Kristi Petersen Schoonover on writing in flashback

I'm pleased to welcome Kristi Petersen Schoonover. Kristi writes short and long fiction in the horror vein, including her newest story, "This Poisoned Ground." Today she offers some great advice about a tricky technique: writing a scene or whole story as a flashback.

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Five Tips for Firm Flashbacks

by Kristi Petersen Schoonover

2011 brought an opportunity to pen a Poe-inspired, modern gothic romance under 10,000 words. My work is already influenced by Poe, so I thought the writing of my most recently published piece, “This Poisoned Ground,” would be “no sweat.”

I was wrong.

The trouble was in the telling of a love story that spanned decades. In order to properly weight the horrific ending, the reader needed to understand that there was a developing situation over a long period. How should I do that? I couldn’t write the sentence ‘they argued for thirty years’ because then my ending wouldn’t be justified—the reader had to see how awful things were. Conversely, I couldn’t start at the beginning of their relationship and spoon it out because the story would crawl (true of all lengths: Don’t ever fill any space with things that don’t need to be there).

It could be done through flashback—a fully-fleshed out scene in which we bring the reader to the past, to the time before the current story is happening. A flashback is also meant to illustrate an intangible, such as “Mom was mean” or “they were madly in love.”

But flashback’s a sticky wicket: There’s a right way and a wrong way, and doing it right can be a challenge. Here are my five tips for firm flashbacks.

Ask. Is what’s being shared only illustrated effectively through flashback? Or can it be mentioned in the character’s current thought process? “He remembered when Dad drank seven sodas a day” doesn’t need a flashback built around it if it’s just a description to flesh out Dad’s personality. If, however, it sparks the beginning of Dad’s diabetes and the protagonist’s emotional response, or is integral to conflict between them, the answer to the flashback question may be yes.

Pivot. In real life, a memory/reflection is triggered by something—an object, statement, smell, song. Use these “triggers” to usher in the flashback, making for a smooth transition. Does the protagonist find a cup her mother had given her, making her recall a specific incident which would reveal some critical aspect of their relationship? Use the cup to usher in the scene. In addition, be sure the pivot piece plays a role—no matter how minor—in the current time of the story; don’t use it as a throwaway device.

Ground. Ground the flashback in time and place, and be clear: “twenty years ago, back on their farm” is preferable to “When I wore bell-bottoms on a Wednesday at fourteen minutes past the hour.” And yes, separators can offset a flashback, but a # symbol doesn’t substitute for solid grounding.

Trim. Only show the critical bits. If the point is the protagonist has finally flipped her lid and it takes place at a restaurant, we may not need to see the couple meeting there, ordering, et cetera, but we DO need to see that when dessert is served, she tries to stab someone with a fork after a couple of lines of incendiary dialogue.

Time. Make sure the length of the scene is appropriate. Too long, the reader is pulled out of the current story; too short, the reader could get disoriented. If it’s too long, consider breaking it up into a few flashbacks—or be certain that everything depicted is really necessary. If it’s too short, it may not need to be rendered in flashback; consider a brief mention within the current time instead.

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Blurb for "This Poisoned Ground": 

They say you hurt the ones you love most. No one ever talks about when they hurt you back.

Just after dawn on the hottest day East Providence has endured in a hundred summers, Todd, a bit of a ladies’ man, finds his prized rose bush dead. This is only the first in an ever-more-ominous series of events, and someone…or something…is trying to invade his home.

In the tradition of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Ligeia,” and Aura comes a gripping tale of love, lust…and regret.

“This Poisoned Ground” will be in wide release January 28. For now, it is available for 99¢ in all e-formats at the publisher’s website.

To learn more about Kristi Petersen Schoonover, visit her website.

Matthew Guerruckey on using Marvel's comic techniques in storytelling

I got to know Matthew Guerruckey when I contributed some stories to his wonderful online literary magazine, Drunk Monkeys. He's a writer as well as an editor, and I'm delighted

that he's joining us today to share a very interesting (and practical) perspective on storytelling.

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HOW TO WRITE FICTION THE MARVEL WAY

By Matthew Guerruckey

I ended up a writer, but my earliest ambition was to be a comic-book artist. One of my first memories is of lying on the shag carpet at my grandmother’s house drawing stick figure superheroes. (Superman was a blob with a cape and a curl, Batman was a blob with a cape and pointy ears).

The first college course I took was on the Art of Cartooning. It was my first formal training, not only in art, but in storytelling. While other writers were analyzing Hemingway, Woolf, and Fitzgerald I was doing the same with Peanuts, Looney Tunes, and Marvel Comics. During that time I came across an instructional book that remains my favorite to this day: How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema.

Stan Lee is the co-creator (along with artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) of some of the most enduring characters in pop culture history. In 1962 alone Lee and his artists created Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor (that last one with an assist from ancient Norse legend). Stan imbued his comics with a folksy, alliterative charm. The same goes for How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Stan boasts that by reading the book you will be able to tell your own stories in the “mildly magnificent Marvel style”. In spite of its cheesiness, the book contains solid tips on how to approach not just comic art but any kind of storytelling.

In the book, artists are advised to begin drawing the figure using basic shapes, like circles and cylinders. After those basic forms are in place, you scribble lines to fill in the rest of the figure—after all, the drawing will be erased and covered in pen later. At that early stage there’s no such thing as a wrong line.

That holds true for writing as well. A common cause of writer’s block is the fear that your words must be “correct” right away. But if you look at that rough draft as a scribble, you’ll see that there are no mistakes. In the same way that a comic artist traces over their previous work to refine their drawing, you’ll rewrite each word until it finds its proper inflection.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way can tell you how to write a scene as well. It presents several examples of ”boring” composition, and then next to them shows the correct “Marvel” way of drawing the same scene. Their examples seem like self-parody, filled with extreme angles, high drama, and zero subtlety, but it’s an important lesson. Every scene you write should contain enough drama, even if it’s subtly portrayed, to keep the reader engaged. You don’t have to be a garish showman like Stan, but continually crafting interesting moments is the key to holding a reader’s interest.

In drawing comics, you absolutely have to know what your story is and how it will be told before you begin drawing. The medium demands it. Fiction does as well. If you don’t know why you’re writing your story and where you would like it to go (even if the ending isn’t set in stone), your readers won’t know why they should be reading it.

But the most important thing I’ve learned from comics about writing isn’t contained in the pages of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, but spread out over the collected works of Lee and his collaborators. For decades on end they just kept creating. Some of it was garbage, some of it was genius, but they kept at it, and the garbage made way for the genius and the genius elevated the garbage. Keep writing, no matter what it is, and you have no idea how far you can go. Excelsior! 

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Check out Matthew Guerruckey's lit zine Drunk Monkeys and his indie publishing company Marginalia Publishing.

Jennifer Allis Provost on the genesis of COPPER GIRL

As an author, finding out what you're actually writing can be quite an adventure and surprise. Jennifer Allis Provost shares with us the journey of discovery she took with her new novel, Copper Girl.

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Story First, Genre Later

Thank you, Anne, for letting me stop by! I’m Jennifer Allis Provost, and I’m going to talk about the convoluted path I took writing my latest release, Copper Girl.

I began Copper Girl with the scrap of an idea gleaned from my boring job as a cubicle monkey. While this seed was germinating, a few other ideas fluttered forth, and before I knew it, I had the makings of a story: I was going to write a YA dystopia.

Or so I thought.

In this initial version, the main character, Sara Corbeau, lived in a world that used to be full of magic, but no one believed in it anymore. Then Sara started seeing a man in her dreams, who turned out to be an elf lord from the Otherworld. Sara even had a snarky best friend, who disbelieved in everything magical, and worried that Sara was losing her mind.

Well, that didn’t work.

You see, an integral part of Sara’s journey revolves around her boring desk job. (I know, art imitating life at its finest) Most teens don’t have full-time office jobs, so that, along with the romance level in the book, pretty much knocked Copper Girl right out of the YA ballpark. Taking a cue from said romance level, I set out to rewrite it as a paranormal romance.

Or so I thought.

In this version, Sara and the dreamy elf lord, Micah, meet in their physical forms fairly early on, and establish a relationship. I also moved a good portion of the action to the Otherworld, and added some political drama. Since I had also added the Element-based magic system during this go-round, this is when Sara actually became a copper girl.

That version didn’t work either.

Ack.

Before I started the third rewrite, I took some time to really think about the plot. So Sara worked at a lame office job, then an elf showed up in her dreams, and chaos ensued. That’s all well and good, but what was the chaos ensuing to? Then it hit me, the integral part that I was missing:

What the heck was the point of this story?

And that, dear reader, is exactly what Copper Girl had been missing. The characters were there, but the stakes weren’t high enough. I didn’t really understand what Sara wanted badly enough to defy her totalitarian government and begin using magic again. Then it hit me.

That totalitarian government had taken her brother away ten years ago, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Shortly after this revelation, Copper Girl went through its third and final major rewrite, and became a dystopian-flavored urban fantasy. Snarky best friend stayed, missing brother entered, and the rest of the story fell into place. The best part about this version was that it flowed. The words almost arranged themselves on the computer screen, and the plot never felt slow or stilted.

This was the story, just as it was meant to be. Finally, I’d thought right.

It took almost a year of rewrites, crumpled sticky notes, and anguished calls and emails to editors and critique partners before Copper Girl finally came together. But, you know what? In the end, it was all worth it.

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Learn more about Jennifer Allis Provost on her website.

Purchase Copper Girl on Amazon.

The great WIP race

I'm in a tizzy, to use an old expression. I have four novel-length works in progress. That in itself is not unusual for me. What's weird is that, this time around, there isn't one work that's truly leaping forward, causing me to forget the others for several months while I finish it.

After I finish a novel, I usually have a couple weeks of this state of confusion. But it's lasted a couple of months now, and I'm getting concerned. I have at my fingertips four works with very different purposes, which is making it particularly difficult to choose. And I think part of my problem is that I'm shying away from  the bigger challenge, yet part of me knows I should embrace the challenge.

Here they are, ranked in order of scariness, with No. 1 being the least terrifying to me:

1. A second sequel to my humorous (adult) sci-fi novel, Green Light Delivery. I think of this as the easy path, since I'm accustomed to the characters and world they live in. This is fully plotted and fun to work on.

2. A sequel to the middle-grade historical I'm currently shopping to agents. This is embryonic, with only a bit of research and plotting done. My main interest here is to have something available if and agent/publisher is interested.

3. A serious YA sci-fi, which I've been working on for two years. I really like the concept of this, but it's very complicated and some days I get exhausted just thinking about it. If I do this, it must be done right. I have about 12K words written and a full plot outline.

4. A very personal, long, mixed-genre piece that's my "desk-drawer novel," coming together slowly over the past five or six years. It's scary because it's the biggest emotional investment. Because of its topic, it's rather time-sensitive. I also know it will be an extremely hard sell, but it means a great deal to me to push it out into the world. And the wonderful, open-minded sci-fi publisher I work with (Candlemark & Gleam) may be my only chance ever to get someone even to consider it.

Eventually, I'll figure this out and commit to one work. Have you ever had this issue, not being able to decide what's the best thing to dive into with your whole heart and mind?

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For more info on my published novels, please visit my website.

Novelist Justin Robinson Admits He Loves Outlines

Plotter or pantser? It's the eternal writer's question. Justin Robinson, who is celebrating the launch of his very funny suspense novel, Mr Blank, shares his thoughts on how he learned to stop pantsing and love the outline.

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The Importance of Outlines

Back in August, I volunteered over at Marshall High for career day.  Long time readers will remember this as the site of the Afterschool Special “Two Loves for Jenny,” which somehow forgot to include a single character named Jenny.  I was over there because the college counselor inexplicably thought I could have some wisdom to offer high school kids beyond toothpaste making beer taste funny.  I found myself sitting in the lunch area with a little sign that said “Justin Robinson -- Writer” as about sixty teenagers wandered from table to table to chat with the various professionals (and me) scattered throughout.

I bumbled, stammered, and joked my way through the two hours, otherwise known as how I deal with every social situation.  The kids asked a variety of questions, but the one thing I kept returning to was the importance of The Outline.  I used to turn my nose up at the thought, not because it was a bad idea, but because it smacked of work, something that writing couldn’t be.  Accepting that not only is writing work, but is occasionally hard work, is one of the more important steps to doing this sort of thing as a living.  And come on, it’s not like construction workers throw up buildings off the top of their heads.  Someone makes an actual drawing beforehand sometimes.  Books are a lot like buildings, except that barely anyone pees in books.

I’m a compulsive outliner now.  My first novel, Subspace, was the only one I did without an outline, and I got away with it because it already existed as a novella.  When I sat down to write Mr. Blank, I wanted to avoid the issues of stalling out and rambling on that plagued me in the past.  This would require outlining.  I started out knowing I would need exactly 23 chapters (required if you’re writing anything about conspiracies), and went from there.  Each chapter was structured around a conflict between the narrator and some representative of the Information Underground.  Since chapter 12 would be the middle, it would serve the fulcrum of the book, where our hero would develop the hypothesis that carries him through the rest of the story.

There’s a tendency to want to follow an outline slavishly, and it stems from the same place as a reluctance to rewrite.  It’s the weird sense that the words came from on high and are binding contracts.  They’re not.  The outline is a tool, not a master.  Sometimes, either what I’ve outlined isn’t possible to write or sounded better in the outlining phase than it looks on the page.  When that happens, I look at both the outline and the book.  I try to figure out my reason for outlining it that way.  Was it a solid reason, or was it just because I lacked perspective on the book as a whole?  While writing, did I make some breakthrough on character or plot?  Am I missing out on a good moment, or did I outline something no sane person could ever communicate?

Outlines are important for the same reason you don’t wear white to a pie-eating contest.  Be prepared, and you won’t feel quite so silly while fishing raspberries out of your sinuses.

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You can learn more about Justin Robinson on his website.

You can purchase Mr Blank from the publisher, or on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

[Note: I moderate comments, so yours might not show up immediately.]

More and Better: Thoughts on Sequels

"The sequel is never as good as the original."

That maxim makes me shudder, now that I'm at the point of planning and writing sequels to two of my novels. Will the readers love them like they loved the first ones? Heck, will the publishers even want them? Which characters do I continue? How many successful elements of the first story should I re-use in the second to keep it consistent but not repetitive?

The good new is that sequels in literature don't have the same poor-cousin reputation as sequels in Hollywood. Publishers have been smart enough to market books as series rather than sequels. "Series" is a term with considerably more cache, since it implies a set of equals rather than an original followed by hangers-on and imitations.

There's also the honorable history of the sequel/series, dating back to ancient literature. If you liked Oedipus Rex, you'll love Oedipus at Colonus. Enjoyed Horace's Odes? Well, rush right out and buy a rolled papyrus copy of Horace's Epodes.

Oh, and then there's The Iliad, followed by The Odyssey. Wait, you're one of those nay-saying types who think they were written by two different people? Ah, the ghost-written sequel. Definitely a topic for another day.

What has been your experience reading (or writing) sequels?

Help me, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!

I decided to start working again on a middle grade mystery novel I'd shelved 18 months ago because I got involved with other projects.

Today I printed out the four drafted chapters and the projected synopsis I'd written for the other twelve chapters, and took the bundle over to a coffee shop to read while I had a muffin. As I paged through, the prose was looking pretty decent, or at least salvageable, but I couldn't for the life of me remember the story. So, with great curiosity, I skimmed the synopsis.

When I got to the description of chapter 9, I laughed out loud and choked on my muffin. It said, "Something must happen to give them a clue. WHAT??? And how would they know?" And the last sentence was in red ink: "This plot ain't working."

And that's my ninth chapter! Weirdly, there's a lot of detail for chapters 10-16. But I've got a hole in the middle of my mystery, apparently. Do you plot around problems and sort them out later?

Do you outline or extemporize?

Oh, I've been involved in a scary experiment.

Usually I outline carefully before I write anything, especially a novel-length piece. For my current WIP, I decided just to plunge in without a plan, in hopes that it would make the main character seem lost and wandering. The first half (30,000 words) went great, but then I just couldn't go on. Of course, it was because I didn't know where the story was headed, or what the point of all of it was. Just wandering only worked for so long. There had to be a goal.

Yesterday I realized it was time to do the old outlining bit. It had never occurred to me before this that I could wing it for the first half and outline the second half, combining the two approaches. I did so, and now I know exactly where I'm going.

I'm not telling my main character yet, though. Don't want to ruin the surprise for him!

How thoroughly do you outline? Have you ever tried to grow a plot organically as you write, without the plotpoints in place?