Theater is in two different states: the elevated, refined, morally acceptable theater which is considered high art. This includes operas. The other is the bawdy barroom theater, which is frowned upon by good society. Dancing falls into the same categories: refined and accepted; bawdy and rejected. An artist’s status depends entirely upon which group he falls into. Refined artists are revered; bawdy artists are looked upon as fallen members of society, but there is a growing part of the population that idolizes and adores them.
The refined arts are supported by the church and, more especially, by the king and his court. The bawdy arts are supported entirely by their clientele, mostly bar owners and the like. The refined arts have several lovely theaters in all the main cities, a few are commercial businesses, most are publicly owned. Bawdy arts are confined to bars and the like, with the performers traveling from place to place. Circuses are one of the few “lower” class entertainments not frowned upon by the church, and traveling troupes erect their tents from town to town.
Hawking is popular among the well-to-do, with the lower classes emulating with less expensive birds and dogs. Hunting is popular among all classes. Tourneys, jousts, and fights are popular among the Cherazii. Sports include wrestling, swimming, rowing, and rustif, a game much like hockey without the skates. Board games involving stratagem, such as chess, are popular. Youngsters play at jacks, bowling, and the like.
Even if you already have a good idea of the specifics of your world, taking the time to solidify your ideas by answering these questions can inject more life and realism into your setting and allow you to spot flaws and inconsistencies. And, even better, it’s fun!
Chapter Eight Checklist
Choose your setting(s).
Write a quick list of ways you can use the chosen setting to deepen characterization.
Combine and eliminate unnecessary settings.
Answer the list of world-building questions.
Asking the Authors: Lisa Grace
Bio: The author of the YA novels Angel in the Shadows (Eloquent) and Angel in the Storm, Lisa Grace does volunteer work with teens through her church. Visit her at http://www.lisagracebooks.com.
Can you describe your outlining process?
I start my outlines by listing a major plot and two subplots. My main character has to learn something by the end of the story. My subplots must thwart the main character from achieving her goal. From the subplots, I come up with an idea of who my secondary characters are, the ones who will help move along the plot and the action of my main characters. I also like (while I am in the writing process) to create some charts. One for switching from character to character and another for scenes. I write approximately a thousand words per scene, so for a 70,000 word book, I need seventy scenes.
What is the greatest benefit of outlining?
Outlining, which is a form of planning, gives me the chance to build tension, add symbolism, and balance the interaction between the characters and the plotlines.
What is the biggest pitfall of outlining?
Sticking too rigidly to your outline. One of my favorite characters in Angel in the Shadows popped up while I was writing a scene. Her addition helps move the action along and gives a new perspective of how to look at the world. If I’d stuck rigidly to my outline, my readers and I would be missing out.
Do you recommend “pantsing” for certain situations and outlining for others?
My writing style is short and sweet. Lots of dialogue, action, and just enough description to set the scene. I need a clear idea of where my scenes are going and what they are adding to the story. My “pantsing” occurs within the framework of the scenes. I might add a scene I hadn’t planned on because it is what the characters would naturally do next.
With my current work-in-progress, a historical, I have to outline to make sure timelines, locations, events, weather, battles, and real-life people all match up correctly with my characters. I couldn’t write an accurate portrayal of the times in my fictional story without an outline.
What’s the most important contributing factor to a successful outlining experience?
Laura Lippman, author of many award-winning novels and one of my mentors, is visual. She outlines by color coding (with Post-its® or index cards), on her wall. One for characters and POV, then another with scenes. She then looks at the pattern each creates. If the pattern isn’t pleasing, she changes it.
I use lines and connect my scenes/characters as I go. If I have too many lines going in the same direction at the same time, I can see where I need to bring in the other characters/plots/scenes. To be successful in outlining, you have to do what works for you.
Chapter Nine
The Extended Outline:
Creating a Story
“Writing is a way of organizing experience, or of organizing something imagined, of making something perfect and beautiful—even something as small as one sentence—in a world that can be at times chaotic, wretched, ugly, and upsetting.”
—Patricia Highsmith24
The Extended Outline is where the plotting begins in earnest. Step by step, you’re going to map out, in as much detail as possible (though without dialogue or narrative), every road stop in your story. In places, this plotting will go quickly; in others, you’ll have to stop to work your way through iffy plot points and implausible character motivations. This step, by itself, can take several months, but because of the active, full-throttle creativity demanded, it’s one of the most exciting and rewarding portions of storytelling.
I write my Extended Outline in my notebook, dating each entry and numbering each scene. Below are the first two scenes from Behold the Dawn’s outline, to give you an idea how it should flow. As you’ll see, I ramble, digress, switch tenses, reject ideas, and generally let myself wander all over my imagination, having fun and seeking plot solutions that are both plausible and unexpected. I plan foreshadowing and sort out the whereabouts and mindsets of my various characters, keeping motives and goals at the forefront. My objective in constructing each scene is to nail down the prominent events, while still leaving lots of room for creativity and improvisation later on, when I actually write the scene. Very occasionally, if an appropriate line of dialogue strikes me, I’ll include it, but, otherwise, I save the detail work, such as dialogue, description, and internal narrative, for the first draft.
1. I think I actually want the story to start a little before the story, so to speak. But I’m not sure how much before—with Annan accepting Roderic’s assignment? With him in battle at Acre (no—because that’s just action, there’s no character identification and that’s the most important part; I guess I could make it work, but it would take some effort to make it strong. It could be strong though)? Maybe as he’s wounded? Maybe somewhere in between one of those?
I rather lean toward the first option, but I don’t want to go too far back, and I definitely want a smooth transition to the battle, and then, when he’s wounded, I see it as being kind of ethereal and unreal, cloaked in the fury of the battle. You know, sort of just drifting along through the dreamy memories of this battle, and then *boom* he wakes to a world of pain and Mairead’s worried face.
2. So he wakes up in some sort of confinement, whatever the Saracens were using. (I have to find out if they took prisoners—I don’t think they took many—and what they did with them when they didn’t kill them.) He is wounded: probably a head wound, maybe a flesh wound in his shoulder or side. Nothing that will take too long to heal, but enough to keep him down for a bit, so Mairead can nurse him.
When he recovers a bit, he is taken to another cell to see Lord William of Keaton. Annan must have initiated the meeting, probably because he had an opportunity for escape, and he wanted to share it with Mairead because of her aid to him.
He doesn’t know she’s married, much less that her husband is his old mentor, William of Keaton, who is grievously wounded.
During Annan and William’s reunion, I’ll have to begin dropping hints about
Annan’s past. Not too much though—just a little bit.
William, knowing he’s going to die and afraid of what Lord Hugh will force upon Mairead, once she is no longer attached, requested that Annan marry her, if only in name, and then help her escape to a convent in France that would be paid for with Lord William’s legacy. Annan, although just a wee bit taken aback, agreed, out of his friendship with William, his sympathy for the lady, and the debt he felt he owed them.
So he sets about orchestrating an escape. I’m not sure if I want to utilize outside help in this or not. I don’t like bringing in a character just for the sake of getting Annan loose, but without another person, I think we lose some of the urgency somewhere. I could introduce someone—or the instrument of someone—who will play a vital part later on. Marek doesn’t know Annan’s even still alive, so he’s out. And I don’t know that I want Gethin to be that wise to Annan’s existence.
But then again… having an unknown rescuer puts a nice little question mark in there. And Gethin wouldn’t necessarily have to know it’s Annan he’s rescuing. He could a) be just trying to release as many prisoners as he can (problem with that, though, is that we only want Annan and Mairead to get away), b) wanting to free the assassin because he needed him for some reason to get at Roderic (need a more concrete reason though), or c) he wants to get Lady Mairead and/or William out—Annan doesn’t enter into it. It just ends up happening that “Lady Mairead and her husband” weren’t quite who Gethin thought. That’s good, esp. since Gethin will think, until he encounters them, that Annan is William. Double surprise for him, since, not only is it not William, but it’s his old buddy Annan. And because Gethin wouldn’t know of Annan and Mairead’s marriage, and because he does know Annan’s personality, he may be very condemning and antagonistic at first, doubly so if he doesn’t know William is dead.
Okay, so thanks to Gethin, they escape (Annan would have tried to escape anyway, so it’s still fine for him to offer that to William and Mairead).
Before we discuss plotting techniques any further, let’s take a moment to go over a few preliminary steps and questions.
What Kind of Story Are You Writing?
Now’s the time to begin making concrete decisions about the form this story will take. What audience are you writing it for? What feel and tone do you want to present in the prose? Will it be fast-paced or leisurely? Will you write in past or present tense?
There’s no such thing as the perfect novel. Perfection in art is unequivocally subjective. What one reader hails as perfection, another will throw across the room in disgust. As readers, our preferred reading experiences span the gamut from cuddly, reaffirming romances to gritty, life-challenging noir. And that’s awesome. A world without variety would leave authors with very little of interest to write about.
Because the perfect novel will never exist, authors have lots of room in which to play around and find their niches. Therefore, the question isn’t so much “how to write the perfect novel” as it is “how to write your perfect novel.” A line of encouragement from literary agent Scott Edelstein has informed my writing for years now. He said, “If you’re ever at a loss as to what to write about, ask yourself to imagine the one story, essay, poem, or book that you’d most like to read. Then write it.”25
So what is your perfect novel? Examine your favorite novels and movies for elements that particularly grabbed you. Battle scenes? Romance? Humorous dialogue? Plot twists? Sad endings? Happy endings? Chances are the story elements that are important to you are already showing up in your work. If you can single them out, you can strengthen them and make them more intrinsic to your stories.
Who Is Your Audience?
It’s essential to know your audience and to know what they expect from you. When, how, and if you decide to fulfill those expectations need to be educated decisions.
• How old is your audience?
• What gender is your audience?
• What ethnicity is your audience?
• What religious beliefs does your audience ascribe to?
Knowing the answers to these questions will help you decide how best to craft your story. If, upon reflection, your story doesn’t seem to fit your audience, you either need a new story or a new audience. Sometimes it helps to select one person—someone who understands you and your worldview, but perhaps doesn’t agree with you entirely. What would this friend think of your story? What would he like about it? Dislike? What would he tell you to change to make the story better? Hold this one reader in mind as you design your outline, and you’ll be able to stay in touch with your intended audience, as a whole, as you craft your story. Writing to an audience is one of the inevitable joys and frustrations of the writing life. We can’t avoid it, despite its pitfalls, but we can channel it by narrowing that audience to specificity.
What Point of View Will You Write From?
Narrative point of view (or POV) is something writers often take for granted. We come up with a story idea, sit down to write, and spend maybe all of thirty seconds debating between a first- and third-person POV. But this snap, arbitrary decision will influence every one of the 100,000-plus words to follow. It will be a deciding factor in the story’s tone and narrative arc. It will control which scenes will be written and which will remain “off-camera.” It will close certain doors and open others. In short, POV is often the single most important factor in determining whether or not a story works. Following are six considerations about POV that may help you make the right choices for your story.
Select the Correct Number of POVs
It’s often tempting to share everything that every character is thinking. But few stories (not to mention readers) can handle a plot that includes twenty POVs. Less is very often more. Some of the most powerful novels are those that focus on a single POV. Additional POVs may alert your reader to additional details, but they can also water down the force of the main POV. It’s important to realize readers don’t need (or even appreciate) knowing every little detail. Sometimes what you don’t say is more powerful than what you do. Plus, the fewer POVs you have, the less risk you run of either boring or confusing the reader. There’s no writing law that gives a limit to POV characters, but here are a few tips for figuring out how many are too many.
• POV usually indicates an important character, since it gives readers an intimate look into the character’s mind.
• Using more than one POV allows readers to see things through more than one character’s mind.
• The more POV characters you have, the more you’re forcing your readers to spread out both their attention and their loyalty.
• Multiple POVs can fragment your story and weaken its focus.
Consider carefully every time you decide to introduce a new POV. Does this new POV add something vital to the story—or could the scenes be reworked into an existing POV character’s viewpoint?
Choose the POV of the Character With the Most at Stake
Toward the end of Dreamlander, I needed to write a tense scene in which the hero reveals some tragic news to his allies. I struggled with the scene for several days, writing and rewriting from my hero’s POV. Then, suddenly, it struck me: I was writing from the wrong POV. My hero was not the character with the most to lose in this scene. Because I had already dramatized his discovery of the tragedy in a previous scene and because he had already come to grips with it, his POV in this scene provided nothing new. In fact, all my attempts to inject drama felt repetitious in light of the earlier scenes. With that in mind, I looked around for the character who would be most affected by the news, and my scene took flight. All the tension, drama, and angst I had been searching for immediately came to the forefront when I switched to a character whose emotions were at a keener pitch.
Choose the POV of the Character With the Most Interesting Voice
The character you choose as your main POV will influence the entire tone of the novel. It’s often wise to look beyond the obvious choice of POV and see what your ot
her characters have to offer. Several years ago, I nearly burnt myself out writing and rewriting the first fifty pages of a World War II drama that refused to cooperate. I had my plot mapped out, I was in love with my characters, and I knew exactly the tone I was striving for. But I couldn’t quite achieve it. My innocent, naïve, and sweet-tempered heroine just didn’t have the chops to carry the narrative. After setting the manuscript aside for several months, I realized I had been telling the wrong story all along. I switched POVs to the snarky, cynical viewpoint of an American reporter, who had been a minor character up to that point, and the narrative took off (although the story stalled out again later, perhaps permanently, for different reasons).
Play Around With Voice and Tense
Once you’ve mastered the basics of POV (particularly learning how to recognize and avoid the universal beginner’s habit of “head hopping”), POV becomes an exciting playground, full of all kinds of possibilities. Many writers find a niche in one voice or another and stay there. But don’t be afraid to play around. My first eight novels were all written in third-person past tense. Allowing myself to explore different viewpoints and tenses in my most recent novel stretched my writing skills in ways I never imagined and produced a much stronger story as a result.
Structuring Your Story
Outlining Your Novel_Map Your Way to Success Page 11