{"id":1838,"date":"2013-05-02T07:30:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T13:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2013-05-02T10:18:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T16:18:07","slug":"who-what-where-when-why-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1838","title":{"rendered":"Who What Where When Why (etc)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who’s taken a journalism class, or written for a newspaper, is familiar with the “Five Ws” which–canonically–are supposed to be at the head of the story.\u00a0\u00a0 Also with “inverted triangle” structure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the time, novel structure is not the same, but keeping readers oriented to person, place, and time is–for most, not all–important.\u00a0\u00a0 Even more important–though hidden from readers–is keeping the writer<\/em> oriented to the Five Ws (and more.)<\/p>\n

Frequently, the writer isn’t so oriented, in the course of writing the book.\u00a0\u00a0 Who<\/em> is this person who suddenly walked onstage in the writer’s brain, grabbed the microphone, and started singing…something…what<\/em>?\u00a0\u00a0 Belangian love songs?\u00a0 Stirring Umphagorian political rap?\u00a0\u00a0 A diatribe against eating the undead larvae of zombie invertebrates? \u00a0 Where<\/em> is this supposed to happen, and when<\/em>?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did someone change the stage set so we’re now in Kortz instead of AllaBelTimeo?\u00a0\u00a0 At dusk, when the last scene played was at dawn on a mountaintop?\u00a0 And why<\/em> did this person show up, why<\/em> did it (the sex isn’t obvious yet, with all those tentacles) grab the microphone and start singing?\u00a0 Especially that song?<\/p>\n

A writer’s bright ideas (or dark ideas–doesn’t matter)\u00a0 often come without context and with very little definition.\u00a0\u00a0 If the writer allows that unknown character to take over part of a story without considering the Five Ws,\u00a0 then mysterious variables are added to the story mix and (getting to the point finally, since this isn’t a newspaper story) those mysterious and totally incomprehensible (since never questioned) variables will, in the end, jam up in the story’s works and bring\u00a0 it to a lurching halt.\u00a0\u00a0 Readers don’t need to know everything about everyone\u00a0 from the beginning, but the writer must either know, or find out,\u00a0 about the background and motivation of all characters whose actions impact the plot significantly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Or risk the kind of tangle I’ve been fighting with for months.<\/p>\n

Bright idea #1\u00a0 had a lovely idea about Character X, that X should have a not-exactly-sidekick-Y.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bright idea #2 was “Oh, yeah, not only THAT but let’s have Character X’s not-exactly-sidekick Y be (mmph)\u00a0 who was (mmph-gzzth-rrsth) because that would really add a ton of resonance, close a circle opened\u00a0\u00a0 in [a very previous book], put primary POV character A in the worst bind of A’s life, threatening total collapse. ”\u00a0 And so on. \u00a0 Lots of “so on.”<\/p>\n

Scenes were written.\u00a0 Lots of scenes were written.\u00a0 The first one the reader sees is in Limits of Power<\/em>.\u00a0 POV for X and Y.\u00a0\u00a0 No hints as to Y’s identity.\u00a0 Scenes for Crown\u00a0 <\/em>initially went fast and smoothly, indicating I was on the right track.\u00a0 There’s X, there’s Y, there’s lights\/camera\/action and Plot rolling down the rails,\u00a0 zip.\u00a0\u00a0 Climax scenes written, yay!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Hard scene to write, very high intensity.)\u00a0\u00a0 Character B’s entire story arc done.\u00a0\u00a0 Character A’s entire story arc done but for some little bitty connective bits.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Character C’s story arc mostly…but for a gap in which Characters X and Y\u00a0\u00a0 will do whatever it is they do to get to when\/where they interact with Characters A and B.<\/p>\n

But then, came the connective tissue that attaches the parts to each other.\u00a0 And…dead stop.\u00a0 Rearrange the parts, try again.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0\u00a0 Usually this is duck soup.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Character Amy, in Paris, is going to be kidnapped by Character Mercer, who’s now in Toronto.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The writer knows why Amy is in Paris, why Mercer is in Toronto, why Mercer plans to kidnap Amy, why Amy hasn’t a clue about the plan, and much more (such as how much money each has and where they got it.)\u00a0\u00a0 Since Amy will be kidnapped in Paris,\u00a0 Mercer has to get to Paris while Amy is there.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s an ocean in between: what decade of what century are we in?\u00a0\u00a0 (Will Mercer have a choice of air v. sea travel, or will only one be available?)\u00a0\u00a0 How long will Amy be there?\u00a0\u00a0 How long does it take, in that era, to get across the Atlantic?\u00a0\u00a0 A little research and you’re writing the transition (with more or less detail depending on the story) of Mercer getting to Paris, where the unaware Amy is doing whatever visitors do in that era, so she can be kidnapped.<\/p>\n

But suppose important Ws are missing.\u00a0\u00a0 Suppose the bright idea “Amy will be kidnapped” didn’t come with a location, a time, a reason, and all the writer knows about Mercer is that he showed up at a family reunion in Toronto with an inappropriate “present” for his great grandmother, a badly tanned skunk skin?<\/p>\n

I’ve been dealing with the Paksworld equivalent for months now.\u00a0 And last night before choir practice, thanks to the prodding of an editor friend (soprano in the choir)\u00a0 I got to the heart of the relationship between X and not-exactly-sidekick Y, which gave me the motivation for things that had been obscure, and also the means and opportunity for [other stuff I can’t tell you yet, sorry.]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I know and understand both much better now.<\/p>\n

Now to just write all the missing bits really, really, REALLY fast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who’s taken a journalism class, or written for a newspaper, is familiar with the “Five Ws” which–canonically–are supposed to be at the head of the story.\u00a0\u00a0 Also with “inverted triangle” structure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the time, novel structure is not the same, but keeping readers oriented to person, place, and time is–for most, not all–important.\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,5],"tags":[62,107],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-the-writing-life","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}