ESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR WRITING A SUCCESSFUL SERIES

by Linda Robertson

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR WRITING A SUCCESSFUL SERIES is, in my humble opinion, <insert drumroll here>

...a character who grabs our interest with both hands.

You know, someone whose emotions cause us to keep turning pages.

"Emotions?" you ask.

Yes. Emotions.

In an article that I highly recommend (and which of course supports my statement), Martha Alderson, aka the Plot Whisperer, says:
"Moviegoers and readers identify with stories through the characters. The most powerful way to reach an audience is through the characters' emotions. For only when we connect with the characters on an emotional level, does the interaction become deep and meaningful. Well-written scenes that include characters' emotions allow the audience to viscerally take part in the story and bond with the characters." LINK HERE Go read it. I'll wait....

The character feels something about their situation that defines that character; even their apathy tells us something. Their actions convey to us the core of their emotions. Their reactions to other characters, to a new situation, to someone else's display of emotions --or lack thereof-- and the words they speak divulge to us as a whole something more than the sum of the actual words on the page.

Why? Because we feel and react, too. Our experience, and the experiences shared with us by our families and friends and loved ones are all a part of our lives and influence us as we grow and mature across the arc of our lives.

And using that as a convenient segue...

Your series character must be able to A.) maintain an interesting arc or B.) have an endless stream of storylines and options in his/her/its life. Or both.

In The 3 Types of Character Arc – Change, Growth and Fall HERE Veronica Sicoe talks about character arcs that stray from the standard Heroes Journey, arcs called: the Change Arc, the Growth Arc, the Shift Arc and the Fall Arc.

Each of the installments in a series in part forms the large "whole" of the character's arc, like the stones in the picture.

In what ways are you preparing your character for the arc? Or are you letting their story prepare you? What forces are at work beyond the control of the character, forces that will inevitably force difficulties upon her, ones that she, where you have placed her in the opening of your tale, cannot anticipate, ones leading her to places she cannot imagine going?

Tell me those questions waft like a seductive scent under the nose of your curious and inspiration-seeking writer brain...

The Mirror of Emotion

Emotion is a mirror. Reflect your character’s emotional state to the reader by selecting what your character sees, hears, tastes, touches and smells. Have you ever noticed how at Halloween, everything suddenly takes on a creepy tone? Mundane objects and events take on sinister connotation because you are psychologically primed by the cultural association of Halloween, horror movies, and the things that go bump in the night. Your readers (and characters) are, too, and you can mine that. A bright sunny day looks one way when you’re happy. When you’re scared, you suddenly notice the murmur of the wind in the tree branches in voices you can almost understand. The tree limbs claw at the raw sky. The shadows are sharp enough to slice skin. That same scene when you’re angry – the wind that was bracing when you were happy might now a slap in the face. An assault. Maybe traffic grumbles. And the people passing you avoid your gaze but you see the whites of their eyes for a long time until the fall behind. So many ways for your character to reflect his or her emotional state based on what they sense. It’s as if emotion is a filter for a camera lens that only allows certain information to register.

Dialogue is another mirror. You, oh petty god and master of massive creations, have the power to show readers how a character feels based solely on what he or she says.

“I’ve got it.”
“No. You don’t. Try --”
“I said, I’ve got it.”

You know nothing about the scene, nothing about the characters, but I bet you knew exactly how to read that last line. Have a look at Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet – the garden scene just after ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo.’

JULIET

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

How long winded she is. She’s indulging in long sentences and thought arcs. She has the time for reflection, a little love-sick introspection, and some heady game playing in that line – ‘Take all myself’. Speak the lines aloud. Listen to the sounds – long, open vowels. Lots of hard consonants – things that stop you and slow you down in the speech. It’s to show the actor and the audience that Juliet is developing a thought as she speaks and that she’s still giddy with infatuation.

ROMEO

I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

JULIET

What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night
So stumblest on my counsel?

Look how short this is. Say it aloud. Again. See how the sounds slide right into one another and pull you along the words? Do you speed up as you get through the sentence? Shakespeare is brilliant for using words and their sounds to either speed you up or slow you down as you speak his lines. If you’re paying attention, you find the emotion in the dialogue, too. Because this line is in such contrast to the longer speech above, it’s pretty easy to get fear from her ‘WHO ARE YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE’ demand. While there are plenty of hard t sounds at the ends of words in this sentence, the vowel sounds are almost entirely formed far forward in the mouth. Sounds weird, I know, but big, open vowel sounds move farther back – like when you say ‘ah’ at the doctor’s office. In Juliet’s ‘What man . . .’ sentence, the vowels are all just behind the teeth and pinging off the hard palate. Point being that based on the sounds of words, you control and convey emotional states. Plays make it easy to see, but you can watch movies and TV, and if you listen carefully, hear how other writers spoon feed you emotional states with what their characters say.

I will confess here and now that I suggested this topic for the week because it’s something I struggle with. A lot. Just when I think I have it all figured out, I stumble and fall again over how to get emotion on the page. Show! Don’t tell! Madness dwells beneath a crit partner's suggestion that a scene lacks emotion. Suggesting this topic was my bid for a week long workshop on the subject. What’s your favorite trick of the emotional manipulation trade?

Putting Emotion on the Page

Today's designated topic is on how to put emotion on the page.  But with Thorn of Dentonhill's release just days away, it's just about impossible to talk about HOW to do that.  So, instead, I'll just put some emotion on the page.  Or screen, as it were.
And that emotion is gratitude, because the book would not exist without the assistance of quite a few people.
First of all, there is my amazing and incredibly patient wife, Deidre Kateri Aragon.  She has been an anchor in my life for the past fifteen years, giving me the ability to pound away at a keyboard day after day and making this book happen.  But more importantly, she got me on task in the first place, moving me from being that guy who just talked about “writing a book at some point” to actually making writing a real focus in my life.  She, as well as my son Nicholas, have been a source of constant support and strength through the process of becoming a novelist.
No less important to thank are my parents, Louis and Nancy Maresca, and my mother-in-law, Kateri Aragon.  My mother, especially, read an early draft and gave it a solid critique and line edit. 
Next, there are all the many people who read versions and drafts of Thorn, and gave useful advice that helped shape it into a stronger, better work.  This includes Kimberly Frost and Julie Kenner, as well as Miriam Robinson Gould, and the Bat City Novelocracy crew: Kevin Jewell, Abby Goldsmith, Ellen Van Hensbergen, Leigh Berggren, Nicole Duson and Amanda Downum.
A huge portion of thanks has to go to Stina Leicht, who has been running the ArmadilloCon Writers Workshop for many years, and after I had attended it several times, brought me on board to run it with her.  Stina has been a friend, a mentor, a sympathetic ear, and a good source for the occasional much-needed whap upside the head, which is exactly what every writer needs.
I can’t emphasize enough how much is owed to my agent, Mike Kabongo.  He’s handled with grace and humor the arduous task of dealing with my constant harassment while shopping my work.  He deserves extra accolades for taking an interest in a manuscript that was not ready or sellable, but filled with potential.  He really shepherded that work, which eventually became this novel.
Further thanks are owed to my editor, Sheila Gilbert, as well as everyone else at DAW and Penguin: Josh Starr, Katie Hoffman, Nita Basu, and probably a dozen other people who helped bring this about whose names I never knew.  I am deeply grateful for all the hard work they’ve done to make this the best book it can possibly be.
Finally, there is my dear friend Daniel J. Fawcett, who has been my sounding board and bent ear on everything creative I’ve done since the seventh grade.  Nothing in this book would be what it is without his influence.  I wouldn’t be who I am today without his friendship.

Be A Vengeful God

Emotion. From seething anger, to quiet rage. From laughter and joy to tears of pain. Triumph and loss. Or maybe empty triumph and heroic loss.

You are the writer, the author, the creator. For your story, you are a god. Be a vengeful god.

They want that one something so badly.... Don't give it to them. See what happens. They need x and y to win...so they have to go out prove themselves worthy of it before they can collect x an y. What did they have to give up to gain it--and how did they feel about doing so? What matters most to them? What if attaining the goal means sacrificing that thing? Can they do it? Can they not? Emotions at odds with the goal grow your characters like nothing else, and believe me, your characters must be fully emotionally invested in the plot you are crafting if you want your readers to get emotionally invested.

For example, we hear about how good balance and justice and calmness is, but the news is predominantly focused on the world's injustices, fearmongering, and celebrity gossip. Why? Because the stories we want to know more simply about aren't pretty and kind and gentle.

So draw lines, ye vengeful god. Let your character believe it when they say: "I won't... I'll never... I can't..." Put that cheese on their emotional traps, then force your minions characters over that line. Give them a reason to feel, see how they hurt, how they seethe, how they change their minds, how resourceful, territorial, and relentless they can get.

Like I did here....

EXCERPT: FATAL CIRCLE
SET UP: On the shores of Lake Erie, the not-so-sweet fairie royalty and their army have come at dawn to kill Menessos and thereby rid themselves of their binding to him once and for all. But that would mean they are free to do awful things to this world. So the witches and waerewolves have gathered to strike at the fey while Persephone works a magic to seal them out of this world forever. But things have gone wrong...her boyfriend and waerewolf Johnny has been injured and is possibly drowning in the Lake. The fey leader Fax Torris is wielding a beam of light hot enough to turn the sands of the shore into glass, and those who would stop the fey are being slain before they can even confront the enemy...

{On his knees within the circle she had drawn in the sand,} Menessos put the willow wand into my hands. “The sacrifices you have made, you made only to see that things are done right,” he said. He aimed the tip of the wand at his chest. “Do this,” he said. “It is the right thing, for the right reason.”
“No.” Horrified, I backpedaled. Limp fingers let the wand fall to the sand.
“There isn’t time to debate, Persephone! I cannot call her to this circle. This is the only option left to us is to sever the bonds so you can seal the gateway.”

“No,” I whispered.
Menessos staggered to his feet.
My legs were jelly. He had placed the wand—a stake!—into my limp hands, and curled my fingers around it. “Let’s give her what she wants. Free her. Let her go home and take her madness with her.”
“Menessos.” I drew a breath. My words came back to haunt me. When have I not accepted the responsibility thrust upon me? When have I drawn the line and said 'No, this is too much?' “No. No. Here, at this, I’m drawing the line,” I said. “This is too much.”
“You are my master, Persephone. I accept what that means. The good and the bad.” He stood straighter. “For you, I will experience death.” He opened his shirt and bared his chest.
I beheld Arthur. My hero and king.
I thought of Seven. She’d chosen love over destiny, and believed herself a failure for her choice. Johnny might be dead already. And Menessos was telling me to kill him, as well. Destiny sucked.
“Take pity, Persephone, do not draw this out.”
I nodded, once.
But I couldn’t do it.
I grabbed him into my arms and I pressed my lips to his. A rush of heat blossomed around me. Was it Menessos’s heat or the charm redirecting something dangerous?
The charm.
Screams erupted to my right. I broke the kiss to see two witches taken by the {super heated}beam, reduced to less than ash in an instant. They had been trying to stop Fax Torris, drawing the beam away. But she was back on target.

Menessos whispered, “In signum amoris.” {Means: A sign of love.}
Staring into his eyes, I drew on our bond, just enough. I held him in my mind because I could not hold him in my arms.
“By your hand, let it be done.”
My heart thudded once and my world slowed as battle-heightened senses went dull. I heard only my own tardy heartbeat in my ears, the shift of fabric as I drew back my arm.
Johnny. And now Menessos.
Seven was right: there's no romance in war.
I accept the good and the bad.
I staked Menessos.

I didn’t look away from his eyes, even to see his crimson life leaking away. The drops splattered warm across my hand, and spilled down his chest in a gush that should not have been possible. I felt the life leaving him, fleeing him almost as if his heart had seized up, forcing all his blood out at once to make a quick end. He made no sound. He drew no breath, let none escape. But his set jaw slackened.

I knew a choking thick darkness was swallowing him.
His knees gave. But his gray eyes never left mine.
All the threads that held us were taut; stretching, threatening to snap. I felt the cords grow thin, frayed with his dying. The friction of my will against this inevitable death grew white hot. All at once it snapped.
My hands shot out, fisting in his shirt, clutching his body. I went down on my knees, too . . . and still he was slowly slumping away from me. I pulled him back into my arms. I will not let go.

His head fell forward to rest on my shoulder. Clinging to him, I wept.

I will not let go.
Wiping my hand across my face, my tears mixed with the blood on my fingertips. I drew the five-pointed star on his forehead. A witch’s symbol. “You are mine.”
Even with my lids shut tight, I could not dam the flow of more tears.
“Element of Earth! I call you to my circle.” My voice cracked and I choked. “Element of Air! I call you to my circle. Element of Fire! I call you to my circle. Element of Water! I call you to my circle.” My words were bitter, mumbled sobs, as I gave in to the grief and cradled Menessos to me.
Such a long, long life, and so devastating that it should end this way, over fairies he had only sought in desperation to find the end of his curse. A curse that made him all he now was. I was bringing to fruition the ending Ezreniel intended from the start.
Eyes still shut—I could not look at him—I raised my head high and cried out, “Goddess! Hear me!” My voice was clear and defiant.
   This guarantee, sealed by me,
     by your blood and by my tears.
   This guarantee, sealed by me,
    the promise of many more years!
I yanked the wand from his chest. On my end of our severed bond, frayed edges became taloned claws. Mine.

The claws surged into the receding dark, grasping for the threads. Mine. I willed more strength down the line, to coil about the cords and refasten them, stronger than before. Mine!

3 More Ways To Put Emotion on the Page

Yep, I'm brazenly camping onto Jeffe's Sunday How To post with three more tips to infuse emotion into your story.   


1. Dedicate One Revision to Emotion and Just Emotion
I'm the sort of writer who writes in layers, kind of like a painter building up the canvas. The first draft is a series of connected actions. The second draft is dedicated solely to crawling inside the characters' heads for every action, conflict, and discovery to answer:

• How does X feel right now?
• Why does X feel this right now?
• Do X's actions accurately reflect X's emotions?
• How does this feeling change by the end of the sequence/scene?
• How do X's new feelings change X's goals, motivations, and/or conflicts?

2. Good Action Scenes Demonstrate Emotional Causes and Effects
Every good action scene--from blood-baths to bouncing bed-springs--begins with and is driven by emotion. The action ends with a confirmation of perspective or a change in outlook.

• Who is the instigator? 
• Why is s/he instigating?
• What does he/she hope to achieve?
• Who is the adversary? 
• Does the adversary choose to engage? Why?
• How is short-term success achieved? For whom? Why/Why not?
• Is long-term success achieved? For whom? How? 
• What are the consequences of failure?
• What are the consequences of success?
• How are the instigator and the adversary different from when the engagement started?
• What will they do differently in the future? Why?

3. There Must Be Change

We're all told that a protagonist who doesn't grow over the course of the story is a boring protagonist. Emotional evolution has to happen, both the better and the worse. A character who becomes a "better man" with a "darker soul" is an interesting character, a character who offers reader-retention because s/he is unpredictable. Right? Right. So how do we make that happen?

With every action scene, with every conflict, and with every discovery.
With every notable experience.

Experiences are tethered to our memories by emotions. How we react at the onset of a stimulus is determined by the emotion provoked. How we assimilate the whole experience once it is over is determined by the series of emotions that came into play. Our brains unconsciously log the tumult of feelings throughout the engagement. There are those of us hardwired review/replay ad nauseam every experience that provoked an intense emotion. The extreme analysis of the minutia (which may prevent us from falling asleep at night) is our way of retraining our brains to react to future stimuli in the way we wish we had reacted.

The great thing about being an author is we can use that conflict analysis on our characters to align "did" with "ought to have" in revisions. Hence, the reason to dedicate at least one revision to infusing emotions into your characters--and through your characters--into your story.

Three Ways to Put More Emotion on the Page

I snapped this pic yesterday for a Happy Caturday flash giveaway of a friend's book. It's the good life around here. :-)

So this week's topic is Putting Emotion on the Page - A How To. Pretty baldy stated, huh? No meandering about with theory or anecdotes. Nope - the calendar demands a How To and thus we must step up and deliver. I'm really looking forward to the posts from the other Word Whores.

Because I feel like I'm not very good at this.

A lot of it comes from my INTJ nature. (If you're not familiar with that Meyers-Briggs personality designation, INTJ is here.) The TL:DR upshot is that I'm a rational thinker and judger, rather a feeler and perceiver. If you did read that page, you will have seen how many times they mention that INTJ's are not naturally good at expressing themselves or explaining their non-linear thought processes.

(Hoo boy! I'd forgotten the bit about non-linear thought processes. This explains SO much about my writing process and why I can't pre-plot to save my life.)

In line with this, it was difficult for me, when I first began writing fiction, to get emotion on the page. I'm firstly more a fan of rationality over emotion, and secondly not that great at communicating the emotion I do believe in.

That said, I think I've gotten better at this. Reviews on my recent books say things like "this book is as touching as it is torrid" and "swooningly romantic."

So here are three things I've learned to put more emotion on the page

1) All emotion is emotion

I learned this from Sarah MacLean's workshop at RWA National. She said that if you can get your readers to feel one emotion, that opens the door to them feeling all the emotions. This was totally a Eureka! moment for me and I've found it's really true. More, it's so much easier to start the story with emotions like humor or anger and let those pave the way to the deeper, squishier and trickier emotions like love and desire.

2) Steal from the poets

The language of emotion is not the language of rationality. There's no room for complete sentences and rigid prose when conveying emotion. Instead, access poetic devices like cadence and assonance to create a mood that echoes the characters' emotional states. Pay particular attention to word choice in very emotional scenes. In writing novels, we frequently can't dwell on every word and phrase like the poets can, with their shorter works, but we can in certain scenes. Word choice - the sound, resonance, and assonance - plays into creating that feel.

3) Reach for the metaphor

A lot of emotional language has become cliché - partly because emotions ARE so difficult to put into words. We run to the typical metaphor - I love you with all my heart, weeping as if her heart would break, so angry she sees red - because those are shortcuts to describe huge emotions that defy easy description. When I'm tempted to use a cliché, I take that as a sign that something enormous lurks beneath that I'm trying to gloss. On those occasions, whether in drafting or going back over to revise, I try to dig deep for my own description. What does it feel like to ME in those moments? Whatever comes to me, that's what I go for, no matter how unusual or bizarre. It's about the poetry, not the rationality.

Anyone else have good tips to share?