Monday, July 20, 2009

The Storyline Part Three: Complex Braiding


NOTE: Be sure and enter the short story contest about half-way down the right hand column. Entry is due by September 1, and the prize is a signed copy of my new book: Distant Thunder.)



How do YOU tell a good story when you're sitting around gabbing with family or friends? Do you weave a graphic tail with multiple characters? Do your characters have a reason for being in the story i.e. part of the conflict or plot? I hope so, or your stories would be awfully boring.
The same holds true for writing a fast-paced, brain popping novel. There really should be several avenues of intrigue or conflict that intertwine themselves into with your main characters. This is something that many budding authors miss.
While I was tickling my keyboard in the writing of Distant Thunder, something happened that was completely natural. I added three different secondary storylines without outlining them to death. I let the story flow. I allowed those secondary characters to surprise and anger me. I ended up snuffing out their lives in the end and enjoyed doing it. But I was grateful to them none-the-less. Why? Because the prevented my main storylines and characters from getting bogged down. Writing became an exercise in intrigue, and that fact literally kept me coming back to the keyboard for more. The process of intertwining secondary plots and characters into your main story is called BRAIDING. (You know, like braiding those long pony tails on your daughter's head...or maybe even your own:)
Heather Sellers wrote, in a recent Writer's Digest article; "One reason so many books-in-progress die on the vine is because there isn't enough spark, enough energy in the original design, to drive the project all the way through the middle and close the deal. The middle of the book is often compared to a lonely and vast desert the writer has to hike across. It's easy to get lost. It's easy to give up.
To get across the middle, your work must involve some element of discovery--something you have to figure out as you write. Otherwise, your writing will feel canned, preplanned, flat. Like stale popcorn."
The idea is to have two or three things going at one time, and then bounce back and forth in short segments as your story progresses. This not only keeps the writing crisp, it keeps the reader seeking more. Multiple storylines are what creates PACE....and you definitely want a fast pace in order to hold the reader's interest.
Again, in writing Distant Thunder, I found that using the secondary characters to set the "hook" for the reader worked wonderfully. It only added to the value and direction the main characters were heading. My readers have commented that they hated those guys. And when the secondary characters ran head on into their demise, a sense of justice had already been birthed in the reader. For me, that was an accident. It was not planned. But good things happen to those who jump in and take risks. Write On oh storyteller!
Jimmy Root Jr
Author: Distant Thunder, Book One of the Lightning Chronicles... A Prophetic Fiction Thriller
Watch for my Virtual Book Tour coming in August and September.
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