David Farland Guest Post: Crucibles

David Farland is an award-winning, New York Times Bestselling Author with over 50 novels in print. He has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Special Award for "Best Novel in the English Language" for his science fiction novel On My Way to Paradise, the Whitney Award for "Best Novel of the Year" for his historical novel In the Company of Angels, and the International Book Award for "Best Young Adult Novel of the Year" for his fantasy thriller Nightingale—among many  others.

Recently Dave released a book geared toward writing titled Million Dollar Outlines. In it he discusses how to write a novel or screenplay that has a wide readership, giving it the potential to become a bestseller.

Some of his past writing students that have gone on to success include #1 New York Times Bestsellers such as Brandon Mull (Fablehaven), Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time), James Dashner (The Maze Runner) and Stephenie Meyer (Twilight).

Along with providing writers with outline and audience analysis methods, Dave also offers 28 “plotting tools” in Million Dollar Outlines. A plotting tool is basically a technique that can make your story more exciting, interesting, satisfying, or complete.

Today, Dave is going to share one with us:

Crucibles

When we talk about writing, there are three kinds of crucibles—crucibles of setting, relationship, or condition. We’ll talk about those in a moment, but first we need to define, “What is a crucible?”

In metal-smithing, a crucible is a container used to hold metal or liquid as it boils. For example, to melt gold, one takes a heavy bowl made from steel and sets it in a fire. The steel, which can withstand higher temperatures than gold, doesn’t melt. But the small container quickly becomes super-heated, so that the gold liquefies in moments.

In fiction, a crucible is any setting, condition, or relationship that keeps characters (such as a protagonist and an antagonist) from splitting apart.

By forcing these characters to remain together, we may sometimes create an almost intolerable atmosphere. It allows us to super-charge the relationships, raise the heat.

For example, imagine that John and Mary have been married for years, but have grown apart. They decide that they don’t love each other anymore. The logical thing for them to do would be to divorce and split up, right?

But there’s no story in that! The characters could easily resolve the situation by leaving—so as a writer you need them to stay together.

So imagine that John and Mary have grown apart, but both love their six-month-old daughter. Neither is willing to end the relationship so long as they risk losing the child. Now you have a crucible, a binding force that keeps the two together.

But there are different kinds of crucibles. Maybe it is a child. But maybe you could do the same by putting them both in a car and having them get stuck in a snowstorm. The car is a different kind of container from the relationship, but both work to keep the couple together.

So here are the three different types of crucibles.

Crucibles of Setting

A setting may act as a crucible. You’ve all seen comedies where several people are stuck in a cabin in a snowstorm, and each of them is at the other’s throat. You will also quickly remember the movie “Snakes on a Plane,” even if you’ve never seen it. A crucible of setting might be a story set in your characters’ workplace, on a ship, or in a small town. The important point is to keep the characters together as much as possible, and to let personalities rub against one another until their tempers boil.

Crucibles of Relationship

You can never escape your family. You might try, but often the family relationship is a crucible. A child wanting to leave home is in a crucible in the same way that a father who must pay child-support is in a crucible. Any two people who are married are in a crucible, as are any two people who happen to just be in love.

I recall a fine western when I was young about two heroic cowboys who are both in love with the same woman. They are forced to band together to rescue her from a kidnapper. The men hate each other, and as the audience gets to know each man better, they both come to vie for our affections.

Soldiers in a squadron will find themselves in a crucible. For example, in The Lord of the Rings, those who had joined the Fellowship were thrust into a crucible—a small band of men forced to band together for their own protection.  It may be that your character finds himself fighting beside someone he detests—a murderer or a rapist—and yet he is unable to walk away from the conflict.

A crucible may also be your conflict with your culture. We’ve probably all known various folks—Catholics, Jews, Muslims, etc., who try to leave their religion behind but can never stop talking about it. But it doesn’t have to be your religious culture. My father ran away from the Blue Ridge Mountains to escape the hillbilly lifestyle. I had a girlfriend who left her fine home in Southern California because she despised her family’s wealth. In the movie My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, we have a girl whose main conflict comes about when she is embarrassed by her ethnic roots.

Crucibles of Condition

An intolerable condition may also be a crucible—such as an illness that two very different characters may join forces to beat. We see this type of crucible used every week as Doctor House tries to solve the latest medical mystery. But you can also set your characters up to fight an economic or political condition—the hunger in India, the tribalism of North Africa.

The condition might be something as mundane as crime in the streets. Policemen who despise one another are often found joining forces to fight drug lords, rapists, and other types of crime.

So as you form your story, consider how you might strengthen your conflicts by developing one or more crucibles.

To learn about the rest of Dave’s plotting tools, or how to write for a wide audience, you’ll have to check out his book: Million Dollar Outlines

Here are some of the reviews it’s received so far:

“Mr Farland didn't write a book about outlines; at least not only outlines. This book shows you how to write a book, story, and screenplay from blank page to your first million. I can only imagine better instruction from Mr Farland in person, and plan to take one of his workshops based on the strength of this work alone.”

—Big Nate, Amazon

“Actually, I have a book on novel outlining which has like 5 stars ratings. It is way boring. I just couldn't get through it. So when I learned David had written a book on outlining, I knew he could do the topic justice...and make it interesting. . . . Since David wrote this, I KNEW he had something UNIQUE to teach, that is, his viewpoint, his experience and his SYSTEM. Plus, I knew his conversational, no fluff way of writing/teaching would drive me, compelling me to devour it. And it does.”

—C. Jack

Can you think of any more examples of crucibles? Can you see a way to strengthen your own story by adding a crucible? Leave a comment and let us know!

Editoral note from Sam:  Please check out Mr. Farland's fantastic website as well.  

davidfarland.net

Related Post:

Writing Humor: What Funny and Frightening Have in Common

Writing Flash Fiction – The Science of the Microshort

USAR Captain (Ret.) Yancy Caruthers and I have been best friends for more than 30 years, and in that time, he has given me more good advice and encouragement than probably any human being has a right.  I am proud to say he has agreed to guest blog for you and I today at Scene Clearlyabout his techniques and success in writing flash fiction.  Look for his stories in such online pubications as Ascent Aspirationscoming in 2013.

*   *   *

 Flash fiction, or short-shorts, have nothing to do with Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach, not Jessica Simpson), although they certainly could.  They are defined as stories with less than 1,000 words, and are increasingly popular with online venues.  Some forums ask for even less.  Like Daisy's shorts, shorter is better.

 As our collective attention span wanes, (Oh look…a squirrel!)

 What was I saying?

 Get to the point, blogger.

That’s it, thanks for reminding me.  Back in the days of high-school research papers, a required length was the enemy – it need only be exceeded, and all was well.  It was easier to write a three-page paper than a six-pager.  The use of maximum verbosity and superfluous words was encouraged by the format, so the idea was to cram in as much unnecessary crap as possible.  Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice.

Writing flash fiction has the same enemy, except the author is on the other side of it.

To make my point, there are 150 words preceding this paragraph.  If the venue has a maximum of 500 words, then the show is 30% done, and I have barely defined my topic!

For this reason, short-shorts are usually limited to a single scene.  There might be two characters, but certainly no more than three, and the reader can’t know them.  As a writer of short-shorts, you have a choice between setting the scene and rounding out the character.  Do too much of either, and you are toast.

Oh wait, a plot.  Excessive exposition is strictly off-limits, and more than a few lines of dialogue is also a no-go, so better start with action on the part of the characters.  You don’t have time to build fear, the reader has to start out afraid.  In the first line of the story, the psychopath is RIGHT BEHIND YOU.  The intruder has to already BE in the house.  The smoke is ALREADY coming under the door. 

Consider this opening line:

Steve jerked his hand from the doorknob as it burned his hand.

What does the reader know?  Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Steve, but we don't have time for introductions, nor do I really care what you ate for breakfast or that you just broke up with your girlfriend last week.  Your building is on fire, and leaving by the front door is not going to work.  You better do something fast or it's goodbye, Steve.

He pulled the last of his towels from the arm of his wheelchair and began rolling it.

The reader isn't stupid, we know what Steve will do with the rolled-up towel, so there is no need to say it.   We've also got a good idea that our hero won't be taking the stairs.  In two short sentences, we know a lot about Steve and his current situation, and man, is he screwed, or what? 

Of course what follows will be what Steve does, and how his fear builds.

Three quarters to your word limit, and you should go back and eliminate the unnecessary, to make room for the ending.  Here’s an example:

Todd wasn’t sure if Karen was awake or not, but surely she was.  He made a soft “shhh” and slowly pulled back the covers.  The scratching sound they made when he did so was deafening, in spite of his efforts. 

It makes the point.  But consider this:

Todd wondered if Karen slept. "Shh," he whispered just in case and eased back the covers that despite his effort scratched loudly, like sandpaper.

Both paragraphs say the same thing.  The first in 40 words, the second in 24.

So what would possess an author to write flash fiction?

That’s easy, it’s fast.  It’s so fast that you can’t get married to it.  Instead of carefully cultivating that final version, you can easily manage two or three alternate endings – in fact, with a few changes, that scenario can result in more than one completed story. If you hate it, write it anyway, and change it later.

It's so fast, in fact, that one can scribble a few notes before bedtime, and draft a piece the next morning.  With a few revisions, it can be headed to an editor before the sunset.

In the end, that’s why I write short-shorts.  I wanted to finish something, and the three-page paper was still more alluring than the six-page one.

Little did I know.

Yancy's Work:

Blog: The Pen and the Sword

Short stories:

"Angel"

"The Bone Cleaner"

Related Scene Clearly Post:

Where Do You Get All Your Ideas

You can follow me on Twitter or Google+.

Guest Blogger: Deborah Cota

Storytellers are not writers...well, not just writers.  Deborah Cota is a storyteller to her bones.  She takes you into her novels like that gentle neighbor who invites you to sit beside her on the porch swing and sip some Lipton.  Then once there, listening to that slender chain creak, you begin to see the tempting slips in reality telling you that you are somewhere you do not recognize.  It's too late at this point, of course.  Instinct tells you to find some place safe, but the other part -- that part Deborah finds so easily -- says "Okay.  In a minute.  But let's just see what happens next."

I am honored and thrilled that my friend and paranormal novelist Deborah Cota is guest blogging here today.  And she's saved some of her best quirky off-the-wallness just for us.

You can find Deborah's first novel The Kindred on Amazon.  Book two of The Dante Chronicles, The Brotherhood, will be available January 30, 2012

She also writes her own blog The Dante Chronicles.

-- Sam

The Muses: Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomeni, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope, were Greek deities said to have been sent to inspire man. What most history books don’t know is Zeus fathered a tenth Muse named Sandy; an incorrigible little imp with an attitude as high and wide as Mt. Olympus itself. 

Sandy had been with me as a child, encouraging me to explore things and touch objects that invariably would raise my mother’s blood pressure and send her voice into the stratosphere. Sandy would whisper in my ear, “Go ahead and touch the expensive, ceramic statue. Play with the matchbook...its okay. Trust me!” 

This would have been all well and good with most children, but being me and the klutz that I am, the statue ended up in pieces, the matches nearly singed my eyebrows off, and Sandy was not allowed to hang around anymore. 

Thirteen years ago, when I toyed with the idea which is now The Dante Chronicles, I caught up with Sandy. I was sitting at an outdoor table in front of Starbucks, and she was sitting at a table next to me; mumbling to herself and shifting papers in front of her, looking and sounding a lot like Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny.”

“Hey! Remember me?” I asked.

Sandy looked me up and down. Wrinkling her forehead, she squinted, “Cat statue that shattered, and the big match plate that went poof, right?”

“Umm...yeah....”

“Yeah, I remember you? How’s your mom?”

“Good. She hasn’t forgotten you.”

“Most mom’s don’t.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked looking over at her table-top covered with pictures of paintings. 

“Hell if I know...this guy...? He’s a bass player who wants so bad to be a painter like his girlfriend, but...I just don’t think I can get anything better out of him. Look at this mess! He’s worse than her! My Peekapoo could paint better with her tail.”

“You have a Peekapoo?”

“Yeah, her name is Trixie! Wanna see?” Sandy grabbed her over-stuffed wallet from a giant, bright-red purse and rolled out a photo strip of color portraits; every one was of Sandy and Trixie in matching outfits, posed like something out of an old Montgomery Wards catalog. 

“Cute,” I said, smiling approvingly and doing my best Meryl Streep.

“Oh! That’s right! Acting classes with Dakin Matthews. Uh-huh. Very good. Oscar worthy, even.” Sandy turns her back to me, goes back to scrutinizing her photos, and sighs. Taking out my notebook, I start scribbling some notes on Eli and the cloaking spell and then stop to read what I’ve written. 

“What’s the book about?” Sandy asks over her shoulder. 

“What book?”

“The one you’re writing, Silly?”

Covering up my notebook, “Oh, I’m not writing a book, I...”

“Uh-huh...sure. What’s it about?”

“Really, it’s just some stuff I’ve goofed around with...”

Sandy gets up, turns her chair around and sits at my table, “Spill!”

“Well...I was thinking about a paranormal story...about a family that is split up and forced to fight demons to survive.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, like I said…I was just….”

“Got a villain?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? NOT YET?” Sandy reached behind her, grabbed her purse, pulled an iPad out and whipped her fingers across. 

“What’s that?”

“Something new…you won’t see it for a few years. I just turned the idea over to Steve, a new client. You’ll love it when it comes out….Okay, let’s see…one, two, three, four, five….”

“What are you counting?”

“People who have hurt you, used you, broken your heart, or been needlessly mean to 

you…twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-….”

“You have a list?”

“…thirty-three…of course. You don’t?”

“No…I try to forget all that.”

“Listen, kid…if you are going to write about demons and a family forced to fight, what better place do you have to conjure up the villains? Every writer does it…come on just try. What about her? Or him…Oh, he deserves to be ripped to shreds, got any plans for….”

“You are enjoying this way too much…” I said, packing up my notebook and coffee. 

“Kid, listen…I know what you are keeping inside you and I know how much talent you have. You need to do something with this. You’re good. You just need a little push.” 

Sandy leaned over and whispered something in my ear that I had pushed all the way to the back of my mind. I grabbed my pen, and wrote with force until the imprint of my writing pierced the page beneath. 

“Corson? What is that?”

“Not what, Sandy. Who. It’s a combination of a few different names.”

“Ahhh…I like it. This is good. What about a love interest?”

“No…I don’t want to write anything like…” 

“If you are writing about a family, then there is going to be love. May as well go for it all. Action, adventure…make it the book you’ve always wanted to read, but could never find.” 

“But a love interest?”

“You of all people can do this with your eyes closed. Just picture the man you’ve never found and hope to meet one day…Write about your friends, family, acquaintances….” 

“But a whole book? I don’t think I can…”

“Oh, honey,” Sandy said taking her purse and stuffing the pictures inside before standing up and pushing her chair back to her table. “Pull out all those composition notebooks of yours and paste it together. You had these books written twenty-years ago.” 

Later that week, as I was constructing a real outline, I decided to take a break and go do some shopping. Walking around the now defunct Tower Records, I heard a song. When I got back in my car, I heard the same song. As I walked into Safeway, I heard the same song blasting from a shiny, black Charger. 

So close no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trust in who we are
And nothing else matters

All through the grocery store and on the way home, I was mumbling to myself these lines over and over till my sister looked at me and sternly said, “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Deciding to stop for lunch at Emil Villa’s I told her of my plan and my meeting with Sandy. 

“Oh, God…not her again!” my sister said, holding her head in her hands. 

“Yes, her again…but I’m older now and I won’t be touching anything lethal.”

“That’s great, but why were you mumbling to yourself like that? I thought you were losing your mind!”

“I think she was sending me a message…you know, like a Muse is supposed to…the song…it’s my theme. The message I want to convey.”

“Metallica? Your message is Metallica?”

“No…well, yes…but no.”

I began to run my idea across to my sister and at a key moment of my explanation her eyes twinkled. I knew I had the right plan there and then. She reached in her purse and pulled out a tiny notebook and pen. 

“Here…right it down.”

“What?”

“Write the lyric down so you’ll stop walking around mumbling to yourself. You were doing it all through the produce department at Safeway, and people were staring at you while you were reciting it to the tomatoes. I don’t want anyone thinking you’re as nuts as I know you are. I’m just grateful it wasn’t that sanitarium song or ‘Enter Sandman’.”

Now ­I was the one with the twinkling eyes! Thanks, Sandy!

Sandy still comes by now and again; usually just when I hit a small plot snag, or at first edit. Mom is a little more receptive to her, although she still hides the good china, her shoes, and locks-up our dog in the laundry room. After she leaves, my sister does some finger exercises to get ready for me because I usually write up a few thousand words or so, every day, for the next couple of months. 

Encourage and be nice to your Muse. Troublesome or not, they are pretty good to have around.

And Yet He is Still a Yeti

I've got a treat for you.  My best friend since first grade, Yancy, is guest posting today.  He has some amazing stories to tell, as you'll see by following the links below.  

--- Sam    

 

Yancy W. Caruthers, CPT, AN, USAR (Ret)

Oil and water.  Fire and gunpowder.  Spiders and…well, anything, because I hate spiders.  I’m talking about things that don’t go together, and often have serious consequences when placed in close proximity.

The most hilarious combination, I have found, is intelligent people and boredom.  I have been privileged to lead some of the finest soldiers the Army has to offer, in a less than ideal setting – western Iraq, just as the war was starting to wind down a bit.  Our job was one of the hardest I think, because it wasn’t to destroy, but to fix.  People.  My team ran the emergency and trauma section for one fourth of the country, but it wasn’t a continuous flow of broken bodies.  In between the hellish moments sat long periods of nothingness that would last days.  Buddha would have seen it as an opportunity.

My nirvana came when we received a new Doppler from medical supply.  About the size of a walkie-talkie, the device uses ultrasound to amplify certain bodily noises through a speaker – quite useful in quickly detecting heart rates of unborn babies or even blood flow of patients in shock.

I was trying to think like an officer, and give the guys something meaningful to do.

“Gentlemen, go into the trauma room and play with the Doppler.  Use it on each other, that way you know it forward and backwards.”

They willingly disappeared into the trauma room, and I heard the whoosh-whoosh of the machine periodically as one soldier would find another’s pulse.  Then I heard loud gurgling and laughing, as one soldier’s internal rumblings were broadcasted to the world.

Those of you who are parents know that when the room gets quiet, you better get up and check on the kids, because they are into something.  Soldiers are the same, so I started toward the trauma bays as I overheard.

Chad: That just doesn’t sound right to me.  Have you ever had any heart problems before?

Taylor:  No, never.  What does it sound like?

Ariel:  No murmurs, arrythmias, valve problems?

Taylor:  Nothing. Should we ask the captain?  Or the doc?

Chad and Ariel (mumbling together):  Definitely.  Absolutely.  Yeah, I think so.

Ariel:  The doc will want an EKG, should we just get one now?

Taylor:  Do you think that’s necessary?

Chad:  If we don’t, she’s just going to ask for one.  This should be looked at right away.

Taylor:  Is it that serious?

Ariel:  It’s probably nothing.

Chad:  Probably.  I'm sure you're fine.  No chest pains or anything?

Taylor:  We should get it now. (Peels off his shirt and walks over to one of the patient exam areas.  Pause for background - when Taylor goes shirtless, the number of bigfoot sightings spikes.  The man is a YETI.)

Chad:  The electrodes won’t stick, I’m going to have to shave a little.

Taylor:  Just do it. (More background: prep razors are extremely sharp, one dry swipe can clear a six inch path of chest hair without pulling.  An EKG requires ten electrode sites.  In a matter of seconds, Chad and Ariel had cleared almost a square foot of carpet from Taylor’s chest in a disorganized pattern, a fact of which he was not yet aware)

Taylor stared at the ceiling as the EKG machine hummed and printed his report.  He pulled the wires from his own chest, and practically sprinted, still shirtless, to where the doc sat, reading some notes from her computer.

Dr. Fraley:  What’s this?

Taylor:  My EKG.  Does it look all right?

Dr. Fraley (after a few seconds):  Looks perfectly normal, why?

Taylor:  Well the guys heard something in the Doppler…

Dr. Fraley:  What did they say they heard?

Taylor:  Some kind of murmur or something, they said they thought I should have an EKG.

Dr. Fraley (Checks out Taylor’s bare chest and giggles, as only a 50-year old woman with ten years of college can do):  There’s nothing wrong with it, but look at yourself.  (She wasn’t even trying to control herself now)

Taylor realized that he had been had.  The series of shaved patches looked roughly like a large smiley face, using his natural anatomical features as eyes.

Chad:  Look!  It’s a man-o-lantern!

(Howls of laughter follow, as Taylor’s face turns red, more from embarrassment than anger)

Due to concerns that this is to remain a family blog, I am unable to print the remainder of the dialog.

I will invite the reader, however, to read about one of Ariel, Chad, and Taylor’s more serious moments in Angel.   I implied in the beginning of this story that this bunch of clowns had my deepest respect, and they do.  I love them all as much as family, and even if they are like a gaggle of dysfunctional kid brothers, they are focused mind-readers when dealing with a trauma patient.

More gratuitous self-promotion:  My Facebook page is called Northwest of Eden.  If you see something you like, then please like it, comment, or best of all, share it on your own page.   I need every fan I can get, so I can share my stories and those of others with a world that doesn’t always understand them.

Yancy W. Caruthers, CPT, AN, USAR (Ret)