Author Crush Month: Larry Brooks

Larry is one of my all time favorite writer-teachers.  He’s a good writer. The stories he crafts are interesting and I hope to be able to read more of them in the coming years. His strength, though, is in his teaching.  As he shares his perspective on storytelling and crafting, he makes the skill accessible to so many of us who have struggled to find the structure and order in the chaos we create.  That’s why I’m thrilled he agreed to share some of that teaching here.

My Top Three Favorite Writing Tips of All Time

a guest post by Larry Brooks

Writing tips are like close friends. Some become closer than others.

Sometimes they become ex-friends that, hopefully, remain acquaintances. A few you keep for a lifetime. Others help you, then fade away because – let’s be real here – you don’t need them anymore. Others you send away because, well, you never really liked them all that much in the first place.

Like, adjectives are bad things. I don’t buy that. They are like parties, however… too much, too often, and you may have a problem.

We get to pick our friends, and our favorite writing tips. And sometimes we realize we should have listened when we had the chance.

These are three tips that changed my writing life. I believe they can do the same for you, too. Give them a shot before you send them packing, because while they might come off a bit harsh and direct at first, but trust me, your success is their only agenda.

#3. Make sure you understand the definition of story.

Versus, for example, an idea, a concept, a vignette, or a theme.

A review of your day isn’t a story. A review of your day in which your boss tried to strangle you and you killed him in self defense and the prosecuting attorney is your ex-wife… now that’s a story.

A profile of your great aunt in Iowa isn’t a story. Thirty chapters from thirty periods of her life isn’t a story. The story of your great aunt conquering an abusing husband, dyslexia, racial prejudice and poverty to become the CEO of Fortune 500 company… that’s a story.

Can you define story? Can you do it in one word?

Well, nobody can… but you can come close if you select the right word.

It’s not character. It’s not theme. And it’s not plot (but close).

It’s conflict. There is no story without conflict.

You would be shocked at the legion of writers who, even after decades of practice and tens of thousands of dollars thrown at books and workshops – which lend almost no attention to this basic premise – who don’t really understand story in its most elemental form. Writers who think anything with a character in it is a story.

It’s not. Not without conflict.

None of them, by the way, are published. Nor will they be until they truly grasp and master the essence of what a story really is.

There are many ways to render a proper definition of story, but here’s a succinct and accurate one:

A story is about a character who needs something, with stakes attached to achieving what they need, and who must face and overcome obstacles in the pursuit of and fulfillment of that need.

That character is usually your protagonist, often referred to as the story’s hero. And yet, many writers create what they believe to be stories with a protagonist positioned as a hero, but without a need or quest, just a sequential journey with no opposition or stakes. You never read them (unless you’re in a critique group) because they never get published.

We take the basic tenets of story for granted because everything we read, good and otherwise, at least meets this definition.

Other criteria kick in beyond the definition without becoming the definition itself. Most of them are qualitative, the things that make a story effective and publishable. Like a hook, a theme, character arc and backstory, structure and pacing (story architecture), setting, subplot, a satisfying and credible ending.

But none of these elements define story. Rather, they empower a story.

Within the above definition, then, what does the hero need?

That’s your call as the author: truth, survival, love, money, revenge, enlightenment, validation, vindication, redemption, forgiveness, a home, a family, a career, to find something that has been lost, to help someone else… the list is ancient and endless. Notice, though, that each of these needs have stakes attached to them.

For a story to work, it must have stakes. You can have character and plot without stakes – stakes are what makes the reader care – but if you do, what you won’t have is a book contract or a movie deal.

So… do you truly understand, at its most basic, elemental and essential level, the definition of story? If not, then this is the most important “tip” you’ll ever hear about storytelling.

It’s as important as a baseball player understanding that the ball itself is to be thrown, caught and hit, never kicked.

Too many unpublished writers are kicking their stories when they should be pitching.

2. Understand the difference between outlining and story architecture.

This little can of worms has nearly gotten me lynched on more than one occasion. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in over two decades as a writing teacher, its that some writers just won’t consider outlining, ever.

Even if that’s precisely the thing that would get them published.

So allow me to clarify: story architecture needs to be solidly in place within any successful story, no matter how the development process began or unfolded. Non-negotiable.

If you know story architecture to an extent that you really can just start writing your story, and it’ll unfold onto the page with all the requisite elements in just right place – which will eventually happen somewhere in the drafting process if you see it through – more power to you. You and Stephen King and a very few others are in select company.

The reason the two terms – outlining versus story architecture – are improperly regarded as synonymous is that outlining is a very powerful way to employ the very essential concepts of story architecture, especially for newer writers. (In fact, the most vocal of outline-haters are published authors who absolutely do, after writing multiple drafts instead of outlining, end up adhering to story architecture.)

Again, you don’t need to use an outline to write a story that is in complete alignment with the principles of solid story architecture. Not if you have the model memorized. Not if you own it.

And that’s the problem. Most writers don’t. At this point it is appropriate to ask: do you?

Story architecture can be quite intuitive. The more you know about it the more intuitive it gets. Once you wrap your head around the concept you may or may not need to use an outline to weave your story over the infrastructure it provides. You just will as you write it.

The term “story architecture” refers to the sequence of an unfolding story according to an accepted – and expected – sequence, complete with certain milestones, timing and criteria. In effect, a blueprint.

Mess with it and your story will suffer. As will your readers.

Music has architecture. Sculpting and painting have architecture, even the most obscure pieces. All art is based on some form of structure, even if the lack of structure is what defines the art.

And yet, there are an infinite number of variations within multiple genres of music, art, architecture and… here it comes… stories.

Just as airplanes are designed according to basic aeronautical principles – they all have wings, they all require power, and they all must adhere to the principles of Bernoulli’s law of aerodynamics – even if they don’t look quite the same as other airplanes. Cessnas and Boeings, fighters and tankers, crop dusters and aerobatic aircraft… they all look different, yet they are all built from the same basic blueprint.

So it is with story telling. Violate the basic laws and the story will never get off the ground. Not sure who’s law it is, but it is enforced every time an agent, editor or producer turns down a project.

Learning story architecture is like learning to play the piano. Some people – many in fact – learn to play by ear. By instinct. They never learn to read music, they just listen and then they play. It sucks at first, but if they do it long enough they may turn themselves into a competent pianist. If they compose, they do so with a reliance upon that same instinct.

Again, so it is with storytelling. Some writers pick it up through reading and not much else, and it becomes second nature. Stephen King writes this way. But when he recommends that everyone should just begin writing when a story idea descends upon them – which he does in his book On Writing – he’s pitching a dangerous approach to the vast majority of new writers.

Because hardly anyone – especially newer writers – knows what he knows.

Whether you outline your story or just begin writing it without a plan, either way you are engaging in a process of exploring and developing an architecture – a sequence of narrative, dramatic events – that makes the story as solid and effective as it can be.

If you do it through writing drafts, each draft takes you closer to that goal.

If you do it through outlining, you are applying the principles of story architecture before you write the story itself.

If you don’t accept that there is a templated expectation for how stories unfold, then a) you’re kidding yourself, b) neither Hollywood nor New York will buy your manuscript, and c) you are destined for frustration until you do.

The tip here isn’t to outline. The tip is to write your stories from a solid understanding of story architecture.

It’s more than a tip. It’s the ante-in.

And my very favorite writing tip of all time is:

1. Every scene should have a succinct mission.

I love this tip. It’s the most empowering thing I’ve ever learned about writing stories that work.

Read it again. The key word is succinct. If a scene tries to do too much, it’s weak because it rambles. The lines between the issues aren’t defined. The dramatic tension isn’t clear, and therefore isn’t optimized.

The most common error out there, though, is just the opposite. It’s a story filled with scenes in which nothing happens other than characterization. Scenes that may move characters – and (this is important) the reader – forward in time, when they need to move them deeper into the story.

And that can’t happen unless something happens.

If you can understand not only the nature of the scene you’re about to write, but the narrative thing it needs to accomplish – the single piece of plot exposition to be delivered – then you can build a scene around it that seizes the dramatic potential at hand.

That narrative thing is the mission of the scene.

All good scenes deliver characterization. But that alone should never be the mission of a scene. That mission is expositional.

In the movie True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino, there’s a terrific scene in which Christopher Walken is trying to pry the location of Dennis Hopper’s son out of him. The mission of the scene is simple: Hopper won’t talk, but in the end Walken gets what he wants. It could have been one page, one minute of screen time.

But it takes eleven minutes. All of it perfect and spectacular. And all of it driving toward that one moment of plot exposition required to thrust the story onward. Everything about the scene – the dialogue, the unspoken silence, the stories told, the way it ends (not good for Hopper), and the way Walken actually comes into possession of the information, is a thrill ride for the viewer.

He does it again in the opening scene of Ingloreous Basterds. Nine minutes this time, all of it to deliver one piece of narrative information.

Which illustrates that mission-driven scene writing does not mean delivering it as quickly as you can. But rather, as dramatically as you can.

Once you know the mission, then your goal is to make its delivery the most dramatic, shocking, moving and otherwise entertaining chuck of story that it can be. That’s precisely and solely the reason Tarantino structure those two scenes they way he did.

I’m not saying you should blow out your scenes to an eleven minute, 18-page experience every time. I am saying that once you truly know what the scene needs to accomplish, and you discipline your narrative approach to drive toward that one thing only, you are free to explore the inherent creative potential of it all. To make it a ride, an experience, a colorful and character-driven piece of exposition.

This is how great scenes are written. The more succinct the scene’s mission, the better it reads.

Larry Brooks is the creator of Storyfix.com, recently named to the #1 position on a list of the “Top Ten Blogs for Writers.” His new book, “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Writing,” comes out in February from Writers Digest Books.