May 2024

Welcome back!

~ LZ

Sections

• Writing Advice
• Editing Advice
• Service Availability

Writing Advice

This month, I’m continuing the topic of developing your plot by expanding on something I mentioned last month, the STORY GOAL.

tldr; the STORY GOAL is NOT what the AUTHOR wants to have happen, but what the CHARACTERS – particularly the MAIN CHARACTER(S) – want and need to obtain or accomplish. The plot is going to trace the many methods, mishaps, and successes trying to reach their goal.

The best STORY GOALS are TRANSFORMATIVE:

1. EXTERNALLY – taking the main character from one situation in life to another (often, in their eyes, a better situation).
2. INTERNALLY – testing a character’s personality traits, eventually strengthening or altering them (often for the better).

These transformations will be so foundationally altering that they cannot realistically happen overnight. Metamorphosis by Kafka is a good example. The plot unfolds over several significant scenes, spaced out over time, to show how Gregor Samson’s inward transformation catches up to his sudden outward one. The interactions and conflicts Gregor faces show how every trait alters, bit by bit, until the character reaches resolution.

The other thing you have to consider when choosing a STORY GOAL is how many steps, both IDEALLY and WORST CASE SCENARIO, is it going to take the character to either achieve success or reach ultimate failure.

Example: Character A wants a better-paying job, so they have more money to afford their half of the rent for the apartment they share with Character B, a lifelong friend they have an unrequited crush on.

Getting the better-paying job is the STORY GOAL. Keeping their apartment and their roommate are the stakes because if the rooming situation ends, they will lose out on any opportunity to admit their feelings.

But getting a new job isn’t an overnight thing. Character A might scour want ads, find and make contacts in a different industry, or if they stay in their current company, possibly enroll in an online training or certification to be eligible for a promotion, schmooze with a different division’s boss.

And conflict potential abounds at nearly every point along the way: they might lose their current job if their current boss gets wind they’re trying to jump ship or taking too much time off, or character A misses a deadline because they worked on an assignment for the certification class and dropped the ball at their job.

Meanwhile, what’s the roommate doing? Maybe they’re dating someone new? Internal conflict – what is Character A even doing this for if the roommate is with someone else? External conflict – what if the roommate loses their job and now they are talking about having to move out because they’re not even feeling that the friendship is worth preserving because Character A is never available for fun any more?

Choosing the right story goal is only the first step of developing a solid plot. Making sure you have enough potential spots for conflict requires thinking about the goal in terms of the context of the world around the character and figuring out all the things that can go right or wrong in trying to get what the character wants in the end.

Homework: Make a list of all the steps ideally and then start listing all the things that can go wrong for your character trying to achieve their goal. This list will become your RISING ACTION scenes for your story’s plot. (Right now, don’t worry about putting them in a final order, just list all the possibilities. Dig deep and think not only about big conflicts, but also sources of small conflict.

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Editing Advice

Last month we talked about identifying your STORY GOAL, and points of both INTERNAL and EXTERNAL CONFLICT. This month, let’s discuss how to show these things when reworking the first draft into your second draft.

1. SHOW vs TELL. You will not replace every instance of telling. And you will also need to pay attention to who has POV to decide what is appropriately shown in a scene, and what remains unknown to the reader until the character does get POV.
   • SHOW in scenes where the outward actions are to be witnessed by someone else and possibly interpreted or misinterpreted.
     • He pushed aside the door and frowned.
       “What is it?” Tonya moved forward, her lantern illuminating the glyphs engraved in the stone.
   • TELL though when an action is typical AND uninterrupted.
     • Late for work, he packed himself a quick lunch – deli meat sandwich – and ran out the door.

Armed with these issues, you can look at all the scenes leading up to the CLIMAX for details that revealing the GOAL, MOTIVATION, and INTERNAL and EXTERNAL CONFLICTS that are shown in the narrative, dialogue, and actions of every scene.

If you are writing a DUAL POV story (two protagonists; such as two people who will fall in love), do this in segments. Go through all the scenes written in Character 1’s POV for “pass 1,” and then go through all the scenes written in Character 2’s POV for “pass 2.”

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Service Availability

I have a couple remaining openings for moderate length (50-80k) copy edits that can start in June or July 2024. If you are looking to publish in August or September, this is the perfect time to schedule your edit. Contact me through the website.

~ Lara

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