In Sanity Snippet #2, we began our book development journey by considering the importance of a solid idea, what we referred to as the story kernel. This idea/kernel has to be strong enough to carry the weight of the story for three to four hundred pages.
We learned that the kernel contains several key components: protagonist, goal, antagonist, stakes, genre, and hook. We ended Snippet #2 by writing our protagonist’s backstory overview. Today, we’ll continue developing our protagonist’s profile (the complete character profile will consume several Sanity Snippet’s).
First, a note about stories. To me, there are three broad categories of novels: 1) those where the protagonist has some external goal (winning the Super Bowl); 2) those where the protagonist has an internal goal (to forgive the man who accidentally killed his wife); and, 3) those where the protagonist has both an external and an internal goal (winning the Super Bowl and forgiving the man who accidentally killed his wife). The latter makes for a deeper, richer story. Experts refer to the external goal as the protagonist’s want or desire, and his internal goal as his need. Let’s focus on the third story category.
Every hero (our story’s main character, our protagonist) has a backstory that includes something that caused him great pain. Often, this is rooted in a particular event that caused deep psyche pain (example, a thirteen year old losing his only parent). Other times, the event could be a past mistake, something done in a moment of weakness, or be something caused by a general deficiency in our hero’s personality. Whatever the cause, we’ll call this the emotional wound, wound for short. Keep in mind the wound acts as active geyser, spouting multiple personality elements that negatively affect our protagonist including his primary fear, the lie he believes, his flaws, and other negative traits.
Personally, in the story kernel I’m considering, my thirteen year old protagonist, Billy Orr, recently experienced the death of his mother to cancer. This is Billy’s wound. It is his internal problem and will affect his journey to the end of my story.
Consider your protagonist and brainstorm his past and the various negative events he has experienced. Choose the one that caused him the most emotional pain and continues to negatively affect his life. It might be helpful to consider your story’s ending and how you want your protagonist to end up. This will determine whether you are writing a positive or negative character arc (of course, you can choose a flat arc but that dispels the need for the wound). Start writing your thoughts. It’s okay to ramble and to repeatedly ask ‘what if’ questions.
For a thorough explanation of emotional wounds and many examples of each, visit onestopforwriters.com.
I’ve been giving some thought to my Sanity Snippet project. I’ve gained some clarity and believe an alternative approach will provide more value to my beginning novelist readers.
As earlier described, the goal of Sanity Snippets was to provide encouragement and an opportunity for writing practice. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that the practice will be more logically fluent and provide a pathway to writing your first novel. Please allow me to illustrate with an analogy.
Think of the game of football. I recall football practices from my high school days. I still cannot believe that was over half-a-century ago. There definitely was a logic to what Coach Hicks had us players do: warmup exercises, breaking into groups by player type to work on skills and techniques (quarterbacks, footwork & throwing, and receivers running routes and catching), dividing into teams and scrimmaging, and finally, running wind-sprints to close out the practice session (fun, fun). These long and grueling hours were not merely for the sake of having something to do. They were for one purpose, that of preparing our minds and bodies to defeat our next opponent. Think of the ‘game’ of novel writing. It too requires many long and grueling hours of practice.
This analogy has altered my plans for Sanity Snippets. I think we must have a focused plan and not write something that may have nothing to do with our first or next novel. We need to better use the time we spend on the writing practice field.
In sum, our daily writing practice will be fruitful if we write a few words or sentences (more is even better). The extra benefit is that our efforts will move us positively toward our long-term goal: our self-published book.
Sound good? Great. Let’s get started.
All novels start with an idea, but not just any idea. It has to be one that will carry the weight of our story for 3 to 400 hundred pages. I can easily testify that not all ideas can perform at that level. I have many a manuscript that met its death somewhere early in Act II.
You may already have an idea. You may have already written a few notes. Maybe they concern an interesting circumstance, a character’s unique personality, a symbol or image, a few lines of explosive dialogue, or a complete scene or two. Many writers refer to these disparate thoughts as story seeds.
It’s critical to evaluate and develop your ideas before wasting countless hours and words just to find yourself lost in a dark cave with no hope of finding your way home. H.R. D’Costa refers to this evaluation and development process as “popping the story kernel.”
In her invaluable writing guide, Sizzling Story Outlines: How to Outline Your Screenplay or Novel, D’Costa teaches that once we isolate our story kernel (the story seed that appears to incorporate all or most of the others; usually involves a situation, a character, or a theme), there are six key components (protagonist, goal, antagonist, stakes, genre, and hook) we must address before we can determine if our story kernel can go the distance.
Now, to today’s Sanity Snippet. Start thinking and writing about your main character. This is your story’s protagonist. Here’s a few questions to answer: 1) male or female?; 2) age?; 3) name?; 4) physical characteristics?; and 5) what’s his or her backstory?
Here’s a backstory overview for my protagonist: Billy has grown up in New York City. He just completed the 8th grade at The Math & Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn. His widowed mother just died of pancreatic cancer.
The above five questions are all important. Don’t just think about your answers, write them down.
Remember, this is going to take a while. We are going to eat this elephant one bite at a time.
Your protagonist has an external problem. It’s one he’s had for a while, or it’s something that just hit him out of nowhere. I apologize to all females. I use the male gender to avoid the burdensome ‘he’s had/she’s had.’
Give your protagonist a name and describe his problem.
Do not make this difficult. At most, this should take only a few minutes.
Grab your pencil and write. Just a sentence or two will do. Don’t fret about grammar and punctuation.
It could be as simple as: Fourteen-year-old Billy is losing his mother. He doesn’t know his father. Billy dreads moving in with his Aunt Melanie.
Or, here’s another approach: Billy’s problem is his Aunt Melanie.
Your protagonist name can be anything. His problem can be anything. Of course, if you already have a story idea, use it for this practice assignment.
Start keeping a log of how many words you write per day (date/number of words). You can use a small notepad or a note-taking APP on your phone.
Sign up for my Myths, Mysteries & Murders readers’ group for news, special offers, and to receive a FREE digital copy of The Boaz Scorekeeper: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/i9qbcspivt.
Learning the writing craft is super important for everyone, especially the beginning novelist. Learning more about plot, characterization, dialogue, pacing, story structure, point of view, and on and on is an unending quest, a bottomless ocean.
But, there is something that is equally important, maybe more so. That’s practicing the writing craft. Just like a baseball pitcher, a football cornerback, or an orchestra violinist, an aspiring novelist has to practice.
Therefore, I’m introducing Sanity Snippets. I hope it’s an exercise you perform every day. My hope is you will not repeat my mistake: spending years reading about the craft of writing before I started putting pencil to paper (fingers to keyboard).
So, what is Sanity Snippets? In short, if you want to keep your sanity, you need to write something every day, and it doesn’t have to be much. Sanity is intentionally an overstatement but heck, the word works well in this context. For me, my day is not the same, not as good, if I do no writing.
I’m a creature of habit for my daily writing routine. It’s the first thing I do (after grabbing a large cup of coffee). Some days, I write only a paragraph or two. Other days, much more. The surprising thing I’ve learned is how I feel about myself, and my day is equally positive no matter how many words I’ve written. Yes, I know it’s a mind game of sorts. But, it works. A writer has to write. The world is out of balance when I am not writing. I believe it will be the same once you fully commit to this adventure.
However, what I’m suggesting you as a beginning writer do is start small, tiny. I know we’ve been talking about big things, story structure, the hook (my next post, due out before Monday). All I’m asking you to do is write something, even if it’s one sentence.
And, that brings me to snippet. It’s not a tough word. Snippet is simply “a very small piece.” A piece of what? It doesn’t matter. It could be anything, or nothing but a word or two or twelve. It could be, or become, a part of a larger work, say your first novel, but it doesn’t have to. The goal of Sanity Snippets is to get you writing. Here’s a bonus. You don’t have to write every day. Of course I know you don’t have to do anything I suggest. Think about/play like I’m your writing coach. If you played a sport at any level, you know about coaching. Your coach asked you to do certain things.
Can I share a story? When I was in high school, I played football. There were days I hated Coach Dennis Hicks. He worked us hard, no matter the weather, or anything else. What I didn’t realize at the time was he loved us so much he taught us life skills. I still remember two posters he had in the field house. One was “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” The other was, “if it is to be, it is up to me.” These words have stuck with me for over fifty years. I believe Coach Hicks is why I am such a determined person. I would give anything to spend an afternoon with the greatest mentor I ever had. Unfortunately, he died several years ago.
Most likely you wouldn’t be reading my blog if you weren’t interested in writing. The best advice I will ever give you is to develop the writing habit and to just write. Every day is preferable, but it’s okay to start with two, three, or four days per week. You have the time, so just do it.
I plan on posting a new Sanity Snippet at least once or twice per week. You can respond if you choose or create your own scenario. It will not be complicated. The post might be a writing prompt. It might be a question. It might be a question about a writing prompt. Whatever form it takes, write something. I’ll leave it up to you how you do it—pencil on paper, fingers on keyboard, smoke signals. You get the idea.
One thing I almost forgot. We are fiction writers. So let your imagination run free. Just change the names to protect the innocent, and the guilty.
Let me close with an example.
Sanity Snippet #_. You have lunch with Ted, your boss. He says something you do not agree with but for fear of jeopardizing your position; you give a slight nod and a weak smile.
What are you, not you you, but you as the protagonist (the main character in the story) really thinking?
Tip: Respond any way you want. You don’t have to address the question. You could describe the lunch, the atmosphere, the menu, the decor, what you ate, anything. Or, you could write about the guy sitting two tables over that you know you know. No matter what, you earn an A+ for writing anything. “Ted’s tie was puke green. That killed my appetite.” You just earned an A+. Get it?
Here’s another hypothetical response:
After Ted and I exited the restaurant, his cell rang, and he mouthed to me, “I’ll catch you later.” I walked to my car and sat for what seemed five minutes. How could any human being be in love with spiders, and eat them every morning for breakfast?
Back to me.
That was silly wasn’t it. But, words are free so use them any way you want. Again, the aim is to write. You’ll never become a better writer unless you write, no matter how much writing craft you learn.
Here’s a final tip. You don’t have to limit a particular Sanity Snippet to one session. You might choose to pursue the same Snippet several days in a row. For example, on day two, you might do some spying on old Ted. Capture this: a snippet can create a seed; a seed can sprout into an idea; an idea can become a novel.
In closing (I promise), I want to share a few photos of my new writing room I’ve been working on (currently unnamed). It’s simple, in the barn outback, and has no internet by design, thanks to John Grisham (as in the author of legal thriller fame) on YouTube a few weeks ago. I suspect you will learn that distractions have to be dealt with if you want to produce any writing.
Richard L. Fricks 