stories - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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Pantzers vs. Plotters

One of the ways writers differ is in the type of preparation work they do before the first draft. Some, called pantzers, write that draft “from the seat of their pants.” Plotters, by contrast, organize and lay out their story’s plot and characters within some sort of outline before writing one word of the story.

These two approaches might be epitomized by two zodiac signs, and the personality traits attributed to each. Aries is characterized by impulsiveness and rushing right ahead—a pantzer. Virgo is characterized by analysis and careful prior thought—a plotter. Astrology is bunk, of course, but that comparison gave me an image for this blog entry.

Which type are you? Is one approach better than the other?

Here are some advantages the pantzers claim:

I write stories faster, without having to do all that preparatory work first. While the plotter is still doing her careful outline, I’m a quarter done with my first draft.
My writing has a sense of spontaneity, of natural flow; since I don’t know what is going to happen next, neither do my readers.
I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I’ll figure out which way to go when I get there. The story has its own direction, and I’ll figure it out.
I write with a feeling of freedom, without having added a constricting, constraining outline. If I used an outline, I’d feel like I shackled myself.

But the plotters counter with the benefits of their method:

I dispute the pantzers claim of writing faster. I think plotting helps me avoid getting stuck.
Good prior planning helps me avoid the kind of re-writing pantzers do to add in earlier parts so the later parts make sense.
Without a plot outline and some character sketches, I’d lose focus, forget where I’m going, and write aimlessly.
I write with a sense of comfort knowing I’ve got things all planned out.

I suspect this is really a sort of spectrum, a continuum of ways to write, and that very few people are really located at the extreme ends. That is, I suspect pantzers do a little bit more pre-plotting than they’re willing to admit, even if the organization is not written down. For their part, plotters aren’t always so wedded to their outlines as they think; they’ll deviate if the story takes off in a different direction as they write.

Further, authors may well move back and forth along that spectrum as their career progresses. They may even find some stories require more pre-planning than others, so they become adept at both methods. My guess—and it’s only a guess—is that among the more accomplished and prolific authors there are more pantzers than plotters. I think they’ve developed sufficient writing skills so they no longer need a written outline and have come to trust their abilities in avoiding, or writing their way out of, plot problems.

As for me, I’m further over toward the plotter side, though I’ve been exhibiting pantzer tendencies lately. Those who adhere to the snowflake method of writing are definite plotters. Most of the writing software packages out there are dedicated to plotters. Pantzers would find the snowflake and such writing software quite frustrating.

So, in this battle of pantzers vs. plotters, who wins? Naturally, you do! You can choose how to write your stories in the manner that suits you best. You can change that method later if you want, depending on what ends up working for you. Please leave me a comment letting me know whether you’re a pantzer or a plotter, and why. It’s okay to share your secret with the Internet, and with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 21, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

15 Writing Virtues

Many people believe you aren’t just stuck with the way you are now, that you can better yourself by persistent act of will. I’m one of them, but let me just focus on self-help as it applies to the writing of fiction.

Benjamin Franklin was an early example of someone who developed a program of self-improvement. His method was to list thirteen virtues along with a brief description, then he would set about to focus on one virtue per week. Franklin actually kept a log of this, giving himself a black mark on days he fell short. Presumably, by focusing on one virtue at a time, it did not mean he was abandoning the others during that week.

Examples of his virtues include:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

In the spirit of Benjamin Franklin’s list of virtues, I’ll offer some virtues of writing fiction. I’ve grouped them into ‘process’ virtues dealing with how you write, and ‘product’ virtues dealing with aspects of the manuscript itself.

The Poseidon’s Scribe 15 Virtues of Fiction Writing

Process Virtues

1. Productivity. Fill hours with writing, not researching or time-wasting activity.

2. Focus. Turn off your inner editor during the first draft.

3. Humility. Seek other trusted people to critique your work; be receptive.

4. Excellence. Only submit work you’re proud of.

5. Doggedness. Be persistent in submitting to markets; be unshaken by rejections.

Product Virtues.

6. Relevance. Ensure your work passes the ‘So What?’ test.

7. Appeal. Hook readers from the first paragraph.

8. Engagement. Put your characters in conflict with something or someone; make the story about conflict resolution.

9. Empathy. Create vivid, engaging characters.

10. Action. Weave logical, interesting plots with appropriate causes and effects.

11. Placement. Provide clear but unobtrusive descriptions of the story setting, without overshadowing character or plot.

12. Meaning. Ensure your story’s theme explores eternal human truths.

13. Style. Seek your own voice, then follow it.

14. Communication. Ensure your characters’ dialogue is appropriate and advances the plot. (Mentioned here, here, and here.)

15. Skill. Salt your tales with symbolism and appropriate metaphors.

Your list would likely be different. One way to go about it is to examine critiques of your fiction you receive from members of your critique group, from editors, etc. Are there repeated criticisms? Turn them around and express them as a positive affirmation or goal, not as a negative to avoid. Those goals represent things to work on, and would be on your own list of virtues.

George Carlin fans would likely point out to me that there’s no such thing as self-help. People who get their list of virtues from their critique group, or from this blog post, aren’t exactly engaged in self-help, since they got help from others. Moreover, if beginning writers truly helped themselves get better, then they didn’t need help. Witty gags aside, it can be a comfort to a struggling writer that there exist methods for improvement, but all I offer is a framework for starting; the writer must shoulder the burden of actually doing the work to improve her writing.

I’d love to hear if you’ve found my list useful, or if you’ve developed your own list, or even if you’ve embarked on a completely different method of improving your writing. Let me know in your comments to this blog entry. For now, back to improving his writing goes—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 12, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Tightening the Screws

Today I’m discussing why and how writers increase conflict in their stories. Long-term fans of this site with keen memories will recall that I promised to get to this topic in a previous blog entry. Far be it from me to let you down.

Conflict is a necessary part of all stories and it’s a good idea to ramp up the level of conflict as your story proceeds, both to hold your reader’s interest by building tension, and to subject your protagonist to a progressively more difficult test of character, forcing him or her to confront inner fears or character flaws.

Let’s look at a couple of examples. In the 1993 movie “Jurassic Park,” directed by Steven Spielberg and based on a novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, we see a gradual step-up in conflict. The central protagonist, Dr. Alan Grant, is persuaded to leave a paleontological dig to conduct a review of a theme park. Once there he is awed that the park engineers have re-created living dinosaurs. He is put in close contact with children, which he dislikes. When part of the park’s security system is deactivated, a Tyrannosaurus attacks the group. Grant and the children must spend the night in the park, with predatory dinosaurs on the loose. They encounter cunning Velociraptors, and finally both Velociraptors and the Tyrannosaurus.

Conflict need not be physical, or even dangerous. In the 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, the conflict is of a different nature but also increases. The village milkman, Tevye, must first contend with the fact that his eldest daughter has chosen her own husband against tradition and his wishes. Then his second daughter likewise makes her own marital match, but with a political and cultural radical. Later his third daughter seeks to marry outside the Jewish faith. Finally, on orders from the Tsar, Russian authorities expel the Jewish villagers from their town.

Notice how, in each case, the author chooses plot events that begin with small conflicts and then escalates, figuratively tightening the screws as with the medieval torture device, progressively challenging the characters with more taxing situations. Just as the protagonist resolves or comes to terms with one disaster, a worse one occurs. Moreover, the nature of the conflicts is such that they strike at a character flaw. In Dr. Grant’s case, it’s his dislike of children. In Tevye’s case, it’s his over-reliance on tradition. The protagonists are forced to grapple with their own weakness and try to overcome it.

It’s sad, in a way, that writers must put their characters through the torture of increasing conflict intensity, just for the sake of reader enjoyment. But as long as the characters stay imaginary, it’s all legal, so ease your mind about that. You’re welcome to comment on this topic of increasing the level of conflict. I’ll return now to my Work in Progress (WIP). Please don’t mind any screams you might hear as the screws get tightened by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 5, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

A Path Not Taken

Want to be a published author? Curious about the best path to take? In this post, I’m going to suggest you not do what I did, and instead I’ll offer a short cut.

First let me retrace my steps for you. In the mid-1980s, I had a great idea for a story. Way too big for a short story, this had to be a novel. I’d never thought of being a writer, and the notion scared me a bit, but the idea wouldn’t let go. I studied writing—read books about writing, joined a writer’s group, went to writer’s conferences, joined a critique group. And began writing.

I stayed enthusiastic about my novel, but only about the writing of it, the first, second and third drafts. The more I wrote and rewrote, the more scared I got of the next phase, finding an agent and sending my novel out.

In 1999, I took a brief break and wrote a short story called “Target Practice” which I submitted, and it got accepted in the anthology Lower than the Angels by Lite Circle Books. That should have been a clue I was on the wrong path, but I went back to working on the novel.

Around 2004 or 2005, I abandoned that first great idea novel (yes, after 20 years of work!), and started a different novel.

In 2006, with the second novel about one quarter finished, I resumed writing short stories. This time I got serious about actually submitting them. After many rejections, I started getting published.

In retrospect, it’s easy to see where I went wrong. I should have started with short stories and worked my way up to novels. It’s distressing to think of the time I wasted, and how much earlier I might have gotten stories in print.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the two decades of work on a now-abandoned novel was time well spent. One could claim those years contained my 10,000 hours, the time required to develop genius-level capability. It’s also true that my first novel might have actually gotten published had I bothered to submit it, and might have done well.

Certainly there are cases of authors getting their first novel published and seeing it become a best-seller. But these are rare enough that I believe a better strategy for most writers is to start with short stories. Crawling should precede walking for most people. That method allows you to become familiar, more quickly, with the whole writing-submitting-publishing-marketing process end to end.

There you have it. Advice, as I say at the top of my web page, straight from Mount Olympus. Please don’t do what I did; don’t waste twenty years on a low-percentage strategy. Don’t follow that first path trod by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 17, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Suffering the Slings and Arrows

Think you can take criticism well? How about when people you trust denigrate something you worked very hard on, and are proud of? Aye, there’s the rub, don’t you think?

I’ve often discussed critique groups and how much I value them (here, here, and here), but today I thought I’d help you prepare for receiving criticism at your critique group meeting. Believe me, the first few meetings will be tough when they’re poking holes in your story. At such times, it’s difficult to remember that group members are (1) being honest, (2) criticizing your work, not you, (3) on your side and want you to succeed, and (4) telling you what readers and editors would think.

Are you supposed to just sit there and take it? In a word, yes. The very best thing you can do is be silent and listen. I don’t mean pretend to listen while thinking of what you’ll say next. I mean really listen. Get outside yourself, beyond your ego, and see your work through the critique group members’ eyes. Suspend your doubts about their intelligence and assume, at least for the moment, that they might just be right.

You’ll feel a powerful temptation to explain why you wrote something the way you did, to help these deluded group members comprehend the brilliance of your prose which they somehow missed. You’ll even want to defend your story against these attacks, and possibly argue with these formerly intelligent friends who’ve suddenly caught an ignorance virus.

After all, who are they to tell you your story’s hook is boring; your protagonist lacks depth; your plot doesn’t make sense; your setting is like a room with plain, white walls; and the story’s central conflict could have been resolved by a first grader in seconds? Worse, the passages they’ve recommended cutting are your favorite parts.

No, it won’t be easy to sit there and take it. But the old adage ‘you can’t learn with your mouth open’ is true. So you need to develop a thick skin, grow up to adulthood, and listen. And when you’ve suffered their slings and arrows (without taking arms against that sea of troubles), then what? Then, my friend, you will thank these critique group members. Yes, you will express sincere gratitude for the help they’ve provided.

At what point, exactly, did they provide help, you ask? How can I call it help when your manuscript lies twitching and bleeding on the floor, unloved by all but you? Here are just some of the ways your group members assisted you:

Free of charge, they’ve given you—

a fresh perspective from which to see your work, without the rose-glasses filter of your biases;
information you can use to decide whether to change your manuscript, since changes are still your decision, but now these decisions will be based on facts, not guesses, about how readers will likely react;
an improved ability to endure criticism. More negative criticism will come later, from editors and from readers. But those later critiques won’t upset you, thanks to the way your critique group prepared you.

Here’s an excellent blog entry by Joanna Penn on the subject of taking criticism, and she offers even more thoughts.

So, has this blog entry made you a bit “nobler in the mind?” As always, please leave me a comment with your thoughts. My next critique group meeting is coming up soon. My fellow group members will know then whether “practice what you preach” is advice well followed by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 3, 2013Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Blog Hop – The Next Big Thing

Many thanks to Charlotte Holley who tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing blog hop. I didn’t know what a blog hop was but it seems like fun. In this one, authors answer questions about their Work in Progress (WIP) and people can follow the links along and see what various writers are working on. That way readers can anticipate and check back later to buy the books they’re interested in. It’s possible that one or more authors in this chain may really be working on The Next Big Thing!

When you’re tagged for this particular blog hop, you post your answers the following Wednesday and tag five other authors for the following Wednesday. Here are my answers:

1. What is the working title of your book? “A Tale More True”

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? If I recall correctly, I was thinking about fanciful trips to the Moon in early literature. I’m a fan of Jules Verne, but he’s actually a latecomer to that topic. While researching, I came across references to Baron Münchhausen. My story then sort of sprang into my head.

3. What genre does your book fall under? It’s alternate history, in the subgenre of clockpunk. I’ve not written much clockpunk, my story “Leonardo’s Lion” being the exception.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? There are three characters of interest. The protagonist is Count Eusebius Horst Siegwart von Federmann. Count Federmann could be played well by actor Chris Hemsworth. He’d have to speak English with a German accent, but doesn’t have to do it well, since it’s a comedy. Count Federmann is a brooding character, angry at and jealous of Baron Münchhausen. The Count is intelligent, determined, and optimistic, but lacks sense.

Shia_Labeouf The Count has a young French servant named Fidèle, and I’ll select Shia LaBeouf for that role. Mr. LaBeouf would have to speak English with a French accent, but not an especially good one. Fidèle is full of life, but has the sense to fear danger, though he’s always respectful of nobility.

The character Baron Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen only appears briefly at the beginning and end of the story. Since it’s a cameo role, I’ll splurge and pick Robin Williams. I need an older character of plain appearance who’s able to speak English with a German accent and captivate an audience with his words alone. Robin Williams played the part of the King of the Moon in the 1988 Movie “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A man is so angry about the self-aggrandizing lies of Baron Münchhausen that, just to prove the Baron wrong, he constructs a gigantic metal spring and launches himself to the Moon, where he learns about the nature of Truth.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I will offer it to Gypsy Shadow Publishing to be included in my What Man Hath Wrought series.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I’m not done with the fist draft yet. I researched, planned, and outlined the story for about a month. First and second drafts will take another month.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? It’s a light-hearted clockpunk tale, so there aren’t many comparable stories. Perhaps the closest thing is that movie, “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? The muse speaks. I listen and write it all down as fast as I can.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Come on—intense jealousy, a space voyage in 1769, and weird Moon creatures. What more do you want?

At this point I should mention which authors I’m tagging next in this blog hop, but I was unsuccessful in getting any to participate. I think the hop has been going for about thirty weeks now, with most authors tagging five others. If you do the math for such a chain, you’ll see how, theoretically, we’d pass the population of the earth in Week 15, and by Week 30 there would be over 2 with 20 zeroes participants.

There only seems to be that many budding authors in the world. So much for theory. As Yogi Berra said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

So I won’t be tagging anyone else. This strand of the chain ends here, with my alter ego, a guy I like to call—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 19, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Sorry, New Rule. You Can’t Do That!

In the original Star Trek TV series, there’s an episode where Captain Kirk invents a card game called Fizzbin in which he makes up the rules as he goes along. The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes featured a game called Calvinball which may never be played by the same rules twice.

If you’re a writer of fiction, you might consider yourself to be playing such a game, too. According to W. Somerset Maugham, “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” With apologies to the famous novelist, I’d say the game has too many rules to memorize and they change with time, according to the tastes of readers. Only by playing the game well can you can make money selling books.

You might try to emulate great writers of the past and imitate their writing styles, in an effort to achieve success. Bad idea. The rules were different in their time. Let’s cover some of those former rules.

1. Take all the time you need to create a vivid description, to ‘paint’ with words. Writers of the 19th Century and earlier used extensive portrayals to convey the appearance of a scene or character, multi-paragraph descriptions abounding in adjectives. That worked well in an era without movies or TV, but readers won’t wade through such long-winded descriptions today.

2. Adverbs exist for a reason; use them. Authors once used adverbs with abandon. Adverbs modify adjectives or verbs and often end in ‘ly’ like ‘crazily.’ These days it’s considered lazy to use too many adverbs, a sign you didn’t take time to select a powerful enough verb.

3. Demonstrate your skill as an author in your narrative paragraphs; dialogue only interferes with that. At one time, fiction was mostly narration, with occasional dialogue. We’re now in an age of character-driven stories, and readers want characters to talk more. No long, boring narrative paragraphs, and less narration overall.

4. Incorporate a rather dull character who needs everything explained to him (even things he already knows); that’s a clever way to explain things to the reader. There was an era when authors could use this technique even if it strained the conversation a bit. These days, that’s no longer tolerated and there’s even a term for it–As You Know, Bob or AYKB. AYKB’s are tempting, an easy trap to fall into even if you make every effort to avoid them.

5. Bring the narrator in as an entity the reader can trust, as one who helps foreshadow future events. In a bygone past, writers could have the narrator speak directly to the reader. And now, Gentle Reader, let us discover what Annabel must be thinking about this latest development. That voice could be used to foreshadow future events in an ominous tone. Little did Frank know, but his secure life would soon be altered forever. Understand, it’s still okay to use foreshadowing, but do it with subtlety, and not with the narrator speaking to the reader. Today that’s referred to as narrative intrusion.

6. Find clever new ways to express your ideas. As centuries of writers did this, many of the word combinations they used were so good the first time, they got used again, and re-used many times over. And became clichés. Now you don’t get to use those clichés, unless you add some twist on them. Go think of your own clever word combo that might become a future cliché. This rule didn’t change, but sorry, you can’t use the same tired clichés.

7. Ease into your story by introducing the reader to the setting, time period, and major characters before any action occurs. Readers in those times had nothing to compete with books for entertainment, and had the time to curl up near the fire and read a cozy story by its light. Times are different. You must grab your reader by the throat with a first sentence or paragraph that demands attention. It’s called a hook, and stories without a good one stay un-bought.

So, are you up for a game like Fizzbin or Calvinball? May the best writer win! Unfortunately, the game’s rules aren’t known by you or—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 25, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Conveying a Sense of Wonder

One of the things that drew me into fiction as a child was the sense of wonder I experienced when reading certain fiction, notably that of Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke and later science fiction writers. The question is, how does a writer evoke that in readers?

First, let’s try to define it. The book Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction defines it this way: “a feeling of awakening or awe triggered by an expansion of one’s awareness of what is possible or by confrontation with the vastness of space and time, as brought on by reading science fiction.”

Although often associated with science fiction, that emotion needn’t be. Rachel Carson’s book The Sense of Wonder was about sharing a love of nature with a child.

I like the associate with childhood. To children the natural world is new, and they experience that sense of wonder more often. Then it fades as we age and it takes more than mere nature to astonish us. Here’s an example of that fading-with-adulthood phenomenon. How many times have you heard the finale of the William Tell Overture (the Lone Ranger theme) by Gioachino Rossini? Ho hum, right? But do you remember the thrill of that first time you heard it? Can you image what audiences of 1829 felt the first time that finale ever played, anywhere?

Up until Jules Verne and authors who followed him, adults most often experienced the sense of wonder in religious contexts, or in fantasy literature. Through his writing Verne showed the world what engineers and scientists of the time were bringing about—a better understanding of the natural world, and the amazing things man might do to achieve his ends. Verne showed readers something new and vast, and it had nothing to do with God or dragons, but with people.

Arthur C. Clarke was another science fiction author who captured the sense of wonder better than most. He carried the science far beyond Verne did, and showed a future humanity achieving, through engineering, the capabilities of gods or wizards. It was Clarke who said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

For writers seeking to induce the sense of wonder in their readers, then, how do you do it? I think there are four elements involved:

A “thing” that is new in some way, or an old thing in a new context
A powerful description of that thing, emphasizing its newness
One or more characters confronting the thing
A depiction of the awe felt by one or more of the characters. How does the thing make the character feel? Again, you’re striving to recreate in words the amazement a child feels for something new.

If you do this well, if your characters are compelling, if the thing is truly worthy of awe and you’ve described it and your characters’ impressions well, then your readers will feel the wonder of it right along with the characters.

In my fiction, I strive to create this sense of wonder, most often in association with technology. Many of my stories are historical, so the characters see something outside their experience, but not necessarily beyond that of modern readers. I confront my characters with such things as a flying trireme, a clockwork lion, a giant mechanical elephant, a steam-powered oared galley in the 1st Century, and steam-powered human limbs (coming soon).

Is there anything to this “sense of wonder” stuff, in your opinion? Have you experienced that feeling from reading fiction? Have you tried writing it into your fiction? Leave a comment and let me know. Wondering about the answer to these and other questions, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 18, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Romancing the Short Story

Bet you didn’t expect me to write a blog entry on writing romance short stories, did you? Well, for one thing, if you desire to become an author, you should learn to write about anything, even topics or genres you know little about or have little interest in. You never know what you’ll end up being good at.

Second, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the romance genre has a vast and insatiable readership. Perhaps not so much in the short story length as in the novel length, but again, what if you’ve got a potentially great romance writer inside you, but you never try the genre to find out?

And, it turns out I have written a couple of short story romances. “Within Victorian Mists” is a steampunk romance, and “Against All Gods” is a romance story set in Ancient Greece. So I am nominally qualified to discuss the topic.

To figure out what’s special or different about romance short stories, let’s start with basics. Any fictional story must have certain elements, including character, plot, conflict, setting, style, and perhaps theme. We’ll dispense with the last three by saying that romance stories can take place in just about any setting, be written in any style, and can explore just about any theme.

Romance stories are character-driven. The characters must be intriguing and complex. The point-of-view character should have aspects with which readers can identify and empathize.

The plot is the emerging love between the characters. Choose your events such that they enable the characters’ love to either develop, or be tested, or both.

The conflict is the protagonist’s struggle to attain love itself, not the sexual act or the fleeting emotions of love, but the deep and shared realization that the two major characters cannot live without each other.

In a short story, you’re going to have to be choosy. It’s very difficult, in just 1000 to 10,000 words, to encompass the typical progression of a love story in its entirety, from the first meeting, through the burgeoning attraction, through the testing or challenge, to the final realization of love. There’s a natural pace to the process of falling in love, and the short story length doesn’t fit that pace as well as the novel length does.

Consider selecting one vignette, one emotion-charged event of a larger love story, and leave the earlier parts as backstory, and just hint at the later events. To explain what I mean, let’s consider what Christie Craig and Faye Hughes describe as the plot points of a romance story, the events that sum up to the plot arc:

Introduction/meeting
First acknowledgement of attraction
First acknowledgement of emotional commitment
Dark moment (what I’d call a test of love’s strength)
Resolution

Your short story could consist of just one of those events, and hint at the rest. Charge your story with emotion, and ensure the protagonist experiences an internal change in the direction of love, and that could be sufficient. It might be all you can manage within a short story format.

Have you written a romance short story? Submitted it for publication? Leave a comment and let me know what happened. When you began writing did you ever think you’d write a romance? No? Neither did—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 11, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Character, Plot, or Setting—Which Comes First?

Today’s question is about whether story-writers think about characters, plot, or setting when they first conceive the idea for a story. If you’ve written fiction, or thought about doing so, which did you start with?

Of these three story elements, perhaps character is most important to the reader. For readers, vivid and interesting characters linger in the memory long after plot or setting details fade. Some writers form a complete mental image of one or more characters, and then wonder what to have them do, and where to have them do it.

For other authors, the first image is of a setting. The scenery is sharp and distinct in their minds. Perhaps they have a photograph or painting to inspire them, and they decide to craft a tale around that image. Some story contests use pictures to prompt stories.

Still others think of the action or story-line or basic situation first. Only after that do they wonder what sort of people should take those actions and where the events should take place.

The image is my attempt to illustrate some of the possibilities graphically.

I’m talking here only about the initial impetus for the story. That’s not what the readers reads. In the end, the story must form a complete, coherent, integral whole. Characters, plot, and setting should fit together and complement each other. This is especially true of characters and plot. In a sense, plot and character determine each other. In a well-written tale, those are the only characters for which the plot makes sense, and vice versa. You can’t take any characters at random and fit them in any situation.

I doubt there is any right answer to my question about which element writers should think of first. I’d be shocked to learn if the greatest writers all started with the same element, but I suspect we’ll never know.

I considered the question with respect to my own short stories, and thought at first I had some stories in each category. Then I reflected on each tale one by one and discovered I had thought of plot first in almost every case. There were three stories in which the plot immediately determined the characters. In “Alexander’s Odyssey” and “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” the characters were historical or mythological figures. In the case of “The Steam Elephant,” my sequel to a pair of Jules Verne novels, the characters had been established by Verne.

The single exception to my usual practice of dreaming up a plot first is my story, “Against All Gods,” and I must admit I thought of the setting first there. I’d wanted to set a story aboard a trireme for some time, and also the Wonders of the Ancient World, so I started with those and conjured up a plot and characters to fit those settings.

Not that it matters to readers, who only see your finished product, but which do you think of first—characters, plot, or setting? Let me know by leaving a comment. It’s a question of interest to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 14, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink