Ariele University: On Writing by Stephen King

If you’ve been following along for any period of time, you’re familiar with my Fake Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and Indie Publishing from Ariele University.

Well, good news! I think I’m going to graduate this year! As such, you’ll probably see a surge of posts about writing as I complete my remaining assignments. You’ll also hear about my thesis project, which is rapidly nearing completion.

Today, I bring you a few, very short thoughts on the book On Writing, by Stephen King.

A Few Thoughts About ON WRITING by Stephen King

For as long as I’ve been involved in the writing community, people have been recommending the book On Writing by Stephen King. It is held up as the ultimate book on writing, due in no small part to the fact that its title is literally On Writing, it is LITERALLY a book on writing. To this end, I resisted reading it for a long time. I was worried that since everyone loved it so much, I would be disappointed.

Eventually, after I started doing a lot of workshops and presentations, I decided I should suck it up and read the stupid book. After the hundredth time someone told me, “You really should read it! It changed my life!” After the thousandth workshop attendee questioned whether I had anything valuable to say because I hadn’t read On Writing by Stephen King. Besides, Stephen King is a legendary writer. It couldn’t be that bad, right?

So I read the book.

I was less disappointed than I thought I would be. The truth be told, I thought the first half of the book was by and large uninteresting, unless you wanted to read a biography (or an auto-biography) of Stephen King’s life. Which, of course, may be quite interesting to some people. But I was looking for useful, practical stuff, and ultimately, King’s rise to fame can likely never be repeated.

(To be fair, he does use the word “memoir” in the title, so that mis-alignment of expectations is on me.)

The second half of the book, however, proved to be a lot more interesting. I liked the switch from the first half, with the break where he talks about how he got hit by a car in the middle of writing the book and it made him reconsider where he had been going with the book to begin with. From that point forward, I found the book educational. I found myself agreeing with him on most issues, though I tend to take a slightly softer stance. For example, when he says that adverbs pave to the road to hell, well, that’s a bit over the top, really. It does explain why everyone in the writing world is so anti-adverbs though.

The thing I disliked the most was the prescriptive attitude, that “THIS is the way to write a book.” I think this is a problem in the writing industry as a whole, however, and I don’t really think that his version of it is worse than anyone else’s. But one day, I’d like to see someone famous write a book called, “You can write however you want: the only rule is that there are no rules.”

Ultimately, I would say that if you are looking for a book that goes in depth into King’s life, and has some helpful writing tidbits in the second half, then this book is for you. If you just want the writing tidbits, skip the first half; if you just want to know more about King, skip the second half.

And if you’re tired of people telling you what to do, skip it entirely.

Ariele University: The Memoir Project | Heartbeat

I know it’s been a minute since I’ve posted about my fake master’s degree, but never fear, I’m still plugging away at it. One of my goals this year is to sit down and hash out exactly how much work I’ve done and how much I have left to do—and if I think I’ve officially “graduated” yet or if I want to move onto my fake Ph.D. or what.

At any rate, the current book I’m working my way through is called The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith. Obviously, I’m a fiction writer, not a memoirist, but one of the whole goals of my fake master’s degree is to challenge myself, and reading about and writing memoir is certainly a stretch for me. In addition, like most writers (I think), I have a few memoir-y type things that I’ve considered writing, though they are so low on my priority list, I’m not sure I’ll ever actually get to them.

That said, while I haven’t finished this book yet, it does lend itself to writing exercises. And so, I’ve completed my first writing exercise, about 1/5 of the way through the book. In it, she describes a-750 word piece she asks her students to write based on a big theme or concept, using themselves as the illustration for the concept. So that’s basically what I tried to do here.

I’ll be honest—I’m not being graded so I didn’t count the words or edit this lol, but I wanted to post anyway (since that’s what I promised myself I would do). This short essay is called “Heartbeat.”

TW: death, s*icide

Heartbeat

The first dead body I ever saw was cousin Marty, lying in a casket. I was 5; he was a 45-year-old alcoholic who died by suicide. I couldn’t stop staring because I kept thinking I could see his chest move like he was breathing. I couldn’t really though—it was just an illusion.

My only memory of cousin Marty was from a family party a few weeks before. We were a family of teetotalers; he was the only one drinking. He brought his own beer and hid it in the car. And when he got so drunk he couldn’t walk straight, he tripped on the stairs and broke one of my mom’s plant pots.

The next dead body I saw was lying by the side of the road in Chapel Hill, NC. The cop had just arrived and an ambulance was pulling up. I didn’t know the man, but I was driving and the shock of seeing him just lying there made my heart pound and my hands shake so badly I had to pull over at the next gas station to let myself breathe. I was 20; he looked about 50. A heart attack, I always told myself.

The third dead body I saw was my grandmother. I was 31; she was 87. For the last hour of her life she gasped for breath. We sat around her telling stories. And when the end came, we knew it was coming. There was a smell and I was holding her hand.

And then she died. But her hand was still warm. It was 2:47 PM on a rainy day in November.

For a while, nobody said anything. Then, after a bit, I let go of her hand.

I don’t remember that part though. But I know I must have let go because I’m not still holding her hand.

What I do remember were my fingers on her pulse. I could feel her heart beat.

And then I couldn’t any more.

Heartbeat.

No heartbeat.

After I let go of her still-warm hand, I left, because after all, she wasn’t there anymore, so there was no reason for me to stay. And I had decided that the next part, with the undertaker and the body—that was for my mom to do, and my uncles. I would probably have to do it one day, yes. But not today. Not this time.

The first thing I did was call my big brother. I told him she was dead. I told him I had been holding her hand. I told him about her heartbeat. I didn’t tell him about letting go.

Because the truth was, I let go, but I also didn’t let go. And I don’t mean in a metaphorical sense, like I will never be able to get past the loss of my grandmother. I mean in a literal sense. Like I never let go.

If you think of time as a construct, something that has always existed and always will, then everything that has happened inside of time has always happened and always will.

Which means, I always held my grandmother’s hand as she passed from this world to the next. And I always felt her heart beat. And then not beat.

I always will.

And I will never let go.

How To Do A Writing Sprint

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If you’ve never heard of a writing sprint, let me first say, Welcome to the World of Writing Sprints!

(I’m imagining saying that like the guy in Futurama episode 1.)

Anyway, doing sprints is one of my number one techniques for producing content quickly.

Here’s how they work:

You set a timer, close Facebook, and write until the timer goes off. And if you want, you can measure the number of words you have at the beginning of the sprint and at the end.

That’s it.

It’s that simple.

You can even race with other people if you want. (Though, remember, writing more words doesn’t make you a better writer, more competent, or more qualified. I can write “banana” a thousand times in twenty minutes and totally hack the sprint and make it look like I’m the fastest writer, but that’s stupid and pointless and don’t be a banana.)

My personal preference is to set the timer between 15 - 30 minutes, and take a 5-minute break between sprints. These days, I tend to be closer to the 30 minute range. I find less than 15 min too short to really get into it, and longer than 30 is too long and my attention starts to wane. Other people like to set the timer for five minutes. Or an hour. Or two hours.

It’s really about what works best for you.

Back in the day (way back, think like 8 - 10 years), I had heard of sprints and thought they were stupid. “Why need a timer?” I asked myself. “What’s the difference between writing for twenty minutes with a timer and without?” and so it took me a while to try it.

But there’s definitely a difference. Something about having a defined beginning and end point works really well for my brain. I also find that sprinting with others helps. Something about the social pressure of not having produced any words at all during a sprint makes me want to get my brain into gear.

There are plenty of tools you can use to do the sprint. You can set a timer on your phone, download a desktop timer, use online sites—some people even have browser blocker extensions that make it so you can’t use the internet for that interim of time. What ever works for you.

Quick tip: If you’re writing by hand and sprinting with other people, the easiest way is to do a quick average—count how many words per line for maybe 10 lines, and then how many lines per page, and multiply.

So for example, if you have a sheet with 20 lines, the top ten lines might look like this: 7 words, 8 words, 11 words, 13 words, 15 words, 7 words, 10 words, 8 words, 9 words, 10 words. Add them up (98), divide by the number of lines (9.8 — you can round up to 10) and that gets your per line average = 10 words per line. Then, when you do your calculation at the end, just multiply the average but the number of lines. So if you have 20 lines on the page, it’s 10 x 20 which is 200 words per page.

I know sprints don’t work for everyone, but I’m a big fan. Lately, I’ve been working on my speed.

I use a bot in Discord as my timer (you can join my server if you want; I do monthly prunes, so lurkers get booted, though), and my top speed is 52 words per minute, which beat out my previous personal best of 48 words per minute.

That said, quantity isn’t the important part of sprinting.

The important part of sprinting is the focus.

It doesn’t matter if I write 50 words during a twenty minute sprint or 500 words or 1000 words. What matters is that I stayed attentive to my project for the entire sprint.

Sometimes, I can get into the zone for the entire sprint, and my wordcount is insane.

Sometimes, I need to go back and read some of what I wrote previously, before I can continue forward. Then my wordcount is lower, but it’s fine, because I was doing what I needed to do in order to move forward.

Sometimes, I need to go back and fix something, I delete a few sentences, and my wordcount actually goes down. But it’s fine, because I was doing what I needed to do in order to move forward.

Sometimes, I don’t even write during sprints. I often edit (and count pages) or do completely other things, like responding to emails or setting up ads or whatever it is I’m working on that particular day. And then I make up completely random numbers (for the Discord bot—it counts wordcount to measure sprints), but it doesn’t matter, because I’m doing what I need to do in order to move forward.

As we move into November, I’m going to be doing a lot of writing sprints because it’s National Novel Writing Month! I’ll be writing a whole book in Nov, so I’ll be needing that word count to succeed.

And if you’re interested, I invite you to join me!

A couple of last minute thoughts:

• Sprints aren’t for everyone. If they stress you out, don’t do them!

• You don’t have to share your real wordcount. Nobody cares. Make it up if you want. It’s the focus that matters.

• Even though doing sprints with other people is structured as a competition, it really isn’t. It’s about focusing. It’s about getting words on the page. Or getting some work done. And if the sprint helped you move forward, you’ve succeeded.

In the end, it comes down to focus. And sprints help me focus. <3

As a side note, I’m putting together a weekly email of writing tips. If you’re interested in joining, click to sign up!

Ariele University: Developing a Core Purpose and Mission For Authors

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another edition of “things Ariele is doing for her fake master’s degree.”

My fake master’s degree reading list included a book titled, Built to Last; Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C Collins and Jerry I Porras. I started reading this book about 5 years ago and got about 2 chapters in. The reason? It was hard. Also, I wasn’t ready for it yet.

That sounds ridiculous: “I wasn’t ready yet,” but it would be the same problem if I picked up a book on fourth-year calculus, when my math skills are probably at a high school algebra level. I have a basic understanding of trigonometry, but I’ve forgotten pretty much everything past that.

I wasn’t ready to read this book until after I read The E-Myth Revisited and really started thinking about my author business as a business. I started to envision myself hiring other people. I started to think about the wide variety of tasks I do as being essential vs. non-essential (basically, in order for my business to operate, what do I HAVE to be doing, and what could I hand off to someone else or eliminate altogether). I started to strip down my business into checklists and task maps, and try to look at it from a high-level perspective.

I’m not just an author. I’m not just a creator. I’m not just a consultant.

I’m a business owner.

(Aside: the post I wrote about the Franchise Model of Publishing was part of reading E-Myth Revisited and trying to imagine my own tiny author business as a behemoth).

Built to Last is a book on business. It explores the practices of really big, really famous, enduring companies (like 50 years old +) and compared them to companies in the same industry that did not succeed. It delved into their habits, their practices, and their strategies, ultimately trying to figure out what made those companies successful. Think 3M, Coca Cola, IBM, Proctor&Gamble, Johnson&Johnson, Merck, and lots more. They did research, case studies, and analysis—and it was ultimately fascinating.

As part of the process, the authors came up with 12 Myths—basically, things that people believe about successful companies that aren’t actually true.

The myths are as follows (p 7 - 11):

1. It takes a great idea to start a company.

2. Visionary companies require great an charismatic visionary leaders.

3. The most successful companies exist first and foremost to maximize profits.

4. Visionary companies share a common subset of “correct” core values.

5. The only constant is change.

6. Blue-chip companies play it safe.

7. Visionary companies are great places to work for everyone.

8. Highly successful companies make their best moves by brilliant and complex strategic planning.

9. Companies should hire outside CEOs to stimulate fundamental change.

10. The most successful companies focus primarily on beating the competition.

11. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

12. Companies become visionary primarily through “vision statements.”

The book then delves into each of these myths and talks about why they aren’t true, and provides examples from the top-tier, longstanding companies. It even goes into examples of when the companies almost collapsed but managed to get back on their feet again.

If you decide to pick up this book and decide it’s too dense for you, I recommend at very least reading Chapters 1 and 11. Game changer. I thought about Chapter 1 for weeks before I started into Chapter 2 (the second time around). And I’ve read Chapter 11 four times already. Not to mention, I haven’t stopped talking about it—I bring it up in any conversation we have about business (which is a lot because Josh is getting his MBA). Pretty sure he’s is sick of hearing about this book by now.

But the trick, as it always is with these types of books, is trying to think about it from the viewpoint of an author. Authors are notoriously one-person businesses. They have their products (books) which take years to produce, but also have no shelf-life (well, most of them don’t, unless you wrote a book about the internet in 2005). Authors tend to be solitary, outsource production (either to a publishing company, or a print-on-demand company), and they tend not to have a lot of capital.

So how can we use the concepts in this book to make our businesses better, smarter, more efficient, and more effective?

I think there is an overwhelming focus on marketing in the author community. Everyone is trying to figure out how to sell their books. And marketing is important, yes, but it’s really only one piece of a much bigger puzzle—at least if you’re publishing books as a career or trying to achieve some kind of financial success. Even if your goals are more focused on spreading ideas or making a difference in the world (as opposed to money or fame) having a fully-functioning, operational business is going to make those things so much easier—and you’ll last longer and be able to do more.

So, as always, I begin by practicing on myself.

One of the main conclusions I drew from the book is related to Myth #5: The only constant is change. In fact, there are three constants: you core values, your core purpose, and the fact that everything else changes.

In Chapter 11, they say:

“…the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of the most enduring and successful corporations is that they preserve a cherished core ideology while simultaneously stimulating progress and change in everything that is not part of their core ideology… In truly great companies, change is a constant, but not the only constant.” (p. 220)

So let’s talk about creating a core ideology.

Developing an Author’s Core Ideology

I would like to reiterate that you should buy this book and read Chapter 11. Go through all of their exercises with your own feelings and values in mind as applied to your writing.

They define core ideology as:

“…self-identity that remains consistent through time and transcends product/market life cycles, technological breakthroughs, management fads, and individual leaders… Core ideology provides the bonding glue that holds an organization together as it grows, decentralizes, diversifies, expands globally, and attains diversity within.” (p 221)

If everything changes, in order to create a set of core values, then the key is to ask ourselves: what about our business (about our writing, our books, and the way we operate) will never change?

It’s about those key pieces within us that we will never turn our backs on. That will follow us through the course of our lives. And will likely show up over and over and over as themes and motifs and concepts in our books and various mediums for storytelling.

Porras and Collins split the concept of core ideology into two sub-components: Core Values and Core Purpose—which is great because it makes it much easier to develop a core ideology.

An Author’s Core Values

This took me forever to figure out. Like six months. It’s possible you will know these right off the top of your head, but I highly recommend taking some time to really consider it. Do some thought experiments—”Will I still believe this IF… [fill in some crazy thing happening here]?”

For example, “Will I still think this if civilization goes backwards? If XYZ important person in my life dies? If I switch religions? If I become homeless? If I get cancer? If I win the lottery and never have to work another day in my life? If I achieve all of my craziest author dreams and get to do whatever I want all the time?” Alternatively, they suggest thinking about if you were to get punished for having this value, would you still hold onto it? If you got put in jail for it? If you were executed for it? Would you still hold that value no matter what?

The book defines core values as:

“…the organization’s essential and enduring tenets—a small set of timeless guiding principles that require no external justification; they have intrinsic value and importance to those inside the organization.” (p 222)

When I asked myself: “What about me and my work will never change?” I came up with three things:

• Respect for other people.

• Skill development and personal growth.

• Exploration of ideas.

And I sort of summed them all up as: I will prioritize moving forward as an objective—as society, as an individual, or as an idea: how can we collectively move forward? How can this idea evolve and grow? How can I personally evolve, grow, move forward?

I honestly think your key values can be anything. They could be about telling the best stories. About creating an escape. They could be about your faith or your politics or your fundamental beliefs about right and wrong. But they have to be constant—something about you that will never change.

I will add here, that while I’m only a few decades into life (3), I have already learned that sometimes the core values I thought I had, turned out to not be so core after all. So this concept definitely deserves some real time, effort, and consideration.

A few points they made in the book:

• If you come up with more than five or six things, that’s probably too many.

• You can’t “choose” core values—they have to already, intrinsically, be there. They say this, of course, from an organizational perspective. I do believe as individuals we can choose our values, but we have to work on them and really believe them in the core of who we are.

• The values should “stand the test of time” (p 222).

• You should not change your values as the market or world changes—instead, you should change the markets or the world.

• Core values are something that you should hold onto even when they prove to be a disadvantage to you.

Once you’ve figured out what your core values are, you’ll be able to apply them to everything—your marketing plan, your business strategy, your publishing plan—they can even help you figure out what books to write or focus on (if you’re having trouble deciding).

An Author’s Core Purpose

Porras’ and Collins’ definition of core purpose is quite simple: “the organization’s fundamental reason for being” (p 224). They say that they think that core purpose is ultimately more important than core values because “It captures the soul of the organization” (p 224).

A core purpose can never be fulfilled—it is something that you are always working towards, but never actually achieving. It can be unique, or it can be the same as someone else’s. Like the core values—it can be anything at all.

This was a bit more challenging for me, but in the the book, they offered an exercise where you draft a rough purpose, and then ask the question, “Why is this important?” five times to help narrow down what your beliefs really are. Again, you should read the book (or the chapter) because they give some really great examples and they are helpful to read.

I did the exercise with a couple of different statements (“I write books with diverse characters” and “I tell stories that explore lots of ideas”), and ultimately came up with the following for my core purpose:

“My core purpose is to tell stories that reflect the wide range of human experience.”

• It’s something that can never be achieved, check. (Because human experience will only ever keep widening, so there will always be more experiences, ideas, and perspectives to explore).

• It can help me guide my business strategy, check. (Because it will help me decide what books to write, how to market, etc.)

• It can help guide the behavior of people within my organization, check. (Because it focuses around respect for other people, which also ties back to my core values).

• It can be a source of inspiration, check.

• It can be the basis for the culture of my organization, check. (Respect, diversity, representation, ya’ll.)

• It can guide my company in the long-term, check. (No matter what the world thinks, we prioritize the inherent value of human beings above all else—money, fame, etc.)

• It can act as the glue—a common vision that holds together the various people that work in my organization, check.

• It can be the source of my organization’s identity, check.

• It can motivate action and help us get things done, check.

At any rate, I’d say I have a good start. Next up in this book is figuring out your envisioned future, but I’m going to save that for another post.

In the meantime, read the book! And I will leave you with this metaphorical picture of me:

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Ariele University: How To Plot A Book

Have you ever met someone that could tell you about an argument they had at work and make it sound like an episode of a soap opera? Or someone that could tell you about a squirrel they saw in the backyard and make you wonder what happens next?

Just a few days ago, I was talking to my dad on the phone and he was telling me about how my grandmother’s cat had been such an angel since moving into my parents’ barn. The cat was affectionate and sweet. And then my dad called my grandmother to chat, and the cat happened to wander up while he was on the phone. So, he turned on speakerphone and leaned down to let my grandmother speak to her cat.

I was on the edge of my seat, let me tell you.

Then, the cat bit him!

I almost died laughing. I thought it was going to be a sweet story about how the cat meowed back, or how my grandmother started singing to it or something.

Nope. The perfectly behaved cat, who hadn’t bitten anyone since moving into my dad’s barn, bit my dad as soon as it heard my grandmother’s voice.

It’s a simple plot. Cat moves away from owner. Cat thrives in new environment. Cat hears previous owner’s voice. Cat bites new owner.

What a twist!

It turns out there are plots everywhere. There are plots whenever you tell a story about your day. Whenever you try to explain a dream you had. Whenever you see someone wandering down the street and wonder what they’re doing. Plots when you read the news. There are plots when you look out your window and see two birds fighting, or when your dog does something weird, or when you order your pizza and it doesn’t come on time, plus they put anchovies on it and you didn’t even order anchovies.

Plots exist all around us, and the goal of a storyteller is to make them not only make sense, but also concise and filled with excitement and tension.

As part of my faux master’s degree, I have been studying plot to the point where everything around me looks like a story waiting to be told. I have read through:

• Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

• Save the Cat Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody

• Take Off Your Pants by Libby Hawker (hint: this was my favorite one)

• The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

• The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler

• Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Not to mention, a lot of the more general books I’ve read have sections on plotting as well:

• Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas

• Steering the Craft by Ursula K LeGuin

• On Writing by Stephen King

• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

• Magic by Gail Carson Levine

• Indie Author Survival Guide by SK Quinn

• Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt, Johnny B Truant, and David Wright

And the articles! Oh, the articles! Articles on the Snowball Method. Articles summarizing John Campbell’s book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Articles on story structure. On outlining. On discovery writing. On conflict and tension and character.

I even taught a workshop on plot.

The thing is, there are hundreds, thousands more books I could read. It’s an endless list, really. And the articles on plot will never stop coming—I’m writing one right now, in fact.

Part of that is because everyone thinks that when they finally understand plot, their way of explaining it is revolutionary. No one’s ever thought of it this way before!

Part of that is because stories change. What we look for and want in a story changes from culture to culture, year to year, era to era.

Part of it is because everyone’s brains work differently, so trying to define exactly how to structure a plot, down to the meter and tone, down to the percentage of the manuscript each element takes up—is never going to be a 100% surefire win.

Here are a few things that I learned from studying plot:

1. I hate outlining. I’m a discovery writer through and through. Outlining makes me want to scream and die. The most outlining I can handle is a beginning note, an end note, and maybe one or two key things that have to happen in the middle of the story. More than that and I hate the project and want nothing to do with it ever again.

2. The reason everyone thinks plot is impossible is because they haven’t figured out the best system to fit their own brain around. When I read Libby Hawker’s book on plot, it was probably the fourth or fifth one I’d gotten to. And the only reason I’d made it that far was because it was part of my fake master’s degree and I was forcing myself to keep going. All the others were a slog (and this is coming from someone who loves books about writing). I would read a chapter of one and either almost fall asleep, wonder why I was torturing myself, or think about quitting my fake master’s degree. But then I read her book (really just the first couple chapters was all I needed) and I was like, “YES. This is exactly how I want to think about plot. Thank you.”

3. There is no one “best” book on or article about or system for plotting. Yes, I liked Take Off Your Pants the best. That does not mean it’s the best book on plot. It is simply the one book that I happened to read, that fit my brain better than the others.

If you want to read a book on plot, I recommend trying several. If you get super bored or hate the world as you’re trying to force yourself through one book, put it down and try a different one. The way that we engage with and understand stories is a very personal thing, so which method works best for you is also going to be very personal.

Okay, but for real though, what is plot and how do you do it?

Now I’m going to prove that I have at least a vague understanding of how plots work by attempting to explain the way I think about it to you.

At its core, plot is nothing more than a sequence of interrelated events. But to tell a good story, we want to include things like characterization, conflict, and tension in a way that is believable (at least within the context of the story), engaging, and interesting.

The triangle is sort of like a road in perspective (see I even put lines in it), and that stick figure at the bottom is supposed to be me lol.

One of the things I noticed as I was working my way through books on plot was that I really liked pictures. I really liked the diagrams and visual structures for understanding plot. So I made my own!

My “method” of plot has three pieces. That’s it. Three.

1. A Character

2. An End Purpose or Theme

3. Objectives

I’ll be honest with you. I use this exact same system for marketing, business development, figuring out how to plan my day, and lots of other things.

I told you—plots are everywhere.

Character

Who your character is will define much of the plot.

Your character will have needs. Desires. Internal flaws. And these needs, desires, and flaws are going to drive their decision-making, which will then drive the plot. To construct the most interesting plots, the character should face challenges that they’re not entirely equipped to deal with, challenges that test them, that poke and prod at their weaknesses.

They should fail.

This is a sketch my friend James did of the main character of my Land of Szornyek series. Her name is Askari.

There are tons of articles and books on character development, but I recommend starting with one key piece: their main flaw. The best flaws (in my opinion) are ones that can also be strengths. Take stubbornness for example. Technically it’s a flaw—someone that refuses to change their mind or do anything other than what they want.

However, from a different perspective, stubbornness can look like determination, standing your ground, not letting the opinions of other people or the storms of daily life get to you. It can look like focus, perseverance, and strength.

If the character is wrong about something, stubbornness is a flaw.

But if the character is right about something, stubbornness is a strength.

Either way, stubbornness is an excellent way to create conflict—even though we have no idea what the rest of the plot looks like. Any person that comes into opposition with our main character is going to have to fight her—whether the character is right or wrong about what she believes.

But stubbornness is just one example. Here are a few more possibilities:

• Confident/Arrogant

• Humble/Pushover

• Driven/Workaholic

• Capable/Always Does Everything

• Visionary/Impractical

• Logical/Emotionless

• Intelligent/Thinks Everyone Else Is Stupid

There are LOTS of possible character traits that are both good and bad. My favorite resources for the are the Positive Trait Thesaurus and the Negative Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

End Purpose or Theme

One discussion I’ve heard people having is whether a story should be plot-driven or character-driven, or both. Plot-driven basically means that the story is about the things happening to the character; character-driven means that the story focuses on how the character changes based on what happened to them.

The Maze Runner – plot driven. The Fault In Our Stars – character driven.

Die Hard –plot driven. Citizen Kane – character driven.

(Quick confession: I have seen none of these movies nor read any of these books—I just pulled them off Google lol.)

Of course, it’s possible to have both, and in fact, I think the best stories have at least a little bit of both. Bones is my favorite example of this. It’s very plot driven, in that it’s a murder mystery in every episode. It’s about solving the crime, the Whodunnit. But it’s also very character driven. It’s about Bones and how she grows and develops not only as a scientist, but also as a person—and of course, how all of her friends and associates grow as people. I personally tend to lean towards plot-driven stories.

The truth is, you don’t have to decide whether your book is plot- or character-driven before you start writing.

My recommendation would be instead, to focus on the point. The goal. The endgame.

What is your book about?

Take my book, Tentacles and Teeth. As I was writing the first draft, my overarching purpose was simply to explore a post-apocalyptic world filled with monsters. And when I started writing it, that’s exactly what I did. A new monster every chapter. Action scenes upon action scenes. Details and descriptions about what the world looked like and what it would be like to live in it.

When I did my second draft, I shifted my focus slightly. Yes, I still wanted a world filled with monsters. Yes, I wanted to explore it and develop what that type of apocalypse would look like.

But I also wanted to explore the way we consume information in a sort of insular way, and how that impacts our decisions and identities.

So I fleshed out the characterization of the community my main character grew up in for the first book, and then in the second book, I tossed her out into the real world and forced her to come into contact with other people, which then made her step back and take a closer look at her own belief systems and start questioning what she was raised to think.

This theme continues in the third and fourth book, with the main character realizing that we get to choose the communities we want to participate in, and just because we are told something, doesn’t make it true.

So how do you decide the point of your book?

Excellent question, thank you for asking.

There are three ways to approach it (well, probably more than three, but three that I came up with).

The first is to ask yourself: What do I get out of my book?

For example, perhaps you want to write in a new genre. I started a whole series like this. I wanted to explore the idea of writing sci-fi fairy tales, so I did. Perhaps you want to learn something about yourself or parse out a question you have about life or the universe or everything. Memoir or biography are great ways to explore your own life; or perhaps you are curious about exploring the idea of truth, so you write about a character that only tells lies.

The second method is to ask yourself: What does my character get out of it?

This is especially excellent if you’re interested in writing character-driven stories. If you want your character to grow or change in a particular way, then the question becomes—how are they going to change throughout the course of this story?

For example, in Book 3 of my Land of Szornyek series, my first draft was focused much the same as Book 1 had been: it was really about exploring the widening universe filled with monsters, and looking at the different ways that people were surviving. But something felt off to me, so I went back to review the plot—only to discover that my main character had yet to change. So I shifted the focus and the purpose of my plot. Instead of it being entirely about monsters and survival, it became about her dealing with the consequences of the trauma she experienced in Book 2. Throughout the second draft, I realized that I needed a new endgame: it was no longer about the monsters, it was about Askari. I needed her to come to a particular realization, which is a spoiler and so I won’t say any more. 😊

The third method is to ask yourself: What does the reader get out of it?

It is of course helpful for you to have at least a vague idea of who your ideal reader is if you choose this approach, but even if you don’t, you can still use it as a springboard.

I think romance is an excellent example of this, particularly HEA Romances (Happily Ever After). When writing an HEA, the entire point is to leave the reader with a warm, fuzzy satisfaction at the end of the story. It’s to create a story in which the reader feels connected to the characters, roots for them to succeed in their romantic endeavors, and then feels satisfied when it all works out in the end.

Perhaps your goal is to provide your reader with an escape. Or to take you reader on a wild ride of insanity. To make your reader scared or hopeful or excited. To make them think. You can absolutely start here when choosing your endgame.

Ultimately, the endgame or the purpose of your book can be absolutely anything you want it to be. You can have multiple purposes if you want. You can change your mind about it at any point during the writing and revision process. There really aren’t any rules here, so whatever works for you can also work for your story!

Objectives

I put this one last because unlike the other two which can be decided simultaneously or whenever, objectives are most helpful AFTER you’ve decided the beginning and the end. Once you’ve figured out who your character is and where they need to go, then you can determine what needs to happen in order for them to get from point A to B.

Objectives can be viewed in several different ways. Some people outline every single detail, parse out every action, and decide every conversation before even starting in on drafting it, even down to calculating the percentages each section of the book should be. If you’re a plotter, then this is probably your preference.

But if you’re a discovery writer aka pantser (like me), we prefer to go light on the details and to figure it out as we go. I think of objectives more as lampposts. I can sort of see the next one in the distance, but the path between two is dark. I know what’s in the middle only after I’ve written the words.

An example of my own lampposts might look something like this (based off of Book 1 of Land of Szornyek, Tentacles and Teeth:

• Askari fights a monster alone.

• She fights another monster, but with other people.

• She disobeys an order.

• Punishment involves getting temporarily kicked out.

• Alone for a while, fights more monsters.

• Friends show up.

• Completes terms of punishment with help.

• Returns to find her community in trouble.

• Fights to save community.

Plot isn’t that scary.

I must admit that I found plot to be one of the most overwhelming concepts in writing before I really started to dive in. And once I get up to my neck in it, I still found it overwhelming. The one thing I wish someone had said to me before I started was: “There is no one right way to plot a story.”

It kind of seems like a no brainer, looking back. Like, duh Ariele. There’s no one right way to do anything in writing, not even punctuation. So why would there be for plot?

Maybe, if they wanted to be even more helpful, this imaginary person might have added, “It’s okay if one method doesn’t work for you. Try a different one.”

But now that I’ve thrown myself into the deep end in order to learn to swim, I feel a lot more confident about it. Not all of my plots will work or make sense. Not all of them will be equally good. Sometimes I will feel like I know where I’m going and sometimes I won’t.

Ultimately, I think my plotting goals are to take a deep breath, be a little less critical of my work, and trust myself.

After all, someone actually wrote Sharknado. And it got turned into a film. Six of them, to be precise. And has a video game and a comic book series, and a seventh spin-off film.

We got this.

Writing Exercise

Pick a fairy tale, any fairy tale—one that you already know pretty well. Write out a description of the character and their major flaw, the purpose, theme, or endgame of the story, and a few objectives.

If a fairy tale is too easy, try Moby Dick. A Shakespeare play. The book you’re reading right now.

If you want an advanced challenge, do it for your own book—one that you haven’t written yet.

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