Double Trouble and Yet More Acting Jargon

What's hardest you ask with a straight face. The beginning, middle, or ending of a story? Yes, I answer. Depending on the story. But since I suspect a single word answer would bring a stray torch, or possibly a pitchfork my way, I'll elaborate. A lot.

Beginning and middle.

Here's why. A story, for me, cannot start until I know how it must end. To know how a story must end, I have to understand the characters. I must know what motivates them, what drives them (these two things *sound* like repeats of one another - they aren't). Motivation is background work. Drive is right now work.

Acting Jargon Alert!

Motivation gets thrown around in acting, but the upshot of 'what's my motivation?' is really 'why is your character on stage, right here, right now?' The answer to that question changes from play to play (or from story to story). I played a young nurse at a hospital treating the victims of the Chernobyl incident in a Russian play called Sarcophagus. At the end of the run of the show, my fellow students critiqued the performance. One of the women asked, "Why were you there?" I stared at her, because throughout the rehearsals and the performance, to ask that question about my character had never occurred to me. The moment she asked, however, I knew the answer. The young nurse I'd played wanted the medical director's job. Sounds simple - but it gave me a wealth of information that had been totally absent in my performance - my character should have been ambitious, idealistic, and yes, driven by her belief that science could overcome anything. Until Chernobyl proved it couldn't.

Drive in acting is actually called 'Objective'. 'What's your objective in this beat?' That's the question that gets asked about a distinct unit of action - the actor way of saying, "What are you trying to accomplish whilst you stand there yelling and waving a gun around?" The answer is supposed to be a transitive verb. You know. To cajole, to convince, to brutalize, to convert, to #add your active verb here#.

End Acting Jargon.

I must know what brought my main character(s) to a story. In Enemy Within - the heroine was motivated by desperation to prove she isn't broken. Her drive: to regain command (of a ship). Enemy Games - the main character craved identity (having been defined in other people's shadows all her life). Her drive: to cure a disease.

Once I know the motivation and the drive, I know how the story must end. Yeah, I'm not clear on how that happens, either. I just know that endings pop into existence. Like spontaneously generating goose barnacles.

The trade off is that I start a book six times. At least. And complain to anyone who will listen about how little progress I'm making while I write those various scenes. Thus, I say unto you, beginnings are hard. Until they aren't anymore.

Then the middle is. I wander. I dally. I dip my toes in the chilly waters of 'talking heads, not enough actual conflict'. I recycle some of the scenes I'd written for the beginning, but it turned out, were part of the middle. At about the 2/3 mark, I realize that the scene I had planned for the climax of the story is really the midpoint. If that. And then I flounder in the middle MORE because someone just redrew my roadmap. The GPS in my brain has the LONGEST 'recalculating' function...and for me, here lies the danger point. This is where, in the early days, stories littered the roadside, abandoned, because I couldn't seem to find a way out of wandering. It still happens. I'd like to think less frequently, but it does still happen. Usually, a revisit of the motivation and drive issues for all characters will give me the directional club between the eyes that sets me right again. Usually.

Still. Momentum begets momentum. Most stories, by the time I hit the 2/3 point, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm invested in getting my characters run over by that train (which should be a manifestation of their greatest fears based on the motivation and drive mentioned earlier - some days I'm better at that than others.) This is why endings are typically not a major problem. See me hedging my declaration? Totally superstitious and I do not intend to curse myself in that regard if I can help it. Having two parts of a story dogging me are enough.

End Game

But at the same moment, Prince Lír said, "No." The word escaped him as suddenly as a sneeze, emerging in a questioning squeak — the voice of a silly young man mortally embarrassed by a rich and terrible gift. 

"No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a kings's voice; not Haggard, but a king whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give. 

"My lady," he said, "I am a hero. It is a trade, no more, like weaving or brewing, and like them it has its own tricks and knacks and small arts. There are ways of perceiving witches, and knowing of poison streams; there are certain weak spots that all dragons tend to have, and certain riddles that hooded strangers tend to set you. But the true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story."

~ The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

I tend to go back to my favorite stories for posts like these, simply because the stories themselves answer the question so perfectly there isn't much else for me to add.

For myself, being a panster tends to mean I usually know where I'm going...I just don't know how I'm going to get there.  And if often tends to mean I end up re-working a story. Not because I go wandering off on tangents as much as that by the time I get to that end, there's so much more going on than I originally planned for.

So then I need to go fill in the gaps (or weed out the parts that no longer work.) Sometimes that means rewriting the beginning, but not usually. I find beginnings the easiest to write - simply because it's fresh and new and I can pretty much go wherever I want.

The middles? Well that's always the hardest - making sure things line up and make sense. I've often found that the concept I started out with isn't always the one I end up with. Sometimes it's just about adding or removing things, sometimes it's about moving chunks around so they fit better - but I never really know until I've got a draft to play with.

The books I struggle with the most are the ones where I don't know how it is supposed to end - it's happened to me once so far and it was not a particularly pleasant experience. I've tried to be better about it since then and it's been much better all the way around.

With this new book, I know the exact line it will end with. Or I did, until I realized it's going to have to be two books - but the end line will simply move to the end of the second book. I've been asked about what the line is before, and I won't say what it is. And that's not because it's a particularly special line or anything like that - it's just that if I share it too soon, I lose the drive to get there. (Not to mention it wouldn't mean much to anyone who didn't know the story anyway). But then I get derailed by expectations - is it a good enough ending to aim for? Should I be doing something different?

During the writing process, that's no good for me. Write first, edit later, share when it's ready. In this case, my first draft was 92k. I started to edit it over the summer (and was derailed due to pain and surgery issues) - but I realized the end line didn't fit the story. It was too pat and things came too easily for the protagonist. There was no impact for me as the writer anymore, so I've moved it. And now I'm at over 126k and chugging along - and planting seeds as I go for the second book, so when it's time for that end line? I'll be ready for it.

Toughest: Beginnings, Middles, or Ends?

The question of the week: 

Of those three basic parts of a novel, beginning/middle/end...which is hardest?

Personally I don’t think any one is harder than the other. They each have their unique hurdles. Maybe because I have a series, knowing where to start each book comes from knowing where the last one ended. Maybe knowing the endgame I am heading towards helps with those middles and ends. <shrugs>

That being said, I know I have my share of authorial flaws. I've been told I have “slow beginnings…but when the pace picks up, it really picks up.” So though I have no trouble knowing where to start, I clearly have trouble starting at a run. Looking back, I can admit that I see where I have spent time setting things up that were far more emotionally based than action oriented.

That may be entirely acceptable in other genres. Like, I cut my teeth on high fantasy. A certain amount of world building is expected. But I’ve learned that in urban fantasy…readers wanna be grabbed and dragged on an adventure with heart and purpose from the first word.

To that end...I’ve been posting a new chapter each week from the as-yet-untitled book 7 in my series HERE. You can scroll down and see the Prologue, Chapter One, and Chapter Two and judge for yourself. 

But I have to say, beginnings in a series have their own set of complications.

Recap? If so, how much? Character introduction? Setting introduction?

In order to get new readers up to speed and not over-drill the facts at regular readers, the obvious answer is to sprinkle tidbits into the openings of those subsequent stories. But how to keep it from being like the last three books?  Who wants to read about that same upturned polo collar? 

My agent had a wonderful idea. With book five, he suggested that I start dipping into other characters’ heads. I resisted the notion at first. I said, “Wait. We’ve been told if you write a series 1^st person, you stick with that. You can’t suddenly start interjecting third person scenes. Right?”

He said, “Why not?”

I went with it. Wow and I glad.

Why am I bringing this up here and now?

Because. Suddenly, I could let readers know how Johnny saw Seph—which is different than Seph sees Seph, and different than how Seph thinks Johnny sees her. I could bring in a completely new character who was meeting them both for the first time and show a newcomer’s perspective. It gave the characters layers and depth they could not give themselves.  

It was a way to reward those repeat readers with fresh takes on those essential details. 

I'm kind of twisting this into character drive vs. plot driven here and I may be opening a can of worms, but what do you think? 

As it pertains to beginnings of series novels: Should a character remain as they were in book one, recovered and unchanged by events or should a character evolve? 

The First Chapter Is The Last Chapter

The first chapter you write is the last chapter you finish.

Aka: beginnings blow.

Lucy's post from yesterday is far more eloquent in the detailed importance of a strong beginning. If you want advice on how to write well, read it  now. Better yet, print and frame it.

I'm going tell you why my CPs hate me. Hate me with all the hateyMchateypants powers of the world. Chapters 1-10.  Over. And Over. And Over. And Over.

Yep. I'm like a race car burning rubber at the starting line.  There's a lot of smoke and a lot of stink before my tires are hot enough to give me the grip I need to hurtle down the track to the end. Middle? End? Not a problem. Getting to know these characters with whom I'm going to spend 150k words? Takes for fucking ever. All of them have goals, all of them have motivations, all of them have conflicts, and all of them need each other to get what they want. Showing that and deciding what to show of that... ~bangs head on desk~

But once I get it "right"? Vroom, vroom, baby!

Oh, but lest you think "The End" = Done   ~falls over laughing~   No, no. Once I've written "The End" I have to go back to the frippin' beginning. I have to make sure:

• I've properly seeded the OMG moments
• The world-building doesn't dominate the story
• The characters are unmolded putty compared to how they are at the end of their evolution
• The protag's life prior to the Inciting Moment sufficiently shows the skills and mindset the protag brings to the challenges facing her.
• The Inciting Moment sets the proper tone for the rest of the plot. 

Yeah, so the most difficult part of the story for me to write? The Beginning. Which is really The End. But it's the Beginning. Chicken? Egg? Anyone? Anyone?

Tell me, dear readers, when you hit The End, is it really The End for you or is it The Beginning?

The Most Difficult Part of the Story: Beginning, Middle or End?

The Most Difficult Part of the Story: Beginning, Middle or End?

With our Monday Word-Whore gallivanting around England, we have a special guest for you today.

Lucy A. Snyder has writing chops that span a broad spectrum of genre styles. She is the author of the Jessie Shimmer urban fantasy series, which includes Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, Switchblade Goddess, and Orchid Carousals. She won a Bram Stoker Award in 2010 for her poetry collection Chimeric Machines, and she won another Stoker earlier this year for her short story “Magdala Amygdala”. Her book Sparks and Shadows won the 2008 Editor's Choice Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Collection, and her humor collection Installing Linux on a Dead Badger was released in 2007.


Hello again! For those of you participating in NaNoWriMo, I hope your projects are going well. It can be tough keeping up a novel-in-a-month pace, particularly if your narrative engine gets stuck in the mud and you have a hard time figuring out how to pull it free.

Which leads me to the question James posed as my topic for this post: what’s the most difficult part of a story? The beginning, middle, or end?

The answer to that question will vary widely depending on the writer and his or her particular fiction project. Most of us start writing a story or novel for a particular reason: we had a compelling nightmare, or we overheard a bit of dialog, or we read saw a story on the news and wondered “What if that had gone differently?” The numbers of things that can inspire a writer are practically endless; ideas are all around us.  But from those germinal ideas, characters or scenes will start forming in our minds, and soon our fingers are on the pen or keyboard and we’re writing.

The problem is, rarely do we have a story come to us fully formed. Bits are usually missing. Important bits.

Do you have an idea for a sympathetic, fun protagonist and an equally fun but rather twisted antagonist, and you know that they start fighting over a stolen relic in an abandoned warehouse, but … you’re not sure what needs to happen after that? Or why? In this situation, your ending might confound you.

Conversely, do you have an idea for a dramatic, epic final battle between the hero and the antagonist … but no idea how they first encountered each other? Or, possibly worse, you know exactly how the two first tangled but they’ve been enemies for decades and they have an immense amount of backstory together … and now you just don’t know where this particular story starts, exactly?  Chances are good the beginning of your story will be a bit of a problem.

But maybe you know exactly how their current conflict began. You know how the fight in the warehouse will go and what will happen in that epic final battle … but all the narrative that has to happen in chapters 3 to 9 is a bit hazy to you, and perhaps you’re even a little bored waiting to get to the good stuff? Your novel’s middle might sag like an undercooked pumpkin pie.

So, all three aspects of a narrative can be difficult … but if you pinned me down and told me I had to choose one, I’d pick the beginning of a story as being the most important challenge a writer has to overcome.

Why? First and foremost, if you don’t find a good point of entry for your story, you might never get it written! When I was a newbie writer in my late teens and early twenties, I would start a story based on a single cool idea, and I’d get a page or two in and completely run out of gas. Dozens of dried-up story sprouts littered my hard drive. It was all a learning experience, of course; the most important thing I learned is that I’m a plotter and not a pantser. I don’t outline, but I do need to let a story roll around in my mind for a while and grow a bit before I try to put it on paper. I need to make myself a narrative map; if something more interesting comes along while I’m writing I’ll happily embrace the new destination, but for me to have no destination in mind at all? My narrative engine will stall out in the driveway.

Furthermore, if you start sending around a manuscript with a solid middle and a fabulous ending but a weak opening, the chances are good that the editor or agent won’t keep reading long enough to discover your story’s strengths. In my experience, you have to grab the reader’s attention right away -- not just in the first page but the first paragraph. Ideally, you should hook the reader with your first sentence.

The kind of story you’re writing will dictate what that first page and first paragraph should look like; for every rule put forth in fiction, you can find a writer who managed to break that rule to wonderful effect.

Having said that, if you’re having trouble with your openings, there are a few things you can try:

• Try to begin at the beginning. This seems obvious, doesn’t it? But often, it isn’t, and figuring it out requires thinking hard about your overall story. What’s the event that sets everything else in motion? That’s a really good place to start your tale.
• If you’re writing a short story, try to start it as close to the climax of your story as you possibly can. This may take some planning. Obviously, you’ll need to have an ending in mind. You can fill in back story later, as needed.
• Avoid starting a story or novel with lots of static description. Unless you write truly beautiful prose, this is hard to pull off well.
• Try to start with an action sequence or some kind of conflict like an argument.
• If your story or novel isn’t action-oriented, start with something unusual or genuinely interesting happening. More than one editor has told me, “If the story starts with an ordinary person doing or talking about something boring, I don’t keep reading.”

And that last point leads to my own advice to myself when I find myself getting stuck in the middle or near the end of a manuscript. I ask myself, “What would be cool or interesting here? What unexpected thing could happen here to mix this up? Given the characters I’ve created and their wants and desires, what interesting, unexpected thing would make the most sense here?” And then I try to make that happen.

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. Keep writing, keep finishing, and get your work out there!