Forward
As a plumber that is on job sites without paper most of the day most of my writing inspirations are written down on cut up 2 X 4’s, ripped up cardboard, or whatever else I can find. As you can tell from some of my publications and writings, I will never be giving you advice on spelling or grammar for your writings. It’s just not me, and in fact I stink at it. But I can however, give to you helpful hints on how to keep your stories emotionally touching. By doing this, you will keep the readers bound to your story and connected to you as a writer. I am also a business person so I use a lot of diagrams and charts to get my point across. So forgive the grammar mistakes and focus on the content and you might learn something.
Adding The Right Slope To Your Writing #1
I have not always planned on being a writer but I have always been a reader. Like many of you I have started many books and never finished them. Why? Well one reason is because their timing for emotional scenes and their led up and follow through was not placed very well, and there was absolutely no connection to the characters, or the story. If readers don’t connect to the story they will not connect with the author which is the main goal. Let me show you what I mean.
#1 Jumping In! Too much follow through.
Starting out with an emotional or action packed scene. While this may work in a movie, because you are stuck in a theater and have to watch the rest of it. In my opinion it is not a good idea in writing. You need to capture the reader’s attention with a story line and character building, but not give away the good stuff yet. Having no lead up and too much follow through is boring. There is no connection to the characters to care much about the action going on. Which leaves you trying to pick up the pieces throughout the rest of the book. Such a diagram would look like this.
No lead up character, or story building.
#2 Too much of a good thing!
Trying to keep up the action. If you start out with this high emotional climax to begin with the rest of your story is going to have to be fast pace with more and more action or the reader is going to lose interest. I had a conversation with a friend that just saw the last Transformers movie. His reaction was “I fell a sleep there was just too much action, I could not keep up.”
Such a diagram would look like this.
This can and will make your reader very tired and lose interest. Besides the lead up and follow through set the emotion and the action up to make these important scenes have a bigger effect. It also helps the reader connect better to the characters of the books which helps them connect better to the book and the author.
#3 Turtle start!
Too much lead up. While character and story building is a good thing it can be a stories downfall also. You have the rest of the book to add to the characters and the story do not do it all in the first couple of chapters. If you do this the reader will set your book down and never pick it back up. We have all read books and seen movies like this. Just get to the point!
Looks like this.
.
#4 Like a camel!
Okay we are getting close! Great for articles! If your book only has one real emotional or action packed part it better be a short story. If it is to long you will run into both examples of three and one.
It would look like this.
Like I said this will be an incredible short story but you are going to struggle with reader interest if you try to put it into a novel. For a short story, it gives room for a great lead up to do some character building, and a strong follow through before wrapping it up.
Okay now for the perfect diagram for the best plotted story. #5 and #6
To be continued………………….. on November 25th Thanks for reading.
Copy write 7/13/2011 Clint G Cox
