250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Chuck Wendig
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to come together. "Mary Meets Gordon. Belial Betrays Satan. An Earthquake Swallows Snooki." Chart these half-dozen events. Know that you must get to them somehow.
15. The Herky Jerky Plot Shuffle Pivot Point Boogie
You've seen Freytag's Triangle . It's fine. But it doesn't tell the whole story. This is the Internet. This is the
future
. We have CGI. We have
3-D
. Gaze upon the plot from the top-down. It isn't a linear stomp up a steep mountain. It's a zig-zagging quad ride through dunes and jungles, over rivers and across gulleys. You're a hawk over the quad-rider's shoulder -- watch it jerk left, pull right, jump a log, squash a frog. More obstacles. Greater danger. Faster and faster. Every turn is a pivot point. A point when the narrative shifts, when the audience goes right and the story feints left.
16. Plot Is The Beat That Sets The Story's Rhythm
Plot comprises beats. Each action, a new beat, a new bullet point in the sequence of events. These establish rhythm. Stories are paced according to the emotions and moods they are presently attempting to evoke. Plot is the drummer. Plot keeps the sizzling beat. Like Enrique "Kiki" Garcia, of Miami Sound Machine.
17. Every Night Needs A Slow Dance
I know I said that plot, at its core, is how everything gets worse and worse and worse until it gets better. Overall, that's true. But you need to pull back from that. Release the tension. Soften the recoil. Not constantly, but periodically. Learn to embrace the false victories, the fun & games, the momentary lapses of danger. If only to mess with the heads of the audience. Which, after all, is your totally awesome job.
18. The Name Of My New Band Is "Beat Sheet Manifesto"
You can move well beyond the tentpoles. You can free-fall from the 30,000 foot view, smash into the earth, and get a macro-level micro-view of all the ants and the pill-bugs and the sprouts from seeds. What I mean is, you can track every single beat -- every tiny action -- that pops up in your plot. You don't need to do this before you write, but you can and should do it after. You'll see where stuff doesn't make sense. You'll see where plot holes occur. Also: wow. A Meat Beat Manifesto joke?
19. Beats Become Scenes Become Sequences Become Acts
Plot is narrative, and narrative has units of measurement: momentary beats become scenes of a single place, scenes glom together to form whole sequences of action and event, and sequences elbow one another in the giant elevator known as an "act," where the story manifests a single direction before zig-zagging to another (at which point, another act shifts). Think first in acts. Then sequences. Then scenes. And finally, beats. Again, take that 30,000 foot view, but then jump out of the plane and watch the ground come to meet you.
20. Your Sexy Mistress, The Subplot
In real life, don't cheat on your spouse or lover. Not cool, man.
Not cool
. As a writer, you don't cheat on your manuscript, either: while working on one script or novel, don't go porking another one behind the shed. But inside the narrative? The laws change. You
need
to cheat on your primary plot. Have dalliances with sub-plots -- this is a side-story, or the "B-story." Lighter impact. Smaller significance. Highlights supporting characters. But the sub-plot always has the DNA of the larger plot and supports or runs parallel to the themes present. Better still is when the sub-plot affects, influences or dovetails with the larger plot.
21. Beneath Subplot, A Nougaty Layer Of Micro-Plot
Every little component of your story threatens -- in a good way, like how storms threaten to give way to sun, or how a woman threatens to dress up as your favorite Farscape puppet and sex you down to galaxy-town -- to spin off into its own plot. Your tale is unwittingly composed of tiny micro-plots: filaments woven together. A character needs to buy a gun but can't pass the legal check. His dog runs away. He hasn't paid his power bill. Small inciting
15. The Herky Jerky Plot Shuffle Pivot Point Boogie
You've seen Freytag's Triangle . It's fine. But it doesn't tell the whole story. This is the Internet. This is the
future
. We have CGI. We have
3-D
. Gaze upon the plot from the top-down. It isn't a linear stomp up a steep mountain. It's a zig-zagging quad ride through dunes and jungles, over rivers and across gulleys. You're a hawk over the quad-rider's shoulder -- watch it jerk left, pull right, jump a log, squash a frog. More obstacles. Greater danger. Faster and faster. Every turn is a pivot point. A point when the narrative shifts, when the audience goes right and the story feints left.
16. Plot Is The Beat That Sets The Story's Rhythm
Plot comprises beats. Each action, a new beat, a new bullet point in the sequence of events. These establish rhythm. Stories are paced according to the emotions and moods they are presently attempting to evoke. Plot is the drummer. Plot keeps the sizzling beat. Like Enrique "Kiki" Garcia, of Miami Sound Machine.
17. Every Night Needs A Slow Dance
I know I said that plot, at its core, is how everything gets worse and worse and worse until it gets better. Overall, that's true. But you need to pull back from that. Release the tension. Soften the recoil. Not constantly, but periodically. Learn to embrace the false victories, the fun & games, the momentary lapses of danger. If only to mess with the heads of the audience. Which, after all, is your totally awesome job.
18. The Name Of My New Band Is "Beat Sheet Manifesto"
You can move well beyond the tentpoles. You can free-fall from the 30,000 foot view, smash into the earth, and get a macro-level micro-view of all the ants and the pill-bugs and the sprouts from seeds. What I mean is, you can track every single beat -- every tiny action -- that pops up in your plot. You don't need to do this before you write, but you can and should do it after. You'll see where stuff doesn't make sense. You'll see where plot holes occur. Also: wow. A Meat Beat Manifesto joke?
19. Beats Become Scenes Become Sequences Become Acts
Plot is narrative, and narrative has units of measurement: momentary beats become scenes of a single place, scenes glom together to form whole sequences of action and event, and sequences elbow one another in the giant elevator known as an "act," where the story manifests a single direction before zig-zagging to another (at which point, another act shifts). Think first in acts. Then sequences. Then scenes. And finally, beats. Again, take that 30,000 foot view, but then jump out of the plane and watch the ground come to meet you.
20. Your Sexy Mistress, The Subplot
In real life, don't cheat on your spouse or lover. Not cool, man.
Not cool
. As a writer, you don't cheat on your manuscript, either: while working on one script or novel, don't go porking another one behind the shed. But inside the narrative? The laws change. You
need
to cheat on your primary plot. Have dalliances with sub-plots -- this is a side-story, or the "B-story." Lighter impact. Smaller significance. Highlights supporting characters. But the sub-plot always has the DNA of the larger plot and supports or runs parallel to the themes present. Better still is when the sub-plot affects, influences or dovetails with the larger plot.
21. Beneath Subplot, A Nougaty Layer Of Micro-Plot
Every little component of your story threatens -- in a good way, like how storms threaten to give way to sun, or how a woman threatens to dress up as your favorite Farscape puppet and sex you down to galaxy-town -- to spin off into its own plot. Your tale is unwittingly composed of tiny micro-plots: filaments woven together. A character needs to buy a gun but can't pass the legal check. His dog runs away. He hasn't paid his power bill. Small inciting
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