Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
October 28th, 2014

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”
― Carl Sagan

This last Tuesday –

New member Becky!

Rebecca read from Lookout. Jack asked what the weird button referred to. Several word changes are suggested. Karen noted some places words seemed to be missing or a tense change was needed. Kaitlin talked about pillbugs and how they are not insects. Ruth thinks the POV changes at one point. Alicia felt disappointed in the beginning because Ang runs from the other cat instead of confronting him. A discussion occurs as to whether the main character is being lost in the anecdotes.

Judah reads from December. Alicia and Rebecca like the pink furniture in the landlady’s scene. Rebecca compares the weather in the story to the weather in Seattle. Jen asks about the character’s origin. Judah talks about the hamster story the character tells. Becky talks about the reasons behind noticing specific things. Jack recommends Eliot’s The Four Quartets for a study on describing surroundings. Deb comments about the disengagement of the character. Katelin talks about the reader’s unwillingness to continue to read about a depressed and disengaged character.

Alicia reads from Coastie Girl. Jack talks about sentence structure. Karen mentions an abrupt scene change. Jack and Deb felt that one sentence made the character sound very lonely. Becky felt the character’s vocabulary sounded too young. Katelin was curious about the kid walking the alligator.

And now for the weather!
As we get kicked out of Barnes and Noble for the Holiday season, 2nd and 4th will be meeting at the Alicia Ashman Library on December 16th.

Meetings on December 23rd and December 30th’s 5th Tuesday are cancelled for the Holidays!

Meetings resume at Barnes and Noble in January.

Up Next!
November 4: Judith McNeil (chapters, My Mother Savior of Men), Andy Brown (chapter, Man Before the Fall), Andy Pfeiffer (chapters, The Void), Mike Rickey (poems), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), and Bob Kralapp (???).

November 11 readers: Liam (chapter, Prisoner of the Gods), Jen (???), Rebecca (chapter 4, Lookout), Alicia (chapter 3, Coastie Girl), Karen (???)

November 18: Lisa McDougal (chapter, Tebow Family Secret), Andy Brown (chapter, Man Before the Fall), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Pat Edwards (???), Millie Mader (chapter 59, Life on Hold), and Judith McNeil (???).

November 25 readers: Jack (poems)

The Next Editor is….Judith McNeil!!

Coming up
National Novel Writer’s Month!

Can you do it? Write a 50,000 word novel in a single month? Some of our writers will try!
This week, enjoy an article about Character Conflict!

NaNo Prep: Creating External and Internal Conflict

Okay, so you know who your characters are. Excellent. Now it is time to figure out what your characters are going to do.
Most stories are ultimately about the same thing—the journey a protagonist goes on to get what he or she wants. Whether his or her goal is to get the girl or cure cancer, the journey is never easy, and your character will encounter many setbacks along the way. Though they’re painful for your protagonist, these obstacles are what will make your novel exciting to read.
Imagine a story about Jim who wants a sandwich more than anything in the world. How boring would the story be if all Jim had to do was walk from his bedroom to the kitchen, make a sandwich, and then eat it? That story is so uneventful it can be told in one sentence. But what if Jim is seriously afraid of the dark, the power is out in his house, and he has to walk down a dark hallway to get to the kitchen? And, once there, he has to fight his bratty younger sister, Emily, for the last slice of roast beef.
Though it may be simple, this story has both external conflict and internal conflict.
External Conflict
The external conflict is the one between a protagonist and antagonist.
In the above story, the protagonist Jim has a goal (to eat a sandwich), but a motivated antagonist Emily has her own agenda (to also eat a sandwich). The struggle between Jim and Emily over the last slice of roast beef is the external conflict in this story.
Internal Conflict
The internal conflicts are the fears and insecurities that a protagonist has to overcome in order to get what he or she wants.
In the story above, Jim has to overcome his fear of the dark in order to get the sandwich he wants so badly.
If you have completed your character questionnaires, you already know a good amount about the major players in your novel. Now it’s time to answer some deeper questions about your characters’ hopes and fears in order to create the conflicts that will make your novel interesting.
Take out and review your character questionnaires, then fill in the blanks below.
Your Protagonist
1. More than anything in the world, my protagonist wants:
2. But he/she is afraid of:
3. And his/her greatest weakness is (is it something like “falling in love too easily” or “crossbows”?):
Physical Antagonist
Complete this section if you have a physical antagonist.
More than anything in the world, my antagonist wants (this can be as simple as humiliating the protagonist or something a little more ambitious like world domination):
1. My antagonist’s “beef” with the protagonist is:
2. My antagonist is afraid of (long-haired bunnies?):
3. His/her/its greatest weakness is:
Abstract Antagonist
Complete this section if you have an abstract antagonist.
1. The antagonist in my novel is not a living, breathing being. It is:
2. If my protagonist does not battle against this antagonist, it will eventually (ruin his or her life or cause death?):
3. My protagonist is battling against this antagonist by:
Congratulations! You now have the two basic ingredients for an excellent story: external conflict and internal conflict. Know that your internal and external conflicts will overlap throughout your novel. Once your characters find out about each others’ fears and weaknesses, you better believe they will use them against each other mercilessly as they fight to make their dreams come true.