Doing The W

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

(as usual RL has been a b*tch, so sorry about unwonted ly long times between postings.  I will try to be better in the future.)

Doing The W

No, this is not a post about politics. Not even because it started over in Baen’s Bar, where some folks happened to ask a few beginner questions and get me launched on a “how to write” kick.

Someone said they were having trouble plotting and I pointed out if we were going into THAT I’d do it on my blog, where a lot more people will get the benefit of it. So here we are.

When I started out in writing an agent who rejected me said he was rejecting me because I couldn’t plot and that couldn’t be taught. Neither of these was PRECISELY true. It wasn’t that I couldn’t plot, but rather that I could neither foreshadow nor abstain from throwing in so many subplots that the book could better be described as “soup” – or to quote my friend Kevin Anderson “thoroughly kitchen-sinked.” (When you throw in everything AND the kitchen sink.)

It would be many years and a very patient friend – thank you Dave Freer! – to make me realize that the foreshadowing was part of what helped people see the plot and enjoy it. As for knowing how to plot and its being – or not – capable of being taught… Well… it’s more complex than that.

To be able to plot effectively you need three things –

1 – Common sense. Look, unless you’re writing a very special kind of novel indeed, when someone drops a plate in the kitchen it doesn’t turn into a dragon on the way down. And if it does, we want it foreshadowed, somehow, so we KNOW it’s a very special kind of novel indeed. Which brings us to number 2. Your common sense MUST be grounded on:

2 – Knowledge of the world, real or imaginary. If you’re writing in this universe or any semblance of this universe, you must know something about it. Like… If your world is predominantly rural, agricultural products will be affordable, but anything manufactured will cost you. I know this is a hard concept for anyone who grew up in America, a country that practically came into being WITH industrialization. But go to walmart. Look at any piece of furniture. If your novel is set pre-1880s multiply what everything would cost by a thousand. And pay attention to where your people are getting the money/goods. And if you have a world where a soup plate can become a dragon, have some sort of explanation, particularly of why EVERY soup plate doesn’t become a dragon. And give us some inkling we’re not in Kansas.

3 – Some understanding of how your reader feels. This is where it helps to have read the books in the genre you’re trying to target. Say you start your mil sf with your main hero putting on his pink tutu. Unless it’s a black ops in a ballet performance for transvestites, you just lost your audience. Another good thing is avoiding UNNECESSARY “ick” factor. How do you know they’re unnecessary? Well… unless the – fill in the blank – defecation scene/detailed birth scene/sex scene with what goes where/rotting corpse scene/truly bloody scene/other gross out scene – is absolutely necessary to the plot, leave it out. And if you MUST put it in – sometimes you have to – do it with exactly the impact you want and no more. Also, though I’ll go into this in more detail later – beware annoying characters. A character who comes on stage crying, laughing, or otherwise being a pain will turn off the reader. Picture the character as a door-to-door salesman. He can be interestingly sad or concerned, but if you have him overreact or act nuts, your reader will shut that door.

 

Also, sad to say, your reader tends to attach to the first character on screen. I call this the “duckling factor.” Keep that in mind. For the rest, just think about what would turn you off/on as a reader. If you haven’t read in the past, ask for a reading list and you shall receive. I have some of the MOST literate readers in creation.

Okay, so you’ve checked and you are indeed possessed of 1, 2 and 3 and your character isn’t a screaming door to door evangelist who wears a duck on his head. Good.

So you think you’re all set. Right?

Not… precisely. It is possible to have all of the above and still go badly, seriously wrong. One of the ways you can go very wrong – and I hear it’s very common, though it’s not something that ever afflicted me personally – is starting your story oh… Forty pages before it starts. So you have your interesting character and your fascinating world noodling around in search of a plot.

Or you are young and most of your novels are Mary Sue – ie, character goes in and fixes everyone’s problems and everything comes up roses for him, her. And midway through the novel, all your readers have succumbed to sleep. Possibly a coma.

Or you have a vague idea that you’re supposed to drag your characters through hell and high water, because this will keep it interesting, and you do JUST that. I did this for years. Ah! You think you survived the rodents of unusual size! Try the sudden fires! My friend Kate Paulk – Hi Kate! – calls this plotting through dropping of walls. Every time your character crawls up on hands and knees, you drop another wall on him. Unless your readers are UNUSUALLY sadistic, they get tired of this too. (Of course, some readers ARE unusually sadistic, and you might get published at this stage.)

So, you’re not supposed to baby your character and make everything come up roses, you’re not supposed to torture him/her, and you’re NOT supposed to just write stuff about him/her noodling around. At this point I can hear you scream and pull your hair. Stop that. Combovers are unsightly. Have you looked at Donald Trump? Right. So, be patient and I’ll explain.

You’re supposed to BOTH torture AND reward your character, but you’re supposed to do it in a way that feels “right” and “deserved” and “logical” to the reader. Dave tells me we monkey-kind have a built-in sense of “fair play.” The world doesn’t always satisfy this, but our entertainment MUST.

There are several ways of achieving this. The first and easiest is the W curve. Only, it’s not exactly a W. More like those graphs on the walls of failing companies in movies, where you have peak, then valley, then lower peak, then deeper valley, etc. The valleys continuously descend, with each peak lower than the previous, because the general feel of the W curve is “things get worse.”

Now, just things get worse can feel like walls dropping on the character, even with the little peaks in between. So you need one extra ingredient. The “worse” must come from the character’s efforts to make things better. (This often happens in real life.)

I’m going to try this with a really stupid example, because it’s late and I want to go to bed. Let’s say you have a girl dressing up for the prom.

Bessie realizes her prom dress has a huge stain in the front (initial/percipitating problem) / She is a very proud girl (character flaw) and doesn’t want to ask mom for help/ she takes dress to bathroom, and tries to splash water on it (attempt to solve)/ the dye starts running off (Valley)/ she dries it with the hair dryer and it stops dripping die (peak, but lower than before.)/When the stain is completely dry, she realizes it’s much bigger than before (deeper valley)/ So she thinks she’ll pin some lace to it (attempt to solve.)/ She finds some lace (peak but lower)/her attempts to pin the lace on tear a hole in the dress (deeper valley.)

So, does this go on ad nauseum, till the line exits through the end of the paper? And then you just tack on a happy ending, where Bessie’s boyfriend shows up with a beautiful dress for her, right?

Well, stuff like that DOES get published, but I don’t recommend it. No, what you need here, is a “mirror moment” where the ascent starts again. It’s called mirror for two reasons – first because characters sees character flaw clearly. Second because it tends to mirror the other side. (Only not really, since this tends to be towards the end of the book, like 1/3 from the end.)

Bessie confronts her character flaw and decides to go to mom for help (attempt to solve and turnaround.); Mom doesn’t know what the stain is, but she tells Bessie to talk to her grandmother (you shouldn’t have someone solve the problem for your character. Anyway, small peak, as Bessie has hope); Bessie goes to talk to grandma who explains that a can of wax fell on the dress. She doesn’t think the stain will be coming off. (Valley.); While Bessie is distraught, she realizes that she’s looking at a picture of her grandmother in a dress from her debut. She remembers she saw the dress in the attic and asks grannie if she can wear it. (Attempt to solve); have Bessie triumph at the prom in her cool retro dress. (Whee.)

One odd thing about this small plot, because it’s very small and contrived, the black moment comes before the mirror. Normally it’s the black moment that forces the character into the mirror. You’ll find this out if you plot a more complex something with a more serious character flaw and consequences.

Anyway – that’s how you do the W. Are there other satisfying ways of plotting – of course. And ways to give that plot more depth and “feel of fulfillment” too. But this one is a basic and is usually embedded in the other, more complex plots.

Okay, now go and play with it. I’ll try to post more on this soon.

PS – I REALLY don’t get a share of royalties on this, but those of you considering a how-to-write book could do worse than to read Dwight Swain’s books on how to write. I’ve given away dozens of these, and they usually help and never hurt.

6 thoughts on “Doing The W”

  1. Thanks!!
    Sarah, I haven’t been on the Bar in….forever and as you know, have never managed to enter the Diner and not drown so I didn’t see this thread. I might have to enter the Diner and look around specifically for it before the next 500 or 1000 posts bury it completely).
    I like this IDEA of “doing the W,” though I have to say, having shifted my focus from SF/F genre to various subgenres of the Romance industry, I think the “objective” of the plot focus is really dependent on your target market. What’s right for one genre would not necessarily be right for another. Forex, if I were plotting for SF/F my objective for the Reader’s focus would be very different than a plot for the Romance market – you’ve done both, don’t you agree? Although IIRC your Romance is in the paranormal subgenre and therefore borderline/crossover SF/F ? Perhaps this is what you meant by always bear in mind your Reader’s feelings ?
    If so, I’d say it as always choose your market for the TYPE of story you’ve written. I hate the idea of a writer changing their style of writing for a market rather than simply sending the story they needed to write to the type of market which would be interested in buying/reading it. So many writers get so stuck on “having to” write for some specific publisher or some specific market and forget that there are THOUSANDS of markets out there from which to choose when sending out your work.
    IAE I always find it interesting to hear writers in one genre generalize “how to” information for all writing, or all writers. As one of those writers who’s always looking for ways to improve my plotting and other mechanics / techniques, I can never hear enough advice. One day, I might even *USE* some of it ;-) Kidding, I do actually like the “W” analysis for the editing or redrafting stage of a book preparation and will have to try it next time I’m doing a read-through of something.
    -sry
    The OTHER Sarah on the Bar

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    1. Re: Thanks!!
      Hi Sarah,
      First on using this as a rewrite tool — It is very good that way and well… Part of me wants to say “yeah, start by using it that way.” However, because I’m an excruciating plotter (I’ve cut back on the detail of my advance plotting. Now it’s only around fifty pages, instead of a hundred) chapter by chapter, I find this a useful tool for PLOTTING, though I normally have multiple intersecting graphs, one for each POV character. I get a special happy jolt if I get all black moments/mirror moments to happen serially.
      As for the curve applying to different genres. You are absolutely correct, the FOCUS — i.e. the happy ending — of the novel is completely different with different genres. There are also sub-beats you should hit for different genres. In fact, tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, G-d willing and the creek not rising, I’ll be doing the other “overlays” one at a time. Ie the other ways to structure your plot. Those can be QUITE different for different genres. The W curve still applies, mind you, but there are other things you should do.
      The W curve is fairly basic and applies even to short stories. (Though there the part past the mirror moment is sometimes only hinted at.)
      For ex, on romance, here is the W curve for the beginning of Pride and Prejudice (I refuse to do all of it. I’ve had no caffeine yet.)
      You start in the normal world, and there’s a SLIGHT dip.
      So, we meet the nice Bennet sisters, in their functional and
      sheltered household BUT they have no money and no connections.
      (Slight dip.) BUT two gentlemen come to town. (Slighter rise than
      dip, because we know they have the factors against them.) And yet
      one is proud and the sisters of the other are very proud. (Deeper
      dip – more against them.) Still, the Superior Sisters invite the
      pretty sister – Jane – to come have dinner with them on a night
      without the gentlemen. (Shallower rise.)Here
      it’s not exactly the character, but her mother that makes things worse, though Jane agrees to
      the plan, so it’s also her fault.
      The Superior Sisters having invited Jane over on a night
      without gentlemen, so mama decides to make sure Jane will have to
      stick around till the gentlemen show up. To this purpose, she sends
      Jane off on horseback because it looks like rain. This means, of
      course, that if rain sets in during dinner, Jane will have to spend
      the night, and will see the gentlemen in the morning.
      The plan as such is a good one, except that… well… of
      course – let me hear it! – things GO WRONG.
      The rain starts before the horse reaches Netherfield, where
      the Superior Sisters reside. And Jane gets soaked to the skin.
      (DIP) They took a gamble and they lost.
      By this time we’re half amused, half interested, and another
      part of us is wondering what will happen next, which is the purpose
      of a plot. And then, of course, Jane, while not well, lets slip that
      they have LOW connections – relatives in trade, both locally and in
      London. And she gets sick. (Continuing dip though we don’t find this
      out till later. It’s part of foreshadowing.)
      Yet her mother thinks that it’s not all lost. NOW she’ll
      have a chance to see more of Mr. Bingley. Slight rise.
      However our main character, Lizzy, is worried her sister
      might be seriously ill. (Deeper dip.) And she walks to
      Netherfield. Where she meets the proud Mr. Darcy. (Dip and slight
      rise, because the reader can tell he’s interested.) However, she
      proved very unsuitable with her pettycoats deep in mud. (Dip)
      As for my romances the only thing that qualifies as such is Plain Jane, which is historical. I’m doing at least one more No Other Will But His — the story of Kathryn Howard (this one probably under my own name.) And there’s other proposals of the kind in the offing. :)
      Sarah

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  5. All good stuff here. And I loved Lucienne’s guest blog. As I venture into my first novel construction, every little thing helps. Now that I’ve decided how to approach plotting, I’m really feeling like the end result might not blow.

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