Planning [jwplayer config=”Internal” mediaid=”1558″]
Hello. This is Elizabeth Stark in the Book Writing World Welcome to week five of Planning Your Book. Today we’re going to talk about talking about your story. That is, we’re going to start to nail down what the story is about.
In Hollywood, people make sales on the basis of a two-line pitch. That’s not really how it works for novelists (except in your query letter to agents), but this is going to help us begin to hone in on our projects. The idea here is to crystallize the core elements of your story, which you will build and tweak in this course until you have something strong enough that it can support the 60,000 – 120,000 words you are going to pile onto it.
There are three main elements in a pitch: the main character, what motivates that character, and the conflict brought about by the obstacles that prevent the character from getting what she or he wants.
Character: Who is the main character? We’ll discuss and develop character more in the weeks to come, but start here by giving us the key information about your protagonist. Of course, one of the strongest ways to draw a character is to show what that character wants.
Motivation: What does your protagonist want? This is a very important choice, because if you make the desire weak or easily attainable, your story will die in the water. If your character wants some milk, all she has to do is go to the grocery store, right? Unless you create a world in which milk is a rare treat allowed only to certain sectors of society . . . If your character wants some milk, but is contented to drink a bit of tap water instead, your story ends at the sink. So this must be a STRONG desire that your character cannot let go of, a desire for something difficult to obtain because of the obstacles and conflicts in the way.
Conflicts and obstacles: So what’s stopping your character from getting what she or he wants? This has to be at least as strong a force as your character’s motivation–it has to keep pushing back and preventing your character’s success until the end of the book.
Examples:
Novel:
A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor – these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip’s life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens’ haunting late novel depicts Pip’s education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his ‘great expectations’.
Great Expectation by Charles Dickens
Memoir:
Karr’s longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting blueblood poet produces a son they adore. But she can’t outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in “The Mental Marriott,” with an oddball tribe of gurus and saviors, awakens her to the possibility of joy and leads her to an unlikely faith. Not since Saint Augustine cried, “Give me chastity, Lord-but not yet!” has a conversion story rung with such dark hilarity.
Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr’s relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up–as only Mary Karr can tell it.
Lit by Mary Karr
Academic:
The Western Canon is more than just a required-reading list–it is a vision. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues eloquently and brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the great works and essential writers of the ages . . .
The Western Canon by Harold Bloom
Note the way the Canon–book and concept–becomes a character waging a battle against politicization.
Fairytale:
A young woman oppressed by the demands of her stepmother and stepsisters, who treat her as their maid, seeks the escape offer by a ball thrown by the prince to find himself wife. With nothing to wear and a step-family determined to destroy her every advantage, Cinderella is given reprieve in the form of magic wrought by her fairy godmother. But even magic has its limits, and nothing short of courage and fate will bring Cinderella her happy ending.
Cinderella
You tend to find pitches in the jacket copy for published novels. For these, the pitches themselves tend to be the middle portion, book-ended by some other stuff–praise, context and summary. (If you want to include this in your pitch assignment, go for it!) Troll powells.com or amazon.com for your own examples from your favorite books.
Remember: Character, motivation, obstacles. See if you can find each of these elements in the examples above.