Fiction Craft Column: An Introduction

by Robert Ferrier

As a beginning novelist 20 years ago, I knew writers who worried about choosing a premise, writing to the market or obtaining an agent.

I, on the other hand, thirsted for knowledge of fiction craft.

Novelists build stories from blocks, just as workmen build houses from bricks. To build our story house, we must know the materials, tools and techniques of our craft. I gained knowledge the hard way: by attending classes, writers conferences and workshops. I learned from published authors. I joined writing groups. I read novels and instructional books. Most importantly, I completed eight novels and started several others. Every level in the New York publishing industry rejected me, from associate editor to executive publisher.

NEVER QUIT

How did I avoid quitting? By feeding "the critter" inside me. The beast subsists on the words I write. Salvation arrived in electronic publishing. E-book editors ignore marketing niches and gobble fresh, well-crafted stories. Barbara Quanbeck and Lesley Ehrhart at Word Wrangler Publishing heard my creative voice. They accepted the books, "The Witchery Way," "Dear Mr. Kapps" and "The Virtual Guard."

How do you separate your work from the slush that floods publishers' desks? By knowing and using fiction craft -- the building blocks of story.

In the coming months, I will share the techniques I've learned over two decades. Supplement this knowledge with your own writing, reading, study and professional relationships. Then feed your creative side and feel the rush of writing from your heart.

SCENE GOALS

In this article we explore the engine which drives all commercial novels: Scene.

Scene: A unit of conflict experienced moment-by-moment by the reader through the character's viewpoint. The elements of scene include goal, conflict and disaster. A scene goal represents something that a character wants or needs to achieve the story quest.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

* Possession (such as a clue, a piece of information, victory in a confrontation)

* Relief (from danger, fear, domination, loneliness, poverty or revenge) from loss, betrayal or injury.

Scene goals must advance the viewpoint character's story quest. For example, here's the scene goal from Chapter 3 of "The Witchery Way" - Josh Wade must convince Joe Buck to give him a job on the Choctaw railroad, thus providing a secret opportunity to learn who is sabotaging the line.

Scene goals force the viewpoint character to take immediate, specific and concrete steps, requiring both decision and action. These goals loom large in the character's story quest. In other words, something vital must be at stake.

The second element of a scene is conflict.

What grips readers? Tension. After discovering the character's story quest and the scene's goal, readers want to experience a good fight. That's why conflict hogs 95% of a scene.

The definition of conflict: opposition to the character's scene goal.

Elements of Conflict:

1. Opposition happens moment-by-moment, in the character's viewpoint, leaving nothing out.

2. Action is portrayed by stimulus-response, give-and-take.

3. Character and opposition contest each other.

In my novel, "The Witchery Way," Josh Wade has fallen into a rattlesnake pit. His scene goal: escape the pit and save his girlfriend, Amy.
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Josh pulled the knife and stuck it into the side of the pit, but the soil was too soft to take any weight.

The rattlers drowned out everything, and he felt them slithering over his boots. Ish Maytubby's corpse flashed through his mind.

He looked up and saw Amy's face. Trace Gottschalk was holding her.

He wore the black hat with the conch shell band. Amy was bound by the wrists and gagged, her eyes wild with terror as she looked into the pit.

Josh reversed the knife in his hand, judging his chances of throwing without hitting Amy.

Trace smiled, holding Amy with his left arm and leveling his rifle on Josh with the right. "Won't work. Just drop it down with the snakes."

Josh paused, measuring the throw.

"Drop it! Or I'll shoot you in the knees and put you down with them." Josh let go of the knife. The rattling grew louder, and he felt one of the snakes coiling around his ankle. He prayed that the itse would buy him a few seconds.

Trace said, "You're too predictable, Railroad Boy. So is she." He looked at Amy. Her eyes darted, and she struggled, trying to free herself. She was making a fight of it.

Trace jerked her back against him. "Hold still!" He looked down at Josh.

"You've got guts; never thought you could take One Eye."

"Let Amy go. She not part of this."

Trace laughed. "After what she's seen?" His eyes went flat. "She's going to be down there with you." He smiled, looking down at Josh's leg. "That big one is climbing past your boot. Let's stir them up with another customer."

He shoved Amy toward the mouth of the pit.

Avoid Common Mistakes:

1. Confusing bad luck or adversity with true conflict -- a give-and-take
struggle between story people with opposing goals.

2. Failing to increase the stakes of scenes as the story unfolds.

3. Forgetting to increase the challenges to the character with each new scene.

Write true conflict in your scenes and you'll hook readers into turning pages.

How do you end a scene?

By hitting the protagonist with a disaster, blocking not only her scene goal, but shoving her further behind in her story quest.

Three Types of Scene-Ending "Disasters"

Following are three disastrous events in "answer" to the protagonist's scene goal:

1. "No." For example, during a night drop by parachute, the protagonist lands off target, failing to link with a collaborator. Use this type earlier in the story.

2. "Yes...However." Protagonist achieves the scene goal, but with strings attached. She hits the drop point, but she must help an injured child whose parents have been killed by the enemy. Her sense of right dictates she can't abandon the child.

3. "No, and Furthermore..." Not only does the protagonist miss the drop point, she is captured by enemy counter-intelligence forces. Use this type later in the story, when stakes are higher and you approach the denouement.

Variations of these types will occur to you. Use them, while weaving in one common thread: the event must complicate--or even block--the protagonist's path to the story quest. To achieve the scene goal robs your reader of the most important reason to turn pages: tension. We must worry the reader. Furthermore, scene disasters crank up pressure on the hero. Readers, as voyeurs, peek in on people coping with disaster. Increasing the pressure strips masks, revealing true character. We crave characters worthy of our respect, admiration and love.

Avoid Common Mistakes in Scene Endings

1. Don't fail to answer the scene question. "Well, we don't know if she hit the drop point, but she struggled with her equipment, brought anti-aircraft fire on the plane and worried the CO who planned the mission." Answer the scene question formed in the reader's mind.

2. Don't write a scene disaster which doesn't develop logically from the scene goal and resulting conflict. "She jumped from the plane and then got injured by the earthquake."

3. Don't fail to make the protagonist struggle. "She missed the drop point. Good thing the villagers were there to hide her!"

As Jack M. Bickham taught in his book, Scene and Structure: Write a true disaster--an unanticipated but logical development that answers the scene question, relates to the conflict presented and sets the character back from the story quest.

Thus, effective scene endings force the protagonist to struggle all the way to the story's climax.

After working two years in Florida as a technical writer/editor in the aerospace industry, Robert worked 30 years as a research administrator at the University of Oklahoma. Now he devotes himself full-time to writing magazine articles and young adult novels. To read more about Mr. Ferrier, check out his bio at http://www.writeronlinebooks.com/bio/ferrier.htm