Fires of Heaven by Daniel Dos Santos

Vacations at my house are practically non-existent. It’s not a bad thing, because we don’t have the feeling that we need to escape from our ‘regular’ life into a more relaxed one for a week or two. When I do go away, it’s more of a working vacation – chaperoning scout camp, for example. I think I don’t do well on vacations, because last year I managed to have the other five people in my home (husband and all 4 kids) away at various scout camps all on the same week. My plan was to do whatever I wanted and pick a big project that would be too difficult to do with four kids skulking about. I sank into a major funk and instead of doing amazing things I watched bad TV and missed my family.

My most recent time away was this past weekend. Everyone but my eldest son attended Boskone. Ben felt his time would be better spent playing video games and watching TV at home, and as he’s just shy of 16, we let him. The other three kids had a varying amount of fun, but I think they’d all agree it was better than hanging out at home with their parents and doing their chores. Sort of a kid’s version of ‘it’s better than a knife in the eye’.

Me? I love Boskone. This was my eighth year attending – but it seems like I’ve been going forever. One caveat: I’m not fond of the hotel, its scratchy sheets, its location or the lack of reasonably priced food in the area. We wind up getting a lot of food delivered to the hotel which my husband completely takes care of. And now might be a good time to mention that this is no vacation for him – he wrangles the kids, makes sure they eat something approaching nutritious at mealtimes and when he has a free moment or two he likes to spend it with me, listening to Spec Fic writers. Without his help, I’d have to go alone, and you already know what I’m like when I’m completely without family.

Rather than tell you everything about each panel I went to, I’m going to give you the best line from each one.

How to Build a Genius: Cat Valente prefers broken to whole geniuses because it’s easier to be emotionally invested in a not perfect person. I completely agree.

Winter is Here – How Game of Thrones Plays on TV: Teresa Nielsen Hayden says good writing is the best special effect.

Why I Love/Hate Heinlein: Why do people re-read Heinlein despite some obvious flaws? His future was optimistic and you come away with the feeling that you can make the future that good. I love Heinlein because he was the first Science Fiction I’d ever read. So I love him in the way you always have a soft spot for your high school sweetheart.

Occupy SF: The Corporation in Speculative Fiction: The panel discussed the role of the sociopath in the modern workplace (scary!) where they are the most successful because they are willing to do whatever is necessary. My husband has an excellent quote about this:

SF/F/H as a Mirror on Society: Spec Fic writers treat the things we are afraid of in a more distancing way so we can deal with it. Examples include: torture on BSG (new series), what happens when the bad guys win (Game of Thrones).

The Writing of Short Fiction: Jim Kelly determines how long a piece should be based on how long he wants to spend on the particular idea. Interesting – I never thought to look at story length this way.

How Not to Produce an eBook: Neil Clarke says friends don’t let friends use Smashwords for formatting.

Send in the Clones: The Near Future of Bioscience: Our next plague will likely come from viral diversity – areas that human populations are moving into for the first time where viruses will jump species.

Certainty is for Wimps: Unstable Reality in SF: People feel like we cannot believe what we hear/read/see right now in the news. This holds true for all political views – no one feels secure – so this fear is bleeding into the arts.

My Top Ten Tips for the Prospective Author: John Scalzi says the idea isn’t to write every day (although that’s not bad), but to perpetually think ‘now is a good time to write’.

How Not to Lose the Plot: If a cellphone call, a reasonable conversation or a machine gun can fix the problem, your plot is in trouble. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve yelled at my TV for stupid plots like that.

How Bad Can a Hero Be?: A harsh woman, even if heroic, is viewed more as a villain unless she had been abused or broken and is seeking vengeance – Lisbeth Salander from the Steig Larsson novels, for example.

Surviving the Apocalypse: My favorite panel of the weekend – Myke Cole kept it light and fun and after a weekend of heavy thinking that’s what my brain needed. Jim Macdonald made an excellent point – if there’s an apocalypse, try to wait for 6 months before joining the military because at that point there will be veterans who will be more equipped to keep you alive.  Also, blades don’t need to be reloaded. Honestly, it was a fun panel.

Finally, I’d like to thank all writers, musicians, magicians and artists (not to mention the people in charge) for stopping by the Dragonslair and entertaining the kids. It’s easy for the younger kids to drop off most people’s radar and I’m grateful every year that Boskone entertains the kids as well as the adults.

Ordinarily, a movie like this wouldn’t be on her radar, but we were watching Dr. Who on BBC America and after that was a ‘Making Of’ special that caught her attention. I’m not nearly well-informed enough about British politics to have an intelligent opinion on Thatcher, but when my daughter says she wants to see a movie about a woman running a country, we’re going.

To top it off, she needed some one-on-one mom time, so our fate for Saturday was sealed.

I wouldn’t say this movie is appropriate for all 8-year-olds, but she’s our youngest and with three older brothers she’s already seen her share of material inappropriate to her age. The war and rioting footage in this movie was no worse than she’s seen when her brothers are watching TV. My best guess is that a 10-year-old who watches the nightly news would be prepared for this movie. And, I almost forgot, there is a brief glimpse of a topless woman in some news footage. This was fine for my daughter to see, but you’ll have to make up your own mind on that one.

As for me, the more normal a strong, powerful woman seems to my daughter, the better.

The reason this movie held her attention is that it focused enough on Thatcher’s personal life that she was never bored by the political scenes.

Here’s a mini-interview I did with her over lunch:

Me: How did you like the movie:

Tirzah: Great!

Me: What did you think of Margaret Thatcher?

Tirzah: She was the strongest woman I’ve ever seen.

Me: What did you like about her?

Tirzah: She didn’t let anyone push her around and that made her a great role model, except for the sleeping.

(Thatcher said she only slept 4 or 5 hours a night and Tirzah sleeps for 11 or 12 and she knows it’s important to be well-rested.)

And did I like the movie?

Yes, I did. But I’ll warn you, I’m pretty sure the harsh realities of the Thatcher government were glossed over. Since our reason for seeing the movie did not include ‘History Lesson’, this didn’t bother me, and any story of a woman leader (fictional or not) would have suited our purposes equally well. The harsh realities of the personal sacrifices Thatcher had to make to rise to power and stay there touched me.

As for the actors – Meryl Streep was fabulous. Jim Broadbent played an excellent Denis and they portrayed a couple who had been through it all and were still together realistically.

If you want to see a fact-filled movie about a controversial leader, I’d give this movie 2 stars. If you want to see a movie about a strong woman making personal sacrifices to lead her country then this is 5 star movie.

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Responsibilities will include: market research, editing and proofreading, formatting ebooks, marketing and sales, newsletter maintenance, light accounting and research. In a nutshell, the position is to take up as much extraneous work as possible so I can focus on writing.

This is a part-time position, approximately 20 hours a week and is in my home in southern NH. Pay is commensurate with experience.

Interested parties should email a resume to Lisa@LisaBouchard.com

I wrote them up in the order I listed in the previous post, but I’m typing them up here in the order they’ll come in the novel to make sure they make sense to me.

I don’t think I need an Ice Monster Prologue, but I haven’t decided which will be my first scene yet.

Main Ghost haunting plot

Protagonist: Kate

Antagonist: Ghost of Myra’s ancestor, who died in the building

Hook: The ghost is angry because Kate and Myra are arguing

Plot Turn 1: The ghost vandalizes Kate’s yarn shop

Pinch 1: Kate and her friend Esther spend the night in the yarn shop and they get distracted and miss the vandal.

Midpoint: Kate realizes it isn’t vandals, but it’s a ghost

Pinch 2: The ghost begins to act out even worse

Plot Turn 2: The ghost settles down when Ted comes into the shop

Resolution: The ghost is not exorcised, but is now at peace

Try/Fail 1: Hire a ghost hunter, but the ghost is too wily

Try/Fail 2:  Hold a séance, but the ghost is too angry to speak nicely to them.

Historical plot

Hook: Myra wants the house Kate lives and works in to be a museum honoring her family

Plot Turn 1: Myra and the former owner of the house had a verbal agreement, but it fell through when he died and left the house to his daughter, who sold it to Kate

Pinch 1: Myra charges into the store, argues with Kate

Midpoint: Myra hires a lawyer to sue Kate

Pinch 2: Lawyers are too expensive and Kate thinks she’ll have to sell and move so she doesn’t loose everything.

Plot Turn 2: The ghost chooses Kate over Myra

Resolution: Kate agrees to honor the dead

Try/Fail 1: Kate tries to hire a lawyer, but he won’t take her case because she can’t afford him.

Try/Fail 2: She tries to talk to the town council, but they won’t hear a personal problem like that.

Romance plot

Hook: Kate bumps into Ted at the donut shop and is a little flirty with her

Plot Turn 1: She invites him to her shop

Pinch 1: They argue in the parking lot

Midpoint: She realizes he’s Myra’s brother and asks him to help

Pinch 2: The ghost behaves when he’s in the yarn shop, because the two families are getting along

Plot Turn 2: He mediates the problem between Kate and Myra

Resolution: He asks her to lunch

Try/Fail 1: He says he can’t work with her against his sister

Not as much detail as I might like so far, but it’s a start and with November coming up soon it may be all that I have time for.

Today we get to my current favorite method of plotting, Dan Wells’ 7 Point System. (Disclaimer – I call it the Dan Wells system, but he says he shamelessly pilfered it from the Star Trek RPG book) I love this system because it gives me enough detail to keep writing and not get stuck wondering what happens next, but it leaves me enough room when I think of fabulous things I just have to add in. Best of all, it’s just as easy to plot your subplots with this system as well.

I first saw this presented as a series of videos on YouTube . The 5 of them take just under an hour, so once you’re done here, go watch them. And while I’m linking to things, Dan Wells has written a YA trilogy that my son and his girlfriend both like (they’re 13), starting with I Am Not a Serial Killer .

So, on to plotting. The seven points are:

• Hook
• Plot Turn 1
• Pinch 1
• Midpoint
• Pinch 2
• Plot Turn 2
• Resolution
• Ice Monster Prologue (OK, so this is optional, but can be used effectively)

You don’t develop your plot this way, though. Here’s the order you work in:

• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Setting
• Resolution – This is the climax, not the denouement. Everything leads up to this point and you need to know what happens here, and whether it’s plot-based, external conflict or whether it’s character-based internal conflict.
• Hook – This is the opposite state of the resolution, automatically creating an arc of progress. You must get your readers invested in the story with your hook or risk them putting your book down after the first few pages and never buying another written by you.
• Midpoint – This is where your characters move from reaction to action. They realize they need to change something, fix something, make something happen. In a mystery, it’s where the sleuth takes the case.
• Plot Turn 1 – Introduction to the conflict. The character’s world changes through meeting new people, a call to adventure, confronting a new idea, learning secrets – whatever you want.
• Plot Turn 2 – Here your character obtains the final thing to do the thing he must in the Resolution. How’s that for vague? It’s the last piece of the puzzle before he can move on to victory. It could be realizing “the power is in you”, or grasping victory from the jaws of defeat. Your character may not even realize he has everything he needs at this time, too.
• Pinch 1 – A pinch is when something goes horribly wrong and forces your characters into action. Often the villain is introduced here. The bad guys attack, peace is destroyed, someone is put into serious danger. Your characters surmount this problem using powers they already have, to help them prepare for bigger conflicts later on.
• Pinch 2 – Here you add more pressure until the situation seems hopeless for your characters. Their first plan can fail, their mentor could die, the villain seems to win. You are putting your characters into the jaws of defeat – make sure the teeth are pointy! Their victory cannot be easy or the reader will feel cheated.

Phew! That’s a lot of pain for your characters. But wait, there’s more! Every novel should have at least two try/fail cycles to make sure the victories are hard-won. Readers love hard-won victories and scoff at simple solutions.

You should also consider The Ice Monster Prologue (IMP). It’s not a real prologue, it can be your first chapter. If you’re writing in world not like our own, you’re going to have to do some world building and, let’s face it, that can be slow reading. The IMP will give your readers danger, excitement and a strong connection with your characters that will sustain them through the next bit of ‘here’s how it all works in this world’.

The first scene in The Matrix is an IMP – Trinity is being chased, running across rooftops in tight leather pants – we’re all interested in what’s going on and stay in our seats to see what happens next. Imagine if the movie started out with Neo in his messy apartment, going to a club but being a wallflower. How interesting is that? Sure, we might watch some because Keanu Reeves is easy on the eyes, but that’s not enough to hold everyone in their seats. If you need one, go ahead and write one.

As I said, you can plot your main storyline and subplots using these seven points. Once you do that, you can interweave them to give your novel the pacing it needs and line them up when you need to create a powerful scene. Give it a try on your plot. I’ll be back tomorrow with my plots in the 7 point system and I’ll show you how I’ll arrange them to have the maximum impact on my readers.

Keep plotting your own novels – only 9 days until we start!

James N. Frey (not to be confused with James Frey (no middle initial), the fibber) has written several books on writing and the one I want to talk about today is How to Write a Damn Good Thriller.

I love this book. It’s easy to understand and follow, and I like how my plot started shaping up with this structure.

He has chapters on:

•             How to develop a damn good idea
•             The villain, your new best friend
•             Secrets of clever plotting
•             The hero
•             Voice and viewpoint
•             Gripping opening, damn good climax and satisfying resolution

And the chapter I want to talk about: How to Plot a Damn Good Thriller.

Before we get there, I cannot urge you strongly enough to BUY HIS BOOK. There are valuable insights and information that I am not going over here that you should know. I’ll wait here while you go order the book.

Back already? Great!

Frey divides his novels into five self-explanatory movements:

•             The Gripping Opening
•             The Evil Plot gets underway and the hero fights a defensive battle
•             Turning Point (often a symbolic death and rebirth), the hero goes on the defensive
•             Hero Confronts Villain, who almost wins, but is finally defeated in a slam-bang climax
•             Resolution, tells what happens to the major characters as a result of the hero’s victory or defeat

Plotting using this structure gives me more detail, more ideas to write towards. For me, more detail is good because I need those guideposts to keep me from going too far astray. The more pieces I have to fill in before I start writing, the faster I will write in November.

Here’s my take on it:

NaNoWriMo 2011 novel (now open for title suggstions):

• The Gripping Opening: Kate opens her shop to see it vandalized, although she heard nothing last night.
• Evil Plot Gets Under Way: Police find no evidence, video cameras also pick up nothing, Meanwhile, she’s getting pressure from Myra to move or sell the house back to her.
• Turning Point: After spending another night in the shop, Kate realizes the vandal is a poltergeist. She is frightened, but decides nothing will keep her from her dreams ever again.
• Hero Confronts Villain: Kate and Todd confront the ghost, who moves on after seeing the families are no longer feuding.
• Resolution: Kate has a small display honoring the ghost of Todd’s family, Myra takes a knitting class and Todd finally expresses his interest in Kate.

This is better, but I think I need more structure for this novel. There are big gaps in my plot here. For example, you don’t know that Myra and Todd are siblings. Also, you only get the briefest hint of subplots here, Myra wants the house because it used to belong to her family and Todd has fallen in love with Kate.

Wait until tomorrow, when we get to my current favorite plotting structure – Dan Wells’ Seven Point System.

When I was a brand new baby writer, I knew nothing.

Literally, nothing.

Sure, I read a lot and thought “How hard could it be? A story’s just a story, I can do that.”

I can hear you laughing from here. Be kind, I was naïve and optimistic and eventually I figured out a lot of stuff.

One of the things I figured out was that stories had structures to their plots and by mastering story structure I could more effectively tell the story I wanted to tell.  So, if some of you are brand new writers, read on because this week could really help.

Over the next few days we’re talking about plot structures and how to plot out a novel.  I am a plotter and I’ve been playing around with different methods for a while now and I’ve found a few good ones that have worked for me in the past.  I’m also going to use the novel I’m writing for NaNoWriMo this year and plot it out in the various structures so you can compare the differences.

So why do people organize their novels around these different structures? Basically, for ease of management. The loose definitions give us a place to write toward and the ability to make sure things happen at the right times. A novel, particularly when you are first starting out, is a monumental undertaking. The sheer amount of information you need to keep track of is daunting. Names, places, emotions, motivations, hidden secrets, past betrayals – it can feel like your life is being taken over by these unruly people and you can’t even yell at them to stop. Well, you could. But trust me, they don’t listen.

The Three Act Structure goes like this:

Act 1 – The Setup

Act 1 is the first fourth of the story, roughly. In this act, you introduce your main character, the ‘normal’ life in your world, what your story is about and your inciting incident. The inciting incident is the event that drives your main character into action. In Star Wars A New Hope (Episode IV) , the inciting incident is when Darth Vader attacks Princess Leia’s ship.

 Act 2 – Confrontation

Act two takes the middle half of the novel. Here you throw obstacles at your main character, small to begin with and then getting larger and larger, forcing your character to grow and rise to the challenges so he will be ready for the biggest obstacle in Act 3.  At some point, it will look like your main character will save the day but something goes horribly awry and pushes your character into a dark moment where everyone, including the reader, has no idea how he will go on to win.  Back to our Star Wars example, the bleak moment and the end of Act 2 is when Ben Kenobi is killed. Luke hasn’t finished his training, he’s lost his mentor and he isn’t ready to be a Jedi yet.

Act 3 – Resolution

Here you write the climax, the time of peak tension where your protagonist and antagonist finally confront each other. Generally, the protagonist wins the day, but not always. The final part of this act is the dénouement, where a new sense of normalcy is reached and the surviving characters have a new sense of who they really are. Once again, in our Star Wars example, Luke destroys the Death Star (climax) and is given a heroes ceremony (new normalcy and sense of who he is).

So, there we are. The Three Act Structure in a nutshell. There’s a wide latitude here, in terms of the details of your plot. You can add as much or as little as you want when plotting.

This year, I’m straying from my usual SF and I’m writing a cozy mystery. I don’t usually use this structure when plotting, but here’s my stab at it:

NaNoWriMo 2011 novel (catchy title, no?)

Act 1: The novel begins with Kate, a 40ish divorcee opening up her yarn shop. She feels something creepy and sees her mannequins have been stabbed by #1 double pointed needles (very thin and pointy).  She calls her friend, Esther to come down and stay with her until the police arrive. Esther says she can’t believe it’s happening again.

 Act 2: The vandalism grows worse, but no one is able to catch the vandals. They are clever enough they don’t get caught by the hidden cameras. Kate thinks it’s Myra, a woman who wants her house and is angry the previous owner wouldn’t sell to her. At the end of the act, Kate and Esther spend the night in the shop and finally realize the vandal is a poltergeist.

Act 3: Facing mounting legal actions from Myra and at her wits end with the ghost, she approaches Todd, Myra’s brother and local ghost hunter for help. When he enters the shop, the ghost settles down. Once he is able to communicate with it, he learns the ghost is reacting to the feud his family had with Kate’s a hundred years ago. Kate’s argument with Myra brought the ghost back, and only his relationship with Kate will put the ghost to rest.

As a plot, I’m going to say that’s pretty vague and weak. By the time November 1^st comes around I’ll need a lot more detail before I start writing.

That’s all right, because tomorrow we’ll move on to James N. Frey’s 5 point system, which gives us a bit more detail to work with.

Let me know how your plotting is going – just 11 more days until we start writing.

 A plotter is, well, someone who plots her novel before she starts writing it. Beginning, middle and end are all known. Characters, motivations, even scenes, all known beforehand. I find it faster to write with an outline and since speed is of the essence in November, I at least start out with an outline.

Pantsers write by the seat of their pants – there’s a variety of levels of “pantsness” – some people know a character or two, some know their situation, some know nothing at all. It’s an exciting way to write – every day is a surprise, every paragraph a revelation.

It can be easy to go astray but the excitement of having your characters act seemingly of their own volition is exhilarating.

There are pros and cons to both methods and fantastic works of fiction have been written by both plotters and pantsers. It doesn’t matter what method you use, it only matters what works for you at this time. Yes, it’s true, some novels may cause youto change your plotting style.

Do what feels right to you, don’t doubt your genius and remember – everything can be fixed during revisions.

The way I tend to write is this: start with a fairly detailed outline and write my heart out until, seemingly out of the blue, what I had planned no longer fits with who my characters have become. At that point, I sit back, re=evaluate and rework my outline to see my new direction. And it’s not just the super-fast NaNoWriMo drafts that I do this for, either. If I take all the time I need to plot, I still wind up doing a mid-novel course correction.

Of course, like almost everything in life, there is no black and white. The plotter/pantser dichotomy is really a continuum. The closer to November 1^st you begin to plan your novel, the more of a pantser your circumstances will force you in to.

So tell me – are you a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in between?