Speculative Fiction. Magic Realism.

Writing tips for novels.

Free advice for writers, plot and structure and writing examples.

 

 

NOTES: Story Structure And Plot

(Writing Example Is Below)

"Overture is a scene to establish the action and the unique characters immediately through a crisis. This creates immediate danger for the hero.

      Key point 1: look for how this is a defining moment for your hero's character

Key point2 : try to find a single arena instead of moving - creates the pressure cooker effect

The action world usually has a set of values: in a Shame culture, like the one below, the values are of tribal, hunter-warriors, and they emphasize physical ability, courage, pride, doing well (as opposed to doing good things), appearance, and approval in the eyes of others, religion and famiglia.

Failure: comes from not living up to a standard - causes shame

At the beginning: give the hero a sense of humor. This grounds the story and makes the hero stronger. If he is cool enough to joke in extreme danger he must be really good. Always use deadpan and understatement. Also the hero should often make fun of himself. Key point: show his humor immediately, before the big action starts. This makes it believable when he jokes during dangerous situations. Also at the beginning: give the hero quirks

 Improvisation is the sign of true greatness. Only by forcing the hero to create on the spur of the moment can the audience see how trained and talented the hero really is. Place the battle in as tight a space as possible — pressure cooker. Find a way for the hero to not only outfight the opponent but outthink him

 The hero is tied to a moral and ecological universe. The development of the universe/world matches the hero and then his ultimate moral change: shedding his skin gives the story special weight and uniqueness. The Roman world, below, is an empire of slavery/prison and religious enslavement of everyone who is part of it, corrupted, and mafia-like. Connect the hero's development with his world very step of the way in total orchestration. Use STRUCTURE (below) to SHOW but avoid PREACHING. "

             

 

 

Excerpt

EMPIRE OF THE GODS - THE GOD CONSPIRACY

 

 

 

 

 

The Nearly Completed Flavian Amphitheater—Exhibition Game—79 AD .

 

 

 

Writing Example:

 

 

  

 

Wounded and bleeding, Marius knew the professional killer could close the distance and finish him in an instant. He wanted to escape the high stone walls, locked gates and mob that filled five stories of seats, blocked the aisles and exits. The only sound was a snap of pennants, chant of priests and the ring of small bells, wards against ghosts. In his box Caesar blessed himself with incense. Slaves straightened his toga. He ordered the Praetoriani to tighten its ring of iron around the two fighters, and sat back to watch: the arena—the great, bloody, beating heart of empire.

Marius said to the killer, "Know what? I'm here by accident."

The gladiator was big, edgy. He scuffed across the clotted sand, tapped shield to breastplate and said, "Yeah? Well, I'm Burcanius and I’m here because a guy doesn’t like you just paid me to kill you."

Marius said, "What? Nobody knows who I am behind my mask, but I’ll pay you to just forget about all this, you want to live, right?"

   "Nah, to live forever, not human. Besides, this fight, it's the law. What, you don't like the part where you die for Mother Rome?"

   Marius wiped bloody sweat from his face and said, "It's not whether I like the law; it’s whether I’m obedient to the law."

   "Good, then get up. The law says you fight and die."

   "The law says I fight."

   "Just get up."

Marius hauled himself to his feet. Blood ran down his bare chest. The armored fighter stepped toward him, a death machine in the hard circle of sunlight. Marius backed away, scanned dead bodies on the sand for a shield, but there was none.

Someone in the bleachers yelled, "What are you looking for? Maybe Hades?" Laughter from 50,000 sports fans, new bets flurried through them like birds.

Marius straightened and gazed into the stands. He raised his sword in ritual salute, turned a slow pivot before the mob and shouted, "No, not Hades! With this gladius, symbol of modern Rome, I invoke the ancient ghosts of our tribal ancestors and their highest moral value, a good death—given or received! Victory at any cost!" The devout and patriotic mob broke into a roar, stomped its feet and shook the floorboards, made the sand shimmer and dance.

Burcanius lunged, his sword a blur, but Marius whirled away in a spinning turn and widened the kill zone between them. Wild cheers burst from the Roman mob, they waved banners and seat pillows. Marius was tired and hung over, perverse, waved back and they roared in delight. Energized, Marius strutted, made faces, drove them to laughter and ovation, but his sword constantly measured the glittering air between him and the gladiator that stalked him.

Marius turned and said, "How ya doin'?"

The gladiator froze. Marius said, "You get the invitation?"

The fighter twitched behind the grill of his helmet. "What?"

"Me neither, I sneaked in—got drunk, slid down that cable over there. They should have invited you, though, killers is so interesting, I bet you meet such interesting people, do you know your armor is rusted right there?"

    The gladiator started to say something but Marius’ sword was a hiss of death,  Burcanius took the stunning Clang! on helmet and shield—a twist and slam of the shield drove Marius around in a lurching stumble out of the zone. Marius touched his new wound, looked at blood on his fingers. The last thing he'd expected today was to fight in the arena. It was an accident, getting drunk and sliding down the cable onto the sand. Even if he won, when they found out who he was, there was an automatic death sentence for a Praetorius fighting in the arena. But that didn’t matter to him, Even if I escaped, Claudia would kill me herself—for fighting and for those two prostitutes, especially the one whose loincloth I'm wearing as a mask...

     Marius heard blood drip onto the sand and felt dizzy. Burcanius advanced, Marius was weak, and tried to move away from the oncoming engine of death. Dizzy, his vision narrowed and darkened, but he planned to win this fight.

Burcanius was on him in a flare of armor, a kick to the ribs of Marius, smashed the heavy shield into Marius’ face, then Burcanius sword came up and over in a blur, a downward chop and Marius sword took the blow but shattered with a sizzle of steel on steel. Marius turned and ran, but Burcanius had him covered, the Murmillo calculated angles and geography, there was no point beyond Burcanius’ reach, no route that didn’t lead to death. Burcanius postured for the cheering mob and said to the cornered, bleeding Marius, “Gotcha.”

Marius knew Burcanius was his death-twin, the specter all fighters fear. With no escape, the face of terror hidden behind his silk mask, Marius staggered—feet too deep in the sand, he stumbled and fell against the wall where an iron spike pierced his back.

Burcanius grinned inside his helmet, a victory yell filled him, he charged the impaled Marius and swung a gleaming death blow—Marius rolled, yanked the spike and drove it two-handed into Burcanius' neck, spine severed, the dead Murmillo dropped.

The mob was on it’s feet, cheered and stomped, Marius held the bloody spike high, turned in a victorious pivot. The mob’s voice rose in a vibrating column of stunning sound—humanity: joy, worship, fear, and desire.

Caesar tossed a hundred gold coins onto the sand and Marius saluted him to mob adoration. Priests sanctified the kill as without blemish, a good death given and received—perfection. The Praetoriani discovered Marius was one of them—had broken the law—and he obediently kneeled for execution, but instead: he was named as: Militus, Defender Of Rome, The Law, Virtue, And All That’s Holy, a demigod.

Gladius

 

A Thousand Years Before Marius, The Kidron Valley, 115 Miles East Of Jerusalem.

 

 

 

The black mirror of Lake Tiberius shimmers with torchlight as a little boy leans over the side of the small boat and watches the surface glide past.

"Be careful, Yusii,” the young father whispers, “hold the torch higher, don’t move it so much, the fish will dive deeper.”      

To lure them with light, passed from father to son for millennia. To teach a son life, what every father lives for.

 “All right, daddy,” the child says, large eyes white in the night.

Abbaleh sniffs the primal scent of mist, mud, and reeds, watches out for crocodile. Fish will follow the light; crocodile will follow the fish. He doesn’t notice that his young son leans too close to the black water.

In the muted night, frogs sing, are eaten by snakes, mosquitoes whine, are eaten by bats, life eats life. There's a loud splash—something big—and silver fishes flash in torchlight, vanish back into the dark. Abbaleh flings his net.

He startles as a sudden low pressure area moves in from above and sucks air out of the valley.

“Ow...did you feel that, Yusii?” he says, hands to his ears, “Did your head just hurt?”

The squall hits them from nowhere in a dark blast. The rain is a black cataract. It hammers them, puts out the torch, and fills the boat with cold water. The father and little boy find each other and cling in terror. The boat sinks, and they drown in the dark.

One-hundred and fifteen miles away, Mount Moriah protects Jerusalem from rains out of the Mediterranean, but the vast rotating storm roars this way from the opposite side, hurls wind and rain before it. There is little time and no escape, the hurricane races onward, unnaturally swift, comes fast. It’s charged with vast occult power and intent, driven by an overwhelming supernatural force: a Divine Being of immeasurable intelligence and unsympathetic purpose. She speaks from within the storm. 

"I am..."

 

 

The killer will wash away villages and cities. Such is the capriciousness of the Divinity who tonight—indifferent and inaccessible—plots to alter the future of Humanity.

"I Am...That which I Am..."

In the path of the storm is Mount Moriah, where the city of Jerusalem sleeps, oblivious, 2500 feet above the valley. The Israelites feel protected on their Mount by their great temple, constructed there by ancient entities whom the demigod King Suleimon conjured, legions of powerful demons, each of whom commanded countless legions. They were once gods of a more ancient religion. Suleimon and his priests make sacrifices to the demons and to the new Hebrew god Yahweh in the temple, but, there is no defense against the greater power that races here now to envelope the universe. 

 

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Best Books And DVD s Help And Advice For Writers And Writing

 

 

 

John Truby Writer's Blockbuster 5 Software For Screenplays, Novels, Stories

 

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The new BLOCKBUSTER 5.0 makes you an even more accomplished storyteller. What's new? BLOCKBUSTER 5.0:
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• Truby's complete Story Structure Course, the 103 Greatest Characters in fiction, 23 most valuable Story Techniques, and much more.

 

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Also: Introducing A New Private Detective Adventure
 With Sioux McDill And Black Jack Vane:
Kiss My Face

Excerpt

 

Empire Of The Gods
Writing Example - Speculative Fiction
 of Gods, Goddesses, Magic, And Past Ages

Sorceress

Excerpt


 

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