Five Lazy Ways to Write Better Stories, by Dr. John Yeoman
Is there a magic secret to crafting stories that sell? Yes! But it’s no secret. Every commercial author uses it instinctively. Here are the five elements of story success that pros will rarely tell you.
Every new writer
yearns for the magic secret.
Will a Power
Plotting Plan hype my story into the best seller lists? How about that great
3-step trick? Or this seven-point formula? The web is full of nostrums and
notions. Strangely, no great author has ever needed them to write a classic
work. Instead, they used - instinctively - a plan much like this...
First, draft
total rubbish.
Got a vague idea
for a story or episode? Don’t be afraid to write down the first thing that
comes into your head - but write 1000 words of that every day, without fail.
Use clichés, long-whiskered phrases, anything that
conveys your meaning, after a fashion.
Whatever you do,
don’t stop! Brace yourself to ignore that drivel. If you take your editing pen
to it now, you’re doomed. The Muse will abandon you. Content yourself with
getting down the essence of the story. Any time spent now in ‘enhancing’ your
tale is wasted. You’ll cut out all that fine language anyway, at the final
stages.
Psychologically,
this method works because it’s a lot easier to improve a bad draft than stare
at a blank sheet of paper. You’ll also say goodbye to writer’s block.
Typically, that’s just the mind tying itself in knots by trying to create a
perfect work the first time. It isn’t possible.
However, if you
tell yourself ‘I now plan to write absolute nonsense for one hour’, you’ll
succeed. And you’ll feel very proud of yourself afterwards.
Second, fall in
love with your television.
Personally, I
loathe soap operas. That said, you can learn a lot by taking a notebook and
suffering through them. How do the actors behave, in every circumstance? There’s
a peak of emotion every ten minutes in a tv drama. That gives you plenty of
opportunity to note the actors’ body language.
Has Emma discovered
Joe is having an affaire with her best friend? Watch her face when she
discovers it. Check her shoulders, hands, body movements. And how does Joe
respond, when she confronts him? Check his body language too. You’ll
soon compile a whole encyclopaedia of body expressions, suitable for any
occasion, that you can drop into your own stories.
How have the producers
kept you engaged in the story, even through the commercial breaks? Look out for
the ‘scene hangers’ they use. Does every scene finish on a note of mystery,
alarm or question? Jot down each scene hanger as it occurs. You can adapt and
use each one for your own stories.
Third, overhear
people’s conversations.
This step might get
you into trouble, unless you’re discreet... Hang out in public places and just listen.
You’ll soon pick up
colourful phrases, turns of speech, funny asides - even whole anecdotes - that
could find their way into your tales. Jot them all down. (Some writers even put
them in a database.).
You’ll also realise
that real conversations bear no relationship to those in novels. Folk in bars
or restaurants do not orate at each other in perfect sentences. They stumble,
mutter, swallow their words. If anyone pays the slightest attention to grammar
or correct word use, they’re probably just showing off...
Get that flavour of
real speech into your tales - the way Elmore Leonard does - and readers
will believe them.
Fourth, learn
the trick of little ‘epiphanies’.
I have a great
exercise for my creative writing students. I tell them to wander around the campus
at random, stop, and describe - in their notebooks - the first thing they see.
If all they see is a blob of chewing gum or the dean’s rusty bicycle, or the
dean himself, fine. Something boring is the best challenge of all.
I ask them to
define that object using every one of their five senses. And to jot down those
perceptions as a prose poem in one terse sentence.
No, they can’t use
clichés in this
exercise. Their words and phrases must resonate with power, colour and
originality. Then they read back their exercises to the class. It’s amazing how
even the dean’s bicycle can resolve into an epiphany, a dazzling insight.
Some students find
this drill difficult. It takes practice to unhitch our minds and just observe
something, without judgement or interpretation. However, get into the habit
of it and you’ll never be content to write a dull description again.
Fifth, resign
yourself to endless rewrites.
I once watched a
veteran reporter telephone a story to the copy desk at The Times
newspaper. He dictated it off the top of his head, flawlessly, without
referring to a single note. (He then lurched back for a second bottle of wine.)
But then, he’d been practising for 40 years.
Most of us find we
need to re-write a story a dozen times before it’s fit to show anyone.
Here’s a tip: put
your ‘perfect’ story in a closet for
several weeks. Fish it out and you’ll find it has bred amazing errors, moments
of dullness and grotesque stupidities, without you coming near it.
This is the right time to re-write your story.
You can view it with detachment. If necessary, you can even tear it up, without
losing any sleep. But don’t try to edit a story just a few hours after you’ve
written it.
Do professional
authors use the ‘closet’ technique? They sure do. But some will rely on their
agents or copy editors to perfect their ms. Such authors know their work will
never be better than 70% perfect, even at the umpteenth draft. It doesn’t
matter. The publisher will tidy it up.
Of course, a newbie
author can’t afford to be that sloppy. So we must brace ourselves to re-write
our stories as much as a dozen times, each at an interval of weeks.
Is there a secret
for story writing success? Yes, of course there is. Only, it’s no secret. The
five steps above are known to every pro author. But amateurs rarely apply them.
Put them into practice and your own talents as an author will grow quickly.
Dr John Yeoman, PhD
Creative Writing, judges the Writers’ Village story competition and is a tutor
in creative writing at a UK university. He has been a successful commercial
author for 42 years. A wealth of further ideas for writing fiction that sells
can be found in his free 14-part story course at:
Biography
Dr John Yeoman has
42 years experience as a commercial author, newspaper editor and one-time
chairman of a major PR consultancy. He has published eight books of humour,
some of them intended to be humorous.
(Thank you so much, John, what great tips! And if you haven't guessed by some of the spelling, John is from the UK.)
Comments