Three Disasters Plus an Ending

I just read something that might save my novel:

I like to structure a story as "three disasters plus an ending". Each of the disasters takes a quarter of the book to develop and the ending takes the final quarter. I don't know if this is the ideal structure, it's just my personal taste.

If you believe in the Three-Act structure, then the first disaster corresponds to the end of Act 1. The second disaster is the mid-point of Act 2. The third disaster is the end of Act 2, and forces Act 3 which wraps things up. It is OK to have the first disaster be caused by external circumstances, but I think that the second and third disasters should be caused by the protagonist's attempts to "fix things". Things just get worse and worse.

From Randy Ingermanson's How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method

You know how sometimes you know things, but you don't know that you know them until someone says them to you in a new way?

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now. My protagonist isn't trying to fix anything. She isn't even trying to DO anything! She's just having stuff happen to her.

No wonder I'm bored! Time to spice things up!

Under-The-Bed Books

I'm at the point in NaNo when I'm behind, I'm bored with my own story (never a good sign) and I'm pretty much convinced that I'm the worst writer ever.

So I dug out some of my inspirational books to try to get back on track. Here's what's resonating with me today.

Writing a book is exactly like love. You don't hold back. You give it everything you have. If it doesn't work out, you're heartbroken, but you move forward and start again anyway. You have to.

You don't hold some of yourself in reserve. It's all or nothing. There are no guarantees. If one book doesn't work out, you figure out why. How can you do things differently next time? If you hold back from the book, it won't fully reveal itself. You write each book, utterly and completely giving yourself to it. Some will end up under the bed. And some just might end up brilliant.

Heather Sellers, Chapter After Chapter

So, I'm giving myself permission to suck. This might be a learning book. It might be an under-the-bed book. But I'll never know if I don't finish it.

RMC-SCBWI

Went to a great SCBWI conference this weekend in Lakewood, and I attended a wonderful session on "Nurturing a passion for stories." Following are some of the snippets I wrote down as the wonderful presenter was speaking.

Writing is the discovery of the hidden potential in people's hearts.

While our addictions diminish us, our passions enlarge us.

We all write about what we love. Love is about what you are going to give up for someone else.

Writing makes us larger because we are sharing and growing.

...the holy longing for something we don't have.

Enchant the reader.

You know the old joke about someone dying, and he gets to heaven, and God says, "How did you like my book?" What he really might say is, "How did you like my world?" and that's what writers always want to know when someone reads their stories.

How did you like my world?

The color of your thought dyes your soul. The color of your soul dyes your world.

The most important ingredients in children's literature are hope and joy.

To name someone is the first act of loving them.

No act of writing is ever wasted.

You don't need to be God to create.

Creativity is like the story of the magic well: it never ran dry so long as the people kept putting the ladle in to draw up water.

inspire — to breathe life into

That which we cannot see is just as important as what we can see.

We are the myth makers.

Americans are obsessed with what we put into our bodies, but we should be equally obsessed with what we put into our souls.

Make your very flesh a poem.

Inspiration

The Writer magazine this month lists 8 websites for inspiration for fiction writers, and I thought they were great! Here they are:

Postsecret for plot ideas.

Imagining Ourselves for characterization.

Overheard in New York for dialogue.

Crutial Minutiae (try saying that six times fast) for details to spice up your story.

The Believer for when you feel stuck.

The Baby Name Wizard for, well, names.

Complications Ensue for information about screenwriting (his blogroll alone is worth the link).

Publishers Marketplace for information about the market.