Soggy Middles and Tension Headaches

The middle of a manuscript may be the hardest part to write. If writing yours is giving you a tension headache, here are some ideas.
Like an overly-laden peanut butter sandwich, manuscript middles can get soggy. To keep the reader interested, however, we have to fix this peanut butter jam (sorry) because manuscripts, unlike people, thrive on tension.
I recently analyzed a book with the intent to improve my own plotting. About a third of the way through, my interest slowed. So I outlined the middle chapters, rating the escalation of tension for each.
Events still happened in the story, but the plot seemed to move around instead of up. An article in the January 2011 Writer’s Digest helped me identify why. “The story needs to progress toward more and more conflict, with…deeper tension…Because of that, repetition is the enemy of escalation.” 3 Secrets to Great Storytelling, Steven James, Writers Digest, January 2011, p. 41.
The book had several chapters in which the main characters did almost the same thing, and the antagonist responded in almost exactly the same way. The repeating pattern explains the going-in-circles feeling. But some repetition is necessary, right? We’re familiar with the rule of threes, originally based in comedy. Fiction writers use it as well. As an example, a plot may require a MC to make three attempts before s/he accomplishes a particular goal. So what’s the difference between a useful rule of three and repetitions that bore the reader?
In the WD article, Steven James points out, “Every murder you include decreases the impact that each subsequent murder will have on the reader. Every explosion, prayer, conversion...means less and less to the readers, simply because repetition, by its very nature, serves to work against the escalation your story so desperately needs.” He urges writers to “Strive, instead, to continually make things worse for the protagonist.”
A while back, I did some editing on an old manuscript. In it, the MC experiences verbal abuse. Knowing that abuse typically goes in cycles, I tried to follow that pattern in my book. Now, however, I know I need to go back and make sure these cycles aren’t acting like so much extra sandwich filling.

I’ve come up with some questions to ask myself:
1. Does each chapter have an important purpose that moves the plot forward?
2. When I use repetition, is there a legitimate purpose and necessity for these repeated events?
3. Does each repetition escalate, the plot tension? Or does it detract from it?

Escalating tension can be one remedy for the headache of soggy manuscript middles. And once you've fixed your manuscript, make sure to enter it in the WIFYR's $1000 contest. www.wifyr.com (see my last post.)

1rst Annual WIFYR Writing Contest and Award

This is really exciting--the WIFYR committee is sponsoring a contest to help a talented writer with the needed funds to further his/her work in progress. Here's the link: http://www.wifyr.com/blog/ That $1,000 could buy a lot of printer ink!


Seriously, this will be a great contest. Here's my tip for you--financial need will be a consideration, but it's just as important to have a great, polished manuscript. Unless you're incredible at first drafts, I wouldn't start something new. Take the manuscript (or picture books) you've been working on and polish until you can see your reflection in it.

If you have questions about who you should ask to write your letters of recommendation, please post them below.

Soon to Come: Writing Contest with $$ Prize

Some really great things are happening at www.wifyr.com. Check out the new blog, and sign up for the newsletter. There's a huge contest in the works, designed to help someone with their work in progress novel. Sign up for the newsletter (link on the site) to find out more!

Paranormal Haiku, Part Two

For Crazy Haikus to Cure Writer's Block, please see my post below.
Meanwhile, I'm bringing forward part of my previous post, this time adding two more crazy haiku. Chris Crowe's blog post introduced me to zombie haiku. http://throwingupwords.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/you-want-haiku-i%E2%80%99ll-give-you-haiku/

This is a great way to practice concise word choice and get the creative life-blood flowing (hee.) I had no idea how therapeutic and addictive these can be. When I wrote these, my mind got going, and the patterns wouldn't stop running through my head.

Since I've wasted valuable writing time on these, I'm going to torture you with the results. After you groan over mine, I challenge you to write some better ones.

Paranormal: (vampires, ghosts, werewolves, goblins, fairies, angels, zombies, etc.), haiku: five syllable first line, seven syllable second line, five again for the third. It can be gory, but please keep it clean. Have fun!

Werewolf forest sign:
Stop in woods on snowy night
Strongly encouraged.

Feathered fall from bliss
Caught by sparking hands at dawn
Vampire eats angel

(My apologies to Jane Austen fans:)
Darcy proclaims love
Vampire Lizzy spurns his plea
The Prey is Pre-juiced

Universal truth
Lone man possessing fortune
But lacks possessed bride

Love binds groom in sleep
Red hourglass weaves night’s web
Widow’s prey at dawn

Computer screen breaks
Tech blames virus, but I know
It’s pixielated
[bad pun, sorry.]

Zombie seeks his prey
Stumbles on ribs now picked clean
Werewolves ate heart’s dream

Green breaks through cold earth
Rebirth reaching toward the sky
Dead hands grab my feet

Lady Finger Cake
Wellington, once Duke, now pie
Zombie peasants feast
[does anyone get this last one? Just curious.]

Crazy Haiku as a Cure for Writer's Block

I hate the times I find myself searching for words I should recall with ease.

I'm calling this writer's word block. When I'd like to use profound, powerful words, I sometimes interrupt my draft with self-notes like:[the mom is crying, but what's an original way to say this?] In the blog Throwing Up Words, author and BYU professor Chris Crowe introduced me to Zombie Haiku. He suggested it as a cure for writer's block, and he's right. http://throwingupwords.wordpress.com. Here's another site that's fun, too: http://www.zombierama.com/brainwaves/haikuform.html

The exercise of condensing thought into the compact 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable pattern is not only addicting, but also helps word selection. While my haiku won't win awards, I'll give two examples. In a scene I'm writing, I have an angry mom who's really just scared. I could say that, but it's boring.

Here are the first two lines of the haiku I started to help me:

Anger coats her words
Stop sign hands, each nail chewed short

I had to play with the third line a lot. It started as "fear beneath each quick"

What I like about haiku is the metal energy of replacing general, bland words with specific, clear language. It should be dense with meaning. This line is unclear.

You might find that even after you stop writing your haiku, it doesn't leave you. My brain will keep repeating the rhythm, trying out new words as I do. So after I'd written this down, another line popped into my head: "each quick fear-knawed deep." Hmm. Sounds nice, but sacrifices clarity for word play, so it's still not right.

Here's what I finally ended up with:

Anger coats her words
Stop sign hands, each nail chewed short
fear knaws down each quick.

In my second scene, a girl goes to a hospital to visit her very ill father. I originally wrote about how she touches her dad's hand and it's cold. That bugged me, and I had trouble writing the rest of the scene. So I wrote out two haikus.

The first one wasn't that great:

Pen sits within reach
Of fingers without strength or will
Another hand signs

If this were my manuscript, I'd insert a note: [boring--better descriptive words?]

The second one accomplished it's purpose. I realize I'd started the scene wrong. The daughter needs to hesitate as she enters the room, move to where she can see his eyes,then, finally, touch his hand.

Head bent close to chest
Child-proud eyes, now daughter-blind
Hand's warmth yet comforts.

Okay, maybe this is too much word play, but I fixed my scene. Notice the dad's hands changed. The warm hands provided the daughter with a needed reminder that even if the dad couldn't see her, the part of him that loved her was still very much alive.

I challenge you to try some haiku. To get the juices flowing, go back to my post on Paranormal Haiku, or better, Chris Crowe's. Post some in the comments--the crazier, the better (as long as they stay PG.)

MOON OVER MANIFEST by Clare Vanderpool

Does a Newbery award-winning book really need a review?

Regardless, I liked it enough that I'm going to do one anyway. All I can say is that when Emily had to do a book report on a historical fiction, and said she hated all historical fiction, I wish this had fit her lexile so she could have read it. Historical, yes, but even my historical-hating daughter would have liked it. Set in the depression, Abilene Tucker gets sent to live in the town of Manifest with an aging bachelor who knew her father. The Preacher is an interesting combination of religious man and moonshiner, and the backdrop of the depression, the beginnings of WWII, and a city whose coal mine makes it a melting pot of cultures, are fascinating. She discovers a treasure box full of items and a gypsy lady who knows the story behind each one. As she hears the stories of Jinx, she learns the untold history of the boy she eventually realizes is her father. Masterfully told through her point of view and the stories, this book deserves the praise it's received.

YOU’LL LIKE IT HERE, EVERYONE DOES by Ruth White

Book Review:

I don’t like it when books surprise me by turning into a fantasy half-way through. This one does have a surprise, but Ruth White handled it so well that I loved it. Loved it enough to tell my picky teen she had to read it. Meggie has nightmares about the man who entered her California classroom with a gun, saying he was an alien hunter and going to shoot the alien. The family, consisting of Mom, Grandpa, Meggie and her brother David, move to a small town where rumors spread of aliens “suck out your soul by your toes,” I had enough hints that something unusual was going on. But what I found out was going on was so exactly the opposite of what I thought that I felt delighted and amazed at Ruth White’s creativity.
I can’t tell more without spoiling it, but the author creates a society that reminds me of Ally Condie’s MATCHED and CROSSED. Combine that with good characterization and great plot, and it’s a practically perfect story. The ending wraps everything up perhaps too neatly, but don’t we all love a good happy outcome for characters we love?