Finding the Heart of Your Story

Finding the Heart of Your Story: Your Original Idea

George Galdorisi

La Jolla Writer’s ConferenceOctober 27-29, 2017

Workshop


“This workshop will help attendees explore the most basic – yetmost important – element of the writing craft, the original ideathat is the essence of your story. We will first examine howgenerating this original idea works for both fiction and non-fiction. We will deep-dive into where original ideas come fromand then progress to how to shape that kernel of an idea intonovel, narrative non-fiction, or even a screenplay. Attendees willbe provided with online access to all workshop material.”

A Few Preliminaries….

• Three promises:

– This will be a fast-paced 110 minutes

– We’ll learn something…and we’ll have fun

– You’ll have access to these slides…take notes…or not….

• Three assumptions:

– You all are interested in nurturing your story idea

– You would like to turn your idea into a novel or….

– You didn’t wake up last Tuesday morning with this notion

• And a word about Power Point….

….by way of background….

Let’s Talk About Writing….

….and isn’t this the oldest profession?

“If you decide to become a professional writer, youmust, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish towrite for fame, for pleasure, or for money.”

Ian FlemingHow to Write a Thriller


• Your Original Idea: The Spark That Starts the Process

• Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire

• Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent

• Is It Just a Story – Or Something More?

• Turing the Fire Into a Narrative

• Taming the Beast and Writing Your Novel

Did You Bring Your Homework?

Your Original Idea: The Spark That Starts the Process

Your Original Idea: The Spark That Starts the Process

• The coolest thing about writing!

• Only you are the steward of your original idea

• Can you state your idea in one sentence?

• Ideas can be absolutely anything

• Outward vs. inward focus

• A few examples

“For me, I gotta write, and it’s the adventure of it that’shooked me. As the writer, I can do it all. I get to be theNational Security Advisor who recommends the actionto the President who must commit the forces. I’m thesenior officer who sends his men into action and whofeels the pain if they don’t make it back. I’m the enemyand the defender; logistician and staff planner. Butmost of all, I’m a young man again, that freshlieutenant who must lead his men into battle.”

Dick Couch“So you Want to be a Writer”

Only You Are the Steward of Your Original Idea

• It is your idea and your idea alone

• You have to nurture it, don’t share it yet

• It is the foundation of your book

• Above all else, it is the spark of inspiration for you

• Don’t do too much, let it germinate

• Come up with another idea, is the first still the best?

Can You State Your Idea In One Sentence?

• If you can’t do this, start over and find a new one

• This one sentence ignites your creative focus

• It is often the core of the pitch to sell your book

• Remembering just one sentence keeps you focused

Ideas Can Be Absolutely Anything

• A high concept

• A theme

• A plot

• A character

• A “what if”

• A setting or scene

Outward vs. Inward Focus

• A situation idea is outward focused

• Your situation idea focuses on a plot and a problem

• A character idea is inward focused

• Your character idea focuses on character and intent

• The key to success is to have your book do both

Ideas Can Be A High Concept

• In a post-apocalyptic world, what if the top .1% is delineated by length of life rather than wealth?

• Burners

Ideas Can Be A Theme

• What is more important? Honor or loyalty?

• Duty, Honor, Country

Ideas Can Be A Plot

• On the same day, six different years, the Time Patrol must keep the shadow from changing our timeline.

• Time Patrol

Ideas Can Be A Character

• A housewife and female assassin must uncover the truth of the men in their lives in order to uncover their destiny.

• Bodyguard of Lies

Ideas Can Be A “What If”

• What if people going into the Witness Protection Program really disappear?

• Cut Out

Ideas Can Be A Setting or Scene

• An international treaty bans weapons in Antarctica: What if the U.S. put nuclear weapons there and lost track of them?

• Eternity Base

Let’s look at three more examples

New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly & USA Today Best-

Seller!

What if a prince in a Middle Eastern country wanted to get

the United States to attack another country so his

country could later win a fight with that country?


Seller!

How does the commanding officer of a U.S. Navy ship

keep the North Koreans from capturing her crew after they run aground on a small island after losing a gun battle with

North Korean ships?

New this year from Braveship Books

What if the most senior officers in the United States military are so

dissatisfied with the President that they concoct a scheme to have the

President direct a major military operation, and then have that

operation fail in order to drive the President out of office?

Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire


• Is your idea different?

• No? Now what?

• Every idea has been done before

• “It’s been done before” is the first hurdle

• Check out the Internet Movie Database for log lines

• Try Kipling

“Deconstructing” a Movie Log Line

The subject of the sentence will describe (1) animperfect but passionate and active protagonist. Theverb will depict (2) the battle. And the direct object willdescribe (3) an insurmountable antagonist who tries tostop the protagonist from reaching (4) a physical goalon account of (5) the stakes, if the goal is not reached.

“Deconstructing” Your Idea:Putting It On Trial for It’s Life

• Is there a plot?

• Are there a protagonist and an antagonist?

• Is the verb in your idea an active one?

• Is there an inherent conflict that needs to be solved?

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling

The Elephant’s Child


• Since every idea has been done before, now what?

• Your idea turns into a story as you fan the flame

• Fan the flame with Kipling’s help:– What? Plot

– Who? Characters

– Why? What’s at stake

– Where and When? Setting

– How? Beginning, Middle, and End

• Your idea won’t change

• You are going to do it differently

Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent

Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent

• Spend a lot of time on divergent thinking

• Save plenty of time for convergent thinking

Dean Koontz On Generating New Story Ideas

• Read!

• Write!

• Tickle the imagination and generate story ideas by playing around with exotic titles

• Type out a bunch of narrative hooks and find one that is intriguing

• Prime the idea pump by building up a couple of characters in enormous detail

• Whatever you write, you must begin your novel by plunging the hero or heroine into terrible trouble

Is It Just a Story –Or Something More?

Is It Just a Story –Or Something More?

• The king died and then the queen died.

– A story

• The king died and then the queen died of grief.

– A plot

• The queen died, and no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.

– A mystery

Is It Just a Story – Or Something More?

• What are you selling?

• The “Intent”– The “why” behind the “what”

– What do you want the reader to feel?

– Is there a beginning, middle and end?

– The payoff to the reader is the resolution

• The “Shiver” – What excites you about your idea?

– What will excite those you tell it to?

– Is there emotion and passion?

– Can your reader relate to your plot and your characters?

Turing the Fire Into a Narrative

Turing the Fire Into a Narrative

• Before you start slamming together sentences:

– Treatment

– Narrative Outline

• An enormous amount of work – why do it:

– You have to convince yourself it’s a book

– You may have to convince others

– A surefire way to avoid writer’s block

– You’re not chained to it – things happen

Let’s Deconstruct a Novel Treatment

• Cover

• Organization

• Organizing Impulse and High Concept

• The “Old” OpCenter Dies

• The “New” OpCenter is Born

• New Character Details

– Preamble

– Those who spend a great deal of time physically at OpCenter

– Those who deal with crises overseas in each scenario

– Those who deal with crises domestically in each scenario

• OpCenter Plot and Scenario Plan

– Preamble

– Short Plot Synopsis

• For us, this was 17,000+ words

Let’s Deconstruct a Narrative Outline

• Cover

• Front matter

• Chapter summaries– Separate sections

– One or two paragraphs per section

• Epilogue

• For us, this was 19,000+ words

Now Let’s Get to Work!

Pair Off and Put on Your Coaching Hat

1. Read your idea aloud to your partner

2. Partner, read what you just heard

3. Give yourselves only five minutes to do this

4. Work with the reader to construct a log line

5. Switch roles

6. Repeat steps one through four above

“Deconstructing” a Movie Log Line

The subject of the sentence will describe (1) animperfect but passionate and active protagonist. Theverb will depict (2) the battle. And the direct object willdescribe (3) an insurmountable antagonist who tries tostop the protagonist from reaching (4) a physical goalon account of (5) the stakes, if the goal is not reached.

Reading Your Log Lines

• Read the log line

• Name your protagonist and antagonist

• Coaches, jump in and sell it to the rest of us:

– Intent

– Sizzle

Taming the Beast and Writing Your Novel

Let’s talk about three of the most important ingredients in writing a

successful thriller…

Characterization Plotting

ActionYou must do

all three well!

Plotting

“There are only two plots: The hero takes a journey anda stranger comes to town.”

Timothy Spurgin“The Art of Reading”The Great Courses

The Classic Plot

• The writer introduces a hero or heroine who has just been –or is about to be – plunged into terrible trouble

• The hero or heroine attempts to solve his or her problem but only slips deeper into trouble

• As they try to climb out of the hole they’re in, complications arise, each more terrible than the one before, until the situation could not become more hopeless, then one final unthinkable complication arises and makes matters worse.

• At last, deeply affected and changed by his awful experiences and intolerable circumstances, the hero learns something about himself and the human condition. He then understands what he must do to get out of the dangerous situation in which he has wound up. He takes the necessary actions and either succeeds or fails, succeeding more often than not.

“You can distill any drama – a Greek tragedy, aShakespearian play, a modern novel, a TV drama orcomedy, whatever – into a simple equation: ‘What dothese guys want, why do they want it, and what’skeeping them from getting it?’”

Bill BleichWriting advice

Plots

• Create a compelling plot

• Write a grabber opening

• Write a successful ending

• Create a middle that keeps the reader involved

James Hall – Hit Lit

• Gone with the Wind• Peyton Place• To Kill a Mockingbird• Valley of the Dolls• The Godfather• The Exorcist• Jaws• The Dead Zone• The Hunt for Red October• The Firm• The Bridges of Madison County• The Da Vinci Code

Let’s take a deep-dive into one well-known way to design or deconstruct a plot….

TheFreytagPyramid

Let’s Deconstruct This Using a Book We All Are Familiar With

• Pride and Prejudice

• Ulysses

• War and Peace

• Anna Karenina

• Don Quixote

• Little Women

• The Wizard of Oz

Characterization





Important Qualities for Heroes, Heroines and Strangers

• Virtue

• Competence

• Courage

• Likeability

• Imperfections

• Change:

– Layers

– Arcs

Character Motivations

• Love

• Curiosity

• Self-preservation

• Greed

• Self-discovery

• Duty

• Revenge

Character Traits

• Physical appearance• Movement and gestures• Past life• Religion• Sexuality• Vocation• Skills and talents• Fears• Dreams• Pleasures • Plans for the future• Sense of humor• Politics• Voice and speech

Presenting Character Traits Thoughtfully

• How many major and minor characters to have

• All major characters must have a biography

• Develop a “job description” for each character

• You will know what your characters will do

• You are writing a novel – not a movie script– You have to get your characters from Point A to Point B

– Your characters are not dead when they’re off the page

• What is each character doing?– On stage

– Off stage

Take a female character who is on her way to her high school reunion. She’s 50, attractive, divorced, and has had no contact with her graduating class since she left Iowa for Berkley in 1985. There was a guy she jilted when she went off to school. Develop her.

• Physical: height, weight, hair color, best feature, worst feature, etc.

• Occupation: attorney, doctor, college professor, executive, runs a dot.com startup, etc.

• Personal: strengths, weaknesses, phobias, attitude toward men, attitude toward all others, etc.

• Family: siblings, relationship with mom/dad, rivalries• Relationships: good/bad/difficult, marriage(s), children?

James Hall – Hit Lit

• Gone with the Wind• Peyton Place• To Kill a Mockingbird• Valley of the Dolls• The Godfather• The Exorcist• Jaws• The Dead Zone• The Hunt for Red October• The Firm• The Bridges of Madison County• The Da Vinci Code


Seller!

Let’s color in one character, Anne Sullivan, Op-Center’s

Deputy Director

“Anne Sullivan was a retired General ServicesAdministration super grade who had made a career inWashington. She knew all about the government,including government contracting, hiring, firing, andfunding, and how to sidestep the issues. These werethings Williams never had to deal with, even duringhis multiple tours in Washington.”

“Unlike Williams, Sullivan came from money. Herfather had fashioned a successful and lucrative careerin finance with Bain Capital Ventures. Between thatfamily money and her GSA retirement, she waslooking forward to a comfortable life. She enjoyed theD.C. social and cultural scene and traveled often,primarily to Europe and especially to Ireland. Thatplan was interrupted when Williams recruited her—charmed her, really, she readily admitted—to be hisdeputy.”


Seller!

Let’s color in one character, Kate Bigelow, Commanding

Officer, USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) Freedom-Class Littoral

Combat Ship

“Kate Bigelow was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. She’dgone to the Academy for two reasons: to play lacrosse and tosing. Coming out of Montgomery Blair Prep in Silver Spring,Maryland, her two passions had been playing lacrosse andsinging in her school glee club and church choir. She was an all-state midfielder and also had a strong voice. Her grades weregood if not outstanding, but the Academy women’s lacrossecoach saw her play and liked what she saw. Lacrosse was arough sport, even the woman’s game, and Kate Bigelow, whileowning a technically sound game, was not above flattening anopposing player with a legal hit. She started for three years onthe lacrosse team, beating Army two of those three years, andhad sung in the Catholic Choir and the Naval Academy GleeClub.”

“Kate had graduated in the upper half of the bottom third ofthe Class of 2002. She’d never really considered a full career inthe Navy as a seagoing officer, two things intervened that kepther from leaving the service. She found she liked U.S. Navysailors and she had a knack for leading them. Secondly, shefound command intoxicating. There was nothing like it on theoutside, so she stayed in the Navy. She had previouslycommanded an MCM ship like Defender that now followedthem out of Sasebo.”

New this year from Braveship Books

Let’s color in one character, Lieutenant Laura Peters,

Intelligence Officer, U.S. Southern Command

For Laura Peters, it was an opportunity for professional growththat might not come her way again. It was not surprising sheloved what she was doing. The daughter and only child of aNavy chief petty officer, she had been the apple of her father'seye. Master Chief Donald Peters had risen through the ranks asfar as he could, but he always wanted to be an officer. Thatgoal, unfortunately, had eluded him. When it was clear hismarriage would produce no sons, he regaled Laura with theopportunities that beckoned in the Navy. The master chiefknew enough about how the Navy worked and what it lookedfor in its officers—and particularly its need to recruit morewomen officers—that he groomed his daughter throughouthigh school to make her a shoe-in for winning a Navy ROTCscholarship.

She had thrived at the University of Virginia, earning topgrades, and lettering in cross-country, squash, and tennis.Sensing that the Navy was still not enlightened enough to fullyaccept women as equal partners commanding ships andaircraft squadrons, she opted for the intelligence field upongraduation, correctly surmising that it would provide a morelevel professional playing field and afford her the opportunityto prove herself and advance through the ranks. In her sevenyears since graduation she had sought out only the toughestassignments, usually registering firsts, breaking ground wherefemale officers had not gone before.

Here’s a better example

When he finished packing, he walked out onto the third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from his hands, a very neat and deceptively slim young man in the summer khakis that were still early morning fresh.

James Jones(From Here to Eternity, opening sentence)

"Jones packs a hell of a lot into that first line. He tells you it's summer, he tells you it's morning, he tells you you're on an Army post with a soldier who's obviously leaving for someplace, and he gives you a thumbnail description of his hero. That's a good opening line."

Ed McBain in Killer's Payoff

…plot?...characterization?...which is more important?

Plot or Characterization

• You have to have plot to make the reader turn pages

• People are the story and the whole story

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• Plot has the entertainment value to pull the reader along

• The characters are the vehicle, the tools through which you tell your story

• Readers want you to tell them a story

• Dialogue brings your characters to life!

Action

“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. Itry to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”

Tom Clancy

What About Action?

• Action evolves naturally from the plot

• There is no “formula” for having action in your novel

• As Clancy said, don’t overthink the action

• That said, here are some things to consider:

– Different kinds of novels lend themselves to more or less

– Write all the action you can – then consider Goldilocks

– If riveting, hold-your-breath action is anywhere – up front

– Balance scene and summary to bound action scenes


• Your Original Idea: The Spark That Starts the Process

• Fanning the Flame: From a Spark to a Fire

• Focusing Your Idea: Divergent to Convergent

• Is It Just a Story – Or Something More?

• Turing the Fire Into a Narrative

• Taming the Beast and Writing Your Novel

Resources• E.E. Forster Aspects of the Novel

• Francine Prose Reading Like a Writer

• Richard Curtis How To Be Your Own Literary Agent

• James Hall Hit Lit

• Dr. Linda Seger– The Art of Adaptation

– Advanced Screenwriting

• Robert Masello– Robert’s Rules of Writing

– Writer Tells All

• The Great Courses, especially, Jane Friedman How to Publish Your Book

A Word About Surveys:Comments Typically Come in Three Types

• You rocked my world and my life is now changed forever for the better – I’m a completely new person

• I’d rather have a root canal than have to sit through this again – and I think you should pay for it

• I got something (a lot, a little) out of this workshop, but if the instructor does this next year, he should:– Do more of….

– Do less of….

– Go faster….

– Go slower….

– ????

Slides and Resources Posted:http://www.georgegaldorisi.com/

For 2017 La Jolla Writer’s Conference Attendees Contact me via this website for:

Treatment and Narrative Outline for Out of the AshesTreatment and Narrative Outline for Into the Fire

And if you’d like to receive my “Writing Tips” bi-weekly

Backups

But That’s Not All!(Mainstream and Genre)

• High Concept (Think in movie terms)

– The Coronado Conspiracy

– For Duty and Honor

• Theme

– The Coronado Conspiracy

– For Duty and Honor

Education

Finding the Heart of Your Story