The Good Seed V
By Donald Maass | August 1, 2012 |
Have you ever seen a plot turn coming miles away? It’s like knowing that the too large Christmas gift in the corner, the one with a blanket thrown over it, is really a bicycle. It’s nice to get a bicycle but there’s not much surprise.
The same letdown occurs when characters act exactly as expected. Same goes for endings that play out as forecast. Keeping readers off balance and stories surprising is as aspect of the art, but where’s the book on how to throw your story sideways? How do you know if you’re springing surprises or inducing yawns?
It starts with working on your premise. A strong premise is tested for surprise. First, assume that your first story choices are obvious ones. Many are. That’s because those choices are easy, comforting and safe. Less obvious and counter-intuitive choices provoke anxiety. My readers won’t like that. It will be hard to write. The truth is the opposite. When an inciting incident, character trait or central conflict is in some way unexpected, readers are shaken awake. They’re drawn in. The story also becomes easier to write, perhaps because there’s more built in tension.
Consider openings. A telephone call with bad news is an okay start. Better would be getting a package with a severed finger in it. Better still would be if there’s no ransom note, no phone call and no one’s missing. Next, suppose your protagonist lost that same digit in childhood. Now suppose that this is the start of a romance novel. Wait…what? That’s the point. There’s nothing special in a severed finger (in fiction) but when it’s placed out of context we’re forced to pay attention.
Consider characters. Suppose your protagonist’s quirk is hearing spirits whisper. Interested? Me neither. But suppose your protagonist is whispered only baseball scores—utterly accurate ones? What about your story milieu? Small town? Neighbors know your business? Yeah sure, whatever. Flip it: In this small town it’s illegal to pry or gossip. Fines are stiff. Privacy is an obsession. No one knows the truth about the folks next door. Trouble ahead? Count on it—and story too.
Here are four simple ways, odd as it may sound, to plan surprises:
- What’s a typical trait in your protagonist’s profession? Reverse it in your protagonist.
- The problem at hand: What’s the biggest curve it can throw at your protagonist? Throw that curve right away. Proceed from there.
- What’s one familiar thing about your story’s milieu? Twist it out of shape.
- Your inciting incident doesn’t shock, sorry, but it would if…
Reverses, curves, twists, shocks…instead of saving them, start with them. Distrust your first ideas. Push toward what is unexpected and counter-intuitive. Strong premises make for strong stories. To build them push out of your comfort zone. You may just find yourself in a place where readers will, paradoxically, relax. That’s because they’ll sense that they’re in the hands of a confident storyteller.
Photo courtesy Flickr’s simpologist
Donald Maass (he/him) founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency. in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2019). He has presented hundreds of workshops around the world and is a past president of the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly AAR).
I admit to never having tried it, Donald, but will now. What a dynamite technique. Thanks.
Great, use it!
I’m reading Lisa Cron’s wonderful book, Wired for Story, and this post falls right in line with some of her gems: “Nothing focuses the mind like surprise,” and “We (readers/humans) crave the notion of arriving when something critical is about to happen.”
Feels like I’m getting the perfect storm of writing advice just when I need it for my rewrite of my opening. I love “Your inciting incident doesn’t shock, sorry (me too), but it would if…”
Lots to ponder today. Off to plan to surprise and shock! Thanks, Don!
Awesome, Vaughn, I’m ready for that shock.
I’m reading Wired for Story too and feel the same way. This post goes right along with the points she’s making.
Awesome advice—stuck on how to being a continuing storyline– I’ll use this :)
I was almost giddy with pleasure when I watched Dark Knight Rises this past weekend and a reveal toward the end of the flick surprised me. (I think we must be wired as storytellers to see the groundwork for surprises and guess them long before they’re presented.) The surprise worked because there were layers of reversals and curves–a veritable lasagna of writerly tricks–established to make viewers believe differently ahead of time. It’s a lesson I won’t soon forget.
Thanks as always for a great post, Don!
Therese-
Am I the only person who has failed more than one of the simple math problems that one must now solve to post a comment? This is why I was an English major.
Anyway, to your comment…a lasagna of writerly tricks? There’s a metaphor! Haven’t seen Dark Night Rises as yet, but now you’ve got me intrigued. Sounds fattening…in a good way.
We’ve had a few problems with the new captcha (in place for spam prevention, which has been an issue lately). I’ll remove it, see if we can find something less tricky!
No, no…it’s my abysmal math that’s the issue, not the captcha!
I’m so with you on the big opening incident. I’m always surprised how many books take several pages/chapters to ramp up.
It depends on the story as to how much time (how many pages) it needs to ramp up. I’m re-reading Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. He is in no hurry to ramp up to the inciting incident. In some ways one could say, in this case, the inciting incident happened before the story begins. In fact, what the reader believes is the inciting incident turns out to be something else.
In chapter two, he reverses the reader’s expectations of a character and his motives that he set in motion in chapter one. This reversal is what I equate with the surprise this article suggests. Is it ramp up that creates tension, or is it turning things on their head in ways the reader doesn’t expect that creates surprise? Could be both. But surprise doesn’t necessarily require fast writing or accelerated ramp ups.
One of the things I’ve observed in Pullman’s storytelling is that he takes pleasure in unhurried exposition. Plus he uses omniscient point of view; (how many times have we read omniscient ist verboten?). And, yet, he creates tension in ways that tempt the reader to turn the page. How?
What I take away from this article is not so much whether the inciting incident is high stakes or that the pacing needs to be fast but that story should continually surprise.
Sevigne-
You hit the secret of Pullman’s slow ramp up opening with this…
>And, yet, he creates tension in ways that tempt the reader to turn the page.
How? It’s his use of micro-tension. (See “The Fire in Fiction”) With that principle mastered you can write any kind of opening at all, even weather and standing-still-looking-at-the-landscape openings.
The shock/surprise premise I’m advocating here is a way to create instant intrigue, but it’s not the only way to launch…if you know the secret.
Excellent answer. Micro-tension. Not a word I’ve heard, but so fitting. Some of the best literary fiction uses this, doesn’t it, the fingers touching, the senses reeling, the language licking us until we can’t put the work down.
Except that sometimes we must, merely to savor what we’ve just read, like the flourless chocolate torte that I cut in two and take home to moan over the next night.
Excellent. Much, much to think about here as I pick up the threads of an old story and wonder, what’s next?
Of course, it would be lovely if I knew that answer myself, but I’m biding . . .soon it will whisper in my ear and surprise me.
Vaughn, don’t you love it when the words you needed to hear appear at exactly the right time?
Normandie-
The next surprising step in the story is always there in your unconscious storyteller’s mind. All you have to do is get out of its way, or dig it out. You can be still, listen and wait–like you. Or you can use a variety of questions and prompts like these to open a door to reveal what’s already there.
I’m in the be still/wait/quiet mode for this one right now–and, yes, asking questions and what-ifs to prod the answers into being. (Isn’t there such joy in that, the what-if phase?) Because I write story ideas as scenes for safekeeping while I’m busy with other WIPs or editing projects, I know the resolution and next surprising bit will surface when it is time–or I am ready.
Fantastic advice, Donald. Your inspiring posts always make me want to drop everything, open my WIP, and throw another curve ball at my characters.
Throw that curve…though of course you’re really throwing at yourself. You’ll swing and knock it out of the park, I have no doubt!
Timely advice for me. Thank you. I recently sat down and reworked my story outline-because I’d hit a wall in my WIP. Through re-working the outline I realized I was skirting around the inevitable place I needed to take the story because it made me dig deeper than ever before and the end result would really hurt my protagonist. However, I’m really excited about my WIP now–even waking up in the middle of the night with ideas on fire.
Glad to hear you’re hurting your protagonist!
Thanks. I have to share this with my writers’ group. They all write well and put in the sweat to improve their stories and drafts. But we have never put time into discussing our story starts.
My plot lines aim at derailing the obvious and expected. Writing mainly in the mystery genre has pushed me to read writers of short mysteries and study how they set up readers for surprises, how they shade an opening to pull a reader into a novel atmosphere and how they avoid the soft landing of an expected climax.
I want to give my readers shivers.
Excellent post!
Do you subscribe to the seed-in-the-twists/surprises-subtly theory or just let ’em whack readers in the face?
Andie-
As I commented above, there’s no one right way to open a story, but in general I find many manuscripts don’t strongly pull me in. An immediate slap in the face would at least get my attention.
I’m reading (for the second time) the Fiction Writer’s Brainstormer by James V. Smith, Jr., and he suggests to make reams of lists to get to the surprise and original. It reminded me of your advice at the PPWC in Colorado Springs. Those lists are invaluable – I was stuck in the mundane and by the time I hit idea six or seven, I had something interesting to work with. I wonder if I shouldn’t keep going to fifteen or sixteen, but I liked what I came up with. :)
Talking ideas out loud to my husband is another way I can get unstuck. He’s amazing with originality, and I can riff off of him to get to something unique that might fit in the story.
Speaking of challenging – this new story is a huge challenge to me and I’ve been feeling very nervous. After reading this post, I’m thinking the story may be a marvel or a marvelous failure if I can’t pull it off, but at least it’ll be interesting to write!
Lara-
Thanks for sharing your methods, definitely useful. Also glad to hear your story is scaring you a little, it means your taking some risks.
I’m learning to ask myself those questions – is it too safe? is it predictable? – both before the writing and in the revising. I love the idea of planning the surprises. Thanks for the great tips!
Welcome!
Thanks for this. I’d make this comment into a longer story as Seth Godin talked about today, but I have to go lop off some pinkies and get over to the post office… chores!
Great post. The Fire in Fiction continues to be one of my strongest influences as a writer.
Glad to hear that, thank you.
Great post! I’ll probably be thinking about it a lot as I go forward trying to find a beginning that’s not boring. XD
Thanks for bringing up this topic. :)
Not boring is good. I’m in favor of that.
I highly support the “unexpected and counterintuitive,” but I will say that I just read a very interesting post by John Green about surprises/twists, and why they’re overrated: https://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/28410847623/on-having-figured-out-the-twist
I think it’s good food for thought. But it should be balanced by what you’re advocating here, which is not to let your story go stale.
I agree, and think John Green summed it up nicely when he said anticipation is more of a payoff than surprise.
Like any other writing tool, surprises and twists should be approached with a sense of balance. Don’t throw them in there just to make the story weird or shock the reader, but because they serve the story itself.
On the other hand, in some cases it is better to fulfill readers’ expectations–i.e. in a romance novel, the characters have to end up together for the readers to be happy. But in another genre, you could play the tragic/separated lovers’ card.
Love your tips, Donald. I’ve been trying to do the first one with the MC in one of my novels under revision, but now I’m thinking about how to subvert and twist some of the personalities in a different WIP as well, just to add more interest. I think I’ve grown adept at throwing curves, though, especially after reading so much story advice that advocated making things worse and worse for your characters so they have a chance to rise above their circumstances. It’s strangely fun!
Kristin-
Thanks for pointing me to John Green’s sharp and concise post. It’s a wise reminder about foreshadowing, anticipation and building tension.
You’re right, too, in that surprise isn’t everything: A novel that was one twist after another would soon become dull. Balance surprise with all the other techniques we have and you’re painting like a master.
But a couple of surprises along the way are always good, I say.
In the theatre we call this subverting expectations. It always pays off and is always more interesting. Surprise us!
Laura-
The work of actors and fiction writers do have a lot in common, I agree.
I get it, we need surprises. But in that case, how can you explain the acceptance into the canon of The Kite Runner, even though every single action is predictable? An incredible read, by the way, and no plot twists. Thoughts?
Ron-
The Kite Runner has powerful conflicts, depth of emotion, universal human experiences (made more effective by their Afghanistan context), tragedy, love, richly nuanced cultures, warmly portrayed characters, gorgeous writing…
…yeah, hard to understand it’s success.
[…] Maass (@DonMaass) continues his Good Seed series on Writer Unboxed with a piece on surprise–in the premise of the story, in the […]
You are a genius! You gave me a superb idea for the novel I’m working on! Thank you so much for this insightful post! It made my day…:)
The part that helped was you suggesting to…
“What’s a typical trait in your protagonist’s profession? Reverse it in your protagonist.”
Now I know EXACTLY how to portray my antagonist. A burst of inspiration has struck! Thank you :)
I’m a genius? Will you tell that to my four-year-old? Seriously, glad you’re inspired.
[…] Have you ever seen a plot turn coming miles away? It’s like knowing that the too large Christmas gift in the corner, the one with a blanket thrown over it, is really a bicycle. It’s nice to get a bicycle but there’s not much surprise. The same letdown occurs when characters act exactly as expected. Same goes for endings that play out as forecast. Keeping readers off balance and stories surprising is as aspect of the art, but where’s the book on how to throw your story sideways? How do you know if you’re springing surprises or inducing yawns? […]
I love what you said, “The truth is the opposite. When an inciting incident, character trait or central conflict is in some way unexpected, readers are shaken awake.” Yes. Excellent point.
Again, I read with a pen in hand. Thank you for always provoking new ideas to form with your questions. Another fantastic post, Donald!
Thanks, Jennifer.
“Zing.” This is the sound of my printer. Another one for my file, the one now titled Yoda’s Finest. Thanks, Donald.
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth
You know, I thought this was one of my weaker posts but now I’ve gone from genius to Yoda so perhaps I needn’t hang my head.
Seriously, thanks.
Fantastic advice, Donald! I definitely use this rule on a micro as well as a macro-level when I’m writing. I’ve learned to almost always choose my second choice for sentence construction and turns of phrase rather than my first. As you say, our first ideas are often the surface-y cliches. Dig deeper and search harder and that’s where the real hear–whether of a single sentence or the whole story–lies.
Those are masterly instincts you’re describing, Anna, bravo.
Argh, that should be ‘heart’ not ‘hear’ :)
I’m copying your “four simple ways” and posting them to the keyboard for my next story. I’m running ideas round in my head right now for the next book and I know they’ll be helpful.
Thank you.
Patti
Once again, nicely done, Don. It’s difficult for a pantser like me to consciously create those surprises ahead of time, but your post is a big help in thinking about what I’ve wrought after it’s on the page, and then adding surprise. On the other hand, pantser writing is all about being surprised by what happens next. Thanks.
Ray-
For a pantser like you, this might be second draft work. That said, even when you don’t know what’s coming next it may at times be useful to force yourself beyond your first choices.
It’s about becoming dissatisfied with what is obvious, easy, safe, familiar, small and undramatic.
I always look forward to your posts on WU. As a matter of fact, googling you is how I found WU. :o) Thanks for the image of the blanketed bicycle under the Christmas tree that I will always hold in my head.
My book is done and I’m smack in the middle of the sordid revising/editing process. But, just when I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel (being ready to start the query process), I read something like this and think, aw crap! I have more to do.
Does anyone have advice on when you know you’re actually done and it’s ready to send out?
I feel like I’ll never get there.
(Great post, though. I love the advice and sent it on to my writing group.)
In my theory, there are three types of surprise in plotting: the MC (and reader) learns something surprising, something surprising happens to the MC, or the MC does something surprising (often a great way to open the story). Each type of surprise must be organic to character and plot–if the reader not only didn’t see it coming, but doesn’t believe it, then you haven’t set it up right; Chekhov’s Gun–or at least its shadow–should always be seen first. Beyond that, twist away; in genre fiction we usually know how it’s going to end, but the trip should be a wild ride.
Although, I would be interested in the character hearing spirits whisper to him/her and want to know what they are saying and why, and why the character hears them and were it will all lead -and so the meandering starts don’t bother me, as long as I know i’m going to want to follow the character anywhere they lead me and they keep me reading, following, taking me by the hand into their world.
I do agree, though, sometimes a good exciting surprise around the corner and then the next corner book is thrilling to read! And for some genres of books, it probably is a requirement!
Thanks to you, my MC will now need a therapist. I wasn’t going to go there, but you pushed me over the edge. I’m now in sadist mode.
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I am definitely bookmarking this post. Great tips!
[…] Agent and author Donald Maass offers strategies for keeping your story surprising. […]