One Question That Will Unlock Your Entire Story

By Susan MayWarren, @susanmaywarren

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could plot your entire story by asking one question?

You can.

Over the past 12 years and 55 novels, I’ve discovered a “Story Equation” that helps me discover and build into a story all the essential pieces. And the center of the equation starts by asking ONE powerful question:

Who are you?

From that question, the equation pulls out two key elements: Identity and the Dark Moment Story.  From that Dark Moment Story we’re then going to pull all our essential ingredients to create our compelling character and riveting plot: The characters greatest fear, his lie, his flaw, his competing values, his wants, his wounds and the big why that drives the entire story. In the advanced layer, we’ll also find our secret desire, his greatest dream, and the other elements that help us build our plot.

WHO are you?

The SEQ starts by asking the character, “who are you?” Often, we bring to the story what we call the story seed. This is the naked story idea that has sparked–probably from something we’ve heard or read about, a big question, a situation, a historical figure or event, even a great what-if.

Owen Christiansen: Troublemaker

One of my favorite characters to develop was the final character in my Christiansen family series. I’d already explored all his other siblings, but I had no idea who Owen, the family troublemaker was until I got to his story.

I needed a SEQ.

My conversation with Owen went something like this:

Who are you? “I’m a prodigal fisherman.”

Why are you a prodigal fisherman? “I’m a fisherman because this is the job that I could get. I’m working on a crabbing boat. It’s a short term job, temporary. I don’t have to commit to it. I can just work hard for a season, get money and go on because I’m a vagabond. I’m on the run, hence why I’m called a prodigal.”

Why are you a prodigal? “Well, because I don’t want to live in the life that my parents don’t really want me to live but I can’t go home.”

Why can’t you go home? “I sort of made a mess of things at my sister’s wedding when I was visiting.”

Really, what happened? “I don’t know really what happened but my brother, Casper, got freaked out on me, got really upset, attacked me in the middle of the wedding and we got in a huge fist fight. I don’t know what his problem was. Or . . . actually I do. Apparently he fell in love with this girl that — okay. Yes, I had a one-night stand with. I realized it was probably a bad thing but I did. He fell in love with her and when he found out we’d slept together, he took it personally and got angry. I got mad too and we got into a huge fist fight. I realize now that probably I handled it badly.”

Why did you handle it badly? “I’ve had a rough go of it because I–you might not know this about me but I used to be a professional hockey player and I had the whole world and then — well, my brother-in-law actually hit me with a hockey stick and he made me blind in my eye. My whole career is destroyed. What do you expect from me? I had this life and now I don’t anymore. So thank you very much. This is my life now.”

Perfect. Now, as an author, I have a little picture of Owen. I also have a hint of the dark moment story–which is probably losing his eyes.

I can also build on that and easily ask: what is his greatest dream and secret desire? He wanted to play hockey. He wanted to be somebody.

Now that I’ve drilled down the adjective, I’ll move over to the noun. Fisherman. This gives me a hint of what Owen looks like on the outside. He’s got an eye patch because he lost his eye. And, he’s working the high seas, so we can attach a pirate vibe to him. He’s probably a hard worker because he needs to earn money. Probably also a bit unkempt, scruffy beard from being at sea for a month. He doesn’t really care what he wears, old it-shirt, old sweatshirt, this sort of thing.

We can go even deeper and ask: What’s his attitude? Who is this guy who’s now working on a fishing boat? He’s named himself a prodigal. A person that’s named himself a prodigal probably has a little bit of regret. When the story opens, Owen knows he’s not doing the right thing but he feels like there’s no way back. He probably wears a small chip on his shoulder, and most likely feels very alone. Perhaps he feels that he can’t get close to people because he feels guilty about hurting his brother–which means he might even regret his womanizing ways. Perhaps he’s even tried to amend his actions, but still feels like he can’t go home.

However, based on this analysis, his secret desire is definitely to go home.

(By the way, get Owen’s story, You’re the One that I Want here!)

Give us a Dark Moment Story

The goal is to get to the heart of your character by asking why, until you land on a Dark Moment Story.

The Dark Moment Story is the core of your SEQ; it’s the secret sauce behind what all the stuff that your character does. The Dark Moment Story gives your character motivation, it combines with the greatest dream to find out what he wants, which then gives him a goal, establishes his lie, and helps develop your character’s flaw. (Which we’ll expand on next time) All the pieces of your equation come from this dark moment story.

We can find a dark moment story in almost every great movie.

In Braveheart, William Wallace’s Dark Moment Story is played in out in the first 20 minutes of the film. First his family dies and then the woman he loves, his wife dies.

In one of my favorite movies, While you Were Sleeping, the Dark Moment Story is told by the heroine, Lucy, to Jack during their walk home through Chicago. (Hint: it’s the story of her father, always wishing to go somewhere, and her never taking a trip because he got sick and she had to take care of him. Her wound is her empty passport. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves!)

Three essential elements to a Dark Moment Story

• The Dark Moment Story is a specific event.

Often, when authors develop character, they sum up their past with an overview: “Well, his parents got divorced or his mother died or his brother ran away or he was bullied in school . . .” These are certainly traumatic, life-changing events, but none of us clue us in to what shapes your character. As an author, you have to create a specific event in which that seed a rejection fear, unforgiveness, bitterness took place.

It needs to be something that happened, something they remember, and something they can detail. And often, it isn’t the main event, but an ancillary event that really matters.

• The Dark Moment Story is Relatable

You’re looking for something poignant, something that will tug on the heartstrings. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, or even that dramatic. It could merely be the day when no one showed up to your character’s seventh birthday party. Or the day your character thought he was going fishing with his father, and he got left at home. Sure, it might be powerful–the death of a family member, for example. But often we jump to the dramatic when, in fact, it’s the small things that wound so deeply.

• The Dark Moment Story is Poignant

You, as the author must be able to dream it up and feel it first. Have your character tell it to you in first person, and write it down in detail, so you can hear and feel the inflection of their voice, their words, and their emotion. Once you make that emotional connection with the story, you can share the deeper layers of it–and your reader will connect with the emotion and story as well.

The magic of the Dark Moment Story isn’t just in developing character; it’s also a tool you’ll use in the story to develop the bond between characters and between the character and the reader.

In most cases, you’ll insert that story in dialog in your second act to help solidify the motivation for the Noble Quest as well as build the Character Change journey. Yes, you might modify the story in the retelling on the page, but getting the foundation down now is the key.

Once you have your Identity and your Dark Moment Story figured out, you have the tools to build the rest of the SEQ.

If you are a true organic, and you just can’t bear to do any more planning, then stop right here. You know who your character is, and what motivates him.

Or . . . you can keep going and start to pull out the plot. For more information on the SEQ check out my book The Story Equation: How to Plot and Write a Brilliant Story with One Powerful Question.

Go write something brilliant!

 
GIVEAWAYS!! 

Leave a comment, and you're in the draw for TWO giveaways, winners' choice of Susan May Warren's excellent writer's resource, The Story Equation, or her latest release, A Matter of Trust.

The Story Equation: How to Plot and Write a Brilliant Story with One Powerful Question

Discover The Story Equation! One question can unlock your entire story! Are you struggling to build a riveting plot? Layered characters? How about fortify that saggy middle? Create that powerful ending? You can build an entire book by asking one powerful question, and then plugging it into an “equation” that makes your plot and characters come to life. You’ll learn how to build the external and internal journey of your characters, create a theme, build story and scene tension, create the character change journey and even pitch and market your story. All with one amazing question.

And

A Matter of Trust (Montana Rescue)

Champion backcountry snowboarder Gage Watson has left the limelight behind after the death of one of his fans. After being sued for negligence and stripped of his sponsorships, he's remade his life as a ski patrol in Montana's rugged mountains, as well as serving on the PEAK Rescue team. But he can't seem to find his footing--or forget the woman he loved, who betrayed him.

Senator and former attorney Ella Blair spends much of her time in the limelight as the second-youngest senator in the country. But she has a secret--one that cost Gage his career. More than anything, she wants to atone for her betrayal of him in the courtroom and find a way to help him put his career back on track.

When Ella's brother goes missing on one of Glacier National Park's most dangerous peaks, Gage and his team are called in for the rescue. But Gage isn't so sure he wants to help the woman who destroyed his life. More, when she insists on joining the search, he'll have to keep her safe while finding her reckless brother, a recipe for disaster when a snowstorm hits the mountain.

But old sparks relight as they search for the missing snowboarder--and suddenly, they are faced with emotions neither can deny. But when Ella's secret is revealed, can they learn to trust each other--even when disaster happens again?

ABOUT SUSAN MAY WARREN: 

Susan May Warren is the USA Today bestselling, Christy and RITA award-winning novelist of over fifty novels. An eight-time Christy award finalist, a three-time RITA Finalist, she’s also a multi-winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice award, and the ACFW Carol Award.

A seasoned women’s events speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: The Story Equation.

She is also the founder of www.MyBookTherapy.com, and Novel.Academy, a school for aspiring novelists. You can find her online at www.susanmaywarren.com.

In the beginning - there were characters

Audra here.

Much like Tina and a number of our friends who left comments Tuesday on Putting Your Baby To Bed, I too am in the beginning stages of a new WIP. Over the years, and I promise not to hash over those, I’ve reviewed all sorts of methods in developing plot, character, conflict…you know, the whole enchilada.

Deb Dixon’s, GMC; Alicia Rasley’s, The Story Within; Dwight Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer and -- I don’t have room to go into all the excellent how-to methods available. All of these approaches tickled my mind, made me think. Still, no one method spoke to me until the 2006 ACFW conference.

Susan May Warren gave a Continuing Education Session on How to Get Your Groove. I wasn’t able to attend those sessions and had no idea how powerful her process was until I purchased the CDs of the conference and downloaded both disks to my MP3 player to catch up on what I had missed. I stumbled on to her workshops one evening as I walked the dog.

Oh. My. Goodness.

She spoke my language.

Pictorially. Emotionally. Simply.

Susan May Warren had the unique ability to make me look at my books as real places with real people living under extraordinary circumstances. AND, she went on to explain how she created her worlds.

Okay, enough of a promo. If you have a copy of the 2006 Conference, make sure you listen to her sessions. If not, order it.

Apparently her workshop was so successful, Susan and Rachel Hauck published this series in their own how-to book, From the Inside Out. They go over the entire process of mapping out a book, highlighting the pitfalls so common, yet so difficult to understand.

Right now, I’m reviewing the development of characters for my next book. They spend a good amount of time on characters -- good thing!! Even though I have a general idea about each one, I’m combing through Inside Out and making a list of emotions and circumstances that shaped my characters long before they realized they’d be featured in a series : )

Here are just a few questions I’m researching about each character:

1. Who am I? … or, Identity: How do I define myself?
2. At all Costs? … or Purpose: What is my noble cause in life?
3. Let Me do it! … or Competence: What am I good at? What do I rely on when I am overwhelmed?
4. Teddy Bear – Security: Where do I go for safety? What do I do when life is falling apart?
5. Zone – Belonging: Where do I fit in God’s world? Where do I believe I belong?

These questions make me think. Hard. I found I needed to develop so much more of my character than the skeletal outline to effect my plot and make it plausible. By the time I’m done talking to them about their fears and insecurities, I've come to think of my characters as friends. I know how they’ll handle situations.

And, I understand why they think they way they do.

I can’t emphasis enough the difference this method has made in my writing. There are plot driven books and there are character driven books. For my satisfactory Happily Ever After ending, I prefer a character in charge of the adventure.

If you haven’t visited My Book Therapy, I urge you to do so. Informative and friendly this blog will help you understand the building blocks of story.

Story. A really good story. Isn’t that what we’re all striving to write?

And to encourage you along your way, I will be giving away a copy of From The Inside Out. Leave a comment and your email address and you will be counted in the drawing to be announced in the Weekend Edition!!

Happy Writing, all!!

-audra

How To Write A Compelling Proposal by Seekerville Guest Susan May Warren

The Three Things every editor (and agent) wants to know:

How to write a compelling proposal

I went Christmas shopping on Black Friday, and of course, ended up in my happy place – the bookstore. I wandered up and down the aisles, the miles, it seemed of aisles, all holding amazing books that I’d love to read. In fact, I spent about an hour trying to decide on the perfect book to read on the ten hour trip home. (and about another hour trying to figure out what to get my children for their Christmas reads). The choices overwhelmed me…and for a moment I could imagine how suffocated an editor or agent must feel looking at the piles upon their desk in January, when everyone has fulfilled their 2008 New Year’s goal of sending in their Great American Novel.

Yeah, I know, I have my proposal all ready to send, too.

As I sat on the floor and deliberated my book choices, I had to decide upon a system to evaluate which books to choose. Editors and Agents do the same thing. They have things they look for, things that make a manuscript survive the one-armed office clean-up into the recycle bin. And, after polling a few agent friends and looking at my own proposals, I came up with the Top Three Things that make a proposal strong.

Here they are: What. Why. How.

Here at My Book Therapy, I’m all about asking probing questions to help an author get to the heart of their character and story. So, feel free to recline on the sofa and let’s take a look at how probing deep into the heart of your proposal can help it become healthy enough to survive the Great Editor Sweep.

1. What? What is your story about? What’s at stake? What’s ironic about it? The key is knowing how to summarize your story in a simple compelling sentence.

Ie:

What if a vampire and a human fell in love, but her greatest danger was himself? (Twilight)

What if the world’s worst dog became the best thing that ever happened to you? (Marley and Me)

What if someone took over your life, and you discovered that in losing it, you became everything you hoped to be? (Eagle Eye).

You don’t have to phrase it in a question.

When a vampire and a human fall in love, it will cost them everything – maybe even her soul.

A newspaper man and his wife adopt a puppy and discover that the dog from hell is really an angel in fur.

Jerry Shaw isn’t a terrorist, but no one but he knows it, and it’ll take surrendering his innocence to become the hero he was meant to be.

Boil your hook down to one strong, concise sentence. What?

2. Why? Why should someone pick up your book and spend the next few hours reading it? What makes it unique and why are YOU the one to tell it?

Are you a cop, telling stories about protecting the homeland?

Are you a nurse, writing the next ER series?

Are you an archeologist, discovering the secrets of time?

Are you a former CIA agent, unfolding the past?

More and more, agents and editors want someone who has a platform, something that gives resonance to their story. With non-fiction, this is a no-brainer, but with fiction it can be harder to find. After all, I’ve never been a bull-rider, so what could I possibly bring to a story like Taming Rafe? And, I’ve never been a Delta force operative undercover in Taiwan, trying to rescue a kidnapped girl, so what authority could I possibly give to Wiser than Serpents?

Well, let’s see. I lived in Taiwan, and in Russia, and I know people who have known people who have “disappeared” into the world of human trafficking. I knew friends who fought human trafficking, and I had experience with being held against my will. All things that I brought to the storyline of Wiser than Serpents.

For Taming Rafe, I tapped into my love of all things cowboy, as well as my experience as a fundraiser, and someone who worked with orphans overseas. I also spent time on a ranch, learning the ropes (pun intended. *g*)

Even if you don’t have a “platform,” you have a reason why you are uniquely created to write this story. Dee Henderson, one of my favorite authors, said to me years ago, “Find what you are good at, hone that, and create a niche for your writing.” I chose Russia and now about half my books are International Intrigue.

Know your topic, and bring to it your unique perspective. Why?

Finally,

3. How? How are you telling the story…meaning…VOICE. Your voice is what will cause an editor to put down their cup of coffee and lean into the story. What will make that coffee eventually grow cold. Your voice is your creativity, your prose, your style. Once the agent or editor reads your story hook, and why it has authority and uniqueness , they’ll need to actually READ the book. Or at least the first three chapters. Your voice needs to follow at least some of the rules, but break the right ones, in the right ways, so that it’s fresh, and different.

C ’mon Susie, fresh, yet follow the rules?

Yep. Here’s how….

Every story has a structure. Three acts. The Hero’s Journey. Beats. Whatever you want to call them. This structure varies somewhat between genres, but generally speaking, all stories have the same elements, including the black moment, the epiphany, and especially the first chapter hook. These are the rules.

The freshness comes in how you tell it. Let’s say that you got in a fender bender on the way home and you had to tell your husband/wife/family. You still have to tell them the Whats and Hows, but will you start at the beginning, or will you tell the end first? What words will you use, how vividly do you draw it? Do you use humor, or foreshadowing? How do you describe the other players – the teenager who backed into you, or the cop who pulled up to the scene? How you tell that story is your voice.

How do you find your voice? That’s another article, but here’s a few hints:

What books do you like to read and who are your favorite authors? Often, their voice will mimic your own.

What turns of phrases do you like to use, and what kind of dialogue draws you? Keep a journal of vivid scenes and compelling dialogue you read or hear to help you get a feel for the kind of cadence and flow you like.

Try it out on the page. (You can always delete!) Experiment with voice. Do you like it? Why? Why not? Figure out what kind of writing you enjoy…and keep doing it.

Tell it your way, and it’ll be unlike any other. How?

What, Why, How. The three questions that make a proposal sparkle, that catch the eye of an editor. That wasn’t so painful was it? Now, get off the sofa and go write.

For more storytelling tips, go to www.mybooktherapy.com!

More information on Susan May Warren:

Former Russian Missionary Susan May Warren is the best-selling author of more than 20 novels and novellas with Tyndale, Barbour and Steeple Hill. A three time Christy award finalist, a RITA award finalists and three time winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice contest, Susan currently has over 500,000 books in print. A seasoned women’s events speaker and writing teacher, she is the founder of www.mybooktherapy.com an online community for writers, and runs a fiction editing service teaching writers how to tell a great story. Visit her online at: www.susanmaywarren.com.

What's Up Next?

It's not fair to say that trouble happens every time PJ Sugar is around, but it feels that way when she returns to her hometown, looking for a fresh start. Within a week, her former teacher is murdered and her best friend's husband is arrested as the number-one suspect. Although the police detective investigating the murder--who also happens to be PJ's former flame--is convinced it's an open-and-shut case, PJ's not so sure. She begins digging for clues in an effort to clear her friend's husband and ends up reigniting old passions, uncovering an international conspiracy, and solving a murder along the way. She also discovers that maybe God can use a woman who never seems to get it right.

Nothing But Trouble hits the stands just in time for a summer beach read! Go to: http://gotsugar.susanmaywarren.com for sneak peeks and to sign up for free stuff and updates!