After we fully explained beginnings last week and kept coming up with the benign suggestions of “make it interesting” and “show don’t tell” we figured we ought to dive deeper into the bricks of the “show” universe. Those bricks are adjectives and they’re used to describe nouns and pronouns.

Adjectives are modifiers. They modify a noun to make it more specific. House becomes tiny house. Cat becomes lazy cat. Grandfather becomes grumpy old man. Full explanation here.

So when should a writer use them? Like all things, there’s a blog about that. Find it here. But in general, here’s the suggested guidelines:

• Brevity - don’t over do it. In drafts sometimes we’ll have two adjectives and then revise it to one or none. If the noun can get the job done, it doesn’t need the adjective.
• Specificity – be specific about what you’re describing. The adjective should do the work of narrowing the reader’s WIDE imagination into the very specific image you want to impart.

Types of adjectives:

• Telly – informing or surmising such as “She was angry.” in which case, we see the summation of her emotion as ‘angry’ instead of the symptoms of that emotion like a glare, narrowed eyes, or some other indicator of rage.
• Showy – dramatize or activate the noun such as “The drink was fizzy and cheerful.” You might just say “The drink fizzed cheerfully.” to replace the weak “to be” verb, but either way “fizzy” is a pretty descriptive word.
• Overwriting – applying multiple adjectives like “he London bus was big, red, and smelled of lentils.” We know it’s big and red, it’s London. The interesting part is its smell but if the sentence read “big, red, and smelly” we wouldn’t really know what it smelled of, would we?

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It’s been a couple of years since we dealt with first lines and opening pages and in our revision efforts, we only just touched on where the story should begin and how many times we’ve rewritten Page 1.

So today we’ll look at what makes a strong opening page, how to work through the opening scene in revision, and whether you need to revisit that opening scene in subsequent pages or at the end (kiss the beginning as they say).

We’ve done this topic before, as mentioned, in Episode 94 way back in 2020 and again in Episode 171 but that was in January 2022. So we’ve learned a lot since then. Right?

This time, we’re going deeper in the rabbit hole. I’ve taken the links from our blog and clicked through their links. It’s very meta.

Let’s start with this “How to Start a Story: 10 Tips from Literary Editors” (we should have run these by Heather last week):

1. Start with something unexpected (they gave the 1984 example - clocks striking thirteen)
2. Start with a compelling image (leverage the 5 senses - what does it smell like here?)
3. Start in media res (we did a whole show on this) – get right to the action, just make sure your reader isn’t untethered from the character so much so they don’t care what’s happening no matter how exciting it is
4. Start with something short. An observation that makes us curious enough to read further.
5. Start with a question. But not a question, really, except that it makes the reader question or maybe the main character is questioning something.
6. Start with curiosity. Give enough to make the reader curious but don’t make it so cryptic they’re frustrated by it.
7. Start with building the world and the setting. If that setting is dynamic - a storm coming in, the coast after the storm has receded, the busy terminal of a train depot, etc. Or could a peaceful stroll through a quiet town interest a reader enough to keep reading?
8. Start with something new. So this is that insipid “be creative!” advice that we loathe, but the example of it: I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. Is actually more explanatory. It means to use your writing to say something that hasn’t often been said or to pose an unpopular opinion.
9. Start with tension that has room to grow. So, rather than the literal explosion, something intense that leaves room for the scene to grow or be revisited.
10. Start with something that will intoxicate your reader (I know, I know, ‘how?’). Remember your POV, put yourself in that position, share his/her experience in a way that draws the reader in.

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You’re on what version of this vampire novel? Tenth? Yikes. It’s called revision and it lasts an indeterminate amount of time. What to google to prepare for this conversation:

• How many revisions does a novel need?
• How long does revising a novel take?
• What is a reasonable revision schedule?
• What is a good revision process?
• Where should someone begin when revising a novel?
• Why does revision get such a bad rep?

The answers, of course, are 10, two weeks, every waking minute until it’s done, and beginning-to-end, repeat.

Only joking. Mostly. In truth, revision is as personal as writing and every writer does it differently. Show’s over. Joking again. We’ll unpack a few approaches and set some expectations and also explain what these different levels of revision actually are.

Revision - this is a holistic look at the story, characters, plot, etc. You’re re-visioning, seeing it again. This requires distance on the original creation of the thing.

Editing – this is the scene-by-scene paring down or pillowing out of the novel. Where do we get too much description of 17th century modes of travel and where could we use more description of the murder’s collared shirt?

Proofreading – this is grammar, punctuation, and if you’re a true stickler, it’s where you

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Let's talk about Dragon Boat racing first. What is this sport? Who does it? How does it work?

Why was Dragon Boat racing the right occupation for Tripp Avery? What is it about the challenge of Dragon Boat racing that requires more of Tripp than anything else he's done? He worked his way up from poverty to prosperity, became a 'someone' out of 'no one' roots, so how is Dragon Boat racing a different kind of challenge?

We all write what we know. Some of Tripp is some of Roger -- just as some of Brian Listo from After December is part of Kasie -- so how protective are you of Tripp as a character? I am fierce about Brian (flaws and all) so I imagine you're especially attached to Tripp. What made you decide to go first-person narrator with Tripp and put us in his head for the entire book?

Some of the book takes place in Charleston. A city you know well. What opportunities did setting the book there give you to celebrate (or maybe question?) Charleston as you know it? How important is setting to the story?

There are some great characters and relationships in this book. Among them are Amy, Tripp's wife, with whom he has a special bond celebrated through their mutual love of flowers. Amy is the one who encourages Tripp to coach the Dragon Boat in Beaufort. It's a devastating loss in a previous coaching life that makes Tripp reluctant to compete with such fragile athletes. How important is Amy's encouragement to get Tripp to take another risk like coaching the Dragon Boat? What does she know about Tripp that he doesn't know (or believe) about himself?

Tripp questions (in Chapter 12) if his commitment to the Dragon Boat work is his own love of turning underdogs into champions. There's a kind of selfishness to the undertaking, which he seems acutely aware of, and which he battles with throughout. In his "pep talk" he reminds the athletes that cancer is not an excuse and warns we will not allow them to humiliate themselves or each other by not giving all they have to the undertaking. What is it about a cancer diagnosis that brings this kind of determination to the front of any character?

The Final Victory is a difficult book, one that looks at mortality with eyes wide open and challenges readers to make the best of every minute they've been given in this life. Said one reader, "I had to put it down for a while." The journey for Tripp and his boat mates may hit a little close to home. But through its grief and triumph, the spirit of the novel is to be encouraging, to be certain good things can come from bad circumstances. Buy it local here.

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It’s been more than a year since we studied plot arcs and even then we didn’t grab the recordings and add them to our podcast service. So we’re reviving those conversations for a few weeks to get some good episodes for the podcast.

Missed a week of Write On SC? Nostalgic for those oldy-but-goody topics? Check out our podcast library on Apple, Google, and Amazon.

ProWritingAid’s take on this story arc conversation can be found here. But here are some notable highlights:

1. Stasis. This is the current situation you find your main character in.
2. Trigger. This is an inciting event that changes the course for your main character.
3. Quest. The trigger results in a quest for your main character to achieve a goal.
4. Surprise. These are complications that prevent your main character from achieving his goal.
5. Critical Choice. This is when your main character chooses what path to take and confronts the obstacles.
6. Climax. The critical choice results in the climax, the peak of tension in your story.
7. Reversal. Your character is changed in some way.
8. Resolution. The story ends with a satisfactory closure.

These are high-level plot points. The Save the Cat beat sheet is more detailed:

(15-beat structure of Save the Cat!)

1. Opening image – catapult your audience into the story
2. Theme stated – what is this story about?
3. Set-up – includes the “old” world or the regular world, how things are before the disruption; establish place, characters, and hint at conflict
4. Catalyst or inciting incident – disrupt the status quo, but protagonist isn’t in it quite yet
5. Debate – will they or won’t they? What’s at stake? Should the protagonist get in this fight?
6. Break into two – the clear choice between the protagonist’s options and the choice gets made
7. B story – whatever subplot you have planned should commence here
8. Fun and games – protagonist learns new tricks, advances in new skills, starts to figure stuff out
9. Midpoint – this may be a realization, may be a complication, may be the end of the escape hatch
10. Bad guys close in – something has happened that brings the danger closer
11. All is lost – the inevitable moment where the protagonist realizes this is just too hard (impossible!)
12. Dark night of the soul – protagonist has actually lost hope
13. Break into three – character claws around looking for options and trying to salvage the mission, possibly having to overcome some deep fear or damning belief
14. Finale – character synthesizes what they’ve learned and applies the solution to the problem
15. Final image – leave the reader/audience seeing/feeling the theme of the story

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We did some revision work last week and didn't get to this part of the show notes. So here we go, a whole episode on what would have been one segment last week. ::wideeyedemoji::

So how is it actually done? Well, here’s the link explaining what Six Pass Plan among others:

1. The Framework Pass
2. The Story Pass
3. The Plot/Scene Pass
4. The Feedback Pass
5. The Writing Pass
6. The Tweaking Pass

These aren’t really after-the-fact at all. They’re in fact a process for drafting and revising. The Framework Pass is actually the discovery of the novel, your first pass at it where you build in the basics of the plot, characters, setting, etc. You might try different points of view how the story will be told, distance from the narrator, that kind of stuff here.

The Story Pass is still big-picture stuff, only it’s not writing stuff (like POV), it’s story stuff like character motivation and plot holes.

The Scene Pass is where you examine each and every scene for its impact on the novel and its fitness or rightness for the overall book. Don’t skip this step, this is where you really tighten up your writing and find those lackluster or lagging places.

The Feedback Pass is where you give the novel to others to respond. This is usually after the beta readers have rendered their mark ups and you are incorporating their feedback or making their suggested changes. Did you notice how the first draft wasn’t given to readers yet?

The last two passes – Writing Pass and Tweaking Pass – are you going through to edit the writing. Sentence structure, repetition, phrasing and length of paragraph and chapter. The tweaking pass may be spellcheck, grammar, and punctuation, too.

Next week, we have areal editor joining us to talk ab

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So last week we talked about basic outlines and discussed the turning point method versus the beats method for figuring out the structure of the story.

We debated whether or not to write from a detailed outline in the initial draft – it provides direction, it stifles creativity – the age-old debate of planner vs. pantser. In any case, we agreed the outline is useful for knowing the trajectory of the characters and the plot.

Which brings us to the common structures for a piece. This link gives us 11 basic structures:

1. The Fichtean Curve
2. The Three Act Structure
3. The Hero's Journey
4. Freytag's Pyramid
5. The Five Act Structure
6. Save the Cat Beats
7. The Snowflake Method
8. Dan Harmon's Story Circle
9. The Seven Point Story Structure
10. The Story Spine
11. In Media Res

We covered the Save the Cat beats last week and the Seven Point Story Structure is basically the turning point structure. So this week we’ll look at the 3 and 5 act structures and then tackle some of the others next week.

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So two weeks ago, we talked about basic outlines and discussed the turning point method versus the beats method for figuring out the structure of the story. Then last week we went into the 3 Act Structure and basically whined about Aristotle.

In searching for 3 Act Structure resources, I found this link gives us 11 basic structures:

1. The Fichtean Curve
2. The Three Act Structure
3. The Hero's Journey
4. Freytag's Pyramid
5. The Five Act Structure
6. Save the Cat Beats
7. The Snowflake Method
8. Dan Harmon's Story Circle
9. The Seven Point Story Structure
10. The Story Spine
11. In Media Res

and OMG there’s some NAMED types here. So we’re doing that today.

I guess if you make the shit up, you get to name it. So let’s unpack Fichtean, Freytag, and San Harmon this week.

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We’ve spent a few weeks on the various plot structures available and basically been working off this resource that gives us 11 basic structures:

1. The Fichtean Curve
2. The Three Act Structure
3. The Hero's Journey
4. Freytag's Pyramid
5. The Five Act Structure
6. Save the Cat Beats
7. The Snowflake Method
8. Dan Harmon's Story Circle
9. The Seven Point Story Structure
10. The Story Spine
11. In Media Res

We’re now down to numbers 5, 7, 9 and 10, leaving out 11 because we covered it here and three because that deserves a point-by-point breakdown which we gave here and here and here. Though it’s been a few years, so we might go back to it..

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Is there any more arbitrary experience than Groundhog Day? It’s a day when an entire town lets a rodent predict the future. Or the weather anyway. Several questions:

1. Is there any other profession besides weatherman insulted by the insinuation that an animal could do it as well or better than them?
2. Is there any other animal with psycho abilities equal to the groundhog (who, by the way, is wrong like 80% of the time)?
3. Is there any other tradition that is so meaningless and yet has persisted this long?

The answer to all of these questions is yes. Because humans are not always very smart.

Let’s start with animals who predict the future: before meteorologists we humans needed to know if it would rain and stuff and we relied on the animals’ superior senses (this link):

• Cows lie down and dogs eat grass before it rains
• Woolly bear caterpillars have less color before a cold spell
• Oak leaves reach a certain size (a squirrel’s ear) and that’s when it’s time to plant corn
• Migrant birds can hear the undetectable to humans infrasound that indicates a storm on the way
• Cows, sheep, and dogs have all been recorded as having hyperactivity before an earthquake.

But it’s not just the weather, animals have senses about other things, too:

• Oscar the nursing home cat predicts the imminent death of patients and he’s persistent - he’ll scratch at a door to be let in and stay with the ailing—dying—until they're gone.
• Paul the octopus has predicted eight world cup champions from his aquarium in Germany (link) then he died
• Sonny Wool the sheep took up where he left off and predicted all of his home team’s matches in the 2011 Rugby World Cup
• Jim the dog, though, is even more impressive: identifying hickory trees, identifying cars by color and license plate, predict the sex of unborn children, and pick individuals from a crowd. The Missouri state legislature even tested Jim to prove his abilities and he passed. (link)
• Here’s an article of 20 other predictor animals (link)

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