We’d all love our readers to fall into our writing and not know how to get out. Walt showed a great graphic to entice us. But how do we get there?
Walt explained that he was giving this talk to help us not waste time like he did. “A wise man learns from his mistakes. A super-wise man learns from others’ mistakes.” Walt hopes to be wise and wants us to be super-wise! He added the caveat that his presentation is based on his own experiences, opinions and interpretations.
His-Story
Walt had an editor for his first two books. He got good feedback at aWillamette Writers’ Conference. And he self-published, giving away 4000 copies of the first book (free) and selling 1600 copies of the second. Which is pretty impressive! But now he had a third book in the works, had lost his editor, and was looking into audio versions.
(Rachel told us, just for future reference: there’s a website called acx.com (Audiobook Creation eXchange), where you can hire narrators to read your audiobook. If you can’t afford to pay them up front, you can do a profit share where they get a percentage of the proceeds.)
A self-published book is easily fixed if you learn there’s an error (this type of gun wasn’t invented by then, for example). But fixing an audiobook is much more difficult. This meant he wanted rather more complete edits before releasing the third book. He needed a professional opinion.
At this point, Walt got an evaluation of his book from Susan DeFreites and learned… simple anachronisms were the least of his problems. Unrealized racism/misogyny, lack of characterization???
- Men always protecting the “helpless” women
- 21st Century characters saving the “clueless” 11th Century locals
- Minimum to no characterization
Susan introduced him to Lisa Cron’s books. But he was still left wanting to find an editor which would be:
- Expensive
- 30 pages per session
- Hundreds of dollars per session
- Long term commitment
- Time consuming (30 pages at once, and a full book to go through?)
- Plus he didn’t understand the process.
Working with his first editor was easy. Walt sent in the whole manuscript and got back around 30 pages of notes. But working with a new editor would require that he send 30 pages at once and commit to a long-term relationship. Being hesitant to just dive in, he sent a “resume” to Lisa Cron and was accepted!
Working with an Editor
Lisa agreed with all Susan’s comments, and more… Working with her would come with a warning—“It’s hard to add characterization to an existing novel.”
- Minimal BS (back stories)
- Yes, there’s a plot…
- but the characters’ reaction to the plot are based on what Walt wants them to do…
- not on what those characters with their BS and “misBeliefs” would otherwise have them do
- Minimal “inner struggle”
- Showing off—describing things because the author knows them rather than because they’re necessary to the plot.
The author has to ask:
- Does my character react this because I want them to?
- Is this how they’d react based on their BS (backstory)?
- Am I just trying to show how much I know?
Some notes from Lisa Cron’s “Wired for Story”
- ”What happens” is the plot
- “Someone” is the protagonist
- The “goal” is what’s known as the story question
- And “how he or she changes” is what the story itself is actually about
The plot is interesting, but the story is mostly about how the characters change. The author must ask how the story affects the reader—which leads to the neuroscience stuff:
- We think in story
- Thinking is an evolutionary development to help us survive
- The story is based on our surrounding input:
- What we hear, see, taste, smell, etc
- Smell fruit on a tree (hunger)
- Hear a lion roar (fear)
- See a nice climbable tree (relief)
- Meet a fellow tribe member (warm and fuzzy), so
- Lions, tigers, and bears are bad
- Food, Shelter, and Tribe are good, and
- The stories we tell help us survive (and propagate)
- What we hear, see, taste, smell, etc
- If we’re good with stories, we tend to survive to propagate
Since we think in story, we react to story with various hormones, so we’re ”drawn in” or captivated. The stories we read tell us how to survive in future situations, and how to overcome past problems. Our body (mind and hormones) react to the book, play, movie, video-game, when someone tries to conquer past and future problems, to such an extent that a neuroscientist can detect the brain kicking in, just as if we were actually there! This is what being drawn into a book means!
Emotion
Emotion drives us. “This happens and then that happens” can be interesting, but it won’t captivate us. It’s the evolutionary “gotta survive” reaction that keep us up reading all night.
(An interesting plot) + (that protag trying to make sense of the external problem) + (while the protag is still dealing with misBeliefs) = (compelling story)
So, misbeliefs again?
MisBeliefs
Misbeliefs are our (or our characters’) messed up thinking due to something that happened to us (them) in the past.
- Addiction…the character has to avoid situations where alcohol is served
- Sexual victim…the character can’t be intimate
- Ignored as child…the character can’t be assertive
And in Walt’s book, there’s Brent who has to give in order to be accepted, and Joe who avoids personal connection because everyone close to him dies. Yes, everyone is messed up (except you).
On paper, this means we have to consider not just how to make sense of things, but what the character feels as they try to make sense of events. And this is where the characters start taking over.
Walt gave us two copies of a chapter—before and after editing—you can download them from https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/WM_before_after_y24m07d20.docx
Then Walt played the 7-minute summary of Lisa Cron’s book Wired for Story, available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IJQFaQkVNg
An engaging story needs a
- A clear focus,
- a protagonist with issues,
- a theme,
- and a plot.
- It needs focus—everything must relate to the story and not distract.
- It needs emotion—emotion is essential to decision making (and in fact, science has shown a man with no emotion can’t make decisions!).
- The protagonist needs clear goals—we need to make the reader’s brain engage those “mirror neurons”.
- It needs imagery—the brain needs visual content to stay engaged—the reader must be able to create a mental image, so we can’t just write in generalities.
- It needs patterns—the brain recognizes patterns. The setup must be fulfilled by the payoff (but you can break the pattern once you recognize its importance)
And so you write, then rewrite—the intuitive path is more important than overthinking. Rewrite over and again, until you have… a story that offers experience, lessions and entertainment, that satisfies the readers’ emotional side.
- Surprise engages dopamine, makes us curious
- High stakes engage cortisol, makes us worry
- Something to care about engages oxytocin, gives us empathy
For homework, Walt suggest we
- Listen to Lisa’s TED talk:
- Go to youtube and query “Lisa Cron”
- Get on some useful Mailing lists:
- Lisa Cron
- Susan DeFreitas
- Jonathan Gottschall
- Investigate CreativeLive. They have lectures. Paid service. But occasional “free” days. Worth signing up.
- Read “the Storytelling Animal, How Stories Make Us Human” by Jonathan Gottschall.
Some Stephen King books that might help us see all this in practice—Fairy Tale, and Mr. Mercedes and its sequels (especially Holly). If you’ve read Stephen King’s “On Writing”, you’ll know he never mentioned any of this, but Walt suspects some authors (Mr. King) do it ”naturally”. The rest of us gotta work at it.
Outlining
So now you know you’ve got to change things. How do you start?
Walt suggests using the Table of Contents in your Word doc. Use Header 2 for chapter headings, Header 3 for scenes. And add short descriptions to each, including, say, Point of View character, setting, scene, time, other characters… (Yes, you’ll take these out later). Maybe highlight in yellow (in the header) the things you want to add, change, potentially remove from the scene, and take it from there.
Other Questions
Jean asked about the rule that every chapter should have a purpose. You could add the chapter’s purpose while outlining.
How do multiple backstories fit with writing in first or third person? Walt writes in third person (deep). He has multiple point of view characters, but not all at once. Writing in 1st person can be easier because you can place the reader in the character’s thoughts, but he finds 3rd person fits the story he wants to tell.
We have to consider what we think, why we think it, and then put it on paper. Walt said he still wondered why we didn’t know this stuff—why did we get caught up in describing what someone’s wearing instead of knowing what’s on their mind? Lisa had him spend a lot of time writing character studies (not about their clothes)—it might be worth thinking of writing as muscle memory, rather like learning to play jazz on the piano. Your fingers have to know where to go, and so does your mind.
Sheila asked if the novel became longer with all this motivation and backstory. Walt said it actually became shorter because so many things proved extraneous to the story and had to be removed.
Jean wondered how you know what to remove. Can’t you keep something just because it’s interesting. Walt said yes, but don’t go beyond what’s needed for the story. If the details of something are worth telling, those details must become useful later. (e.g. someone doesn’t wear socks—this doesn’t matter, unless you’re going to give them blisters later.)
Readers add their own interpretation to what you write, but the patterns must be there, even if they’re unconscious. Irrelevant knowledge breaks up the pattern.
Matthew pointed out that the Back to the Future movies, after much editing and just before screentesting, almost lost an iconic scene, but audiences loved it so it was kept. Walt said yes, we need someone (maybe the editor) to look over our shoulder. Our own judgement might not be enough.
Robin pointed out that the things we remove from our stories can be used as giveaways to draw people to our blog or to buy our books.
Mary asked about the 30 pages at a time approach to editing and wondered how it compared with having a full novel edited. Walt agreed that you have to really trust your editor, especially when your spending so much time and money.
Finally we pondered the world of AI. If thinking is story, and we ask AI to write stories, will AI be able to think?
Mary thanked Walt particularly for sharing his chapter edits. And we all thank him for an engaging and fascinating presentation.