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Book Tips Free For Writers - Plot and Structure of your Book

 - Part 3

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A Closer Look At The Beginning Of Your Book

As we've said, it's All Important to Hook The Reader at the outset of your book, like I do in my book about doomsday 2012. No amount of your opening good intentions or artfulness will matter if the Reader won't read on. Your Startup must contain Compelling Drives, Conflict, Passion, Attitude, and Raw Emotion to get the ball rolling. This can consist of dramatic Setting, spot bang-on Dialogue, or startling Action (external, internal).

 

As Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty) says in his little book on writing, never open with a weather report (unless of course it's a tornado, hurricane, or the Rapture Itself.)

You must establish a bond between the Lead of your book and the Reader, through Identification, Sympathy, Likeability, Inner Conflict, Motives, Admirable or Desirable Action, and Other common sense things. How is the Lead like the Reader (flawed)? What engenders sympathy better than Jeopardy, Hardship, Vulnerability, being the Underdog. Or, if you can't make the Lead a Great Person, make him or her at least Fascinatingly dumb, evil, beautiful, conniving, shifty, Machiavellian, or Other. You get the picture, right?

The Beginning of the book must Compel the Reader to read forward into the Middle, through a Doorway Of No Return, where she must Confront the Antagonist and even more complexities, subplots, and all of the above magnified to exquisite agony (ideally). I must keep the reader Engaged and Wondering just "what the hell can possibly happen next---go wrong?"

 

A Closer Look At The Middle Of The Book

Don't give everything away at once. Leak out the details a little at a time by Dialogue, Innuendo, Action, Who the Lead is seen with, Who is Interfering with the Lead, and Other. Don't Tell about it ("It was in her mind that she was angry,"), SHOW it ("She shot him in the head nine times.")

I use the Middle of my book about 2012, Mayan Doomsday to Stretch Tension and Suspense. Raise the Stakes, what's at risk. The Lead confronts Death (physical or psychological, or in business, etc.) Pack the Middle with Emotional and Physical Tension, and you can take out the crazy/boring parts later. What more can Go Wrong? What's the Worst Thing that can happen? Why are the Lead and the Antagonist Stuck Together?

Why doesn't the Lead just walk away? What's his motivation to stay on and Do Battle? What's the Glue that Bonds them?

Show Action, Reaction, More Action, and Internal Reflection. Alternate these for effect. Stretch this out, agonizingly. The Lead must solve his Problem, reach the Objective. Who loses What? Are there dull parts that can be cut? Are there characters who need to be deleted? Is there another Level of Complication that can be introduced? Would a new character enhance the story's progress forward? Raising the Stakes---always raise the stakes of the game.

Don't forget, the purpose of the Middle of your book is to guide the Reader through to the Ending, Act II. The Lead must pass through another Doorway Of No Return, and be compelled to Stay There and deal with the Challenges.

Let's now take a closer look at Endings.

 

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