somewhere in the narrative itself.
    • Photo prompt: A group of photos of places, people and things can be interesting clues to piecing together a story.
    • Premise prompt: Just a few lines as though you were pitching someone a premise. See how different the same story can be when crafted by different writers.
    • First-line prompt: Write an intriguing opening line. Something which introduces at least the promise of a character and the potential for conflict.
    • Character prompt: Craft a character sketch and let your partner start the story.
    • Any other element of storytelling you care to try!

    Rules

    • Time limit: This is a must since it can otherwise be too easy to procrastinate and let the game drag, ruining your friend’s momentum in the story. 24 hours, or as long as a week with longer word limits is good, but if you have the time to give to your story each time it’s your turn, it might be interesting to see what you could do in an hour or even shorter time limits.
    • Word limit: Also very important to the effectiveness of the Story Game. Word limits can be anything from fifty to a couple thousand words in longer term games. I like to stick to a range around 90-110 as it’s very easy to get in a complete beat or chunk of action forwarding the story but you also have to be careful to budget your words and make the most of each one.
    • Turn limit: This is optional but can help if you find you have long running story games that meander aimlessly without good structure and conclusion. Each turn can be dedicated to a certain plot point, or at least you can keep in mind that by turn five, for example, you should have hit the Midpoint. An eight or nine-turn limit is nice because it breaks down into three acts nicely (Act II should be half the story) and each writer will have at least one turn in each act of the story.
    • Wildcards! This rule is purely for fun and something I added recently when I couldn’t think up a name for a place where the characters had visited. Leave a blank space in your chunk of story with the number of words allowed in that wildcard for your partner to fill in. The number should be just how many words you had left in your own word count allowance that turn. Your partner might fill in something you never would have thought of and it grants more freedom in the next chunk of story. (Might want to limit this to one wildcard per player per game.)
    • Multiple choice: Another one just for fun! If you’re torn on which direction the story should go, try writing more than one version and let your partner choose.

    This game is not only about writing, but about improvisation and teamwork. You have to learn to make the most of what you’re given and work with the story beat you get back from your partner. This is a great way to practice writing about characters and topics that you might otherwise never thought of, and it might turn out you have more to bring to these stories than you thought.

    Have fun!

  • The Secret to Avoiding Cliffhanger Anger

    Many authors suggest using cliffhangers as incentive for readers to continue, but they also warn that this technique can anger readers who feel cheated when they learn they must wait longer for the satisfaction they’d been promised. Common advice seems to be to use them sparingly and only when you know what you’re doing. But how can you be sure when a cliffhanger is right?

    Here’s the biggest difference between good and bad cliffhangers and as long as you keep it in mind, you’ll be able to use them at the end of every chapter if you want!

    As with the Hook at the beginning of a story, readers keep reading because of anticipation. Get them to ask a specific question about what is going to happen and they’ll keep going until their anticipation is satisfied.

    Bad cliffhangers bring the reader all the way up to the point of answering their question, but then go back on this promise. The reader is left wondering the same thing as they were before. They feel cheated, and rightly so. The first time this happens, they will probably keep reading anyway, but if this is a multiple offense or worse yet they’re being asked to purchase the next book in order to find out the answer to their question, they just might give up on your story. Why should they risk being cheated again?

    A good cliffhanger, however, ends the scene by answering the reader’s question with a surprise, leaving the reader asking a new question than the one they were asking before.

    Great examples of this can be found in The Hunger Games. Nearly every chapter ends by answering the question the story had been building up the whole time, but with a twist. Chapter one starts out with the the promise we will see the Reaping, but when a name is drawn from the girl’s bowl, it’s one we never considered was at risk. Right from the start, the reader has anticipation for the Reaping which keeps them reading until the end of the chapter, and when they get there, there’s no way they’re putting that book down!

    Soap operas are also great at this, especially the British soap, Eastenders, particularly the episodes from the mid 2000s. I’m not a soap opera fan, but I got hooked from a single episode on PBS when nothing else was on. I just had to tune in again to see how each plot twist came out and before I knew it, I was there every weekend for the next four years. My entire week revolved my show, and when it was preempted for pledge drives, I didn’t think I’d survive the suspense. (Moral of the story: Don’t watch tv! It’ll waste away your life!)

    Throwing in just anything unexpected at the end won’t do. It has to be something that the reader could have anticipated, but didn’t because they were focused on something else.

    Remember to make a promise to your reader early on about what is coming later in the story, and then deliver on that promise with a twist!

    Mystery and humor are a wonderful genres for this sort of slight of hand. The obvious suspect (or punchline), the one you’re probably keeping your eye on even though you know better, is never the culprit. In the end it comes out that the real bad guy has been right under our noses the whole time! This is an absolute must. Your surprise ending or plot twist cannot be something your reader would never have been able to foresee. It must be something that was subtly planted as a possibility, but then swept aside when the emphasis is put on other concerns.

    In The Hunger Games, we know all along that Prim’s name is in the Reaping, but since Katniss has made sure it was entered only once and is so sure herself that her sister is not at risk, we believe her and instead share her concern for herself and Gale.

    As long as you keep in mind the secret recipe for good cliffhangers, you can use them as much as you like to create addictive and surprising stories that will keep your readers coming back for more.