25 4 25�Tips for crafting fiction
John Bennion
johnbennion.com
Advice: Don’t take notes!� Find this presentation at johnbennion.com
Today use your notebook generatively.
Definition of Story: �a character takes life-changing action in a space.
The book process from conception to publication:
Creator
Content editor
Copy editor
Marketer
These tips begin with action verbs: rebel, put, use, choose.��While we’re going through these tips, ask yourself: In my novel, how do I …? ��We’re brainstorming here, so remember, don’t go with the first take.�
Tip #1:�Rebel against your own conventions.
#2: Put your character in a situation where they must take life-changing action.
#3: Use a catalyst to start the action.
#4: Keep your eye on the plot--what the characters feel about what’s happening.�A frenetic story is not necessarily an engaging plot.
The king died and then the queen died is a story.
The king died and the queen died of grief is a plot. (1)
#5: Choose appropriate action. �Raise the stakes by discovering the hardest thing your character can do.
# 6: Isolate your primary character from their support group.
#7: Endow your character with conflicting values. �We cause our own tragedies.
#8: Allow your characters to make bad decisions.
#9: Give your primary character a driving desire, but give them confused or mistaken ideas of how to get what they want. �(From Martine Leavitt)�
#10: Pace your story by keeping the primary character’s desire just out of reach.
#11: Cause your character’s worst fear to happen. �--Louis McMaster Bujold�
#12: Channel your characters. �Speak in their voices.
“I know where your milk comes from, and your hamburgers.” (2)
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” (4)
Here we go again. We were all standing in line waiting for breakfast when one of the caseworkers cam in and tap-tap-tapped down the line. Uh-oh, this meant bad news, either they’d found a foster home for somebody or somebody was about to get paddled.” (3)
#13: Remember people don’t usually say what they mean, and use that to make your dialogue intriguing. �
(5)
#14: Manage the shape of your primary character’s relationships—a triangle, a tetrahedron, or a more complex shape. �
A network of connections:
#15: Manage physical & emotional distance. �Balance the fear of being freakish and alone vs �the fear of being overshadowed or swallowed up by others�
#16: Manage your narrator.�Give them a curious perspective. �
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (6)
#17: Texture your novel with three or more cultural fabrics (matters).
#18: Use the Rhythm Method to pattern your story:�
#19: Make setting perform work in your story.��
#20: Play around, especially with language.�
#21: Show feelings without naming them.
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#22: Pluck images from the ground of your story.
“...when so many people try to beat the angel out of you, you hang on for dear life.” (8)
“And I mean, if there is a God it's probably a good idea to believe in him. But if there isn't a God, then we're just an accident of nature, a virus, pond scum gone berserk, and it won't matter one way or another if I believe or not because who cares?” (9)
“Tell me what it is like to die," I answered.
He dismounted from his horse, looking at me strangely the whole while. "You experience something similar every day," he said softly. "It is as familiar to you as bread and butter."
"Yes," I said. "It is like every night when I fall asleep."
"No. It is like every morning when you wake up.” (7)
#23: Create contrasts: structure and image.
#24: Make your language as crisp and evocative as the sound of a coyote trap snapping shut.
#25: Get back in the saddle.
Go forth and write!
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