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BOOK: writing the heart of your story
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If your greatest desire as a novelist is to reach and affect a reader’s heart in a significant way, to “strike home” with some theme, message, or emotional resonance, then the lessons and observations in this book can be your guide. Drawn not only from my own decades of writing, editing, and reading great (and lousy) books but also from gems of wisdom from a great variety of writing instructors,
Writing the Heart of Your Story
is an amalgam created for one specific purpose—to show writers how to aim, shoot, and hit the bull’s eye when it comes to targeting a reader’s heart.

 

How to Target the Heart

 

So, as a writer, how do you do that—target the heart of a story? Is there some secret, or a trick to it? Do those “great” writers who write timeless, unforgettable books use some arcane method or formula that no one knows about? Nope. But I would venture to say they have a drive or need to do more than put a bunch of interesting words on a page—or appeal to the masses in order to sell a certain number of copies. They not only have a story to tell, they want to tell it passionately. They have a story with heart, that will appeal to the heart, and they delve into their own hearts to tell it.

Ah . . . there’s the key—being brave, daring, and vulnerable enough to get into the deep, scary feelings that are stored in the heart. For, if writers do not go deep, their writing won’t either. If their writing doesn’t drag them long into late-night hours with grabbing intensity, it won’t keep anyone else up reading either. If their writing doesn’t possess them and draw life from them in order to come alive, the story will be flat, and maybe even feel dead. Lifeless. Boring.

So, to breathe life into a story, you have to get its heart pumping. It’s been said that the heart is the seat of motivation. Jesus is quoted in the Bible as saying, “Out of the heart’s abundance the mouth will speak.” If the heart of our story is abundant with rich themes and motifs and passion, the “mouth” [read: author via ten typing fingers] will express them. But you first have to know how to get to the heart of your story. Sometimes you have to mine deep into the caverns of your heart before you find what you are looking for. And it may take some time. Each story you mine will be different, and will require a new journey on perhaps unmapped trails and dimly lit tunnels. But this book will show you how to do this, regardless of what genre you are writing in, one simple step at a time.

 

Nothing New under the Sun

 

Some of what is contained in this book may not at all be new to you. I’m not claiming I have some brand-new method that will rock your world. I can only bring to my students and editing clients whom I mentor what I have learned over the twenty-five years I’ve been writing novels (and the fifty-plus years I’ve been voraciously reading them). There are hundreds of writing craft books “out there” and thousands of instructive blog posts and magazine articles that will teach you technique on every aspect of novel writing. But I’ve yet to see one book that centers on this very necessary topic on how to get to the heart of a story.

Be aware that this is not solely about technique or craft or method. Those things are included to some degree and are important, but they are mostly tools for you to carry and use along the way as you excavate through the walls of rock to reach the heart of your story.

 

The Road That Few Writers Take

 

Think of this excursion as a holistic endeavor—a joining of mind and heart. For many writers, constructing a novel is mostly a “mind” exercise. Some check their emotions, personal feelings, and experiences at their office door and dive into writing with full-throttle brain power. Even so doing, a person can learn to write well enough [read: technique, craft] to evoke particular emotions and reactions in a reader, and thus be successful in producing a very strong novel that may get acclaim. But as G. K. Chesterton so aptly noted: “There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”

That’s the less-traveled road we want to explore. That road takes you to a deeper level than you can reach with your intellect, and if you’ve ever had a moment when you’ve written a mind-blowing sentence or paragraph, or you’ve found tears streaming down your face as you reread a passage you just wrote (okay, maybe you too are thinking about that scene in Romancing the Stone, in which romance writer Joan Wilder is reading the end of her novel and weeping away), you know there is that special place a writer can get to, a Shangri-La or nirvana where magic happens. Where you reach the heart, and it’s pumping wild and strong.

For some of us writers, that’s the place we aim to get to every time we sit down to write. That’s the runner’s high, or the climber’s euphoria. No, we aren’t striving to get there to grab a temporary thrill that will fade after a few hours. We strive to get to that place because it’s the most genuine, most truthful, barest center of our existence.

If that sounds a little too corny to you, then maybe this book isn’t really for you. And that’s okay. But some of us have caught a glimpse of this kind of heaven, and we want to live there. Or at least know how to navigate to it so we can get there if we put our minds (and hearts) to the task.

So, are you ready? Grab your picks and shovels, and follow me.

 

 

Think about
. . . some of your favorite novels. Grab a few off the shelf and read just the first scene. Highlight some lines that stand out to you, that seem powerful, original, gripping. Start a notebook in which you write down a few great lines from various novels’ opening scenes, and make a comment about the way the book hooked you and kept you reading. Now, set these books aside to return to later as we go through the important components of opening scenes, and you’ll be sure to see things you never noticed before.

 

 

 

Chapter 2: The Entrance to the Mother Lode

 

“What is uttered from the heart alone will win the hearts of others to your own.”

~Goethe

 

The heart of your story is not located in one spot, like the heart in your body. It’s more like a vein of gold threading through the mountain of plot, character, and dialog. At times it might appear a thin strand and at other times a giant pocket of richness, but it is present from the first line of your novel to the last.

Think about the expression “striking a vein.” I imagine a miner—sweaty, exhausted, maybe even close to despairing—swinging his pickaxe one last time before heading back to his makeshift camp along the Trinity River in the northern Sierras of California. As metal chomps at the crumbling hillside and rocks and debris fly into the air, a sparkling strip of gold is revealed. What a stroke of luck!

Fortunately, we don’t have to swing aimlessly on a hunch. We can determine just where that vein is we’re hoping to strike, and then we can use care to aim and direct each swing of the axe so that we’re right on target. I would be remiss not to make mention here of a more literal reference of “striking a vein,” for when attempting to reach the heart of our story, we also want to cut open a vein and let the blood flow. Forgive me if this sounds a bit morbid, but sometimes in attempting to write a passionate, powerful story, it feels like we’re opening a vein and pouring out our lifeblood. Not that writing should be painful; I personally feel it shouldn’t have to be—unless someone is forcing us to do it against our will. (I think Stephen King wrote a novel about that!)

Part of that “pain” many writers face when crafting a novel is due to a lack of deep exploring and mapping first. If you are going to excavate a site to find a vein you know is somewhere inside the heart of a mountain you are journeying to, you need to do your homework. If you haven’t pored over the geological surveys and journals of those who have gone before you, you also may end up swinging your pickaxe mindlessly, hoping for a strike, but spending months—maybe even years—of your life futilely striving and hoping you’ll hit that vein, and getting just as discouraged and despairing as that miner I mentioned.

 

Supporting the Tunnel to Avoid Collapse

 

Digging to the heart takes advance preparation, and I’m not referring to spending time plotting out your story (which is essential). I’m talking about setting up the infrastructure and pathways to get you there.

Think of the old classic movie
The Great Escape
—do you remember it, starring Steve McQueen and James Garner? Based on a true story that took place in 1942, the Germans built what they considered was an escape-proof POW camp, where they planned to house all the problem POWs—i.e., those that had made multiple escape attempts in the past. What the Germans don’t realize is that they’d put all the best escape minds in one location.

Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. They dig three massive tunnels to span across the camp and out under the fences (although when they pop up from underground, they realize they’re twenty feet short of freedom). In order to create these long tunnels that don’t collapse, they not only have to clear away all the dirt without the task being noticed, they also have to build supports so that the tunnels don’t cave in.

Just look at photos and films of commercial mining operations and you’ll see the same thing—strong support structures are installed first before any serious mining begins. Only a fool would start digging underground without taking care against collapse.

So too, a writer needs to do the advanced structural work so that her story doesn’t “collapse” upon entering. And a great many do collapse—sometimes by the second chapter. So, would it surprise you to learn that the bulk of the work—setting up the framework to support your entire novel—has to mostly take place in the first scene or two? Just as the entrance into the tunnel sets the pattern for the entire supportive structure leading to the mother lode or to “freedom,” most of what you will learn in this book pertains directly to your first chapter.

 

The First Chapter Carries a Great Burden

 

Really? When this content was presented in 2012 on my blog Live Write Thrive as a year-long instructional course, the first five months were spent on the first scene. Does that sound a little front-end heavy? Yep. But there’s a very good reason. In order to get to the heart of your story, the path must be set up clearly in the first pages of your novel. Most authors know that the beginning or opening of a novel is the most crucial and carries the weightiest burden of any other scene or chapter in your entire book. The opening scene must convey so many things that often the author will have to rewrite it numerous times to get it right, and sometimes the best time to rewrite the opening scene is when your novel is done. Why? Because at that point you have (hopefully) developed your rich themes and motifs, thoroughly explored your protagonist’s heart and character arc, and have brought your plot to a stunning and satisfying conclusion.

 

Your Opening Scenes Support the Entire Novel

 

As the first one or two scenes carry the burden of the whole book, they are the “entrance to the mine.” If they don’t have the correct structure to hold back the tons of dirt [read: the next 70,000 words or more] overhead from falling, you’re looking at a potential (or probable) collapse of the whole story. No way will the miners make it to the heart, where the big pocket of gold awaits. More than likely they will be choking on dust and crawling and clawing their way back out to a place they can lick their wounds, clean up a bit, and then ponder how in the world they will find another way in. Whereas, they could have successfully journeyed to the heart had they but taken the time to reinforce the opening.

Which is exactly what this book will be centering on more than anything else—reinforcing the opening of your story in the first scenes so that the reader can safely and excitedly journey through the twists and tunnels of an unforgettable adventure and end up right where you want them to be. By forging a path straight to the heart of your story, you will get right to the heart of your reader. If your heart leads correctly, the reader’s heart will follow. It may sound simple, and in a sense it is. Confucius said it succinctly: “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

 

Starting Is Better Than Finishing

 

There’s an ancient proverb that goes like this: “Finishing is better than starting.” And therein lies great wisdom, to be sure. I can start a whole lot of projects, but the real test of perseverance, success, and merit is in the finishing. However . . . when it comes to writing a great novel, starting is more important than finishing—at least when it comes to the importance of your major story elements. If you have every essential thing in place in your first scene, you will have set up the entire book in a way that will lead you wonderfully to the finish line.

 

The Heart Is the Big Picture

 

Too many writers just jump in and throw together a first scene for their novel without taking the time to look at the heart of the story or the big picture. There are plenty of instructional books, websites, and blogs with great content covering every major element and technique needed to write a great novel, but few if any are really focusing on the big picture and the heart of what makes your novel terrific.

Many literary agents and acquisition editors complain that despite good writing overall, many books are missing something. They don’t inspire, move, or touch the heart—and yes, believe it or not, those folks do expect to have that experience, at least in part, upon reading your first opening scene.

Impossible? Not at all. I have read some unbelievably powerful, moving, heart-wrenching first scenes—and those books were most often big best sellers. That’s not to say all best sellers succeed at stirring this type of reaction—far from it! But those gems of books that can so move the reader so quickly are noticed. Big-time. And I believe that’s because the author has taken the time to step back and look at the big picture—what lies at the heart of her story.

BOOK: writing the heart of your story
8.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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