How To Write a Book - Part 3: Structure

In Part 1, I talked about picking the right idea, magical egg whites, and the evils of the god-wizard hybrid Kronos-Voldemort. In Part 2, I talked about refining the idea, Dogniss Nevergreen, The Lost Hunger Symbol, and the secret power of Pop Tart Industries. Now, I'm going to discuss structure, story development, and probably whatever ridiculous thing occurs to me as I'm writing.

There are two basic approaches to story development: top-down and bottom-up. Top-down means that I lay things out according to some kind of system, like the three-act structure, or the Hero's Journey. I focus on plot. Characters become, in many ways, an outgrowth of plot needs. Here's a table showing a structural breakdown of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and The Hunter Chronicles:

	Harry Potter	Percy Jackson	The Hunter Chronicles
Birds-Eye Kicker	Harry left on porch—the boy who lived.	None.	Phineas flees Exile with Sky.
Normal World	Harry lives in closet.	Percy at museum. School problems.	Trapping Phineas in the woods. Moving again.
Inciting Incident	Arrival of owls.	Fight with teacher.	Phineas is missing.
Turning Point	“You’re a wizard Harry.” Go to wizard school.	“You’re a demigod Percy.” Get to Camp Half Blood.	The Arkhon is about to break free. Find your uncle.
Rising Action	Diagon Alley. Missing stone.	Camp Half Blood. Missing lightning bolt.	Search for Phineas/keys. Solve riddles. Survive.
Point of No Return	Harry decides to stop the thief from getting the stone.	Quest to find bolt.	Sky decides to go with Hands to hunt the Gnomon.
Crisis	Traps take out Ron and Hermione, leaving Harry alone to face the thief.	Percy somehow has the bolt and Hades believes he stole it.	Fight with the Jack ends badly. All seems lost.
Climax	Harry gets the stone and fights Voldemort.	Percy fights Ares.	Sky outwits the Arkhon.
Denouement	Harry recovers. Lose ends are tied up.	Percy poisoned and recovers. Lose ends are tied up.	Sky recovers in hospital. Lose ends are tied up.

Now, a few notes:

1. There are many ways to structure a story from the top-down. This is just one of them.
2. The "Bird's Eye Kicker" is something I made up. When working in a third-person limited POV, it's often difficult to get at the larger context of a story. The "Bird's Eye Kicker" is one way to do this and usually takes the form of a prologue. It's a technique that launched the big story very quickly. Prologues have fallen out of vogue with some editors. Why? I have no idea. One reason I've seen is that prologues don't "start on the story," that somehow they're outside the bounds of a story. This seems ridiculous to me. Prologues create mystery, setup core questions, and — most importantly — give the bird's eye view of what is to follow. They can be an integral part of the story, if done well. To avoid the prologue stigma, some books, like Harry Potter, call their prologues "Chapter 1," but they are still prologues with a different POV than the rest of the book.
3. Some curmudgeons will look at this breakdown and declare that these three books are, in essence, the same — that they tell the same story. These nameless "theys" are confusing structure — meta thinking — with plot, or the content of the story. STRUCTURE IS NOT PLOT! Structure is a way to tell a story, an organizing principle. It's the "beginning, middle, and end" bit broken down in more detail. The content — what happens within that structure — is the plot. 

The top-down approach can lead to problems: shallow characters with unbelievable motivations, weak connections between events, and weak subplots. These things arise because characters are forced into situations to fill plot needs rather than having plot stem from character needs.

A bottom-up approach occurs when plot stems from character needs. In my experience, the bottom-up approach leads to better stories and richer characters, but takes much, much longer. The bottom-up approach starts with character. To get at character, I ask four questions:

1. Who is this character?
2. What do they want?
3. How are they going to get it?
4. What's stopping them from getting what they want?

These are the four main questions I ask, and I ask it for every character, not just the protagonist. This creates a complex relationship map. Whose goals are aligned? Whose aren't? How do they deal with conflict?

The most important question through all of this — the one I ask over and over again — is "why?" Why do they want this? Why would this stop them? Why don't they get along? The "why" question creates character depth. It creates back story that I can use to make a character real and a character's motivation significant and meaningful to the reader.

I chart a beginning, middle, and end for each character relationship. Then, I lay out these beginnings, middles, and ends within the story. It's like piecing together a giant puzzle, and the goals of the protagonist are like my corner pieces, showing me where to start. Who are they? What do they want?

Then, I look at my primary antagonist. The antagonist determines plot. If you're having a hard time figuring out your plot, look at it from the eyes of your antagonist. Your antagonist wants something and the protagonist is getting in their way. The story starts when the antagonist makes their first move (Ambrosia and the Wargarou hunt Phineas). The protagonist reacts (Sky searches for Phineas). The antagonist makes another move (shifts into a hunter to search for keys). The protagonist reacts (Sky tries to find keys first), and on and on until the protagonist takes the initiative, forces the antagonist to react, and saves the day.

Once you have the primary relationship mapped, move on to the next most important relationship and work it in (these are your subplots). This is where it gets tricky, and the more characters you have, the trickier it gets. The reason it's tricky is because you're trying to maximize conflict — you want opposing goals. Conflict drives the story. Characters that always get along make for a boring story. At the same time, you've got to manage pacing and keep the story focused. You need to resolve some relationship conflict while, at the same time, weaving in new conflicts to keep things moving.

This requires scene layering, where multiple things are happening simultaneously. I have some scenes in The Hunter Chronicles: Return to Exile where the layering in six or seven layers deep. For example, in the Jack, Sky is searching for Phineas to save him, Crystal has her own reasons, the Jack is stirring, there's a wall that sets up the wall they have to get past later, T-Bone is injured (raising the stakes), the Wargarou is tracking them (which implies that Ursula is dead), and Crystal has spotted a Gnomon (which sets up the Epilogue). It's a busy sequence, but it's probably my favorite in the book.

Believe it or not, when I wrote The Hunter Chronicles: Return to Exile I used a bottom-up approach. The fact that I can lay it out in a top-down grid is coincidental. A top-down structural approach to development can be helpful when you outline the primary protagonist/antagonist plot, but only after you've done the bottom-up work. If you start with top-down, you will have a flat story quickly written that nobody wants to read.

That's it for today. I'll try to put more funny into the next one.

To Kill, or Not to Kill; This is a Question?

As a middle-grade writer, I'm constantly wrestling with the issue of whether or not to kill someone. In my story, I mean. Particularly at the beginning of a story. I think the reason parents are either rotten or absent in middle-grade novels is because it's a fast and easy way to engage reader sympathy. Somehow, I have to make a reader care about my protagonist within the first 10-20 pages. I can do this by:

1. Creating a burning, unanswered question. 
2. Pitting the world against them. 
3. Making them orphans.

Harry Potter does all three of these things within the first 20 pages. Percy Jackson hits the first two and compounds the sympathy by adding Smelly Gabe in place of a father.

In Return to Exile (only two more weeks to release!), I gave Sky, my protagonist, great parents and turned their very goodness into a roadblock. But this took time. To get immediate reader interest, I relied on burning questions and a cruel world.

It's hard to work strong adult allies into a middle-grade novel, and keep them there, because the reader will always be asking "why in the world is that kid in charge?" And most the time, the answer to that question feels very contrived.

If anyone knows of other things that work well in engaging immediate reader interest, other than the three things I've listed, I'd love to hear about it!

How to Write a Book - Part 2: Considerations

As I write this, the thought that keeps spinning through my mind is, "there are thousands of blogs that give great advice on writing; why bother with another?"

The answer: mind your own business, brain!

Lesson 1 in writing: ignore your brain, especially when it says stuff that makes sense.

Lesson 2 in writing: this is not a blog on the craft of writing, even though I may occasionally post on the subject. This is less of a writing lesson and more of a moronic statement about my blog.

Lesson 3 in writing: eat Pop Tarts. I say this only because I'm hoping that someone who works for Pop Tart Industries will read this blog and send me Pop Tarts. Also, it's a little known fact, but Pop Tart Industries controls 99% of the world's book blogs, and by mentioning them, you can ensure your book receives only positive reviews. It's true. Look it up.

Okay. Now I've forgotten what my point was.

According to the title of this post, I'm supposed to discuss "considerations"—whatever that means. It sounds like something I just made up. Hm.

Well, until I remember, let's pick up where I left off on the last "How to Write a Book" post: with the masons.

I had a concept: in a dystopian future where games turn deadly, masons hide secret symbols in the crumbling ruins of the United States Capitol—secrets that could stop the games forever and save us all.

Let's call our protagonist "Dogniss Nevergreen" for simplicity, and let's name the story "The Lost Hunger Symbol." 

If it wasn't obvious already, the pitch line is: The Hunger Games meets The Lost Symbol. The pitch line lets the reader (particularly, the agent and editor) know how to categorize your story. It's like saying, "if you liked these two books, you might also like mine." 

Next, I need to identify how my story is unique. 

The great paradox of publishing is that publishers want an easily categorized story, so they can predict sales, and, at the same time, they want a story that's unlike anything else on the planet. In other words, they want something that's the same in a unique way.

My story is the same in that... 
It's YA. There is a game. A secret group has hidden symbols.

My story is different in that...
The game takes place underwater. The symbols are hidden in electronic transmissions. Dogniss must reach the surface before he can interpret electronic symbols. At the end of the game, the winner gets a lifetime supply of scrumptious Pop Tarts.

The things I choose to focus on within the story can also help me tell a different story. Is Dogniss trying to escape or is he trying to change the game from within? Does the secret group appear in the story or do they just leave clues behind that allow Dogniss to escape? There are literally thousands of questions I could ask, and I could easily get bogged down. This is bad. Don't do this. If you get bogged down in questions, take a break, eat a Pop Tart, and try writing something.

Before I start writing, I don't need to answer all of these questions--many of these questions don't even occur to me until I start writing--but I like to answer the big ones. 

1. What is it about my story that I believe will appeal most to my chosen audience? This is my focus point, the thing I organize around, and the place where I should start the book.
1. In The Lost Hunger Symbol, I might focus on the death of the secret group, or the horrible conditions in which Dogniss lives. Do I want to explore who Dogness is as a person and how he reacts to events, or do I believe that my readers will be more interested in the puzzles, or in the mystery of the secret order? Each of these things can feed into the story, but if I try to balance all of these elements equally, I won't do justice to any of them, my story will lose focus, and my readers will get bored. I need ONE focus point, and that's where I start.
2. How is my story different from other stories, particularly popular stories, and are those differences substantial enough that it's worth writing the book?

To help me focus, I'll usually do a sort of "brand design schematic" in my head. This is basically where I take words, images, ideas, music, bits of dialog—anything that I want associated with my story—and I lay them out on a grid. This grid comes to represent the space I want to "own"—the areas where my story is entirely unique.

Harry Potter "owns" several things now because of the books: lightning bolt scars and the phrases "the boy who lived" and "he-who-must-not-be-named," to give but a few examples. Identifying these things beforehand helps me further refine and target the story. It helps me generate mood and focus on things that, I believe, matter to my readers.

Alright. Enough for now. If others out there in the blog-o-sphere-o-verse have tips for picking and refining the right concept for a story, please make a comment. And, if Pop Tart Industries is watching (I know you are), I like the blueberry ones.

How to Write a Book - Part 1: Approach

The first draft of The Hunter Chronicles Book 2 is finished and I sent it to my editor at Simon & Schuster yesterday. Huzzah!

Today, I’m starting on a new series. Nearly a year ago, I pitched several ideas to my agent, Steven Malk of Writer’s House (this is his informal title; his formal title is Steven of the Very Helpful Insights, though I usually just call him “Glorious One” to keep it simple (he prefers it that way, if you’re thinking of querying him. May your query letters abound o’ Glorious One! *Note: the Glorious One is not accepting query letters at the moment, as far as I know. **Note: referring to your agent as “the Glorious One” is not recommended)).

Steve has an amazing eye for market and story. He knows what publishers will buy and what readers will read, and where the two occasionally meet. From the half dozen or so ideas I sent him, he picked one he thought had real potential and we’ve been going back and forth on it ever since.

Finding a good idea, especially one that hasn’t been done before, is very difficult. In children’s lit, if I write a book involving children and magic, I will get compared to Harry Potter, and if I write a book that touches on mythology, I will get compared to Percy Jackson. J.K. Rowling and Rick Riordan weren’t the first to write on these subjects, but they did it best, and became the standard. They own the space, at least for the next decade or two.

That doesn’t mean I can’t write a book about a demigod that goes off to school and learns he’s a wizard; it just means that if I do, I need to write it in an entirely different way. I need a different approach, and defining the approach begins when I move from idea to concept.

Example idea: boy discovers he’s a demigod and goes to school to become a wizard.

Derivative, right? Now for the concept… 

Example concept: an orphaned boy discovers he’s a demigod after his goddess mother appears to him in a bowl of egg whites. Upset that he’s been orphaned, the boy rejects his heritage and attends a school for outcasts, where he learns to become a wizard, and finds out his father is a god-wizard hybrid named Kronos-Voldemort.

Okay, wow… I actually like that concept now that I’ve written it. But the point is, approach matters more than the idea. Don’t get me wrong—a bad idea will kill a book—but the right approach can save many bad ideas, whereas not even the greatest writing can save a bad approach. Great writing and a bad approach is called “literature” and nobody wants to read it.

The approach is my jumping off point. An approach includes my choices for milieu, plot, character, prose style — everything I will need before I write a single line of the actual book. Only when I’ve finished the book will I have a “story.”

That’s all for now. Next time, I’ll either forget to follow up on this, or I’ll write something about a dystopian future where games turn deadly, and masons hide secret symbols in the crumbling ruins of the United States Capitol — secrets that could stop the games forever and save us all... (:$@$:)

Anatomy of a Monster

Creating monsters, whether for stories, or in real life, takes some work. Especially in real life. It's not as simple as swapping human bits with animal bits, or digging up dead body parts and reanimating them in a lightning storm, or sprinkling glitter all over your skin and talking in a low voice, or changing your name to Larry.

Trust me. These things don't work. If they did, you'd be reading a blog written by a glittery penguin with the head of an ostrich, and Mark Twain's eyebrows. Also, I would be called Larry, and as I am clearly not called Larry, but E.J., it is clear that these things don't work. Not alone anyway.

If your goal is simply to create something for your story characters, or your bored friends, to hunt on a deserted island, boarding school, or starship, then by all means, hunt the glittery penguin. The penguin's motivation is simple: it's very hungry and Mark Twain's eyebrows have given it ideas about the fine quality of human meat. It must die. Cut it off from the glitter supply that's made Mark Twain's eyebrows sentient, and you've got an ending.

But lately, it seems, glittery penguins are beginning to get the cold shoulder in most mediums, particularly books.

Monsters have become not just something to kill, but something to understand, something to root for. In many instances, monsters have become the new hero by conquering their dark nature and rising to the story challenge.

Characters like Professor Lupin and Hagrid in Harry Potter, or the Cullen family in Twilight, or Rauschtlot in Return to Exile (yes, I just referenced my own book) are perfect examples. These types of characters represent a dramatic and encouraging shift in the way we tell stories. Thinking in terms of us versus them and good versus evil has led to some of the worst behaviors and wars in history.

Nearly everyone is good in their own mind, and if they're good, then those who oppose them must be evil. When both sides see themselves as right and good, war, in all its shapes and forms, is the inevitable outcome. And when I say war, I'm talking about everything from heated arguments between individuals to conflicts between nations. That's not to say that there aren't good and bad things--because there are--but good and bad people are a different matter entirely.

The best monsters are not creatures of external horror, but of internal complexity. Give them terrible urges and needs. Give them reasons to be better than they are. Show them struggling against their natures. In other words, make them like us. Because in the end, none of us are human.

We are all monsters.

How I Got Published

I should have posted this last year sometime, but better late than never, I suppose.

My publishing story is fairly straightforward. I sent query letters to top agents (ten of them). Within a few days, three of them requested my manuscript. Steven Malk with Writer's House responded first (that same day) and asked for a two week exclusive, which I gave. When the next two requests came in later that week, from two more outstanding agents, I started wringing my hands--not the greedy Mr. Burns sort of wringing. It was more the "what have I done by giving someone a two week exclusive" kind of wringing (it's a very unique sort of wringing, and looks hilarious if you can get it on camera).

Steve came back with a soft offer: good book, needs work, I'll work with you to get it ready for publishers. This was not a formal offer of representation, and I was left with a dilemma: submit the manuscript to the other two agents or accept Steve's soft offer. I decided to work with Steve and it turned out to be a serendipitous fit.

With more hand wringing (still not the greedy kind) I delivered the second draft to Steve several months later. He was ecstatic about the changes, many of which had come about as a direct result of his extensive notes. I had kept one paragraph and a few character names from the original submission, and nothing else--no scenes, no plots, not anything. The book went from a lighthearted and humorous 300 page romp to a 512 page monster, with depth, complex plotting, a fantastic yet believable milieu, and detailed characters with compelling motivations.

It had become epic.

After submitting to publishers, and much hand wringing (the greedy kind), we had interest within a few days. After a week and a half or so, Courtney Bongiolatti (my awesome editor), at Simon & Schuster BFYR (my awesome publisher), came in with a pre-empt (an offer high enough to dissuade other publishers from entering an auction). This put the other interested publishers on the fence, and we nearly had an auction anyway, but the pre-empt was high enough to serve its purpose. We took the offer after a bit of negotiation. The release date was set for 1 1/2 years later (September 6, 2011)--an accelerated schedule in fiction (most the time it's two years, I think).

Now, a few things you should know if you are trying to find an agent and get into writing:

1. My case is unusual. Most agents (especially top agents) get hundreds of query letters each week, and out of those hundreds, they might request one or two manuscripts, which they usually reject. In a given year, and after somewhere around 20,000 queries, by my estimates (feel free to correct me if you know otherwise), a top agent might pick up ten clients, depending on their existing list. My agent (Steven Malk) is a top five agent in children's lit (usually he's number one depending on the week--go Steve!). Children's lit and YA is just about all he reps. Most agents have a specialty and it's important to find an agent that specializes in your category.

2. Though everyone will tell you that query letters don't work, and that you should try networking and conferences, I have two friends (Dave Butler and Platte Clark) who have recently been picked up by agents because of query letters, and one of them (Platte Clark) got a three book deal with Aladdin last week. I referred both of these friends to my agent, and he passed. Networking didn't work. All three of us got representation purely based on the strength of our query letter and writing, so while odds are definitely stacked against you, query letters can work.

3. Nearly every major fiction imprint will not accept manuscripts unless they are submitted by an agent. In fiction these days, you have to have an agent, or you will be limited to small presses or self-publishing, which isn't a bad thing, it just means you have fewer options. Agents will more than make up for their fees during negotiations with the publisher and having an agent will increase your range of options.

4. Subscribe to Publishers Marketplace for at least a month ($20) and browse through recent deals. Publishers Marketplace lists many of the book sales at major publishers, and some of the smaller publishers. Find books similar to yours. Search for the publisher that bought the book, and then find the agent who sold it (all of this info is on Publishers Marketplace). You can also find rankings on which agents have sold the most books in a specific category (like middle grade or YA). These are the agents you want to query. Research these agents and make sure you follow their submission guidelines.

5. In a query letter, do your best to demonstrate how your story is better than what's in the market, how it's different, and yet also how its recognizable within a category. Ask yourself, who would read this? Why? What's the heart of the story? What drives a reader to keep turning the page? What is the source of conflict (not fighting and arguing--but a strong character, with a strong need and strong, sometimes insurmountable, obstacles in her way)? Answering these questions and then putting those answers in your query in a compelling fashion will get an agent's attention. Also, figure out how your book would be categorized, where it would sit in a store, or online retailer, and what books it would sit next to, and then read those other books. Referencing these other books will help agents know where you fit and who to sell your book to. My query referenced Harry Potter. The line was something like "my book has the same audience, and is in the same genre as Harry Potter, or any other book you happen to like."

Finally, don't give up unless you're a sucky writer or you're feeling lazy. How do you know if you're a sucky writer? Because you're lazy. Your first book will almost always suck. Write it, and then toss it in the garbage and write something good. Okay, that's a bit harsh, but recognize that your first draft of your first book will be bad. You'll be tempted to cling to what you've done, or try some minor revisions. It won't work. You've learned much by writing it. Now, use that knowledge to visualize a better way and get to work. Use an axe, not a razor. You may even want to start with a blender. Then, switch to a carving knife, and then a small steak knife with a pretty handle, and then... well, you get the idea.

But don't inundate agents with queries for first draft sucky books. You'll only be disappointed and agents are busy enough as it is.

If you have any questions, corrections, or advice for getting published, feel free to make a comment.