June 2009 Writing Tip!

Rather than post a writing tip this month, as a treat I thought I'd give you an entire lesson from one of my classes.

This is Lesson one from one of my most popular online classes, Journey Steps, Taking the Train to Somewhere.


Lesson One: What are Journey Steps?

Lots of speakers, writers and pundits define plot points as four or five major events of your story, pivotal points, points of change or twists that take the story in a different direction. High points of the story.

Couldn’t agree more. But when I would sit down to write a book, I’d come up with four or five “high points” and have no idea what to put in between those high points. So I dug deeper and that’s when I discovered “Journey Steps.” Actually, I might have made them up. But they work, so you might want to try them too.

What are Journey Steps?

In Susan Meier World – which is a little bit like a theme park but you have to “work” on the rides -- Journey Steps are the steps it takes your main character (protagonist) to get from who he or she is at the opening of the book – the inciting incident, the terrible trouble, the day/moment everything changed – to who he or she is at the resolution of the trouble and the satisfying conclusion.

Note that I don’t say it’s the steps from one plot point to another…though I could. I like to see the big picture of a story. The journey. Though obviously plot points do shake things up on the journey, they are still “steps” and if I don’t make a big deal out of them (LOL) I see my whole story unfolding as "steps." Plot points being more important steps, but still steps –

And steps are action, and action breeds a reaction and reaction breeds decision, which always breeds action, which breeds a reaction, which breeds a decision and on and on and on. When I discovered this action/reaction/decision sequence in books by Jack Bickham and Dwight Swain, I started calling it a magic formula for plotting because it is. If you follow action/reaction and decision, you can not only tell a story, you can tell it in a tight, focused way.

Which should be all of our goal!

But when I figured all this stuff out, I also realized that to be able to plot well, a writer also needed to understand story, scene and word. These are actually the three levels on which we write. If you want to write a good novel, you must be able to come up with a story, manifest that story through scenes and be able to build those scenes using words.

Today, for the purposes of understanding journey steps, words don't concern us. But scenes sure as heck do. Why? Because the basis of every scene should be a journey step. But even scenes don’t yet concern us because before you can come up with scenes that manifest your story, you have to have a story.

Lots of people groan at that, but you have to know your story. For the pantsers among us, you don't have to get fancy and/or specific and do an outline that ruins your fun. In fact, the less fancy or specific you are the better. Having a one sentence or one paragraph description of your story is enough to begin figuring out journey steps. From there you can write each scene individually and come up with your journey steps as you go along. So your pantser fun isn’t ruined!

But you have to know at least the bare bones of your story to come up with the “correct” first journey step. The important one that starts the book.

Okay, so what does a one-line or one-paragraph story description look like?


How about this: Hero and heroine must catch a killer but she's already been arrested for the crime and he's the DA prosecuting her.

Short, succinct, no fun spoiling, but enough to come up with a great opening scene.

Here's another: Driving home from Vegas, where the heroine ran when she realized she didn't want to marry her fiancée, the hero and heroine realize they are incredibly attracted. But the hero won't do anything about the attraction because the heroine's ex-fiancée is his BOSS.

(By the way, I call this a story summary and it's one of those things we'll work on at the end of the workshop, when we discuss tools!)

Once you have your one paragraph or one sentence idea, the "steps" or journey steps, are the way you tell that story. And basically you illustrate those "steps" in scenes.

(I actually give a workshop on story, scene and word. Writing on 3 levels because writing a novel involves three distinct abilities. The ability to come up with a great story. The ability to tell that story in scenes and the ability to create those scenes using words.)

Anyway… You now know that in order to figure out your journey steps, you need to know your story -- at least the bare-bones idea.

And that’s it for lesson one. For your assignment, I’d like you to see if you can condense your story down to one line or one short, succinct paragraph that tells the kind of story it is and the overall GMC.

One caveat is that you never want to say the words…The hero’s goal is…or the Heroine’s motivation is…You want them to blend seamlessly into your sentence.

Remember our example? The hero and heroine must catch a killer but she’s already been arrested for the crime and he’s the DA prosecuting her?

Do you know what their goal is? Yes, to catch a killer.
Do you know what their motivation is? Yes…they’re trying to save her. Well, she’s trying to save herself. He’s trying to make sure the right person is prosecuted for the crime.
Do you know what their conflict is? Sure. They are on opposite sides of a battle; but also, they’re running against the clock. They can’t be attracted because of being on opposite ends of a battle. He WILL prosecute her if the evidence turns him in that direction.

Do you see how I took all that “stuff” and turned it into one sentence?

THAT’s what you need to do with your book!