Potpourri

Two additions to my book shopping list: I don't plug books, but I e-know these writers and am looking forward to reading their work.

Becky Motew is a member of an Internet writer's circle that I'm fortunate to be a member of. She writes funny -- it is to laugh. Check out Coupon Girl

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Next, a novel by a visitor to Flogging the Quill for whom I did a sample edit some time back. I can tell you that I didn't have much to do. Congratulations to Cornelia Read for A Field of Darkness

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I've finished my WIP, Finding Magic, 82,000 words! A polished version has gone out to several trusted pairs of fresh eyes, and I anxiously wait to see if it plays. It went through a thorough critiquing by a critique group, but that's just 20 pages a month over a year and a half or so, and that's no clue as to whether the story works as a whole.

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Reminders: I'll be at the June  Writer's Weekend conference in Bellvue, Washington, to do my Flash Editing workshop. If you're there, I hope to meet you.

Same goes for October, when I'm doing the workshop at  Write on the Sound conference in Edmonds, Washington.

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Tip of the day: now and then I do a post on computer techniques that help with both creativity and productivity. I've found the bookmarks tool in Word and WordPerfect to be invaluable for navigating around a manuscript. I keep my mss in a single file, and bookmarks are what makes that possible. I know writers who have a separate file for each chapter -- I think all in one works much better. To see what I mean, check out this FtQ post.

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Bridging Conflict Uberagent Donald Maass writes well on writing in Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. After analyzing 100 novels, and writing some of his own, I think he knows whereof he teaches.

One chapter is about "bridging conflict." It's conflict in a story element that's not the main conflict in your story, but one designed to keep the tension up until your story gets the reader to the primary action. He calls it an "interim worry" that makes the opening material matter in a storytelling way.

An example that comes to my mind is the opening scene in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. In a wonderful action sequence, we watch Indiana Jones deal with deadly natives and a series of booby traps to acquire an antiquity treasure. The scene serves to hook us with conflict and action, to give us a great look at Indy's character, and to introduce the antagonist who figures into the story again, but at a much later date.

Maass writes, "Even the anticipation of change is a kind of conflict that can make us lean forward and wonder, What is going to happen?" And that's what every aspect of your narrative should be doing, raising that question, over and over and over again. I recommend Maass's work -- there's much to be learned with the questions and exercises he includes.

I bring this up because of a recently received sample that, while it opens with very nice, professional writing, there's little in the way of tension. I may suggest that the writer look for a way to include some kind of bridging conflict to bait and set a hook in the reader before he swims away.

I'll quote from Mr. Maass's book. "How do you bridge from your opening page to your novel's main events? Do you just get us there, filling space with arrival, setup, and backstory? Or do you use the preliminary pages of your manuscript to build tension of a different sort?"

Well, do you?

See you next week. And if you have questions, please ask.

For what it's worth.

Ray

Free edit in exchange for posting permission. You send a sample that you have questions about and of which you'd like an edit. I won't post it without your permission.

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© 2006 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[Kathleen Bolton]

Congratulations on finishing the novel! Writing one seems like such a foolhardy thing to do, and then a year or so later there it is. All good luck in finding a house for it.