Category Archives: Technicalities

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Create Obstacles that Ramp Up Tension

30 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Technicalities

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[This is the third in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Create Obstacles that Ramp Up Tension

So, you have the narrative goal and a character with the unwavering urgency to pursue that goal. If the character pursues and achieves their goal unhindered, there is no story. There is no action. There is no change in the character and there’s nothing to draw a reader in. 

Instead, what must happen as the character unwaveringly pursues his/her goal? Bad things. And a lot of them. The more bad things and the worse they are, the better. We don’t want to simply pile on tragedy. This will create pity. Instead, with each obstacle, the character is shocked, processes, and regroups—renewing their resolve in the pursuit of the narrative goal.

This is why novels are set in wars—All the Light We Cannot See—or amidst deep societal and familial ideals and decorum—Blessings—or on the edge of apocalyptic events—Station Eleven. In these scenarios there are plenty of narrative goals, human urgency, and assured obstacles which create conflict and result in tension. Story will occur. The reader will be thrilled.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Establish A Clear Narrative Goal

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Creative Process/Craft, Starting a Novel, Technicalities

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I am reading Benjamin Percy’s Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction. In the second chapter, Percy lays out his list of the foundational elements of story. Revisiting a list like this now and again is important. It keeps writers grounded in our craft, it keeps us from getting carried away on the crests of the sentences and missing the rising tide of the story.

Over the next six posts, we’ll ruminate on each of them. 

Establish a Clear Narrative Goal

In Moby Dick it’s “kill the whale.” In Frankenstein it’s “define the true monster.” In Mrs. Bridge it’s “find purpose and meaning in the mundane.”

The narrative goal is why the story exists. It’s why there is ink on pulp. This is the story’s purpose for being and the one element that, once revealed, will call the narrative to an end. 

The narrative goal is why the story exists. It's why there is ink on pulp. This is the story's purpose for being and the one element that, once revealed, will call the narrative to an end. Click To Tweet

From a writer’s perspective this is the foundation, the starting point. Until it is known, work cannot begin. This is the story’s destination. Like a road trip, we know where we’re going, even as how we’ll get there and what we’ll encounter along the way remain mysteries. The narrative goal is first in Percy’s list, and for good reason. Without it we don’t have a story.

Poetry and Prose

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Reading as a Writer, Technicalities, Writing Life

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Historically these have been two separate genres. It seems even a handful of decades ago poets and fiction writers moved in separate circles, spoke divergent languages, sought different readers. In my creative writing grad school experience, a fiction writer couldn’t take a course in poetry. I tried.

This has changed. Evidence in the literature is clear. Poetry and prose are merging. And to the benefit of readers everywhere.

Here are a few exhibits of the evidence.

Apeirogon by Colum McCann, a novel. Published earlier this year, a personal and poetic telling of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, written in over 1500 short vignettes, some only a line long, others are lines repeated from another entry, one of them a simple outlined empty box.

“Only Child” by Billy Collins, a poem. The narrative, the longing-laden story of this piece causes the reader to forget its poetic form, even as its form carries weight.

Ru by Kim Thúy, a memoir in novel. One page chapters layered with images and riffs on images, the narrative flowing far below, pulling the reader unconsciously along.

And these are only a few. Now that you’re aware you’ll see them all around you.

For Beginning Writers – Conflict Creates Story

03 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Action in Fiction, Beginning, Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Starting a Novel, Technicalities

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Without conflict, there isn’t story. Conflict is when your characters are established and then bad things happen to them. The more bad things the better. Conflict drives action. Conflict molds characters. Simply having a character go about their routine isn’t action, isn’t story, and won’t generate conflict.

Write conflict into your story as early as you can. Write conflict into the first line if at all possible. Your reader will not be able to help but read the second sentence if there’s compelling conflict in the first.

Go re-read your favorite short stories or novels. Conflict is the engine. Sometimes it’s psychological and has physical results. Sometimes it’s physical and has psychological results. Regardless, the conflict is what drives the plot forward and alters the characters. And if the plot sags, conflict is what injects energy once again.

En & Em Dashes

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Technicalities

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As I complete the final edits on the manuscript that will be my debut novel, The Confessions of Adam, I thought I’d—I thought it would be helpful to share one of the key fixes that my editor, Lindsay Franklin found. I have spent 6–8 hours replacing hyphens with em dashes—not en dashes. When I started, I didn’t know the difference. You can Google the difference. And you should. It is important. Here are a few of examples from the novel:

Incorrect: Amat gently helps the sniffling boy tie his soaked smock up in a knot at his back and wraps a strand of bells just above each of the child’s elbows and knees. This done, he pats the boy’s head – no doubt a knot has risen from my reprimand – and ushers the child to the river’s edge, watching over him as he eases into the water and wades back in among the other boys.

Correct: Amat gently helps the sniffling boy tie his soaked smock up in a knot at his back and wraps a strand of bells just above each of the child’s elbows and knees. This done, he pats the boy’s head—no doubt a knot has risen from my reprimand—and ushers the child to the river’s edge, watching over him as he eases into the water and wades back in among the other boys.

Incorrect: “It was she. If she had not been so insistent–”

Correct: “It was she. If she had not been so insistent—”

Incorrect: There is a servant who aides Enosh and works the stable. Have you seen him – a thin, muscled, tan young man with loose, curly hair?

Correct: There is a servant who aides Enosh and works the stable. Have you seen him—a thin, muscled, tan young man with loose, curly hair?

Consider this your introduction to the world of dashes. Use them wisely.