I follow @smoulderingsea on Twitter, and every once in a while he tosses out some sharp, smart #editortips. A recent one went something like “if it doesn’t have anything to do with your story, it doesn’t matter how you love it. Take it out.” My response to this has traditionally been a whine of “it all has to do with my story! If it happens to my character, it’s my story!”
This is not a constructive response, so generally I go on and try to follow this most excellent advice. That’s where it gets hard, though–how am I to decide what actually does belong in my story? Others write novels where the story question is obvious–who killed Roger Ackroyd? How will Shea get the sword in time to save the world? How will Miles get out of THIS mess alive? I, however, do not start there. It’s only as I explore the writing world more that I realize–maybe those other authors don’t either. As always seems to be the case, I am not as alone as I thought.
Wherever one starts their story-planning, I think it’s important for story cohesion that one ARRIVE at a simple story question. The best way I’ve found to do this is by separating it into two questions, what Blake Snyder calls the action story and the emotional story.
I generally start with the emotional story. How will Taro find his independence while honoring his debt to Eve? How will Rafe find himself without giving up the love he’s lost himself in? How can Joss be happy if he runs from those who care about him? I don’t start with them articulated, but these are the sort of questions that get me pondering a story. The pondering eventually leads to the action story.
Blake Snyder (I refer to him a lot because he makes SENSE to me. Check out his Save the Cat! book to see why) refers to this part as stasis = death. If Taro doesn’t take his independence, he’ll kill his soul by spending his life doing things that make him miserable. If Rafe doesn’t find himself, he will lose the love that he counts dearer than life. If Joss doesn’t find his way to trust, he will end up (literally) dead.
These challenges are the shove that gets the characters moving through your story. Most people don’t like change, especially when it runs over them like a stagecoach pulled by eight steel-shod Clydesdales. Every story, though, must have change. So we need an excellent hook to drag/push/pull our characters through the story. Frodo didn’t leave the Shire until Black Riders chased him out.
The actions characters take to fix things/save things, those are (surprisingly enough) your action story. That’s where your simple story question comes in. Will Taro win Rafe? Will Rafe keep Taro? Will Joss survive?
That’s the question that drags your reader on. The action question should be plain as day, but the emotional question should be more felt, I think. It’s the action story that has to force your character on, so the emotional story needs to be wound through it. Anything that isn’t dragging him/her forward or trying to haul him back from the story goal, is extra. Fluff. Get rid of it. Delete it, burn it, stash it somewhere for later use. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you take it out.
It’s hard. There’s a reason the saying is “kill your darlings.” Sometimes that irrelevant bit of fluff is your favorite bit in the whole story.
Take it out anyway. And plan on making the rest of your story as awesome as that bit.