How to Rewrite Your Novel To The Bitter End

By Candy Gourlay

Writing is rewriting. Rewriting is writing.



via GIPHY

My writing friends repeat this sagely as we sit complaining about the children's book industry while slurping glasses of wine.

Writing is rewriting is one of the first epiphanies a wannabe writer must have to launch her on her way.

Until you accept that the first flower of inspiration that you lay down as text will not be the final version of your opus, you are not a serious contender. I learned this the hard way in my early days of trying to get published when I excitedly posted my first drafts to publishers seconds after I typed 'The End'. Even now, I hate sending early drafts of my manuscripts to my editor, knowing my story is still cooking.

Make no mistake: everyone has a different way of climbing into a story. For what it's worth, here is mine.

THE FIRST TIME I WRITE IT

The first time I write my novel, it doesn't feel like I'm actually writing a novel. It's more like I'm posing a series of questions.

What is this story?
Why am I writing it?
What do I want to say?
How do I want to say it?
Who are my characters?
Why are they doing what they do?
What is happening? Why?

During this stage I know I can still get out. I can still say, no, I don't want to write this book. I can quit at any point and write another book. Three years ago, I tried to explain this process in a blog post:

When I start a book, I am a rabbit staring at several rabbit holes ... I dive into one rabbit hole. I go right in. Go as far as I can go. Write a few chapters. Do I want to write some more? Oh, that is an interesting thing. Shall I explore that? I keep going until I don't want to keep going. If I don't want to keep going, I climb out of the rabbit hole and dive into the next one.

And if I don't like that rabbit hole I climb into another one.

I keep doing this until I find the book I want to write. Then I write it.

This draft usually has a fantastic first chapter, because when I start thinking about a book, my first lightbulb ideas are always about how the story begins, how the hero gets launched into his adventure. (Mark ye this: you will rewrite that damn first chapter more times than any other!)

But at this stage – though I might have written some great scenes that make it to the final draft – I don't really know my characters well enough! My middle sags like a Pilates-free tummy. And my ending is cursory and forgettable.

THE SECOND TIME I WRITE IT (and the third, and the fourth etc)

“Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.”  JOHN UPDIKE


Once a draft is down, then it's time to rewrite the story once more. You might love your first draft. You might hate it. You've got to rewrite it, whether you think it's good or not. It's not ready, trust me. Once is not enough.

And often, twice is not enough. Or three times. You have to write it however many times it takes.

When your spirit is flagging, think of bad reviews on Amazon or elsewhere. It will be easier to rewrite than to endure bad reviews for the rest of your book's life.

I do try to write nice words at this point. My friend Jane McLoughlin (The Crowham Martyres, At Yellow Lake) jokingly calls this 'writing the long words' – you know, metaphors, fancy words and literary sounding stuff that someone in the far future might quote.

But Structure must come before waxing lyrical. You can polish your words, your sentences, until they  shine, but if all those gorgeous bits don't add up to a coherent whole you've been moving deck chairs while the ship is sinking.

Structure is another thing a wannabe author needs to get his head around. Story structure is almost The Magic Bullet to getting published. All the published authors I know, understand – at the minimum! –  what a beginning, a middle and an end has got to do to deliver a good story.

Read all the books on story structure you can find. James Scott Bell is a good first stop, Solutions for Novelists by Sol Stein. Screenwriting gurus make fantastic reading – read Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke; read Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee; Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. (They take potshots at each other! Yorke on McKee's ‘the negation of the negation’: 'I have yet to meet a writer who knows quite what he means.')

 I've read loads more, but these are the books that have sparked writing epiphanies for me.

The first thing you learn from these books is: it's not about you. It's about the reader.

The second thing you learn is: these gurus agree and disagree but every decision you make about your story should be about ... your story.

Not about whether you want to rant about the treatment of single mothers. Not about whether you want to describe a life-changing experience from your childhood. Not about whether you want to teach the reader a lesson about kindness. Not about whether you want to imagine a historical event in all its glorious detail.

It's. About. The. Story.

So for me, this stage ... it takes a lot of time. Sometimes (well, oftentimes) years. Congrats to all you guys who can do this in a few months. Me, I can't seem to juggle everything at the same time. I figure out what my hero wants, only to discover that this breaks the subplot with his best friend. I finally understand why a minor character behaves the way she does, but her story becomes so interesting it threatens to outshine the main story!

And so it goes. And it (I) have to keep going until I've worked out all the things important to my story. This means:

• Writing scenes that might not make the final cut
• Really, really, really getting to know my characters
• My hero comes to life (this involves hearing voices. I knew that I was on to a good thing when while writing Tall Story I heard a voice in my head say: 'So many armpits, so little deodorant!')
• All the threads of story are written down, whether they're going to be in the final draft or not
• I know my way to the ending

THE LAST TIME I WRITE MY NOVEL

“Your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.” KURT VONNEGUT


I've just pressed 'SEND' on my next novel. My editor is reading it now. I think it's the final draft – I'm sure there will be comments, but I don't think I'll be completely rewriting scenes, or restructuring the novel, or changing the sex of a character, or anything major like that.

I think.

Writing this draft , the final one, involves:

• Writing the words that your reader will actually see
• Writing all those lovely 'long' words
• Getting to the emotional core of my characters, of my novel
• Creating an emotional experience for the reader
• Making sure everybody in the book is alive
• Really knowing what your book is about

This particular book was difficult because  historical/anthropological  details got in the way of my really understanding my story. So I did something I had never done with my previous books.

I took out all my favourite structure books. And then I spent a month working out how my story fitted into the structures advocated by each book.

It was hard work. What I was trying to do was ask every question I needed to ask about my characters and my story to get to the end. But how was I to know what questions to ask? I trawled my beloved books for clues.

When I came upon a pithy line like 'A character's facade is an outer manifestation of an inner conflict', I turned a critical eye on my characters' inner and outer manifestations. When I came upon a piece about Freud and Ego Defence Mechanisms and steps to how the immature becomes mature (intellectualisation, repression, regression, sublimation, rationalisation, isolation, projection, denial, displacement, reaction), I tried to work out how to apply this to my character arcs. When I read 'choices make character' in Robert McKee,  I reviewed the choices my characters made, and thought carefully about what these indicated about them

Here are just two examples – Into the Woods and Saving the Cat.

---

Reading Into the Woods again, I scribbled down how my story fitted into the outline Yorke discusses, in the process understanding the scenes I still have to write, for clarity, the set-ups that are missing from my story to strengthen and deepen the outcome.

1. 'Home is threatened.' How are my protagonist's ideas about his ordinary world threatened? Will my reader sympathise?

2. 'The Protagonist suffers from some kind of flaw.' What is my Protagonist lacking? Is it clear to the reader?

3. 'The Protagonist goes on a journey.' Do we feel the cause and effect of what comes to pass? Have I set up the impetus of this?

4. 'Exactly halfway through the story, the protagonist embraces for the first time the quality he or she will need to become complete' – what he needs to finish the story – sometimes it's a truth about himself.  They know what they need to do ... but do they do it?

5. 'On the journey back' the characters face consequences. Everything gets worse. The hopes and dreams at the beginning are all betrayed or crushed.

6. The characters face 'a literal or metaphorical death'.  This is an overwhelming moment, a time to write like you're a lead guitarist playing a riff. This is the part of your story that fans will be desperate to talk about and yet have to bite their tongues so as to avoid revealing spoilers.

7. The hero is 'reborn as a new person', 'in full possession of the cure', 'home is saved'. How does it end? What is 'home'? How is it saved?

---

Blake Snyder prescribes a 'Beat Sheet' in Saving the Cat. You can visit this website to read the Beat Sheets of various movies. But here are the steps:

1. Opening Image. This must set the tone, style and mood.

2. State the Theme. What is your story about? The main character usually doesn't get it so why not get a secondary character to ask the question that states the theme. (eg. Identity: Who am I? )

3. Set Up – Snyder calls this 'the six things that need fixing' – I actually made a list! Then I checked to make sure that my set ups were in place

4. Catalyst. Something happens that sets the story in motion.

5. Debate. For clarity's sake, it's good to have the characters discuss options. What are my choices? What do I do? Should I go? Should I stay?

6. Break into Two (the 'two' being the second act). A moment of decision when the hero walks through a door of no return.

7. The B Story. Snyder calls this the 'Breather' or the 'Booster Rocket', a subplot, sometimes/often the romantic story line.

8. Fun and Games, 'the Promise of the Premise'. Snyder says these are the moments that usually appear in the movie trailer! The scenes where buddies clash, where we think, yeah, this is why I'm watching/reading this, cool stuff.

9. Midpoint. By now the stakes are raised. The hero knows he's got a problem. But can he fix it? His view of the world changes.

10. Bad Guys Close In. Or one could also say, this is the time when the good guys lose it.

11. All is Lost. The old way of thinking dies. There's a whiff of death. Note to self: is my character suffering enough, as in, MORE than the suffering he's endured before? It's gotta be bad.

12. Dark Night of the Soul. What is the worst thing that could happen to your hero?

13. Break into Three (as in the third act). Another door of no return, a moment that leads inexorably to your ending. But what is it?

14. Finale + a Final Image that mirrors your first image.

---

“Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.” HELEN DUNMORE


Of course I still don't know if the draft I have just sent to my editor is any good.

Someone on Facebook told me, 'My editor says she'll tell me if it's my final draft.'

I will let you know.

P.S. 8 May 2014 - Just read this piece by Jess Lourey on Classic Story Structures, if you're looking to understand story structure more,  go read it!

---

Candy Gourlay is the author of Tall Story and Shine. If you liked this, you might like Candy's post The Final Draft: Looking for Satisfactions. Visit her website www.candygourlay.com

Learning to Write - my journey in How To books

IKEA manuals. Mmm.

By Candy Gourlay

My husband often makes fun of me because I like reading instruction manuals. Before I can even begin to take the packaging off a new kitchen appliance or family widget, I'll be poring over the instructions.

I can't help myself. There's something gripping about a good step by step.

So when I became serious about writing novels, I set out to read all the How to Write books I could get my hands on.

In the beginning, I obsessed about the parts that made the whole. Setting, Characterisation, Dialogue, Viewpoint - with viewpoint perhaps the trickiest thing to master.

Viewpoint was chapter two in The Craft of Writing a Novel by Dianne Doubtfire, my first writing bible. No matter how many books you've read, viewpoint (as in first person, third person, omnisicient, etc. - not to be confused with Voice) can be bewildering.

'If this isn't properly understood, the whole edifice of your novel will disintegrate,' Dianne Doubtfire writes. 'Ask yourself whose story it is. The answer to this question is vital to the planning of your book.'

Doubtfire suggests you experiment before deciding what your approach to viewpoint will be. 'Your choice will depend on the kind of novelist you are and on the demands of your story.'

Doubtfire's book had chapters on Planning, Plot, Mechanics of Improvement, Theme ... but as a beginner novelist I remember being entirely focused on isolated components of the novel like character and setting.

Perhaps I wasn't ready to think about my story as a whole yet.

Writing a successful novel demands not only talent and determination but also a high degree of craftsmanship. No textbook can supply talent or determination, but craftsmanship is another matter. The Craft of Novel-Writing by Dianne Doubtfire

The first time I heard of the 'inciting event' was when I read How to Write a Damn Good Novel II by James N. Frey (for some reason, I never did read Part One).

Frey starts by exhorting the writer to transport his or her reader into the 'fictive dream'.

'As a fiction writer, you're expected to transport a reader. Readers are said to be transported when, while they are reading, they feel that they are actually living in the story world and the real world around them evaporates.'

Before this book I often read interviews with authors claiming that they 'wrote for themselves'. Frey made me realize that a novel was a two way thing, a relationship between the author and her reader.

It was also the first time I realised that a novel had to be a chain of cause and effect. It was the first time I read the words 'the inciting incident', that initial event that sets the story into motion.

So how do you get the reader from sympathy, identification and empathy to being totally absorbed? The answer: inner conflict ... Inner conflict is the storm raging inside the characters: doubts, misgivings, guilts, remorse, indecision ... It is this participation in the decision-making process, when the reader is feeling the character's guilt, doubts, misgivings, and remorse, and is pulling the character to make one decision over another, that transports the reader. How to Write a Damn Good Novel II by James N. Frey

Skimming through it now, I realize that a lot of this book went over my head. Why? Because at the time, I was doing more reading than writing. It was only when I was immersed in writing that I began to understand what the hell all these How To books were talking about.

It was at about this stage that I bought Story by Robert McKee - a fat book if there ever was one. The introduction was fantastic, with statements in boldface like:

Story is about mastering the art, not second-guessing the marketplace.

Or:

Story is about respect, not disdain, for the audience.

Or:

Story is about archetypes, not stereotypes.

Brilliant! But the rest of it ... well, I found it hard to read. It dazzled me with jargon - the Structure Spectrum, Character Revelation, Ironic Ascension ... and I'm ashamed to say I gave up and put it aside for a year or three.

I had written three novels before I picked it up again. I'd done some time at the coalface - walked into all the blind alleys, took all the wrong turns, wrote and rewrote the words that refused to come to life. And reading Story again, things that confused me before began to make sense. It turned out that practical experience was necessary to really get the most out of the book.  I had found another bible but I had needed to live my craft before I could make use of it.

'Show don't tell' is a call for artistry and discipline, a warning to us not to give in to laziness but to set creative limitations that demand the fullest use of imagination and sweat. Dramatizing every turn into a natural, seamless flow of scenes is hard work, but when we allow ourselves the comfort of 'on the nose' narration we gut our creativity, eliminate the audience's curiosity, and destroy narrative drive. Story by Robert McKee

Even though I wasn't ready to read McKee, I was learning a hell of a lot from other books.

I had a major eureka moment while reading Solutions for Novelists by Sol Stein. It might seem obvious to some of you but it wasn't obvious to me then that a novel is an unfolding. What you don't reveal will drive the reader to keep reading.

As a journalist, I had been trained that it was imperative to state the 'So What' of a news story within the first paragraphs. I had to forget all that.

'The engine of fiction is somebody wanting something and going out to get it,' says Stein. 'And if you let him get it right away, you're killing the story.'

If you build a scene, don't let the reader's emotions rest. Salt your buildup with ominous detail. At the end of each chapter, be sure you are thrusting the reader forward to the next chapter, then don't take the reader where the reader wants to go. Solutions for Novelists by Sol Stein

I am embarrassed to admit that it took me a long, long time to face the fact that I needed to learn how to plot. How I wish I'd started thinking about plot earlier. It would have saved me a lot of years of aimless writing.

I thought I understood plotting. I thought my years as a reader had taught me all I knew. Plotting was story wasn't it?

But there was more to plotting than I thought and I only really focused on figuring it out when I attended a workshop taught by Lee Weatherly on writing synopses.

Lee was trying to show us how easy it was to write a synopsis if we simply built the synopsis on the framework of the three acts of our story.

Lee showed us a  graph that looked something like this one I found on Sara Wilson Etienne's website.

What's missing in this diagram is somewhere near the peak should be labelled 'the rug-pulling moment'

Three acts? What three acts? If I had read Story by Robert McKee, I would have known by then that novels and screenplays were built in acts. And I would have know about rising tension, that the stakes had to become higher with every scene. That at some point, the character reaches a crisis - Lee called it a 'rug-pulling moment' - when everything seems lost.

It took Lee Weatherly's diagram to tell me that I needed to get on top of plotting.

I bought Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. 

Bell starts the book with his own journey story. He was a lawyer with an itch to write novels. But he decided he couldn't write because he was told 'Writing cannot be taught'.

But the itch wouldn't go away so he set out systematically to learn the craft. And discovered that 'Writing cannot be taught' was a big lie. Because he was learning.

It was through Bell's brilliant book that I learned about the three act structure, about how you move from one act to another the way you move through doors - doors of no return. And I learned that if a reader is to read on, stakes must rise, things must get worse.

Fiction is forward moving. If you frontload with backstory - those events that happened to the characters before the main plot - it feels like stalling. Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell

Thinking about plot led me to 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B. Tobias. There are lots of books that try to reduce plots to the lowest common denominators - they say all the stories in the world can be reduced to seven basic plots, or ten, or 12 ...

'The trick for any author is to find out what works for him and then do it. The same is true when it comes to plot,' Tobias says. 'How many plots are there? The real question is, "Does it really matter how many plots there are?" Not really. What matters is your understanding of the story and how to create a pattern of plot that works for it.'

I was after a quick fix when I was looking at books about plot. I chose Tobias' book because of the simplicity of his structure. He would outline the basics of a particular plot structure and then provide a checklist on how to develop the story. The checklist for the maturation (coming of age) plot for example includes the following:

1. Create a protagonist who is on the cusp of adulthood, whose goals are either confused or not yet clarified.
2. Make sure the audience understands who the character is ... before an event occurs that begins the process of change.
3. Contrast your protagonist's naive life (childhood) against the reality of an unprotected life (adulthood)

... and so on.

It sounds stupid and obvious, reading it like this. But when you're immersed in creating a story, you are easily overwhelmed by the world of your imagination.

These books have transformed me as a writer and yet I haven't been a loyal friend to them, hiding their covers when I'm reading them in public places - because it's embarrassing isn't it, to be seen with a How To book in public. It's an admission of ignorance - you're no author, you're a  learner.

Ah, but allow me to quote Neil Gaiman quoting his friend Gene Wolfe for the nth time on the subject: 'You never learn to write a novel.  You only learn to write the novel you're on.'

Anyone who is setting out to write a book asks herself, 'What is my story?'

We could always use a little help finding the answer to that question.

Visit my author blog on www.candygourlay.com - in my latest post, The Writer is You, I ask why it's so hard to give others permission to pursue their passions.

@candygourlay Thank you for the kind mention of Plot & Structure in your post. http://t.co/g68Ms9fGp7

— James Scott Bell (@jamesscottbell) January 24, 2014

Learning to Write - a writer's journey in How To books: http://t.co/ULf8T8MQ8W @candygourlay

— Elizabeth S Craig (@elizabethscraig) January 24, 2014

Maureen says, 'Show Not Tell.'

By Maureen Lynas

Look, I'm cross. Can't you tell?
Do I have to actually spell it out for you!
Grrrrrrrrr

I once attended an excellent weekend course run by Cornerstones Literary Consultancy. Each day was split into sessions based on plot, character, settings etc. and all was well until we reached the session on ‘Show Not Tell’ Blank looks all round. Explanations were given. Examples were given. But blank looks persisted. In the end, the tutor had to say, ‘One day you’ll all shout ‘eureka’ and the light bulb will click on.’

Maureen says, 'Yabadabadoo, Me Hearties!'

Blistering barnacles!

Me head's exploding! 

By Maureen Lynas

The Five Bricks of Story and Life

by Maureen Lynas

Eureka!

Orrible Enrietta

I'm always on the look out for patterns and structures when I'm analysing books and characters and this week was a breakthrough week for me. My last blog was on the Seven Steps of Structure and I thought the last three steps Reveal, Reflect and React needed a bit more analysis. So I got out the highlighters and put Horrid Henry (and his new friend Enrietta) back under the microscope.

Eureka! No 1

I thought I'd spotted the 3R's as a repeating pattern throughout the work, and not just after the EVENT as previously indicated.

I'll show you what I mean but I'll use Orrible Enrietta to give an example instead of Horrible Henry in case I'm sued.

Reveal

Orrible Enrietta sneaked back into the kitchen for the chocolate.

Reflect

'Chocolate is for kids. Grown ups should eat carrots and soggy cabbage. It's my human right to eat that chocolate. So I will!'

Action

Orrible Enrietta stuffed the chocolate in her mouth.

But something didn't seem quite right. Some sentences, paragraphs didn't fit the pattern – what were they doing, if they weren't revealing, reflecting, or reacting.

So I decided to check my research and went back to James Scott Bell's Revision and Self-Editing but when I looked in the book the three R's were not there! Even though that's where I was convinced I'd discovered them. What was there was –

Action Scenes – Objective, Obstacle, Outcome.
Reaction Scenes – Emotion, Analysis, Decision.

Interesting! And now I was having…

Eureka! No 2! I had discovered The 5 Bricks of The Scene.

If this is a good old secret known to many then that’s brilliant. But it’s new news to me.

The Bricks of The Scene is what story structure is built from.

Something is revealed
There is an emotional response.
There is reflection/discussion
There is a decision
There is action

For example

Reveal

Orrible Enrietta was watching Zombie's Rule, OK.

'It's your turn to wash the dishes,' said Mum.

Emote

'No! Not fair!'

Reflect/discuss

'I did it last year! Why can't we use paper plates. Why do we have to use stinky proper plates like rich people? I'm too young. I'm too clumsy!' 
That'll get her, thought Orrible Enrietta. Mum won't want her precious plates smashed.

But mum was one step ahead of her. 'Any breakages come out of your pocket money.'
Emote
Grrr.
Reflect/Discuss
I'll think of something, thought Enrietta stomping into the kitchen. What would a genius do?

Decision

Aha!  I'll wash them all right. But I won't clean them.

Reaction/action

Orrible Enrietta turned the cold water on. She rinsed the spaghetti off each plate and into the sink. Then stacked each plate on the draining board. I'll leave the tap on, she thought. It'll wash the spaghetti away. Then I won’t have to wash the sink either. I am sooooooo brilliant!

'Done Mum,' she shouted. She dashed back into the living room just as the Zombies chanted, 'Blood, blood, brains and blood. You should run, oh yes, you should.'

That seems a lot better. But I hear you cry (those of you who don’t want to follow rules or patterns)

Are there rules to break?

Yes! It doesn't have to be as prescriptive as it sounds. But rule and patterns are there for a reason, if you apply these bricks to any event, they will be there e.g. I want toast. There’s no butter. Damn it! Shall I go to the shops or have cereal? I’ll have cereal. I eat cereal. They really are the bricks of life not just story.

The reveal and emotion bricks can be alternated to escalate the emotional reaction to the reveal.

Here’s a different scenario.

Reveal

Mum interrupted Zombies Rule, OK. 'Mrs Knowitall is coming for tea,' she said.

Emote

Noooooo, thought Orrible Enrietta.

Reveal

'She's bringing Nigel Knowitall for you to play with.'

Emote

Nooooooooooooo, thought Orrible Enrietta.

Reveal

'And the baby.'

Emote

'Nooooooooooooooooooo! 

Not the BABY! Anything but the BABY!'

I hate the baby!

The emotion and reflection/discussion bricks can be alternated to escalate the panic of the situation.

Reflect/discuss

I need an incredibly clever plan that only I can think of.

Emote

Aaargh! I can't think of one!

Reflect/discuss

I'll hide. Under the bed.

Emote

Grrr. Mum always looks there first.

Refelect/discuss

'Blood, blood, brains and blood,' chanted the zombies on TV.

If only I was a zombie, thought Enrietta. No one would ever come to the house if I was a zombie.

Decision

That's it! I'll be a zombie!

Once the decision is made there can be no more reflection/discussion.

Action

'Blood, blood, brains and blood,' chanted Enrietta. She shuffled towards the door, her arms stretched out in front. 'I need flour and jam and mud.'

What can be missed out?

I'm very interested in 'the gap'. The gap we leave for the reader to fill. This is probably the basis of 'show not tell' (will think more deeply on this, that could be a giant blog post). But for now this is what I think happens. We invite the reader to infer something because we have missed something out. We give them a role to play in the story and they fill the gap with their own life experiences and knowledge. I also think this is where subjectivity comes in to play. People like books that allow them to fill the gap easily. They relate to the gap you leave.

So what can we leave out? The reveal? The emotion? The reflection/discussion? The decision? The action? Are Reveal and Reaction essential? Does leaving out emote or reflect provide the gap for the reader? Let's have a go. Let's go back to the washing up scene-

Reaction/action

I'll leave the tap on, she thought. It'll wash the spaghetti away. Then I won’t have to wash the sink either. I am sooooooo brilliant!

'Done Mum,' she shouted. She dashed back into the living room just as the Zombies chanted, 'Blood, blood, brains and blood. You should run, oh yes, you should.'

Don't Reveal

the sink has overflowed.

Emote

'Enrietta!' cried Mum, storming into the living room.

Reveal

Her slippers left soggy footprints on the floor.

Emote

'You are in soooo much trouble.'

The missing reveal from the text is implied by Mum's emotional reaction. We as adults would be able to fill the gap. But could children? Young children don't have the skill to infer so the gap may be filled by an illustration. Which is why it's essential to discuss the text and illustrations with them: to make sure they have the whole picture.

So, what's on each brick?

Reveal

In no particular order

Who’s there.

The setting.

The obstacle.

The objective.

The tone.

etc

Emote

Any!

But it should be right for your character type. Horrible Henry would be unlikely to do sadness. His main emotions are frustration and joy.

Reflect/discuss

The situation.

The emotion.

The problem.

The consequences.

etc

Decision

The protagonist must make a decision that will carry the story forward. He/she can have the decision made for them depending on the story (a bomb goes off so they must move on, the decision is out of his/her hands) but if all decisions are made for them then it isn’t really the protagonists story is it?

Action

The action should be based on the decision and should move the story along. We're not talking action as in – she waved her hand at Mum. We're talking – so I plastered my face with flour and dribbled on jam for the scars and lay in wait for the BABY.

So

The story layers seem to be

The finished structure (Hero’s Journey, Romantic Comedy etc) is created using –

The 7 steps of pacing and plotting (name, preview, contrast, EVENT, reveal, reflect, react)

Which are built with –

The 5 bricks of The Scene (Reveal, emote, reflect/discuss, decide, act)

And I’m wishing I’d called the 7 steps something else! That fits the analogy of a building. The 7 girders?

And then, I hear you cry over the internet, ‘What about the cement? What's glueing it all together?

Well, that would be the...

WORDS! 

Happy writing

Maureen 

Maureen Lynas blogs intermittently on her own blog which she creatively named - Maureen Lynas

She is the author of
The Action Words Reading Scheme
Florence and the Meanies
The Funeverse poetry site.