Better Fiction: The Blog

I don't often plan out what I'm going to write, especially when I'm dealing with a short story. When I do, I'm just as likely to lose interest in the story as I am to actually complete it. Also, I find that I'm more creative once I'm exploring a concept or a scene, when I'm in the thick of a fictional situation and I see the setting, the characters, and the style emerge on the page. Then, I can begin to imagine some new direction the story might take.

I've learned to look back over what I've written and look for the characters, themes, and situations I've already set up to help me move forward. Until that obvious little insight hit me, moving on to the end often meant imagining something totally new--a new character, new location, new problem--which created an overly long story that was getting off track. Look back at where your story has been to see where it is going.

Of course, sometimes I do run into problems this way.

When I started rewriting the several pages of what had been intended as a novel set in China, now with the intent of turning it into a short story, my process worked well. I reordered some events, considered thematically what very different scenes had to do with each other, came to a unifying theme that suggested a direction and a climactic scene. The writing went well and I am happy with the result, expect for one thing. The "climactic scene" is a "come to realize" moment, and the main problems of the story are left unresolved.

I'm convinced now that the story needs a stronger ending--not instead of my "climactic scene" but in addition to it. For me, the story means nothing without that scene. It has to be there. But I also have to finish the story.

I've written two different endings, so far. Neither one works.

At the present, I'm starting a new job and will have to put this off for a few days. In the meantime, I'm hoping I'll unconsciously see the direction the story needs to go. It's already 7,500 words long. I don't have much more room before I write myself out of most markets.

Most of the time those who insist that we ALL need to plot out before we write don't know how the rest of us work. There critiques are misplaced. Not now.

This is that moment you may be right.

Wade

We, of the Artistic and Literary Antimanifestoist Movement, declare:

We hereby unite against the use of manifestos.

Therefore, we stand against all declarations that use bullet points.

We stand against all artistic and literary uses of manifestos to define a movement, especially those who are solely defined by what they are against. We rise against that by the very definition of who we are.

We are against such movements in general, and have formed the Antimanifestoist Movement in protest.

We stand against all movements formed as a means of protest.

We find that the use of manifestos seeks to artificially separate communities into two opposing groups, those who agree and those who are maligned and demonized by the manifesto. Those who disagree with us are demon-possessed and hereby much maligned.

We stand against ourselves and hereby refuse to join our organization.

We hereby form the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement in protest. (See manifesto to come.)

We are without anyone left to finish this manifesto, without which the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement shall have no means to define itself by what it is against.

We hereby declare the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement dead. (Ignore previous parenthetical note.)

We protest the hubris we have shown is denying ourselves our right to form the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement and plan to sue ourselves in court.

Signed,

The Former Members of the Antimanifestoist Movement

I posted this about four years ago. Since then, I've seen that much of my understanding of structure at the time was based on studying screenplay theory in the 90's.

Wade

On Plot

Although some fiction appears to have a plot and some does not, in truth most "non plotted" fiction actually has a plot, although it has been buried, hidden, and disguised. The place of plot may be argued between genre writers and "literary" writers, but it cannot totally be ignored. For those who struggle with story structure, I offer the following breakdown. This is not a strict formula you must follow, nor is it your only option. It is simply a guide and a tool for your considered use.

We'll think of story structure as having three (3) acts. Acts one and three take up 25% of the story, while act two (the biggest) occupies the middle half. If you are writing a novel, a good guideline for length would be 300 double-spaced manuscript pages. Thus, act one would be 75 pages; act two 150 pages; and act three 75 pages.

Each act has its essential elements:

Act One
Set up
Plot Point One

Act Two
Midpoint
Plot Point Two

Act Three
Climax
Denouement

Plot Points
Events change a story's direction. The two key changes in direction are called the "plot points".

As Disney's animated film "Beauty and the Beast" clearly uses the aspects of plot that I will discuss, I will use the film as my example.

Plot Point One in "Beauty and the Beast" is the change in story when Belle offers to take her father's place as the Beast's prisoner. This changes the story from that of a girl looking to escape village life to one who is now truly the prisoner of a monster in an enchanted castle.

Plot Point Two is the change in story when the Beast releases Belle because he loves her. This changes the plot from a girl learning to cope with life as a monster's prisoner, to "freedom" in which she is made a prisoner by the village people who wish to destroy the monster she has grown to understand and care for.

An additional key element of plot points is that PP2 reverses the action of PP1. In PP1, Belle is imprisoned. In PP2, Belle is freed.

Mid Point and Climax

There are two moments that define a story: the mid point and the climax. It is here where you decide what kind of story you are telling.

"Beauty and the Beast" is a Gothic love story. Why? The midpoint is the moment where Belle runs away only to be saved from certain death by the Beast. Because he has saved her, she comes back and tends his wounds. The hostility between them softens and a romance begins. The climax is the moment when Belle arrives in an attempt to stop the villagers from killing the Beast. Too late, she bends over his body and confesses her love, and her love transforms and saves the Beast.

These two moments define the entire plot. The mid point is also a break up at the center of Act II that helps get us through the huge expanse of the act. It is a milder change than a Plot Point, but it is a change. Belle does not escape, but the relationship with her captor changes. The midpoint can be seen, too, as a question which the climax answers. The midpoint asks, "Will Beauty and the Beast fall in love?" The climax answers, "Yes."

The climax is often seen as simply the culmination of a story's action, but because of its relationship with the midpoint, it is much more than that.

Set Up and Denouement

These are the most obvious of the plot's aspects. One quickly gets us into the story's problem. The other wraps up the loose ends as quickly as possible.

Plot as a Circle

When a story's ending reflects and repeats certain aspects of its beginning, it helps give it a sense of closure.

"Beauty and the Beast" opens with Gaston seeking to marry Belle. It ends with Belle and her transformed prince together. This also reflects back to her love of reading fairy tales in which the heroine meets the prince in disguise.

Films use this plot structure very faithfully. To it they add other rules, such as the middle third of the first act should have the main character on every page. With a novel, we have more freedom. If you have problems with story, try seeing how what you've planned fits into the structure I've described here. Fill in the elements you have missing. Then, once you have a structured story, feel free to tell it in a way that breaks free. This is only a framework to help support the story you want to tell.

Wade Ogletree

Edit: See the "feedback" for a comment from author Jeffrey Overstreet.

The Birth of Colors

Jeffrey Overstreet
Weaving "Auralia Thread":
A landscape bleak
Painted in my head,
Holding back colors,
Folded away
Forgotten away
Creativity's dead.

It's not about others
Far far away
So far away
Creativity's dead,
But for Auralia
Bring us Auralia.
Paint us instead.

Creativity's dead.

Dying and dead,
The sunset is brown
And the morning is gray,
And the beige of this world
Sweeps the rubies away,
But for Auralia,
Bring us Auralia,
Paint us instead.

Inside our heads...

This is the last day the CSFF Blog Tour gets to tell you about the second book in the Auralia Thread series, Cyndere's Midnight by Jeffrey Overstreet, but you can visit him any time at his web site.

What if a world folded up its imagination and tucked it away? What if? Look around you. The world he writes about is our own.

Check out what the rest of the CSFF Blog Tour has to say:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Rachel Briard
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
Alice M. Roelke
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Jill Williamson

Until next time,

Wade Ogletree

Yesterday, we introduced you to the new book, Cyndere's Midnight. Today, let's consider the book's author: Jeffrey Overstreet.

Jeffrey Overstreet is a bad influence. It only took a few seconds of research to make me incredibly envious. How could he be so brazen as to have such an interesting and full career? The respectable thing would have been to be bland and common, someone I could have felt superior to.

Case in point: Jeffrey writes about film for Image, imagejournal.com.

Case in point: He also reviews movies for Christianity Today and writes a monthly column named after his book: Through a Screen Darkly.

Case in point: He's a contributing editor for Response magazine, published at Seattle Pacific University.

Of all the nerve. He really should be ashamed.

Not only that, he also has a really cool goatee. I wish I could grow a goatee.

His web site is even eight years older than mine (having started in 1996). Can it get much worse?

Yes it can.

He began a weekly column for ChristianityToday.com in 2001 that compared Christian and secular film reviews and moved from that to full film reviews for Christianity Today’s new film site, ChristianityTodayMovies.com, in 2007.

That same year he had two (count them: two) books published: Through a Screen Darkly, which I understand is an autobiography about going to the movies, and Auralia’s Colors, which is supposed to be the first of a four book series. (A trilogy just wasn't good enough for this guy!)

Cyndere’s Midnight is the second in the series and hit the bookstores in September 2008.

Auralia’s Colors did not earn a single Christy Award nomination, instead it earned TWO. (Greedy if you ask me.)

That Seattle Pacific University magazine I mentioned, Response, it's a full-time gig. Full time. He reads and writes and gets paid enough for it to live off of! My biggest writing pay day to date could have been spent in one trip to the grocery store. This guy really ticks me off.

Finally, he likes to hear himself speak so much that he's been a speaker at film festivals, universities, churches, teachers’ conferences, and on radio programs around the U.S.

Please, enough already.

Clearly, all this over-achievement is the sign of a fragile ego. Buy his book. Make the guy feel better. Then he can settle down and be more like me. I think we can all agree, that would be a good thing.

Don't believe me? Check out what the rest of the CSFF Blog Tour has to say:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Rachel Briard
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
Alice M. Roelke
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Jill Williamson

Until next time,

Wade Ogletree

For the protection of my family's privacy, I haven't gone into the drama we've faced these last two months, but I allude to it here as a means of explaining why I've fallen behind in my promise to review the new books by ARA13 and Sara Wagner. It may be that you know what I'm talking about either through the forum here, or church, or word of mouth. If so, I want you to know that we have been overwhelmed by your emotional support and your love. Your prayers have meant a great deal.

Perhaps, then, it doesn't take much more to explain why this is not a review of Jeffrey Overstreet's Cyndere's Midnight. I cannot review what I have not read. However, I would like to take a moment to herald its coming. Prepare the trumpet.

Inhale. Blow. No explanation of the book emerges.

I visited Jeffrey Overstreet’s Web site and read a description of the book. The book may well stand on its own, but I soon discovered that I couldn't understand the book description without having some knowledge of the book that came before. That book was Auralia’s Colors. Auralia is a girl who discovers a "talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them". It's a literary fantasy novel that claims to have it all: great prose, plot, and action. (Anyone know a "p" word for action? Plan? Process? Perspiration?)

Inhale. Try again.

In Cyndere's Midnight that strange talent charms a beastman, creating a conflict between the beast and man halves that before found peace under the dominate beast half. Now there is a chance to create an alliance between the beastmen and the people (er, the, uh, men-men) of the novel's world. Of course, it's not that easy. Beasts will be beasts.

Don't like my trumpet playing? Hear it from the author himself:

Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog

Or check out what the rest of the CSFF Blog Tour has to say:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Rachel Briard
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
Alice M. Roelke
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Jill Williamson

Until next time,

Wade Ogletree

I woke up early this Saturday morning and, unable to get back to sleep, I decided to get on the computer and download a song. One song in particular had my interest. It had been bumping around in the back of my head for years, and now was the time to do something about it. I sought out "Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World" by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole, found it, bought and downloaded it, and that's when the frustration began.

It was the right song by the right artist, but when I played the clip at Amazon, something didn't seem right. It sounded lower than I remembered. I couldn't be sure, as it had been a while since I last heard the song. Before I bought it, I searched out the full song on the Internet and heard the same song I was playing on the clip. I searched for other artists' versions of the song, but they certainly were not what I was remembering.

I finally decided that my memory was playing tricks on me. I bought, downloaded, and played the song. Only then (why then I don't know) was I certain that this was not the version of the song that had so enchanted me. It wasn't even close.

I did another search and discovered the problem. At Amazon, the song is available as recorded on the album "Unforgettable". The version of the song I know and love is by the same artist but from his album "Facing Future". Two versions of the same song made up of rehashed lyrics, sung by the same artist. One I never would have thought twice about, the other I can't get out of my mind.

After the frustration wore off, I began contemplating the implications of this as a writer. The changes between the songs are minor. The one I love is sung in more of a haunting falsetto and the song returns to the opening "Over the Rainbow" chorus instead of ending on "What a Wonderful World". That's about it, but those differences mean everything.

Iz's experimentation with the song presents dramatically emotional results. Emotional connections like that are what drive great works of literature as well. I want to learn how to transform my own works from merely good to something beyond, something that contains that spark that separates the good from the great and the great from the classic.

One of the greatest hindrances we may have as writers is our attachment to what we have written. Do we have the courage to take a piece we've just polished, something that has already gone through all the rewrites and is ready to go out the door, and try imagine doing it another way...to find some small magical difference that could turn the story into something greater than it was before?

That can be a hard thing to do, but with my latest project, I will take that extra step. I will rethink and reconsider, and, most probably, the story will begin the submission rounds without any dramatic, fate-altering change. On the other hand, just maybe, that special something will happen.

Anything Iz possible.

Wade Ogletree

Edit: See "Feedback" for a comment from Iz's producer, Jon de Mello, and more insight into the two versions of this song.

At the same time I was throwing up my hands in frustration over the speculative genres, including their Christian cousins, I was contacting the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour about the possibility of becoming a member.

The other day, I received this email:

"[Your request to join] CSFF was forwarded on to me, but I see that more recently you’ve talked about moving on from Christian science fiction and fantasy. Are you still interested in the tour?

"We’d love to have you. I don’t know if we’ll offer you new hope or help, but I will say, I’ve seen increased interest in Christian fantasy since we started the tour in 2006. That’s not to say the change is a result of our activity. But the tour has made me aware of how many people are out there wanting something they haven’t found in Christian fiction, or found only in small doses."

My blog post she's referring to began like this: "Here's the thing. I've been fighting an uphill battle, and somewhere along the way I've come to this depressing conclusion: I ain't gonna win." I follow that up later with this cheerful thought: "I'm not going to breathe life into an unborn genre, which is to say Christian science fiction and fantasy."

So, now I find myself having to make a choice. Do I press on and join the Blog Tour?

The answer was an easy and resounding: YES. My response was simple: "I am still interested. I'm working on other things right now, but I doubt I could totally abandon the genre." That is also the message I want to pass along here. I am working on other things, but the bedrock of who I am as a writer has not changed. I have just finished the rough draft to my first short story written in this self-proclaimed new era, and the evidence is that the taste for the surreal that led me to fantasy and science fiction will live on in whatever I write.

And it is certain to lead me back, at least from time to time.

Wade Ogletree

I'm back in China. Not literally, but my fiction has returned there, and it feels good.

After my dramatic blow-up with the speculative genres, I dug out the couple of chapters I had written in what was meant to be a novel set in China. I had abandoned the project but still liked what I had written so far. My current interest in getting back to a mainstream.literary mindset revived a determination to make something of the material, this time as a short story, and so far I think it's going well. It wants to be a crime story, and I'm okay with that.

Speaking of crime: Big Pulp has just purchased my story "Daddy's Will" for their summer issue. "Daddy's Will" is a little mystery I wrote with Roald Dahl in mind. In getting myself interested in a project, style can be as important as anything else, and I often have a goal in mind. With "The Station" (Haruah), I had noticed how Hemingway repeated words, something we usually avoid. In the upcoming "The Foal" (Creative Brothers' Science Fiction), I was pursuing a long-time goal to write something that might be called "agricultural science fiction". That desire grew out of a love for three great animal stories: Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", Faulkner's "The Bear", and Steinbeck's "The Red Pony". In my estimation, Steinbeck's is the least of three, but it's also the one whose subject matter was most reflected in "The Foal".

I'm also beginning to realize that I have noir-ish feelings about China. "A Picture's Worth" (Distant Passages, volume 1) follows a man's decent toward murder, guided by jealousy and the haunting influence of Feng Shui. "Window Blind" (Mind Flights) had a slightly sci-fi edge to it, and focused on a woman haunted by her own surveillance equipment. As a theme it focused on lives being controlled by fear or love and ends as one of the most blatantly Christian works I've ever written. It is dark and bleak, and I should also not that it is not necessarily set in China. I kept it ambiguous because the point was not to pick on any particular government. My present work, currently titled "Down to the Land of Darkness" is a "Godfather"-esque story of being pulled down (and back) into the world of organized crime.

Can't wait to post the new story at the forum.

Wade Ogletree

Ok, yes, the last post was a bit melodramatic, and it left some people thinking was quitting writing. That was not the point.

I'm changing focus, that's all.

Wade

Here's the thing. I've been fighting an uphill battle, and somewhere along the way I've come to this depressing conclusion: I ain't gonna win.

So, I'm shifting gears. Probably. I'll give it a try, anyway.

I've had some people in mind, people who I saw fighting a losing fight and being drawn down by it. One rather talented writer found himself out of touch with the reading public by at least a hundred years, maybe more. He dug in his heels and ranted and raved about how sick he was with, well, with everything that makes contemporary fiction what it is. He seemed to think that if he complained loud enough, he'd get people to agree with him...and his kind of writing would be popular again.

I think I've been heading in that direction.

I've also been thinking about how I've approached my own writing over the last four years. I didn't want to pigeon-hole myself by deciding too soon that I was this kind of writer or that. Even so, I slowly began to identify myself as a writer of Christian science fiction and fantasy, for the most part. I pigeon-holed myself without really taking a look at what I was trying to do and deciding, honestly, where those efforts would best pay off.

It's time to be honest with myself. In a sense, it's time to quit.

I'm not going to breathe life into an unborn genre, which is to say Christian science fiction and fantasy. I'm not going to fit into the secular mainstream versions of the genre, either. In the last few years, I've discovered more about what I'm trying to say in my writing, and these genres and I simply aren't going in the same direction. At the end, I held out hope for literary fantasy...but even there, at least for now, the hope has died.

More and more, I've become aware that the fantastic was only a tool to open up a story for me, and that I was generally more interested in the characters, in the relationships, and in the here-and-now. I'm not interested in world-building or magic. My work, I saw it as approaching mundane science fiction and magical realism. Sometimes, it wasn't even that.

To my shock, I've discovered a completely different swimming hole to dip my toes in for a while, and I think I'm going to give it a try.

If I'm right about this, when the time comes that I can't resist dipping back into the fantastic, I might even find my brand of it fits a bit better in the world of the mundane. Who knows? Can't hurt to try. I've written my share of literary or mainstream (whatever that is) stories before, and I plan of focusing there for a while.

So, at least for now, I'm quitting the road I'm on.

I'm trying something else. Stay tuned to find out more.

Wade Ogletree

The Holy Grail of American Literature has long been this undefined ideal called The Great American Novel. I assume that other cultures have shared similar goals. In this age of globalization, however, the definition of our pursuits may be ready for a change.

Following the dictum, "write what you know," our stories have tended to be local tales told by local folk. Stories in foreign lands required that one of our own cross the sea to be clueless and lost on our behalf, so that we could discover this new land vicariously through him.

One huge departure from this was the Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. His Rwanda was brought to us through a woman native to the land, and the stories have proven to be widely popular. The western reader has shown himself ready to embrace the foreign in a sign of what may be literary globalization. The world has shrunk to the point where readers can identify with foreign settings and characters without one of our own leading the way and holding the reader's hand.

The idea behind The Great American Novel, I believe, was not simply a great novel written by an American but a novel that best captured the American experience. Perhaps now we are ready for The Great Global Novel, which could be written by anyone, anywhere, with the goal of best capturing the experience of being human.

This is an idea of importance to me as a writer. So far, I have demonstrated a tendency to set my stories among other cultures and peoples. I have several stories set in Europe, several in Asia, and two in Africa—although one of those does not deal with local people.

Though my initial interest in fiction leaned more toward the fantastic, I have, in the last few years (the mature stage of my writing life) always felt led to keep my fiction grounded, mostly here on Earth and in a fairly contemporary setting. The locales, though, have always changed.

At the time of this writing (this being a reprint), I've had five stories set in foreign nations, four set in America, one set in space, and one totally unspecified.

For the longest time, I gave little thought to this personal trend, but lately I have seen how this could be quite logical in the context of the world in which we live. Whether because of the ease of travel or the speed with which research can be done online, the world is open to the writer like never before.

I've spent about half my life in America's Deep South and half in Southern California. My wife is from Hong Kong. I've done a little traveling in Europe, made a few trips to Hong Kong, and spent a few weeks in mainland China. Still, many times I find myself writing about places I have never been. Sometimes, that can be difficult. I have unfinished stories set in Valencia, Spain; Paris, France; and Vietnam which have floundered due to what I do not know about these areas.

I would also like to write about contemporary Africa and the Muslim world, but, again, I find myself hampered by my own ignorance. In consideration of the idea of literary globalization, I think those limitations highlight the breadth and boundaries of our horizons. We understand more about the world—how we are alike and how we are different. Personally, I find those ways in which we are alike to be much more important than our differences. However, there is still the foreign and the unknown. There are still people in whose shoes I cannot yet walk, not even in my imagination.

Unlike some, I do not long for the death of nationalism. I do not want to see America lose its identity and sovereignty. However, in literature I find no desire to cling to our boundaries and its well-traveled roads. There are lands out there to explore, people to discover. The Great American Novel (or The Great WHEREVER Novel) can still exist in that context, because, however broad our horizons, we still see the world from home, filtered through our local experiences and ideals.

Perhaps that is one of the great possibilities of fiction in our global age. Literature is no longer limited to how we see ourselves. It is now about how we see one another.

Wade Ogletree (This is a reprint from the lost Better Fiction blog.)

A look at Christian Novel Publishers:

Barbour Publishing

I was drawn to Barbour under the idea that they publish mysteries, however, it seems evident that they are focused on romance. They have two mass-market romance book clubs with their own sets of guidelines, but even their main guidelines require that a novel's plot be focused on a romance.

They are looking for books from a Christian worldview, but one that reaches the broadest market possible. Book length should be 80,000 to 100,000 words. Though they claim that contemporary and historical settings will be considered, anything post 1950 "is not of current interest".

I did not look at the separate guidelines for the book clubs.

http://www.barbourbooks.com/writers_guidelines/