Make It Great, But Make It Plausible

One of my favorite flying films is Top Gun. I first saw the movie with my brother, Skip, a graduate of Bainbridge Academy and a submariner in the US Navy. As we watched the aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings, I asked him how something that big can float. “You can float anything as long as you displace the weight,” he answered. What’s true in physics is true in fiction. It’s called plausibility.

Emerging and established writers alike face the challenges of how to float something big—whether characters or stakes or storylines. Here are ways to employ craft elements to support plausibility:

• Beginning: A story with a big start makes a tacit promise to the reader. To keep that promise, follow through on what you present at the beginning. Even if your beginning is a red herring, don’t wait until the last page to support it.
• Characters: Big characters should be realistic, even if only in the world of your story. To achieve realism, get to know your characters inside and out.
• Conflict: Conflicts and complications can be big in size and scope, meaning you don’t necessarily need a dire medical diagnosis to have a big story. The complexity of a conflict, the degree to which it impacts the characters and story, is just as far-reaching.
• Dialogue: To deepen dialogue, use subtext. Be deliberate in crafting not only what the characters say but what they mean. You can also have almost as many conversations as characters in a scene, with each saying what they want to get across so that you’re advancing story and developing the characters at the same time.
• Ending: If your story has a big start, it needs a suitably satisfying ending. One way to do this is to bring your discoveries and those of the characters to bear on the conclusion. And don’t forget to surprise readers. It’s the mint on the reading pillow.
• Plot: One way to support a complex plot is with subplots and a braided narrative. Subplots add intrigue; a braided narrative, with more than one point of view, adds depth and breadth.
• Reversal: Reversals often represent a major shift in the direction of a story and the lives of its characters. Some of the most poignant are when what a character most fears happens. Just treat the reversal in a way that’s sensitive not sensational. Let the reader provide the emotion.
• Scene: A scene should be developed sufficiently to convey the reason it’s there. To accomplish this, edit each scene once for each character who appears in it, and count setting as a character. It’s fine to include the unexpected in a scene, as long as the unforeseen element doesn’t feel as if it was dropped in as an afterthought or a way to prop up the story.
• Setting: Vast settings can appeal not only for what they are but for what they represent. The key is to have the description match the scale. This doesn’t necessarily mean using bigger words, but precise words that are appropriate to the theme. If you’re writing genre fiction, use the right terminology without being technical in your description.
• Stakes: Regardless of degree, stakes must matter to the overall story and the characters. Most important, readers must know why the stakes matter. As a note, the why element may change over the course of the story. Some stakes that were important at the start may be less so at the end.
• Story: Family saga, fantasy, historical fiction, sci-fi and cli-fi genres naturally lead to big stories. But such tales need depth to float. In these instances, world-building is critical. And the key to world-building is detail that is concrete and thematic to support what the story is about.
• Suspense: This great staple of storytelling works for any genre or writing style. The key is knowing what to offer the reader and what to withhold, along with when and to what degree. Don’t withhold critical information that keeps the reader from engaging with the story or give too much away upfront, a delicate balance that’s easier to achieve after the first draft.
• Theme: Big themes are like big stakes. Generally, the bigger the better. But even a cosmic theme must be worked out in the individual characters’ lives and the story’s day-to-day. Otherwise, the result is theory, not theme.

These days it won’t do to say, “I get to that in Chapter 3.” Plausibility must make its entrance from the start and build throughout a story. One way to achieve this is the daisy chain approach. Before you begin writing, review what you last wrote. You’ll discover that the final work is clearer and more believable. Readers will find the same.

Reference

The First Five Pages, by Noah Lukeman: Although this work should be retitled The First Five Sentences, it’s still a classic comprehensive guide to all the essential facets of good writing.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s SPD bestselling novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press). She co-authored Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA and was managing editor of Southern Literary Review. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Telling a Good Story Takes Spontaneity

Last month we said telling a good story requires preparation. While that’s true, telling a good story also takes spontaneity. My dad still makes for a good example. Not only was he a custom men’s tailor who prepared each day’s work the night before but he could also decide to take us to Italy at the drop of a tailor’s ham. So besides being spontaneous, he was a risk-taker. Writers should be both, too.

Spontaneity can mean doing something spur of the moment or trying something new or different without overthinking it. This is where the writer’s instinct and willingness to explore the unfamiliar come into play. We’ve all had those ah-ha moments for a new story, a twist or turn in our current narrative, having a character do something seemingly out of character, or following the story down an unfamiliar path of setting or events.

These adventures can be fun and inspiring, but there’s a price tag attached to the approach. Taking the road less traveled takes time, energy and the risk of one or more wrong turns. But even rabbit trails can offer writers and readers a new perspective, like a detour along a scenic road. Two common questions about being spontaneous are:

• How do I get rolling?
• How do I know if the path I’ve chosen or the decision I’ve made is the right one?

Here are considerations for both of these queries.

First, to make spontaneity worthwhile, ask yourself these questions:

• What aspect of your story needs a bit of novelty or adventure?
• Where would you, your storyline or one of your characters benefit from taking a risk?
• What aspect of your story have you considered exploring but avoided, and what’s holding you back and why?

As you may have guessed, even spontaneity can take a bit of planning or at least some forethought. But once you’ve primed the pump, don’t overthink it. If writing a new story or scene is daunting, which it often is, give yourself a writing time limit. If an hour is too long, try half an hour or 20 minutes. And rather than contemplate what you’re writing as you’re writing it, just write. When you’re done, read what you’ve written. Before making substantive changes, set it aside, possibly until the following writing session. That way you won’t destroy what spontaneity can do for you—open doors to new places.

The next question is how do I know if what I’ve written works?

Two key elements in answering this query are time and distance:

• Rather than edit what you’ve written the same day you’ve written it, wait until at least your next writing session. Even then, before you edit, read what you’ve written to find what shows up as unexpected. Writers who are more planners than pantsers will be tempted to start fixing. Resist the temptation. Instead, embrace the new and see what benefits the unexpected can bring to your story and your writing.
• Once you’ve had a chance to embrace the new, consider how and where what you’ve written could fit into your project. Could it be part of what you’re already working on, or is it something entirely new. To answer this question, assess whether what you’ve created is substantive enough on its own—whether it has enough scope or the potential for scope. In other words, is there enough there, there?

Sometimes what we’ve created on the fly doesn’t work in its entirety but has elements that could work quite well. For example, you might find a gem of a phrase or a germ of a new narrative thread or character. Either way, just because you can’t use your effort in its entirety doesn’t mean it isn’t beneficial. Even if you don’t use any aspect of what you’ve created exactly as you’ve created it, the fun and freedom of free writing can be liberating. And if you write for a living or with that kind of dedication, this type of exercise can put the joy back into your labor.

I usually tell the writers I work with and who attend my workshops that for every principle we set forth, for every craft element technique we discuss, there is at least one equal and opposite possibility. The key is knowing the elements and how they work. Even then it’s possible to be clueless about what certain craft elements do and still write a great story or one with great potential. That’s the fun and freedom of writing because it’s where discovery happens.

Reference:

• For a great how-to reference on craft in any genre, see Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers (Now Write! Series), by Laurie Lamson (Editor). Regardless of what genre(s) you write in, you’ll find these insights and exercises fun and freeing.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s SPD bestselling novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). She co-authored Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA and was managing editor of Southern Literary Review. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.