The Story Equation

with guest Rachel Hauck.

Working on my 25th novel, I feel less of an expert on novel writing than ever. How is it the things I teach seem to elude me when I write?

Before starting a novel, I spend about a month dreaming and developing the characters.

Whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, knowing who you are writing about from the start is paramount.

Readers don’t really care about plots. They care about characters. The depth and detail in which you create your protagonists will determine the details of your plot.

Being writing partners with Susan May Warren for the past twelve years has taught me a lot.

We’ve matured together in our knowledge of the craft, but Suz is a master at putting ideas together in a teachable form.

For years we’ve taught the Lie Journey then formulated it into the Story Equation. Better known as the SEQ.

I never start a book without this little gem.

This graphic is the basic Story Equation. We’ve added are a few more “dots” along the circle but this basic formula should inspire your creative genius.

I know, it doesn’t look like much of an equation — I call it the story cookie — but the factors (ha! like how I did that?) you find here will help you develop strong characters to drive a compelling plot.

As you can see, the wound, lie, and fear surround the Dark Moment.

The Dark Moment is that “thing” that happened in the past to your protagonist. OR something she did in the past. This moment and the wound it created is what will heal in your protagonist as the story progresses.

The DM can be anything from parents divorcing, abuse, physical trauma to a broken heart, to neglect or outright rebellion.

The Dark Moment must be specific, relatable and poignant. 

Usually, the best Dark Moment happened to the protagonist when she was a child. Children cannot process events like teens or adults so trauma impacts them significantly. It changes their world view. 

 Death, divorce, abuse, seeing something they shouldn’t are all good DM launches. But remember, it must be specific, relatable and poignant.

This DM then forms a wound. From the wound, a lie develops.

One of my characters, Susanna, from Once Upon A Prince was a young girl when her parents divorced. Until then, they fought bitterly, throwing plates and four letter words at each other.

During these episodes, Susanna hid in her closet and pretended it was a beautiful garden.
As a result, she developed a wound: her parents did not love her or each other. Her world was unsafe.

This wound became a lie: she must take care of herself. No one else will.

Which matured into a fear: she could not let go of her securities, her plans, her very ordered life.

She grew up to become a landscape architect and a planner. She wanted her world orderly and safe. So when her long-time boyfriend breaks up with her, she is thrown back into those turbulent childhood wounds and lies.

Make sense?

I’m skimming the surface a bit with Susanna’s story but you can see how the DM from her childhood formed her thinking and impacted her world view.

These elements hold your character back from realizing her dreams. (P.S. You need to do this with your hero as well.)

However! The Secret Desire is dying to be released and realized. 

But it’s buried deep in your protagonist’s soul. It’s the thing she longs for — the hope of God has given her — more than anything but is terrified to attempt. 

The inciting incident awakens this desire and it comes knocking. “I want out. I want out. I want out.”

Make the secret desire the opposite of the fear. Again, the more specific you make these elements, the more dynamic the character. 

So there’s your basic Story Equation: Dark Moment of the past is an event that creates a wound which leads to a lie which develops into a fear. But the God-given secret desire is about to change everything.

This journey formulates the epiphany and a profound change for your character by the end of the book. 

Now, check out my new release The Writing Desk to see if I accomplished this in any way shape or form. (Snicker!)

Do you have any questions about SEQ? Can you see your story fitting into The Story Equation?

To find learn more about the SEQ visit www.mybooktherapy.com

Blessings!

Rachel 

Know your character
SEQ
Know what they want
What the story is about
Goals
Fears
Wound

• Find the through line - Robert McKee ( a theme or idea that runs from the beginning to the end.) Knowing your character and what drives them and you can define it in one sentence, then you know your character and you know your story.

Examples:

Dining with Joy

She wants to win her dead father’s approval. So she takes on his show. She thinks she wants OUT of the show but she can’t until she discovers how much he loved her.
 
Benjamin Martin in the Patriot 

Wanted to keep his family safe. Peace. It drove him. So war comes to his front yard and demands he participate to GET what he wants.  

• ACTION

Keep the characters moving and talking. Not musing in their heads.

• EXTERNAL PLOT

What is going on in the world around them? 
It can't be Nothing. 
Have to enter into their NOW world. What’s going on now?

• INTERNAL WANT V EXTERNAL OPPOSITION

What do they want and what’s keeping them from it.

Examples:

Dining with Joy

She wanted out of the show. She couldn’t cook. But people were counting on her. Her family. The show. Some pleasure in having fame. And to keep her promise to her Daddy.

The Proposal (the movie)

She wants to stay in America to keep her job. He wanted a promotion. Each scene builds around these overall WANTS. Something keeps the protagonist from getting what they want.

Opening scene: Drew’s tension. He is late for work. The whole opening shows Drew’s want and tension. He’s late. He spilled coffee. 

Her opening is she has to fire Bob is and called a Bee-ach. There’s tension in how she’s in command. But when she’s told she is being deported, which she bought on herself, we get how devastating this is to her. Story tension must drop down and create scene tension

What they want + obstacles = scene tension

• DIALOG

Words count.
Mean things.
The dialog has to tell the story.
“Tell the story between the quotes.”
  Use the dialog to up the tension.
Say what they’re thinking.

• PACING

Keep the pacing up. Don’t spend too much time in detail. Or describing things. 
Don’t write in circles.

• DROP THE BOMB

Dining with Joy

• SHORT SENTENCES

Short, choppy sentences with active verbs signal tension. Think of the text mirroring your protagonist's racing heart. Long, meandering sentences filled with adjectives and adverbs imply a relaxed pace. Varying the format of the text will shoot tension into key moments of each scene.

• MAKE IT PERSONAL

The more personal the better. 

• DETAILS

Make it as personal as possible.
Specifics!!

• SEQ

The reason you want to discover your characters and your story is because you want to know where you're going so you CREATE the right tension. It is a more efficient use of your time.


Leave a comment today to win a copy of The Writing Desk. Two winners. One copy of The Writing Desk is up for grabs in ebook and one in print. Winner announced in the next Weekend Edition.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress comes a new captivating novel of secrets, romance, and two women bound together across time by a shared dream.


Tenley Roth’s first book was a runaway bestseller. Now that her second book is due, she’s locked in fear. Can she repeat her earlier success or is she a fraud who has run out of inspiration?


With pressure mounting from her publisher, Tenley is weighted with writer’s block. But when her estranged mother calls asking Tenley to help her through chemotherapy, she packs up for Florida where she meets handsome furniture designer Jonas Sullivan and discovers the story her heart’s been missing.


A century earlier, another woman wrote at the same desk with hopes and fears of her own. Born during the Gilded Age, Birdie Shehorn is the daughter of the old money Knickerbockers. Under the strict control of her mother, her every move is decided ahead of time, even whom she’ll marry. But Birdie has dreams she doesn’t know how to realize. She wants to tell stories, write novels, and make an impact on the world. When she discovers her mother has taken extreme measures to manipulate her future, she must choose between submission and security or forging a brand new way all on her own.


Tenley and Birdie are from two very different worlds, but fate has bound them together in a way time cannot erase.

Special Bonus!! "The USA Today HEA blog unveiled the cover of Second Chances, a romance anthology arriving Sept. 12 from Romance Writers of America and featuring stories from some of your favorite authors. They're also sharing an excerpt from Rachel Hauck’s included story, Love Is in the Air." Check it out here!

Rachel Hauck is an award winning, New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

Her book The Wedding Dress was named Inspirational Novel of the Year by Romantic Times. She is a double RITA finalist, a Christy and Carol Award Winner.

Rachel sits on the Executive Board for American Christian Fiction Writers and is the comical sidekick to Susan May Warren at My Book Therapy. She is a worship leader and speaker.

A graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in Journalism, Rachel is a devoted Ohio State football fan. She lives in sunny central Florida with her husband and ornery cat.

The Beauty of the Reader

with guest blogger Rachel Hauck.

Hey Seekervillians! I’m so thrilled to be here again. Thanks to Tina and the amazing bloggers here for welcoming me in.

And to all you readers! 

I blog a lot about craft and the writer’s life, but I’ve never focused much on the most important part of books—the readers! The life-blood of the writer’s life! 

I mean, where would we be without readers? Readers are the reason books exist.

Or maybe it’s a catch twenty-two: readers exist because there are writers.

I love readers. I love being a reader. Reading inspires our hearts in a way television, movies and music can’t because books allow us to imagine ourselves right into the story.

When I’m writing, I try to “leave space” for the reader to become a part of the story. I don’t have to fill in every little detail, overwrite, over tell, even over show because the reader’s imagination can take the smallest description and turn it into what ever he or she wants.

I imagine if the Holy Spirit is writing through me, helping me tell the story then maybe He’s helping the readers. 

Reading is the only sport in which the “consumer” can become a participant. Where elements of their own heart or experience can become part of the story.

Now that can be good or bad… It might inspire the reader to something good, giving them hope. Or it might stir up old memories, pain or fear. 

When writing How To Catch A Prince, I encountered an unexpected physical issue. 

I write pretty close to deadline but this time, the book wasn’t working and six weeks before the book was due, I found myself starting over. 

Then wham! An expected physical set back. I felt very cracked and broken as I stumbled up to my office every day after a sleepless night to hammer out 5000 words. 

By the grace of God, the book came together. But it always felt kind of incomplete to me. Like it had cracks. A few months later I was preparing for worship one Sunday morning and had an impression that God would fill the cracks in my story with His own message for the reader.

That moment expanded my understanding of what a book could be.

Sometimes readers don’t know why they really love, or really hate, a book. That’s the beauty of reading, and of being readers.

Sometimes God speaks to or hearts through fictional characters. All we have to do is pause and ask.

As a writer, my reading is hampered by my own ideas of what makes up good fiction, by my understanding of craft, by spending the last 11 years writing full time, swimming in a world of words, plot lines and craft lanes.

But readers… ah beautiful readers… have the ability to see beyond the craft and words and

love the story.

I learned early on that books readers love stories that ring true. Stories that connected with their hearts. 

I love that readers read. I love their embracing, forgiving hearts. I love that they read for the pure enjoyment without being overly critical of well… everything. 

Last year, I discovered a book that completely swept me away.

From the opening line to the last, I was enthralled. I loved everything about this story. The 1930s time line which alternated between 1931 and 1938. The Rhode Island and New York setting. The story line of a young woman in college falling in love. Seeing her life in 1931 and again in 1938. 

There were secrets. Twists. Surprises. A spunky aunt. A handsome hero.

For once I wasn’t a writer reading but a reader reading! 

I loved the story and writing so much I wrote to my editor and said, “I want to write like this!” She, oh sweet Becky Philpott, read the book to see what stirred me so much. She also loved it. 

Now that’s a good sign for a writer—that her editor “gets her.” 

Having that experience made me a reader again. When I need inspiration as a writer, I pick up that book and return to being a reader. 

If I could create the experience I had with A Hundred Summers for my readers, I’d be the happiest writer on earth.

It’s funny how when starting out, most writers are so scared to show their work to anyone. Will anyone like it? Can they take the criticism? What if they're horrible? What if they don’t know how to fix what’s wrong? 

I can’t wait for readers to read my stories. I want to them to join me on the journey. I hope they love the characters, setting and experience as much as I did. 

Then I hope they write to me and remind me why I loved the story in the beginning. 

By the end of the book, most writers are sick of a story. “What kind of mess is this?” Ha! I call it “the weeds.” We’re so bogged down with details like word choice and phrasing we can’t see the beautiful forest of the story. 

I love hearing from readers. I love when they tell me how God spoke to them, or how they felt His presence. Or how the story reminded them of something or someone they love. 

I am so honored to share the world of words with people all over the world. 

Last year I heard from a woman in Poland who thought the Gospels didn’t have anything for her anymore until she read The Wedding Dress. 

A few weeks later I received an email from a teenage girl in Brazil who was so excited Christian romances existed. She wrote, “Tonight I’m going to pray for you.” Had me in tears.

Those moments remind me this writing thing is bigger than me. So thank you readers! You are all beautiful! 


Now let's talk about you.  Share when a line from a book that impacted you as a reader. If you're a writer, what particular line or scene impacted you AS a reader while you were writing. 

Today is release day for The Wedding Chapel. To celebrate, Rachel is giving away a print copy to a commenter. Seekerville wants to join the fun by giving away an ecopy. Winners announced in the Weekend Edition!

A lonely wedding chapel built as a tribute to lost love just might hold the long-awaited secret to hope and reconciliation.

For sixty years, the wedding chapel has stood silent and empty. Retired football hall-of-famer Jimmy “Coach” Westbrook built the chapel by hand, stone by stone, for his beautiful and beloved Collette Greer, whom he lost so many years ago. The chapel is a sanctuary for his memories, a monument to true love, and a testament to his survival of the deepest pain and loss.

Photographer Taylor Branson left her hometown of Heart’s Bend, Tennessee to make a new life for herself in New York. Taylor had lots to run away from, not least of all a family history of broken promises and broken dreams. Love catches Taylor off guard when she falls for Jack Forester, a successful advertising executive, and their whirlwind romance leads to an elopement – and then to second guesses. Jack, in spite of his very real love for Taylor, is battling his own demons and struggles to show her his true self and the depths of his love for her.

When Taylor takes a photography assignment in Heart’s Bend, she is thrown back into her own past and encounters family secrets buried deep beneath the sands of time. And when Taylor and Coach’s journeys collide, they each rediscover the heartbeat of their own dreams as they learn that the love they long to hold is well worth waiting for.


Download a sample chapter here.

Rachel Hauck is a USA Today Best Selling, and award-winning author of critically acclaimed novels such as The Wedding Dress, Love Starts with Elle, and Once Upon A Prince.

She also penned the Songbird Novels with multi-platinum recording artist, Sara Evans. Booklist named their novel, Softly and Tenderly, one of 2011 Top Ten Inspirationals.

A graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in Journalism, Rachel worked in the corporate software world before planting her backside in an uncomfortable chair to write full-time in 2004.

She serves on the Executive Board for American Christian Fiction Writers and leads worship at their annual conference. She is a mentor and book therapist at My Book Therapy, and conference speaker.

Photo by Rachel Savage

Rachel lives in central Florida with her husband and pets, and writes from her two-story tower in an exceedingly more comfy chair. She is a huge Buckeyes football fan.

Being a Voice Not an Echo with Guest Rachel Hauck

I first heard this phrase “being a voice and not an echo” at a non-writing conference a few years ago.

The speaker was encouraging us to find life and freshness in God then speaking it out to the rest of the world.

We then find ourselves parroting heaven rather than “earth.”

There’s so much joy and life in the words coming from the heart of God rather than the heart of men.

I mean, we’ve all seen it. A news story breaks and suddenly every one is repeating the facts -- whether right or wrong -- and the world begins echoing the exact same phrases.

And it seems truth can’t get an word in edgewise!

I always cringe at the latest diet news. Don’t you? Suddenly green beans cause some life stopping disease. What?! I’ve been eating green beans my whole life.

Once it’s out there, it’s almost impossible to stop.

It’s an echo. Not a true voice.

As a writer, I’m prone to make the same mistakes. If I’m not careful, I’ll be an echo instead of a clarion sounding voice.

Even in fiction, there must be an element of truth in the story that calls to the human heart.

Writing in the Christian market pushes me to go beyond the realm of this life to find meaning and purpose for our characters. While I’m not writing sermons and devotionals set in fictional places with fictional characters, I am imitating life.

Jesus is very much a part of my every day life. So why not be a part of my writing, of my stories, of my characters?

But all too often Christian stories sound hokey, canned, full of Christianese. My first book This Time reads that way to me now. But at the time, I thought I was blowing away all the typical Christian novels. Oh, so little did I know!

What I discovered is how we talk to one another in the foyer at church, or in Sunday school class, does not translate into good fiction.

My goal is to write great stories about great characters. My stories should not have an agenda where I pound the pulpit, so to speak, with my soap box.

So how do I, or any author, develop a convincing, authentic spiritual thread?

A lot of prayer and pondering. Digging deep to translate those standard words like, “Is he a believer?” to something every one can relate to. Like, “Does he believe in Jesus?” Simple, straight forward, and a non-Christian can get it.

I avoid soap boxes. I don’t preach to the reader out of my personal wounds or doctrinal passions. One, those things are obvious. Two, they usually make for some boring prose. I try to find one truth that I’ve learned lately and weave it into my characters and let the rest flow naturally.

I’ve learned novels are not Bible studies. I don’t write and discuss long passages of scripture or quote noted Bible teachers in the midst of a story. Even if the character talking is a preacher!

I work to express God in creative ways. In one of my books, God got the heroine’s attention by having feathers appearing out of nowhere. Even inside her apartment! In another, the heroine senses a strong fragrance.

Since I can’t write about what I don’t have, my personal spiritual journey is key to the spiritual journey of the character. I need to be spending time with Him, hanging out with His Spirit to get a sense of who He is in greater measure. Often, those revelations find themselves in my characters!

If I’m not going deep in God, spending time at His feet, praying, worshipping, fellowshipping with others in the body of Christ, my spiritual message will be flat.

But as I spend time in His presence, meditating on His Word, the spiritual thread becomes a part of me, a part of the character, a part of the whole book. And I may only have to mention Jesus once. But He’s everywhere in the story, seen but unseen.

That’s how to be a voice and not an echo. By being lead by the Spirit not doctrine. I don’t just repeat what others are saying. I get my own revelation and then back it up with the truth of the Word, praying for a way to weave it into my character’s journey.

Am I perfect at it. Nope! But it’s my heart to be a voice not an echo. 


When have you realized you spoke something out as a voice not an echo? Even if it wasn't popular? If you're a writer, did it end up in your story?  


Thanks to Seekerville, a place for voices, for having me here today!

Rachel

Rachel Hauck is an award-winning, best selling author of critically acclaimed novels such as RITA nominated The Wedding Dress and RITA nominated Love Starts with Elle. She penned the Songbird Novels with multi-platinum recording artist, Sara Evans. Their novel Softly and Tenderly, was one of Booklists 2011 Top Ten Inspirationals.

A graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in Journalism, she worked in the corporate software world before planting her backside in uncomfortable chair to write full time in 2004.

Rachel serves on the Executive Board of American Christian Fiction Writers and leads worship at their annual conference. She is a mentor and book therapist at My Book Therapy, and conference speaker.

She writes from her two-story tower in an exceedingly more comfy chair. 


She is a huge Buckeyes football fan.

Here latest release is Once Upon A Prince, is the first book in the Royal Wedding Series. 

Today Rachel is giving one commenter a copy of Once Upon A Prince. Comment and let us know you want to be in the drawing.  

For extra fun, check out Rachel's interview on her RITA finaling book, The Wedding Dress, here.