Layer Your Novel: The Innovative Method for Plotting Your Scenes (The Writer's Toolbox Series)

by C. S. Lakin

  [Should be Key Scene #8 – Dark Night. But there’s no real despairing moment.]. Jillian. She asks Will what he did. He lets her touch the cross. She sees a vision of Will’s first wife at the foot of Jesus’s cross. Tito. Taxi stops. He and Suki and Maria all rush together up the street, then screech to a halt at what they see. Jillian. Hanna tells Will that while she was dead, she saw a bright light and “others” telling her to say to Will he is on the right track, making them proud. She tells him there’s a larger plan. Then she dies (for real this time). The door opens and Tito, Suki, and Maria walk in. Satan is pleased they’ve arrived. Will. Sees a huge crowd outside. They don’t know why they’ve come. He recognizes many he’d helped, and some are from centuries past. Father Paul. A cop yells to Paul that Will’s been spotted. Jillian. Will asks Satan what the larger plan is. Will. Satan demands Will come with him now. Will walks toward him, trying to figure out the plan. Jillian. Everyone watching seems to feel dread. [yawn . . .]

  Key Scene #9 – Big Climax. Will. Senses Satan is nervous or fearful. Wonders aloud if his task is really to persuade the evil one to come over to the light. Jillian. The two men are speaking in Latin, and the young man howls, causing the walls and ceiling to rumble and crack. The doors lock and two big cats appear. Various POVs. Satan changes into a huge monster who rages at Will. Jillian. Will challenges him to repent. Satan is about to shatter the building. Will starts to take Satan’s hand, though the crowd chants, “No!” then Satan turns into a beautiful angel of light. Will. Recognizes Lucifer, the angel of light, how he was before he fell. Jillian. Everyone is spellbound at the sight. A bright light comes down, and Lucifer is terrified. He writhes and tries to yank his hand from Will’s but can’t. As he rises into the light, Will hangs on. Will says something in Latin; Lucifer breaks free and turns into a massive gruesome dragon, then is sucked underground in fire. Will gets to his feet. Will. Moved by all the support. Tito warns him the priest is coming. Father Paul. He arrives, pushes through the crowd in the warehouse, demands to know where Will is, but Will has gone. Jillian. She sees how angry the priest is. Leaves with Maria, promising to take care of her.

  Father Paul. Suffers from some ailment, prays a long prayer to God. Jillian. Talking from years later, saying how she collected testimonials from those in the warehouse and published a book sixteen years ago. Two weeks after the warehouse showdown, she got a letter from the priest who, dying, sent her a CD and his journal, with all the research on Will.

  Key Scene #10 – Resolution. Jillian. Sixteen years after the warehouse incident, she’s at Maria’s college graduation. Will shows up and seems content, at peace. Says Satan leaves him alone now. Some days later Jillian gets a package from Will with a flash drive full of his stories. Will. He listens to Chuck on the radio and admires Tito’s wonderful artwork. Realizes his curse is really a “grand mission” to actively seek out his enemy and keep trying to lure him into the light, thinking that will save the entire world. Gives an old man some change and thinks he might be an angel.

  Similar to The Perfect Girl, this novel is so lacking in action. The pages are filled with backstory, characters sitting around thinking, and passages telling of all the famous people Will had encountered and influenced across time. But present action? Hardly any at all.

  Will meets some people, saves a girl, ends up in the hospital. The priest finds him and waits to take him to the Pope. People gather at the hospital, then there’s a kind of chase scene. The big climax is a calm discussion in a warehouse that leads to an almost comic standoff, with a crowd uselessly standing by. Boring.

  Many of the characters seem like filler in the story. Why so many scenes with Maria, a five-year-old? Tito, the punk? Two scenes only with Nicole the dog lover, Chuck the musician, and Suki the cab driver. They don’t serve a strong purpose in the story. And when all these minor characters gather at the climax, they don’t do much else but watch and pat Will on the back for a good job done, after he defeats Satan.

  So many POV sections accomplish nothing. Whatever useful points are brought out could be revealed while staying in one POV the entire chapter. It feels as if a movie camera was jerking from person to person in a kind of Blair Witch chaos, unable to rest more than a minute on one person. Too many scenes are in Jillian’s POV, which gives the feel that this is her story . . . but it’s not.

  The Goal at the Crux of Great Storytelling

  What’s missing that would make this novel work? First off: some setup that leads to a clear goal. As with The Perfect Girl, there is no goal for the novel. While Will is tired of his curse and hoping for some escape, and there is an occasional mention of a warehouse incident, he doesn’t develop a goal for the novel—a visible plot goal that locks in what this novel is about. Without a goal, there doesn’t seem to be a point to the book or to Will’s character. Who wants to see a guy wandering around, depressed and fed up, with no real plan?

  Second: opposition that really pinches. While we see the opposition, again, there is very little active buildup that shows the opposition creating huge problems—and those problems should be specifically impacting the attempt at the goal. Yes, it’s a cat-and-mouse game, to some extent, with the priest finding Will fairly easily. But he finds him before the Midpoint, and for most of the second half of the book just sits around waiting for the police to come and help him kidnap Will to take him to Rome. And then he arrives at the end, missing him again. Yawn.

  What are the stakes? Just that Rome might interrogate Will. So what? Those don’t feel like high stakes. If Will can’t die, all they can do is dissect him in some fashion, which has been done numerous times before.

  If Will had a clear, important goal, such as stopping a global disaster from occurring, and the clock was ticking, and the opposition was breathing down his neck every step of the way to stop him (which is what we expect from thrillers), it would be a lot easier to craft those ten key scenes and put them in the right places.

  You Need Conflict with High Stakes

  This is why it’s so critical that, when you start plotting out your novel, you hone that killer concept along with a clear, definitive goal for your protagonist along with the highest stakes possible. Conflict without stakes is impotent and lackluster. Readers will start falling asleep.

  Third element missing: some strong subplots, twists, or major complications. There is no subplot to give the story depth. Because little happens, there’s a lack of intriguing action. Maybe a lot of readers found the premise interesting enough to read the whole book, finding enjoyment in the tales of Will’s relationships with famous people throughout the centuries. But to me, since all that is backstory (which clogs most of the pages), I got bored. I don’t want to be told a story; I want to watch it happening.

  I would have written this novel one of two ways. Either having Will on a clear, dangerous, vital mission (high stakes) that has the fate of the world in the balance or playing out Will’s story in real time, starting with his life as Pilate’s guard and hitting Jesus, with his goal of finding escape from his situation (and having that actually resolve at the climax).

  The former, of course, would be better structurally because a novel that spans two thousand years as some epic biography would require a lot of rambling through one century after another. It would be hard to have a cast of characters unless those characters were also immortal.

  If the author made it Will’s goal to die (or be released of his curse, the same one that plagued Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood), and he reached that goal at the climax through some epic, dangerous, high-stakes actions, that would be a viable and compelling goal. The Inciting Incident might, for example, be a scene in which Will discovers a possible solution to his problem, giving him hope—finally—that he might be released from his curse. What would proceed from there would be the progress amid obstacles that Will would make to reach his goal.

  Do you see how a story framework like this would have a place for all the ten key scenes and would support a solid story? I d
o.

  * * *

  Your assignment: Brainstorm some ideas that take this basic story concept—about a man cursed by Jesus who’s had to live centuries without dying—and turn it into a solid premise. Do what I did above: first work on the goal for the novel and imagine the climax scene in which he reaches or fails to reach his goal.

  Think about high stakes. What kind of stakes could you create for this story that would be believable and tense? What actions could the opposition take that would imperil Will’s goal in a huge way?

  And finally, think about character arc. What could Will learn and experience that would ultimately change him? Give him the peace he yearns for (which could be dependent on his reaching the goal or not).

  Try listing the ten key scenes once you’ve worked this all out. By now, from all these assignments, you should have these ten key scenes embedded in your brain!

  Chapter 19: Conclusion

  I always like to ask my best-selling author friends what methods they use to plot out their novels. Over the years, I’ve heard many diverse answers. It seems everyone has a method that they like and that works for them.

  Some authors I know sit down to start writing a new novel with a general idea of the story they want to tell. They’ve come up with a few interesting characters, an intriguing situation, some bad guys or danger, and an idea of how the book will end. Then they dive in.

  I know more than one author who writes a complete first draft, then throws it out and starts all over. One of these authors, who sells millions of copies of each of her novels, will go through three or four full drafts—all of which are tossed—before she writes “the keeper.” She is stressed the entire time she is writing, worried whether she will come up with a good story in the end, and sweating over her looming deadline. She writes terrific novels, but I don’t know why she puts herself through such agony. When I asked her why she doesn’t first plot out her novels, she merely shrugged and said this was her process. She didn’t seem all that eager to change, for, in the end, her novels always hit the tops of the best-seller lists.

  Some authors I’ve questioned do take the time to plot. They’ll come up with a list of a dozen or so scenes and feel confident enough to start writing their novel. But they go by feel, placing the scenes where they “fit best.”

  Sometimes the result from these methods is a well-crafted novel. Other times, not so much.

  I’d like to posit that authors will have the best chance of ending up with a great novel if they use a method based on time-tested story structure.

  We humans sometimes find change daunting. We like our comfortable patterns and habits. We may say, “Oh, I can’t do that. That’s just not me.” I’ve heard a lot of excuses over the years from writers who say, “I just can’t plot. It destroys my creativity” or “Plotting is too much work. It takes the joy out of the process. I just want to write.”

  I get all that—to a point. But, in most areas of life, we tend to look for the simplest and most practical way to accomplish something. Whether we’re trying to repair a broken table, sew a dress, or train for a race, we don’t want to waste a lot of time spinning our wheels and getting nowhere (unless we’re on a stationary bike training for that race).

  The simplest and most practical way to write a great novel is to use a method that eliminates guesswork—while still allowing for full creative expression.

  Layering your novel may feel formulaic to you, but what’s wrong with a formula? What’s wrong with following a road map to get to your destination? A map might not be needed if you’re just jogging to the corner market. But if you’re trying to navigate through a complex terrain with myriad unmarked roads that lead to dead ends—like a rat maze—you’ll save a lot of time and frustration by following the map.

  I hope you’ll give this layering method a try. Yes, it’s a lot of front-end work, but I truly believe if you use this simple and practical method to laying out your story, you’ll find, when you write “The End,” that you’ve saved time and energy. And, more importantly, that you’ve enjoyed the process.

  Writing should be fun, not a headache. When you can sit down at your computer, confident you have a solid framework figured out for your story, you won’t suffer the worry and anxiety some of the biggest-selling authors go through day after day. That’s my hope for you and why I wrote this book. I want you to find joy in writing novels as you layer your way to success!

  About the Author

  C. S. Lakin is passionate about writing and helping writers see success in their writing journey. She’s the author of twenty novels in various genres, which includes her seven-book fantasy series The Gates of Heaven and five novels in her historical Western romance Front Range series (under pen name Charlene Whitman). She works full-time as a copyeditor and writing coach.

  Her award-winning blog for writers, Live Write Thrive, is an excellent resource for both fiction and nonfiction writers, with hundreds of posts on craft, marketing, and writing for life. She also puts out a newsletter to her readers with tips and insights on how to be productive and find success as a writer.

  In addition to editing and proofreading, Lakin critiques more than two hundred manuscripts a year. If you’ve never had your work critiqued, you may be unaware of many weaknesses in your writing and story structure. Consider getting your scene outline or first chapters critiqued to help you see what needs work. You can learn more about her critique services at Critique My Manuscript.

  If you’re a novelist—or aspiring to be one—be sure to join her Novel Writing Fast Track email list. No participation necessary! You’ll get two free ebooks on writing craft the first week, and a monthly Rafflecopter contest giving away more free books, all to help you fast track to success.

  Did you find this book helpful?

  Please take a minute to leave an honest review on Amazon!

  It’s the best way to say thank you to an author, and it will help other writers.

  Don’t miss the books in The Writer’s Toolbox series!

  These six books cover nearly everything you need to know to write great fiction and structure solid stories!

  Writing the Heart of Your Story: The Secret to Crafting an Unforgettable Novel (which you get free when you join the Fast Track group!)

  Shoot Your Novel: Cinematic Techniques to Supercharge Your Writing

  The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction: Your Blueprint for Building a Solid Story

  The 12 Key Pillars Workbook

  5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing

  Say What? The Fiction Writer’s Handy Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Word Usage

  Crank It Out! The Surefire Way to Become a Super-Productive Writer

  Are you struggling with identifying the flaws in your writing? Take a look at the opening pages of 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing:

  5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing

  Introduction

  Fiction writers often struggle to improve their craft. They want to write better, more effectively. Tell a stronger, more evocative story. But oftentimes what a writer envisions in her mind doesn’t come across on the page.

  The biggest challenge can come from the inability to see what isn’t working. The prose feels off. The scene just isn’t gelling. The dialogue sounds stilted or clunky. Writers consult their stack of reference books or jump online and search for answers on blog posts. They may even travel long distances to attend workshops and conferences to get to the heart of their problems.

  But even then, the solutions are often elusive.

  What writers need are not more books and instructors telling them what to do and how to do it. They need examples. And not just examples of great fiction writing. They need examples of weak, flawed writing too.

  What helps writers most is to read passages that demonstrate flawed writing, then be shown revisions that target specific flaws and offer clear, effective solutions to those problems.

  12 Fat
al Flaws

  When working on a manuscript, editors mark up and revise sections to show writing clients what’s not working, why, and how these passages might be rewritten. We believe this is the best way to help writers identify their specific weaknesses, as well as learn how to get mastery over them.

  Not every writer can afford to hire an editor to point out a manuscript’s flaws. And wouldn’t it be better for writers to arm themselves with the knowledge and skills needed to avoid succumbing to these writing flaws in the first place? We think so.

  That’s why we five editors put together a year-long course online—on the Live Write Thrive blog—specifically aimed at tackling the most problematic issues we see day in and day out as we edit and critique manuscripts. While there are undoubtedly more than twelve “fatal flaws” of fiction writing, we set out to examine in depth the most troublesome and ubiquitous of these.

  We refer to these issues as fatal flaws because of their potential to cause “novel failure.” Any one of these twelve flaws, if prevalent in a novel or other work of fiction, can be a writer’s undoing. And because there is no one way to fix each flaw, we’ve created multiple examples to expose each one, using passages written in a variety of genres, points of view, and writing styles. We feel this wide assortment of more than sixty examples provides just the help writers need.

  In addition to being editors, we are all novelists—who struggle with these fiction flaws like any other author. We hope that by sharing our decades of experience as writers as well as book editors, we might help you seek and destroy the fatal flaws in your writing.