Monthly Archives: July 2014

The blog hop…

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Hello everyone!  I’ve got a different sort of post today, as I’ve been invited by a friend on Wattpad to be part of a blog hop.  And…as it gives me a chance to promote a few fellow authors, I jumped right in.

For those of you who don’t know what a blog hop is (I had to look it up), it’s basically a chain letter, but on blogs.  I hope the web doesn’t get mad at us for plugging up the wires, but it’s a fun idea because the person who invited me answered the following questions, I answer them, and the people I invite answer them too..and it keeps going until everyone in the world has answered these questions.  Maybe it’s more of a blogging pyramid scheme than a chain letter?  Hmmm…

So, I was invited into the pyramid by Katrin Hollister, who has a great book on Wattpad called Rise of the Vengeful Dragon.  If you are a fantasy fan, check it out now!

And after I’m done with this post, I’ll be passing the proverbial pyramid torch to Emily Godhand, Everyn Kildare and Kat Loveland.  Go check out their pages!  Emily writes a fantastic horror thriller called Fear of the Dark, Everyn’s book Crow is a great paranormal fantasy that reminds me a lot of Neil Gaiman and Kat is working on book 2 of her Honor Bound series…a very cool action packed thriller that mixes fashion models, superheroes and child trafficking.

So, here we go!  Onto the questions…

1.  What am I working on?

Currently I’m working on the sequels to Schism.  I have been working on the outlines for several other novels, but the reactions of a few people who have read the entire book and demanded the sequel have convinced me to focus in on Schism II and III.

While I can’t give any story details away, I can tell you that these books are shaping up to have even more action, more twists and even worse bad guys for our heroes William, Bryan and Jess to deal with.  But, they have a few new allies to give them a fighting chance.

2.  How is my work different from others of its genre?

I guess I should try to answer this…okay, please correct me, but I’m not too aware of other paranormal thrillers that dive so much into transpersonal psychology???  Is that different?

But honestly, I think every book that tries to be original ends up being different from the rest.  I think every author wants their characters and story to stand out and work hard to make that happen.

It’s up to the readers to tell me how mine is different.

3.  Why do I write what I do?

I love to tell stories.  I love to stay awake too long thinking up plot connections, ways to express themes that interest me and come up with horrible situations for my protagonists to have to get out of.

Most of all, I try to write stories about things that interest me.  If I end up liking it at every stage…planning, outlining, writing, editing, posting, recording audio and audio editing, then I think there’s a chance others might like it too.

4.  How does my writing process work?

Oh wow where to start…you can take a look at the archives of my blog to get a hint of that…but basically, I plan!  Before I put even a paragraph down, I work out every bit of the plot, the character arcs, the theme, the point of view switches…it all gets nailed down.

That way, all of the pain is up front.  Once I start the writing, I get to focus in on that and don’t have to worry about going astray.  I still re-write and edit like crazy, but I’d say the planning cuts the re-writes in half, at least.  I don’t have to do structural changes, just cosmetic work and that saves a ton of time!

I recommend it highly.

There you go!  Now it’s up to Emily and Kat to take up the blog hop banner and continue to build that pyramid.  Please check out their blogs and their work!

Bruce

The Middle of it All

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In preparation for Schism becoming a featured story on Wattpad on July 18, I’ve been releasing a chapter every day and hit a milestone today…Chapter 25…the middle of the book.

And posting that chapter got me to thinking about the most elusive and misunderstood element in the world of structure, the midpoint.

While we’ve been working with three act structure for books, movies and plays for as long as we can remember (yes, some might bring up alternative forms, but we’re still talking beginning, middle and end that make up three acts), the poor midpoint is often completely overlooked.

And, when we are focused on this three act structure that has a clear end of the beginning (plot point 1) and a clear beginning of the end (plot point 2) in our stories, it’s understandable why the middle gets little attention.  But…this is something that’s also really dangerous.

Because, that neglected middle of the story isn’t just the half-way point in the behemoth of act 2, it’s also a stumbling point that nails almost every writer.  It’s the brick wall that most people think of as Writer’s Block.

Go find out.  Ask any writer who is stuck or has stopped working on a book or story and they’ll say they “got about half-way done” before they got blocked or ran out of ideas, or just got stumped.  It’s that big of a deal…and yet no one talks about it!

Part of the problem is that the father of modern story structure, the late Syd Field, didn’t talk about it much, and not in the clear terms that he laid out the two main plot points.  Instead, he said the midpoint should be a reversal of fortune for the protagonist.

Look elsewhere and it gets even foggier…other story structure theories talk about the midpoint as a First Culmination or something that is either similar to OR the opposite of the ending of the story.

Wow.  That’s helpful, isn’t it?

But there is a fundamental truth here, beneath all the disagreeing theories.  The truth about the midpoint is that it doesn’t have to be just ONE thing, but it had better be SOMETHING.

What I mean by this is that you don’t have to follow any particular dogma about the midpoint.  There doesn’t have to be a reversal of fortune, it doesn’t have to foreshadow the ending or provide contrast to it.  But you had better make sure that something is happening at the midpoint.  Why?  Because you need to make sure that something is happening at EVERY point in your story.  If not, then you are on the fast track toward boring, and no one wants that.

So, if the midpoint isn’t any one thing in particular, how can we keep it from becoming the Writer’s Block quagmire that it is?

The answer is one simple, pain in the butt word…planning.

You see, most writers don’t realize that when they sit down with their latest idea, they don’t really have the full story yet.  They have a great beginning and probably a mind-blowing ending, but these two things don’t have enough oomph to carry a story all the way through the wilderness of act 2, which generally takes up 50% of a novel or script.  Instead, they have enough action and problems that are sparked by the story’s opening to get about half way through.  Then, they run out of steam, get stumped and the second half of act 2 falls stays stuck in limbo.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  All the writer has to do is jot down the rough points of the story before beginning to see the giant hole that appears after the midpoint.  Armed with that knowledge, any writer with enough patience can dig into the story and figure out what interesting actions have to take place to get from the midpoint to the end of act 2.

Best of luck to you all in your writing, and don’t let the midpoint get you down!