Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

I'll be at Readercon over the weekend. Hope to see some of you there.

The File Folder Trick.

Get a file folder (and a filing cabinet).

For each story:

In the file folder place a hard-copy of the finished story. (No matter
what happens, hard copy will still be readable.) Place a copy of the story on disk (electronically readable format) in the folder. Place a sheet listing the names and addresses of all of the markets you figure are suitable for the story, in your order of priority.

Every time the story comes back, cross off the name of the last market
from the list. Send the story to the next market that same day (after re-checking the guidelines and the editor's
name).

If the story is bought, put the contract in the file folder and move it to
another section of the filing cabinet.

Any market that buys a story automatically gets moved to the head of the list for all other (similar) stories (assuming they haven't already rejected it).

Any market that says "Try us again with your next" gets moved to the head of the list of all other suitable stories (just below "we bought your last').

If you reach the bottom of the list, then, and only then, are you allowed
to re-write the story and come up with a new list of markets.

If you don't feel like rewriting you're allowed to retire the story from
circulation. Put it in its own separate portion of the filing cabinet.

Hello. I've just finished my novel, but I'm unsure about my opening scene. It doesn't begin with the protagonist, nor the antagonist, but it is something two of the antagonists employees/henchmen, I guess you could call them, are doing. i.e. a behind the scenes look at what is going on. It is from the viewpoint of one of the employees, but they are not referenced, nor seen again in the rest of the novel. Can I mention them by name, or is it best to simply refer to them as "He" and the other man with him as "his colleague". I don't know if using names makes them too important in the readers head? Although it does become tricky throughout the scene with no names being used. What is acceptable?

I know a lot of opening scenes in novels use the whole no names thing, such as during prologues from the perspective of someone who is kidnapped, keeping everything secretive etc.

Be very, very careful if the folks acting in the opening aren't seen again for the rest of the book. Readers will expect them to return in some surprising way.

If one of your main characters has henchmen in general, why not reuse them? Call 1-800-DIALAHENCH for all your villainous needs!

Hmm... basically it's two doctors who are working in this place, for the villain. Someone goes wrong with an experiment and a man, who was innocent in all this, escapes the facility because of something the doctor did by accident.

The man escaping must happen because he ends up meeting the protagonist several scenes later, but the actual doctors aren't really relevant from then on.

m00bah said:

Hmm... basically it's two doctors who are working in this place, for the villain. Someone goes wrong with an experiment and a man, who was innocent in all this, escapes the facility because of something the doctor did by accident.

The man escaping must happen because he ends up meeting the protagonist several scenes later, but the actual doctors aren't really relevant from then on.

Click to expand...

This sounds to me like a prologue, not a first chapter.

euclid said:

This sounds to me like a prologue, not a first chapter.

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Hmm... I've been told a thousand times to avoid prologues like a plague because it can easily get your manuscript tossed out. What is the criteria for something to be deemed a prologue?

m00bah said:

Hmm... I've been told a thousand times to avoid prologues like a plague because it can easily get your manuscript tossed out. What is the criteria for something to be deemed a prologue?

Click to expand...

Prologues are just another tool that has to b e applied correctly, like a hammer or any other tool. If you use a hammer as a door key, it might work, but the damage will be greater than you might want. If you use a prologue like a hammer, you may get the same results.

I am not the expert on prologues, but I do love a good prologue that leads into a story.

m00bah said:

Hmm... basically it's two doctors who are working in this place, for the villain. Someone goes wrong with an experiment and a man, who was innocent in all this, escapes the facility because of something the doctor did by accident.

The man escaping must happen because he ends up meeting the protagonist several scenes later, but the actual doctors aren't really relevant from then on.

Click to expand...

I've just thought it through some more, and I can indeed move the scene farther on. So the book opens with several scenes starring the protagonist, and then I can include this scene.

It still won't change the fact that the doctors don't come into play later in the book. Since I've not opening the book with them and they are just "bit" players, does that change the rules for using their names?

What's the POV of the scene with the doctors? if it's the POV of the guy who escapes, and he never learns their names, no problem.

Still, that's a plot thread that might need some raveling up. If the characters are that unimportant why are they there at all?

If they're there, is there something else you can do with them?

I killed everyone in town in my opening chapter including my MC's parents and siblings (pretty much on camera - the MC is half a country away attending college). The next chapter immediately focuses in on the MC, his girlfriend, and his mentoring teacher. I kill the girlfriend and mentor while he's away at the investigation of the disaster that hit his home town (totally off camera until the MC attends the autopsy of his girlfriend later on).

I'm evil that way.

James D. Macdonald said:

What's the POV of the scene with the doctors? if it's the POV of the guy who escapes, and he never learns their names, no problem.

Still, that's a plot thread that might need some raveling up. If the characters are that unimportant why are they there at all?

If they're there, is there something else you can do with them?

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The POV is from one of the doctors. He is tired and makes a mistake, which leads to the guy escaping.

The characters aren't unimportant, but they aren't important either. But the doctor need to be there to enable the guys escape.

The main character goes through the same thing later in the novel, inside this building, which is why I don't want to have the scene POV from the guy who escapes. It would give away too much and basically seem too similar.

Was there a ReaderCon report that I missed? Was the lesson about how Cons help you build your story attached? Or are we still waiting for that?

James D. Macdonald said:

The File Folder Trick.


If you reach the bottom of the list, then, and only then, are you allowed
to re-write the story and come up with a new list of markets.

If you don't feel like rewriting you're allowed to retire the story from
circulation. Put it in its own separate portion of the filing cabinet.

Click to expand...

Have you been reading my mind? I've been asking myself what to do with those stories that reach the end of that line.

Does the "new list" of markets include any markets that previously rejected it? Judging what my stories need, rewriting = massive changes.

Thanks!

Massive rewrite = new story = resubmission to markets (plus any new markets that have opened up since compiling the original list). I might put the new markets at the head of the list.

But we're talking about a massive rewrite (equivalent to Starting Fresh).

m00bah said:

The POV is from one of the doctors. He is tired and makes a mistake, which leads to the guy escaping.

Click to expand...

Why not start with the guy meeting the main character?

Any necessary bits about the escape can come in dialog.

Hmm, unfortunately that can't happen. What if he has a very fleeting reference when later the hero is in the same lab at some point and we see him seeing the doctors nametag. Maybe the doctor darts one of them then gets himself killed or disabled in some way. It would just be a fleeting reference and the name would mean nothing to the hero, but I guess it would remind the reader of who he was. The reader would be like "Oh. It's him."

Does it need to be more than that?

Uncle Jim,

do you have any advice for writing internal conflict or writing a faceless antagonist? It's something I really have an issue with it. When paired with an external conflict, it isn't as bad but it's still not....I don't know....strong I guess is the word. It's a lot harder for me to write something based solely off of internal conflict rather than a mix of internal and external conflicts. It's like my characters don't get over one issue or the issue either too quickly (meaning the story is really short and there is hardly, if any, conflict there) or not quick enough (I'm repeating the same thing over and over, almost exactly). Plus, on top of everything else, I run out of drama or issues or problems to place on top of or add to my original/first problem that starts the story; I run out of steam or things that "raise the stakes". If any of that makes sense. It's like I create one problem, I solve it, but I can't create another. This is just solely with internal conflict.

Is there a way to kind of correct this? To know how to write internal conflict without repeating myself a lot, creating another issue or problem after the first one is "solved" or at least partially put aside, and to help all of the other problems I mentioned.

Thanks.

m00bah said:

Does it need to be more than that?

Click to expand...

I haven't read your book, so I don't know. What do the beta-readers say?

Based on everything you're telling me, though, the doctor isn't important enough to even be in the story, far less in the opening.

Silver-Midnight said:

Is there a way to kind of correct this? To know how to write internal conflict without repeating myself a lot, creating another issue or problem after the first one is "solved" or at least partially put aside, and to help all of the other problems I mentioned.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you shouldn't be writing purely internal conflict. Pair the internal conflict with external action. Advance the plot. If you're ever unsure of what to do next, advance the plot. "When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand...."

Note Hamlet. (Shakespeare's version, which was a remake of an earlier play that no one who isn't going for a PhD in Elizabethan Literature has even heard of, let alone read, and that hasn't been performed in half a millennium.) Hamlet, the character, has all kinds of internal conflict. But he's also mixed up in sword fights, leapings-into-graves, stabbings-through-the-arras (and liver), ghosts, suicides, and honest-to-goodness pirates. Keep stuff happening and the internal conflict will happen along with it.

Next:

Today's Literary Trivia: An editor was originally the person who put on a Roman gladiatorial game. He was the person who gave thumbs-up or thumbs-down on who in the arena would be allowed to live or die.

In the same way, today, an editor is the person who gives thumbs-up or thumbs-down on words, sentences, paragraphs, or plot-lines, and who determines which books will be published and which not.

James D. Macdonald said:

Sounds like you shouldn't be writing purely internal conflict. Pair the internal conflict with external action. Advance the plot. If you're ever unsure of what to do next, advance the plot. "When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand...."

Note Hamlet. (Shakespeare's version, which was a remake of an earlier play that no one who isn't going for a PhD in Elizabethan Literature has even heard of, let alone read, and that hasn't been performed in half a millennium.) Hamlet, the character, has all kinds of internal conflict. But he's also mixed up in sword fights, leapings-into-graves, stabbings-through-the-arras (and liver), ghosts, suicides, and honest-to-goodness pirates. Keep stuff happening and the internal conflict will happen along with it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice!

Another thought on why The Author's Big Mistake is the author's big mistake:

It's because arguing with people isn't your job. Your job is to entertain people.

You will, from time to time, come across people who attack you for no good reason. (This seems to come along with celebrity, even such low-level celebrity as writers get.) The reason they do this is because you have something they want: Attention. Don't give them your attention. Doing so means they win. And doing so takes away from you doing your job. Lose-lose from your point of view.

So: Don't do it.

As writers, we do not write stories. We write the blueprints for stories.

The stories are what the readers construct in their minds, using our blueprints.

The difference between a happy and unhappy ending is when we decide to end the story.

Apropos of absolutely nothing except my state of mind but, I've really missed this place.

-Jason

We're glad you're back.