The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack M. Bickham [36]
Second, you should remember always to follow the story, which is to say, the line of conflict growing out of the lead character's goal.
Third, you should beware of late-blooming ideas that seem to come from nowhere during your writing of the project.
Some writers would protest the first advice, saying they "write by inspiration," or "do the story to see how it's going to come out." I hope you're not one of those. The more planning you do before starting to write, the better. Some writers do a detailed outline or proposal; others make elaborate notes on the characters; some make do with a scribbled page or two out of a legal tablet, sketching in a synopsis of the plot. Whatever the individual procedure may be, however, there is a central idea in such planning: Be sure you know what your story is about before you start.
This is easy to say and hard to do. One of the reasons its hard is that all of us tend to imagine a lot more story than we can ever put down in the finished product, the limits of space and time being what they are. Another reason such summary is hard is that the creative imagination likes to freewheel, and detests being forced to boil its ideas down to the ultimate direct simplicity. "If I write down the idea as succinctly as possible," some will cry, "then I won't need to write the story!"
Pardon me while I disagree. As a teacher over the years I've seen far too many stories—shorts and novels alike—founder in midstream because the author simply lost her way—forgot what the original wonderful idea was, in its essence. Writing a novel, for example, is a long and arduous task, and during the composition no writer can keep all the projects aspects in mind all the time. We forget a subplot for a while, or we get overly fascinated with a minor character, or we simply get tired and lose creative focus.
In all such cases, the existence of a brief statement of the story, written when the original vision is clear, can be a lifesaver. I urge you to avoid the fog by producing a story statement.
How long should it be? Absolutely no more than 150 words, and preferably shorter. What should it have in it? The following:
1. The basic plot situation in which the story is to play.
2. The name and identity of the main viewpoint character.
3. This character's story goal.
4. The name of the primary opposition character.
5. What this "villain" wants, and how he opposes the main character.
Dwight V. Swain, noted author and teacher of writing, has written that a sample story summary containing these elements would read something like my following example:
Hungry and needing money (situation), out-of-work Joe Smith (name and identity) must get a job at Acme Tool Co. (viewpoint character's main goal). But can he get the job when old enemy Sam Jones (primary opposition) tries to waylay him at the plant gate to prevent the job interview? (villain desire and plan).
In this example, of course, we have an idea for a short story of perhaps only one or two scenes. Writing the kernel of a complex novel is much harder. It can be done, however! And boiling off all the secondary aspects of a novel to reveal its skeleton may provide just the tiny reminder you'll need in the throes of a several-hundred-page project.
Before I wrote the first novel in my Brad Smith espionage series I summarized it like this:
Called back to duty by his former CIA masters, aging tennis star Brad Smith goes to Budapest to try to help a young woman tennis player escape that country. But can he get her out when the CIA plot is foiled, he is alone, and the UDBA is onto his mission?
Now, of course the plot of this 75,000-word novel contained many more questions than this. But precisely because subplotting in this project was so complicated—and there were so many characters ultimately involved—having this "kernel statement" helped me remember what the central thrust of the novel was supposed to be.
Let me urge you to take this sort of step yourself, always.
Having done this, you will be more ready to