Happy Holidays!

Hope you all have a safe and happy season for your upcoming holiday celebrations!

See you in the coming year.... 

Review: Wired for Story by Lisa Cron (Part 3)

Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
by Lisa Cron

Genre: Nonfiction/Fiction Writing Skills

Publication Date: July 10, 2012

Source: paperback purchase

| Amazon | |Barnes &Noble |

Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets—and it’s a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper.

The vast majority of writing advice focuses on “writing well” as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail—they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain’s hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won’t hold anyone’s interest.

Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

  

Here's Part 3 of my very long review of Wired for Story. Read both Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't yet to make more sense of this part of the review.

My Review – Part 3

Those who are famous for writing often say writing means going deeper in order to dig out the real core of who you are and what message you're trying to get across. In Chapter 5 of Wired for Story, you'll discover just how you can dig up your protagonist's inner issue that drives his every thought, word and deed.

The truth is, everyone of us can only see and comprehend the world around us through our own eyes. We simply aren't privy to any telepathic abilities or technology that allow for reading other people's thoughts, thus we see the world through our own filter. That filter got that way from our personal life experiences and upbringing. We can only see it the way we believe it to be at any given time.

And, so does your protagonist. He will interpret everything that happens to himself and anyone else through his own messed up filter. If he experienced a life-altering moment in his past, then everything from that realization on will be tainted by that shift in his perspective. What you need to do as a writer is pinpoint the moment when that shift in his perspective caused his whole worldview to go off the rails. That's how you dig up his 'inner issue.' And, it's how you will write your entire narrative.

When you develop your protagonist's bio, make sure you pinpoint this moment in his life as well as the time when he first felt the desire to accomplish his story goal. These may end up being one and the same thing. I'll use an example found in the book: in It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's worldview gets skewed when he watches his father get beat down by the town misanthrope, Mr. Potter. He then believes he'll become a failure if he stays in Bedford Falls, thus spurring him to want to leave town and become the success his father never could be. The story eventually leads him to realize just how wrong he was, both internally and externally.

Even if you never show the reader that scene in real time or a flash back, it should be referenced or implied so the reader understands what motivates the character and shapes the direction of the story. And, when you can zero in on this motivation and its cause, you can lead your character to huge emotional growth by the end of the story. If you know anything ahead of time about how your story will end, it should be what your protagonist will have learned by the end. Give him an “a-ha!” moment of realization, thus knocking his worldview back into alignment, again.

In Chapter 6, the next important thing we learn about telling a gripping story is the need to be specific. The cognitive secret here is that we don't think in the abstract. “We think in specific images,” says the author. What it means is that anything abstract or conceptual must be made specific in order for the reader to care.

But, why is this? Our brains are lazy and will only think about things that matter to us. So, you need to make the general more specific in order to hook the reader to the emotional appeal of your story. If I said, “A lot of people died years ago in a country far away,” how much interest and emotion does this conjure up in you? Not much, I'm supposing. But, if I said, “280,000 people died in Indonesia in one of the deadliest tsunami/earthquakes in recorded history on the day after Christmas in 2004,” your ears perk up. You might actually care about news like that.

In what ways do writers write in generalities?

1. The specific reason a character does something is often neither implied nor stated outright. Without knowing reasons behind actions, those actions tend to fall flat.
2. The specific thing a metaphor is meant to illuminate is often too vague. Metaphors should be instantly grasped by the reader, or they get missed.
3. The specific memory that a situation invokes in the protagonist is sometimes left to the reader's imagination and, ultimately, never processed.
4. The specific reaction a character has to a significant event can be totally left out, leaving the reader wondering if the character is capable of human feeling and emotion.
5. The specific possibilities that run through the protag's mind as he struggles to make sense of what's happening are often absent so the reader can't even infer what the options are.
6. The specific rationale behind a character's change of heart end up completely omitted, so as to leave the reader wondering how Doug went from being a total wad to giving everybody at the office gift certificates to Starbucks.

Writing a good story is all about making the reader care about the story and the characters. But, keep in mind, less is more. If you clog up the story with too many specific, unnecessary details, you will cause your reader's brain to tune out. We can only process so many things at a time. How the brain functions and what its limitations are will determine how effectively you've crafted your story. And, when those specifics have nothing to do with your protagonist and his inner issue or goal, they will be treated like generalities by the reader. Ignored.

That's it for this part. Now, I'm halfway finished with this super long book review! Tune in next week for Part 4.

Have you noticed you have trouble getting to the heart of your story? Do you see areas in your writing where you could be more specific about why your characters act the way they do?

Week in Review (#10)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Okay, so what did I do last week...?


Last Week's Writing

I spent last week revising my 3rd draft of Pink Knight (my YA fantasy novella), mostly trying to clean up those annoying missing words and clipped sentences. I do both a lot and I thought I caught all my missing words in the 2nd draft, but I found nearly twice as many in my 3rd draft. (My eyes are rolling.) I also needed to add over 1,000 more words to it, but only managed about 500 more. Now, it stands at a total of 28,700 words. 

Last Week's Reading

I started and tried really hard to get into my ARC of Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff, but this book is super, super boring! It does have a few annoying misuses of the honorific "-sama," but only when the main character, Yukiko says it. Not anyone else, which is really weird. Does she not know her own language? 

I got so busy with so many other things, anyway, along with revising my 3rd draft, I decided to put Stormdancer on hold until next week. I continued to read The Click Moment by Frans Johansson, which I'm reading slowly. It is super good and I wish I could just read it all in one go! 

This Week

This week I have my critique partners reading Pink Knight, so I moved up to actually getting eyes on my work. Their feedback will likely come next week, or later, so I can just fret about it all week long. How fun! 

I hope to get Stormdancer finished and find something good about it, after all. But, slow reading is slow. I have a book on self-editing for writers that I also plan to get started on (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers). I seriously can never have enough books on writing craft. I'm always reading one and have been for the past two years straight. Many of them have been really helpful, so I'm glad I picked up this little habit. 


That's it for me this week. I hope you guys are getting your NaNo novels going and keeping up with your word counts. Any advice for how to deal with feedback on my manuscript? I'd love any help I can get there, since I'm nervous.   

Insecure Writers' Support Group (#4)

"Insecure Writer's Support Group" is a monthly meme host by Alex J. Cavanaugh for writers held on the first Wednesday of every month.

For this month's IWSG blog post, I don't really have a lot of writerly problems to share. I'm just getting the 3rd draft of my novella WIP, Pink Knight, taken care of, and hopefully will finish it by the beginning of next week. It certainly is challenging, as it should be, but not discouraging. I haven't received any feedback from anyone just yet, but I will soon, so I may be headed in that direction shortly.

Yikes! Receiving critiques is really scarey, so I just hope I'll be able to handle it well. I know I don't have to let it discourage me, and I won't, but I still hate that shock you feel when you see someone really picking apart your story with reckless abandon. Of course, if they didn't do this, I'd be worse off, so it's a good thing. Like going to the dentist, or getting a shot. Ugh. I hate both, but we all know these are necessary evils to endure because they are good for us.

All I hope for is that I will have tough enough skin to take it and roll with the punches. 


How about you? Do you get nervous before you receive feedback from your beta readers and critique partners?  

I'm Thankful for... My Readers Blog Hop!

Today (through Nov. 8) is the "I'm Thankful for... My Readers!" Blog Hop, hosted by Vikki @ Scribblings of an Aspiring Author & Tara @ Tara Tyler Talks.

The idea is to post your thanks in as creative a way as possible to your readers. Even if you don't have any books for anyone to read just yet, you can give thanks to your blog followers, critique partners and beta readers. This can take whatever form you like--be creative and use your imagination.

I wish I had some really creative way of expressing my thanks to my writer friends and blog followers, but I don't. All I can think of to do is to dedicate one entire blog post to how grateful I am for all of you and your support. I know I wouldn't be continuing on with my dream of publishing my own fiction with anywhere near the level of confidence that I have if not for the little group of people I have with me in my corner. 

If I imagine just living and writing in complete and total isolation without being able to reach out to my friends, like my writing partner Lan from The Write Obsession and Camille from her blog, I feel so strongly that I wouldn't even be halfway to publishing my first novel ever. Thank you two so much for reading my emails and being there to encourage me when I've felt like throwing in the towel. I'm so happy I've been able to be supportive to you both, as well. 

And, to those who have been kind enough to follow my blog and leave comments on my posts here and there, I really appreciate every comment you've left for me to read. Even if I'm not as close to you all, don't doubt for one second that I'm not bolstered up by your kind words and optimism. It makes me want to stick with my goals and achieve them when I have a small audience here paying a little attention to me. I don't like coming off as if I were some sort of flake, so I like that you all keep me honest and on top of things. 

People always say that writing is an isolating occupation and they're right, in a way. But, if you want to actually write, publish what you write and say something that resonates with people, you absolutely cannot write in a vacuum. You need to reach out to others who are going through what you're going through and yoke with each other's burdens. It's the only way to make it all the way to the end, to the place we all, as writers, want to be. My protagonists always seem to need their friends to help them achieve their goals, and I guess I'm no different!

All I can do is say thanks and show how much I mean it by returning all the support my friends and followers have given to me. I hope I can be useful in helping you get to where you want to go, too.

I hope everyone has a productive NaNoWriMo and wonderful Thanksgiving later this month! 

        

Week in Review (#9)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Time for another "Week in Review" post.



Last Week's Writing

I finished revising the 2nd draft of my novella Pink Knight, which took me about 2 weeks in total. I added quite a few more words to it, getting it to around 28,000 words in total. It went well and I added many things that I couldn't think of when I was writing the 1st draft. Writing is rewriting, right?

Last Week's Reading

I finished reading Persuasion by Jane Austen which is a book I'm ashamed to admit took me forever to actually read. I'm a big Jane Austen fan, but I haven't read all of her books, yet. It was pretty good, mostly at the end. I also read Torn by Amanda Hocking and that was much better than I expected it to be. I was seriously impressed. It's the second book in the Trylle Trilogy and Switched was pretty good, but Torn was better. 

I also started reading The Click Moment by Frans Johansson, a book about succeeding in life and business. There's an entire chapter on the random success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, which I agree completely on. Her success was random as has been many other authors' over the years. The 10,000-hour rule doesn't apply to the book industry, otherwise Twilight would have crashed and burned because Meyer was a very inexperienced writer. The Click Moment is an awesome book about being open to the magic of serendipity and letting it guide you to something amazing in your life, if you let it.

This Week

I'll be doing my 3rd draft revision of Pink Knight and sending it off to my beta readers! I need to add about 1,000 more words to it, though, so I hope that goes well. I need to get it into some sort of decent shape as best I can so my beta readers don't think I'm crazy. 

As for reading, I need to get back to reading The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan. I left it off in order to finish Persuasion, but I'm hearing it kicks some major butt in the second half, so it's something to look forward to. I have an ARC of Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff to get to this week, as well. I love Japanese everything, so I was really excited to get this ARC, but I hear it's a nightmare for people who actually know a thing or two about Japanese culture. I'm scared now because the author, apparently, didn't do any real research into the culture and got quite a few obvious things wrong. We'll see how I react to it.

I also got approved for an ARC of Splintered by A.G. Howard, which is a YA fantasy inspired by Alice in Wonderland. How exciting! It comes out on January 1, 2013. From what I see of early buzz, it's super awesome.


Okay, that's it for me. I hope you've had a great week. Did anyone get their NaNoWriMo novels underway? Good luck with that if you're a participant this year.       

   

Review: Wired for Story by Lisa Cron (Part 2)

Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
by Lisa Cron

Genre: Nonfiction/Fiction Writing Skills

Publication Date: July 10, 2012

Source: paperback purchase

| Amazon | |Barnes &Noble |

Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets—and it’s a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper.

The vast majority of writing advice focuses on “writing well” as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail—they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain’s hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won’t hold anyone’s interest.

Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

 

In case you're unaware, I wrote the first part (Part 1) of this book review last week and now I'm continuing on with Part 2 today....

My Review – Part 2

Last week, my review of Wired for Story got into what a story should revolve around in order to consider it an actual story and not just a set of random events. This week's review covers the information in Chapters 3 through 4 about what elements your story needs to have to make it connect with readers.

Emotions are the glue that makes your story and characters stick to the roof of your reader's mouth as he or she laps them up like peanut butter. If your reader isn't having an emotional response to your story, chances are he/she will deem it as unimportant and move on to the next one. Brain science reveals that we cannot even make simple decisions in our lives without emotions driving us to pick a blue shirt over a brown one to wear because it's a nice, sunny day today.

So, how do you make meaningful emotional connections with the reader? Show how what happens to your protagonist affects them and what they do as a result. In every scene you write, your protagonist must react in some way the reader can understand in that moment. The reaction must have an effect on how the protagonist will achieve her goal, which will draw out a very visceral reaction in the protagonist.

Brain scientists have discovered that everything we experience pulls on our emotional heartstrings because, as a species, we are wired to ask ourselves, unconsciously, “Will this help me or hurt me?” We real folks feel everything and when we read about fictional people kind of feeling stuff, but not really, we check out of that story in a hurry. But, why? Because it bores us. We have no interest in anything we cannot feel. We end up not knowing what to think of it and that makes it hard for us to process.

Okay, now we understand this because it does make sense, after all, doesn't it? When you think it about, yes. But, don't we need to delve a little deeper into story to tell a story? Of course. Now, it's time to write characters that have ambitions, or goals to achieve. A protagonist without something to achieve is flowndering and leaves the reader feeling nothing. But, why do protagonists need goals to achieve? Because we real people are always driven to achieve goals, be they the kind in which we want to eat pancakes for breakfast to the kind in which we want to become the next president of the United States.

The thing is, when we read, we slip into the skin of the protagonist for that time and become them. What they want, we want. What makes them happy, makes us happy. Our brains light up on fMRI scans the exact same way when we read about a story happening to somebody else as when it actually happens to us, literally. Basically, our brains can't tell the difference.

So, we cannot find meaning in anything that happens to a character if we don't know what she wants. Was that slap on the butt flirtation or harassment? If your character is a stalwart feminist aiming to take down “the man” and all his “boys,” and the man slapping her is her coworker, then, yes that was harassment. If he is her playful husband teasing her about her new Buns of Steel workout and how hot she looks, then it's flirtation. See how knowing the character and what drives her, you can find the meaning in everything that happens to her?

And, everything that happens to her will be colored by her story goal. It will strengthen in the reader's mind what she is focused on and how what she must go through to achieve her goal will emotionally impact her. But, is it enough to just know what the character wants? Inevitably, the reader will ask, “Why does she want this?” Give your character a reason why they want what they want—a motivation behind it because it will resonate better. Nothing in a story happens in a vacuum just as in real life.

There's so much more that I can't even get into from Chapter 4 because it reaches some serious depths, but this is a tasty sample of what you'll find therein. Next time, for Part 3 in two weeks, I'll get into the chapters on how to probe into your protagonist's inner issue and the importance of writing specifics into your story.

To be continued in Part 3....

Did you ever think story was so complex? It really goes so far beyond our awareness because when we slip into story, that part of our brain that analyzes things shuts off, thus keeping us blind to why the story is resonating with us. Funny, isn't it?