Writing Excuses 10.48: Project in Depth, The Devil's Only Friend

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/11/29/writing-excuses-10-48-project-in-depth-the-devils-only-friend/

Key Points: Let's put Dan and John Cleaver on the chopping block today! (Was that a pun, Dan?) The Devil's Only Friend is book four, but think of it as book one of the second John Cleaver trilogy! The second trilogy is about John Cleaver finding out that having emotions hurts. John Cleaver is only about a year older, which helps readers because he is so different emotionally. In this book, John has a team from the FBI, but he is still lonely and isolated. Next of Kin and The Devil's Only Friend are concurrent, but told from a demon's POV and from John Cleaver's POV. Dan did not pull a Buffy with Elijah. Death of a favorite character means something to the readers. The focus of this book was intended to be disassociative identity disorder, but with Elijah and memories, it became a book about Alzheimer's. When John gets a pet, most readers are scared.
[Mary] Season 10, Episode 48.
[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, Project in Depth, The Devil's Only Friend.
[Mary] 15 minutes long.
[Howard] Because you're in a hurry.
[Dan] And I'm not that smart.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Mary] I'm Mary.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Dan] And I'm on the chopping block today.
[Howard] Mwahahahaha.
( Chop, chop! )
[Brandon] But I'm going to give you a writing prompt. Not you, Dan. But the audience. Because we are actually still on the boat. We don't have the audience with us for this one, but we are on the Writing Excuses cruise. So I was thinking about how environment shapes stories. I wanted to give you a writing prompt to take a story that doesn't really belong on a boat and set it on a boat. Or even one that you'd never considered and see what kind of... I should say ship because this is a ship.
[Howard] You should say ship.
[Brandon] You set it on a ship, and you see how that environment tweaks your story. I've found this a very useful way of conceptualizing stories that I'm working on. So, this has been Writing Excuses. Dan, thank you for being in the hot seat.
[Dan] Thank you very much for spending the whole episode talking about how great I am.
[Brandon] You listeners, you're out of excuses. Now go write a book as good as Dan's.

Writing Excuses 10.46: How Do I Make This Pretty?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/11/15/writing-excuses-10-46-how-do-i-make-this-pretty/

Key points: How do you improve the prose, line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph? Did the readers say they were bored? Present the information faster. Avoid tell, then show. Cut redundancies. Maximize the delivery of a block of prose -- funniest word last, turn it upside down. Try writing one sentence per concept. Look at parallelism. Did the readers say confusing or unbelievable? Order of information, internal state? Clean up the blocking. Check the adverbs, and replace with descriptions? Add sensory details. Make sure you follow the character's attention. Tweak your paragraphing, your chapter breaks? Watch for $5 words, and make change. Replace vague words with concrete. Turn negative information into positive. Change the font, and read it again. Then cut 10%.
( Cut, add, and tweak? )
[Brandon] We are out of time. But I want to give you a bit of homework here. This is actually my exercise that started with my editor teaching me to do it on my very first book, which was to cut 10% line-by-line. This is after you've already cut the scenes you don't need, and even the paragraphs you don't need. He said then go and take a page, find out how many words are on that page, and cut exactly 10% of those words. Do it for every page in your book. I don't usually do this like now in the same way. Then I got out a spreadsheet, and I just did it. I did it chapter by chapter rather than page by page. But it was so useful to me that I did it on my first three or four books, exactly 10%. Now I've got by instinct that I'll look through a revision, and I'll have cut seven or 8%, just naturally doing a polish. So I want you to do that on one of your pieces. Force yourself to cut 10%. I'll add the caveat that there are the rare writers who don't add too much in their orig... Initial draft and need to add. A lot of short story writers... Eric James Stone is this way. He actually is too sparse, and trimming 10% actually makes his writing worse. He needs to go and add 10%. But give this a try and see if it works out for you. This has been Writing Excuses. Thank you, Writing Excuses cruise members.
[Whoo! Applause!]
[Brandon] You are out of excuses, now go write.

Writing Excuses 10.44: How Do I Fix What Is Broken?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/11/01/writing-excuses-10-44-how-do-i-fix-what-is-broken/

Key Points: Start revision with the big stuff. Does the story work? Is the ending satisfying? Do I like the characters? Do I want to keep reading? Then think about the best solution. Before you start eating the elephant a bite at a time, outline your revision process! Make a task list. Start with whatever you bracketed (or noted) while writing that you need to fix. Then read the book yourself, and pay attention to your reader reactions. What is awesome, what is boring, what is confusing, what is unbelievable? Identify problems, then come up with solutions, to avoid cascading. Pantsers? You may need to outline the book and figure out what you are writing. Keep a list of things to change later to keep going. Let your readers suggest problems to look at. Fix it now, or fix it later? That is the question. Use search-and-replace to put brackets around a character name to help you find all the places that need fixing. Colorcode changes! Or colorcode to check balance. Try using notecards on a cork board to make the plot visible. 
( Making changes? But... )
[Brandon] But we're out of time for revision. We will come back and talk about this again in a couple of weeks. But we are going to give you some homework. This was actually one that was suggested by Nalo when she was on the podcast. We were talking about revision, and she uses something like this color method, but she uses it for senses. She suggested take... Getting six colors, printing out your manuscript or just doing it on the computer screen, and highlighting... Take the six colors. There's five senses plus movement. Anytime something's moving, you'll highlight it in one color, or someone's moving. Anytime you mention a sense, mention the color appropriate to that sense. Then see how you're doing with your descriptions and see if you have enough motion going on in your story. So that's your homework. Take a chapter and do that. Take a whole book and do that, if you want to. Take a short story and do that. This has been Writing Excuses adrift. We'd like to thank our studio audience.
[Screams, applause]
[Brandon] We would like to thank Delia. Thank you so much for being on the podcast with us.
[Delia] Thank you.
[Applause]
[Howard] Outstanding.
[Brandon] You all are out of excuses, now go revise.

Writing Excuses 10.42: How in the World Do I Tie All This Together?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/10/18/writing-excuses-10-42-how-in-the-world-do-i-tie-all-this-together/

 Key points: Don't judge a story by its length. Symptoms first -- this ending isn't working, my story is sick! -- then diagnosis -- why isn't this ending satisfying? -- and treatment, find a fix. A common problem is unfulfilled promises. Use the MICE quotient and the Hollywood Formula to get the story started right, and then you know what you need to end with, too. Also, you may be resolving things in the wrong sequence. Make sure you get your nesting right! Beware the Brandon avalanche -- don't overlap too many resolutions in one massive twist. One great plot moment and one great character moment, fine. Three character moments for the same character... people get lost. Sometimes the character should get what they need, not what they want. Look for key elements in your story and tie those up in your ending. Don't try to tie up everything! Do try to find out what beta readers think will be satisfying -- what questions are asked, what promises are made, what did they get so far out of the story? Sometimes you need to wrap a thread up, sometimes you need to de-emphasize something. Sad, unhappy endings, where characters die -- make sure people know terrible things may happen, and give them a glimmer of success or hope even in the midst of tragedy. Heroes need to earn happy endings, and tragic endings. Did the character bring the tragedy down on themselves for some reason, or is there at least a glimmer of hope that things might work out? Foreshadow the possibility of a terrible ending, perhaps use the emotional arc of a character? Consider the setting for the sad event -- is it at a low point in the story, or is it part of a stand-up-and-cheer moment? Last word: fiction is oddly moral, we want it to make sense, people need to earn what happens to them. Life is random, but fiction has to make sense.
( Is it the end, or just a new beginning? )
[Brandon] We're actually going to have Mary give us a writing prompt... Or homework.
[Mary] Right. So your homework is to take a look at the last paragraph of your work in progress, whether that's a novel or a short story, and the first paragraph. Look to see if there are resonances from the first paragraph that you can build into the last paragraph. These are the key moments that Nalo was talking about, questions that we may have answered, images that are powerful. That you can build them in, in the reverse order in which you introduced them. Or, if you have a powerful image in your closing paragraph, see if there is a place you can put it back into your opening, so that you have that resonance for the audience.
[Brandon] Excellent. Well, this has been Writing Excuses at sea. You're out of excuses, now go write.
[Whoo! Applause]

Writing Excuses 10.40: What's the Difference between Ending and Stopping?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/10/04/writing-excuses-10-40-whats-the-difference-between-ending-and-stopping/

Key points: Do you just stop when you get to the right length? How do you pick an ending? "A satisfactory ending is a satisfactory destination." Sometimes we, the author, know the ending, but forget to tell the reader. Endings should fall out naturally, when you tie up enough of the plot threads to answer the question of the novel. Don't make the mistake of thinking an awesome ending, a clever line, means that you've reached the stopping point. That makes stories end too fast. Beware ending a novel on a scene, end on a sequel. Don't try to wrap up everything! Consider an epilogue. Be careful of the Harry Potter flash forward ending. 
( And when the time has come... )
[Brandon] In fact, I'm going to give us some homework that is going to try to get you... You should be at your ending of your story that you've been working on as you've been listening to these podcasts. I want you to try to nudge it two directions and see if you like it better. I want you to try an epilogue where maybe you approach some of these things, a Harry Potter style epilogue, or an epilogue where you kind of... You spend a little more time with the sequel. Then I want you to try to back up. I want you to cut off part of your ending and see if you can get more of this sort of emotional resonance into the part that's left. You do this by giving clear indications of what those questions are going to be and what people are going to try in the first part of your ending, rather than kind of lingering on the second part of your ending. Just experiment with different lengths of ending for your story and see what it does to it. This has been Writing Excuses. We want to thank our wonderful audience of Writing Excuses cruise members.
[Screams]
[Brandon] We want to thank Nalo for being with us. Thank you so much.
[Nalo] Thank you.
[Screams]
[Brandon] Now, listeners, you're out of excuses. Now go write.

Writing Excuses 10.38: How Does Context Shape Dialogue?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/09/20/writing-excuses-10-38-how-does-context-shape-dialog/

Key points: The context -- genre, setting, viewpoint, beats -- can change the meaning and impact of dialogue. But we don't want beats every line, either. Use beats to emphasize or to keep the reader in the scene. Mimicry, cliches, and pop culture references may cause stilted dialogue. Remember the motives of the character in this scene. Beware on-the-nose dialogue. Dialogue needs to be shaped by why the character is saying it, who they are talking to, and the function it serves for the author. Let each characters talk in their own way. People may talk in big blocks of dialogue, but that's not how we write it on the page, usually. Put in the interruptions, put in the personalities, put in the beats.
( He said, she said, and then... )
[Brandon] We're totally out of time. This is a fun, fun topic. To go with it, we actually have what I think is one of the best writing exercises we've come up with for this Masters' Course. Mary's going to take you through it.
[Mary] Okay. This one is a three-parter. You do not have to do all three parts. But, if you want to, get ready. So we're going to have, on the website, a transcript of something that we call in theater an AB scene. An AB scene is just... Basically it's a script with no character descriptions, no names, nothing. Just dialogue from a character A and a character B. What I want you to do is, I want you to give us context around that. You're going to shape the dialogue. You can't change the dialogue. But you will shape the dialogue by changing the description around it. So I want you to do this, and I'm going to have complete detailed instructions on the site. But basically what you're going to do is, you're going to take the AB scene and the first time, you're going to write it in one genre. Then, you're going to do it again, and you're going to change it to a completely different genre. Then,... With like different characters, same dialogue, though. Then you're going to take the one that you like better. So this is pass 2. In your second pass, what you're going to do is you're going to take the one of the genre that you like better, and you're going to flip it to the other character's point of view, because again, that's going to change the context and the way those lines of dialogue are being perceived. You have to make everything make sense. Then you're going to flip it one more time. That last pass is, you're going to take the dialogue that's already there and you're going to remove all of it and replace it with completely different dialogue, but leave the context the same. So, as I say, I'm going to have full instructions up on the website. The AB scene is there. It will drive you a little bit crazy, but it's really worth it for getting a hang on this.
[Dan] At the risk of lengthening the episode, I had a chance to do that with the new John Cleaver book. Because there's the book, and then the novella from a different character's point of view. In one scene, I had to keep exactly, like you are talking, all the dialogue is exactly the same but we're getting a different character's perspective on it. You're right, I learned so much about how dialogue works by doing that.
[Brandon] There's a short film competition that does this. They get an AB scene, and then film a scene. The best one I've seen from one of these is one called Room Eight. I would go watch that. Then you can go watch all of the others, which are still all very good, that use the exact same dialogue, and how different each of the films are. Fantastic.
[Mary] Yeah. It's a great acting exercise. They actually had us do that at the Sesame Street workshop, too. So we were doing that with puppets.
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Writing Excuses 10.36: How Does Context Shape Plot Twists?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/09/06/writing-excuses-10-36-how-does-context-shape-plot-twists/

Key Points: Plot twists means fulfill those promises! Build up to that twist, BUT keep your plot twists surprising yet inevitable. Make sure you have that moment of surprise. Don't focus on when the reader will get the twist, focus on what kind of twist are you creating and what question the reader needs to ask to guess the twist. Twists should work whether the reader figures them out or not. Think about character surprise and reader surprise. Make sure there are good reasons that the characters aren't figuring it out. Build tension around how the character is going to react more than who's going to do it or what it is. Don't just throw a plot twist in for a surprise, make it do more than one thing, make it integral to the character and plot development. Context makes a plot twist satisfying. Don't forget the red herrings! Distractions are a writer's best friend. Readers miss the middle of a list, so bury those clues. Red herrings depend on the reader assuming they know what the information means, and being wrong. Slide it in there, and give them a good reason to think it means something else. Consider the type of plot twist -- recontextualizing everything, or just a reveal? Seat-of-the-pants mystery writing? Make sure everyone could have done it, then decide in the last chapter who did it! Plot twists aren't just for mysteries -- anything that surprises your characters can be a plot twist. Pregnancy, catastrophe, etc. You can foreshadow thematically, too. Don't forget, not every story needs a plot twist, especially the "everything has changed" style. Make the twists fit your book. Shock and thrill books need different twists from comfy, cozy books. Which goes with the intensity or scale of the twist -- is it THE TWIST or just a surprising bit of information? And don't forget Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry!
( Let's twist tonight, like we did last night! )
[Mary] Season 10, Episode 36.
[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, How Does Context Shape Plot Twists?
[Howard] 15 minutes long.
[Mary] Because you're in a hurry.
[Dan] And we're not that smart.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Mary] I'm Mary.
[Dan] And I'm Dan.

[Brandon] And we're going to talk about the context of your plot twists. Now the reason why we didn't just do a plot twist episode is because we really kind of covered this. All that really needs to be said is fulfill those promises. But I think that there is more to this topic. People like writing great plot twists, people like reading great plot twists. Plot twists don't happen in a vacuum. If you can build up what's happening around it so that it pushes towards this twist, then you're going to have a great plot twist. The big thing we want to keep in mind is the Hollywood concept, surprising yet inevitable.
[Mary] Really, the thing that people are looking for with that plot twist is the moment of surprise. But then... For them going, "Oh, of course, of course, of course. They had to do that." One of the classic examples that people hold up is The Gift of the Magi by O'Henry. O'Henry is the king of the plot twist. That is what he made his name on. So if you haven't actually read his book... His short stories, I recommend them to look at the structure of what he's doing.

[Brandon] Yeah. You want to have that moment. Now something I want to talk about here. Let me ask the rest of you. When do you, in your writing, if you were thinking of it... When do you want your reader to guess the plot twist? When do you want them to get it?
[Howard] I'm actually not allowed to worry about that. Because my readers have literally months to think about the story I'm telling online.
[Brandon] This is true.
[Howard] So... I've heard people say, "Oh, if somebody... If anybody can guess it, then I've done it wrong."
[Brandon] No.
[Howard] I realized you know what, somebody is going to guess it and may even post it in a place where I will get to read it. So I just have to let go of that. For me, what I try and focus on instead of when should the reader figure it out, is what type of a twist am I creating? Because I want to know what question the reader will need to ask in order to guess the twist.
[Brandon] No, I think that's great really. I think people can get a lot from this. I mean, this is where you say, "Luxury!" Because we can give our books to test readers, decide where they're figuring things out. If the reader on average is figuring stuff out too early, we're like, "Oh, wait. Obviously I've overplayed my hand." If they're not getting it at all, we can add in more foreshadowing. But you really should, I think, have every plot twist work even if they've figured it out. And work if they haven't figured it out. How do we do this?

[Mary] So I think there's two pieces going on there. One is that we have the character surprise, and we also have the reader surprise. So in order for it to work if the reader is not surprised, if the reader knows what's coming, the tension in the book cannot be built on the surprise of the reader. It has to be built on the characters'.
[Brandon] As an aside of that, one danger of the reader figuring it out too early is that them thinking that the characters are foolish for not figuring it out. So you need to have legitimate reasons why the characters aren't figuring this out.
[Mary] Yes. Some of those things can be things like having the character identify a list of possible reasons that X is occurring, and give them very logical reasons for picking not... For discounting the actual solution.
[Howard] When we did our episode on intrigue versus mystery... I have a small advantage, because I just listened to all of these as I prepped them for the site. When we did that, we talked about the difference between mystery, the reader doesn't know and is trying to guess, and intrigue, the characters don't know but the reader does know and we are looking at what the characters are doing. With a plot twist, where the reader has guessed it, you are up... You're in the intrigue space. The reader knows what's going on, the characters don't. You have to sell this so that the surprising yet inevitable moment, which isn't surprising for the reader, is still surprising for the characters and is fun. I'm thinking about those moments where, and I think this will air far enough out that it's not a spoiler... The moment where Vision grabs the hammer.
[Brandon] Right. Yes.
[Mary] Which I haven't seen yet, so... Great. Thanks, Howard.
[Laughter]

[Mary] But I think the thing is that when the reader is... When the reader knows what's coming, that what they're reading for, what the... The tension that you're building is the question not of who's going to do this thing, but how the characters are going to react to it. So in Of Noble Family, I have a couple of plot twists. One of which I really don't want people to know about going in. I worked very hard to make sure that I wasn't foreshadowing it in ways that would be predictable. The other one is... It's on the back cover of the book, that Jane is with child. When I was writing it, I was writing it as though it was going to be a plot twist, even though I knew that everyone would be able to see it coming. So it's a plot twist for the character because the character has an idea of how things are going to go down. This throws a wrench in what's going on. But what the reader doesn't know... Even though they know that she is with child, they don't know how that is going to affect her or how it's going to affect their circumstances. That is how you can structure things...
[Howard] You've also teased the reader a little bit by giving them something that they might look at and say, "Oh, this is the plot twist," and then they relax and stop looking... You sneaky, sneaky person.
[Chuckles]

[Brandon] Dan.
[Dan] We talk a lot about everything doing more than one thing. Plot twists are another example. If your plot twist is in there solely for the sake of surprise, it will not be satisfying. More than once.
[Brandon] Or at least not as satisfying. I personally dislike it when storytellers do this. But there are... There is a school of thought that thinks you should do that. We should acknowledge that. I remember when I was reading the bonus... Or listening to the bonus features for 24, the series. They got together and said, "What is the one thing they won't expect, the readers won't expect us to do?" I say reader. The viewer. They did that one thing. You know what, it was shocking.
[Dan] Well, see, that's great. But twists like that, and I've done twists like that as well, they still serve other functions. I think that if your reader is able to look back on your story and say, "Yup, I didn't see it coming, but there is no way the story could have been told without it." Not necessarily because it was foreshadowed and inevitable, but because what happened, the repercussions of it, are integral to the advancement of the character and the advancement of the plot.
[Brandon] I often say...
[Dan] Then it's going to feel like it fits.
[Brandon] That it's easy to make a plot twist. It's really, really easy. It's hard to make one satisfying. But you could sit down, listener, right now, and write a new scene where all your main characters die and your romance turns into a space opera... I mean, you could throw in all kinds of plot twists out of nowhere. Not satisfying at all. It's the context that's going to make this satisfying. It's the other things you're doing with that plot twist.
[Mary] One of these things that you're doing, contextually, is that you are... Some of the contextual tools that you're using are distracting the reader by other conflicts.

[Brandon] Right. Let's talk... Actually, let's stop for the book of the week. Then we'll talk about red herrings. The book of the week is I am Princess X?
[Mary] Yes. So, I am Princess X is by Cherie Priest. This is another book that I have read because I narrate it. But again, this is a book that I really enjoyed. It's great for plot twists. The... You start off the book and you're like, "Oh, this is going to be a story about girls in elementary school." Then you find out that the... Like, this is not a spoiler because it's chapter 1. Best friend dies. The book is dealing with the repercussions of that. It just keeps going down farther and farther down this rabbit hole of I was not expecting that little thing to happen. It's a lot of fun. The audiobook is... I really enjoyed narrating the audiobook. I will say that one of the differences between the audiobook and the print version is that the print version has comic books woven into it because those are integral to the plot. For the audiobook, we had to make them into radio plays.
[Brandon] Oh, that's cool.
[Mary] So, I am Princess X by Cherie Priest. That's available with a free 30-day trial membership at audiblepodcast.com/excuse. It's a lot of fun.
[Brandon] Great. That does sound like a lot of fun.
[Mary] It really is.

[Brandon] So, red herrings. Red herrings. This is one of the best ways to fool the reader. I've talked before, writers, you're stage magicians. You need to be pulling off these dramatic magic tricks with your plot twists. Now, we'll get into in a minute... Not every book needs one of these. Make sure you understand this. But if you're planning one, one of the best ways to do it is actually to look at what a stage magician does. They will keep your attention on the wrong thing so well that if you actually eliminate that thing... One of the ways to watch how a mag... A stage magician is doing their trick is to get them on the screen and put a Post-it or a piece of paper over the hand that's distracting you and just watch the other one. You'll be like, "Wow. It's right there. I can totally see what they're doing. They slip it off the table. They grab it out of there. They..." You do the same thing as a writer.
[Mary] [inaudible]
[Howard] You delete the text of the red herring, and suddenly the text that was foreshadowing the surprising but inevitable plot twist is right there in front of you.
[Mary] There's a really, really simple trick. One of my favorite tools, actually. When we're... It's in order of information thing. Typically speaking, when you're... So when you're writing... The reader is building the images one step at a time. So, typically speaking, the first thing and the last thing that the character notices are the two most important things.
[Brandon] Okay.
[Mary] So this is a focus thing, using puppetry terms. All the stuff in the middle is... Readers will kind of skim past. So if you put the actual clue smack dab in the middle of a list...
[Brandon] They won't see it.
[Mary] They won't see it, but it's still there. So like if I say, in Shades of Milk and Honey, the... I have a dueling pistol literally on the mantle in the first act.
[Chuckles]
[Mary] It's literally on the mantle. But it's in the middle of a description of how masculine the room is. The paintings, the heavy green drapes, the pistols on the mantle, the roaring fireplace, the gilded books. Whereas if I had put... The roaring fireplace, the drapes, the gilded books, and the pistol on the mantle. That's...

[Brandon] The way that plot twists... Or that red herrings work is you give information in a way that the reader assumes they know why you're giving it. That's the best way to slide this foreshadowing in, is... This idea like... I look at the Sixth Sense. Sorry, statute of limitations is over, you are going to get spoiled.
[Laughter]
[Brandon] Bruce Willis is dead. The opening scene, he gets shot. Your immediate thought is going to be, "Oh, wow. He just got shot!" But in the context, in the very next scene he meets another little boy who has like the same problem as the guy who shot him. You're like, "Oh, that prologue was there because we're showing character development for Bruce Willis, and why he takes on this difficult case with a new kid who can see ghosts." You think you know why the scene is there. If you're making your scenes do multiple things, like that scene is, then yes, you do know why the scene is there, you just don't know the other reason it's there.
[Dan] Yeah. The movie reviewer, Roger Ebert, always talked about the law of economy of characters. That you could always tell who was going to be the killer by just looking at who the famous actors were in the movie and saying, "Well, this guy hasn't done anything important yet. Obviously he's the murderer." You can... The way around that is to make sure that all your characters are doing important things. That all your characters have a reason to be in the movie that does not involve them killing someone.
[Howard] That comes back to this whole idea of contextualizing the plot twist, contextualizing everything. If the story you are telling feels like the sort of story where an archetypal kind of plot twist is going to happen, the "somebody's going to betray somebody else," and you're waiting for the traitor to show up. Your context has created the ability for you to create a perfect red herring.
[Brandon] I love red herrings that… What they do is you leave a hole. You leave a hole and the characters haven't realized something. The reader's like, "Oh, they didn't notice. This is it obviously." You put something obvious that the characters aren't getting to for a little while. So the reader's like, "Oh, I've got it figured out. I know who it is. They didn't think of... They listed off all their suspects, they didn't list this person. That person is obviously it!" Then, several chapters later, the characters like, "Oh, what about this person? Oh, it turns out they have an alibi." It yanks the rug out... Right out from underneath you.
[Mary] Yeah. Then you have forgotten some of the other things.
[Brandon] Yes.
[Chuckles]

[Mary] I think that this is Agatha Christie, but this is a really neat trick for seat-of-the-pantsers. I believe, and someone I'm sure in the comments will correct me. But a famous mystery writer, like Agatha Christie...
[Chuckles]
[Mary] Who might be someone else, was a seat-of-the-pantser. I'm like, "How do you write mysteries without...?" She would write without knowing who did it. The way she would handle it was that she made sure that everyone could have done it, and would decide in the last chapter... [Brandon] Who it was.
[Chuckles]
[Mary] Who it was. Then she would just go back and do a little bit of cleanup.
[Brandon] Right. That's perfect, and it's totally what you can do.

[Dan] Now we're talking a lot about plot twists in the context of a mystery that needs to be solved. I think that there's a lot of plot twists...
[Mary] True.
[Dan] That your characters aren't necessarily looking for.
[Brandon] Like getting pregnant. I mean, that's one that you don't necessarily need to foreshadow any more than saying, "These people are engaging in certain activities which might relate... Result in a child. Marital duties."
[Howard] Plot twists... We are having a gunfight and now the building is on fire. Well, the objective has just changed. I'm done shooting people, and it's time to run away from the flames.
[Brandon] Now, you can foreshadow these things still thematically. For instance, George RR Martin foreshadows people die in my books. So he can have plot twists were major characters are killed in seemingly haphazard ways, where you're just like, "What?" No one else would have done that, but he's foreshadowed it. So you have to foreshadow thematically for these sort of twists to work.
[Dan] With something like the pregnancy that shows up in Of Noble Family, you've been foreshadowing this is how it affects the magic, this is how it affects her society, so that it's there in your mind even though you don't necessarily see it coming.

[Brandon] Now, very quickly, we're running out of time. I do want to spend some time on the idea that you may not need plot twists.
[Mary] Yes.
[Brandon] What do I mean by that? Well, you may not need an Ender's Game style everything has just changed in the last few chapters. Oh, my goodness, I never knew what the story was about. In fact, people in my writing group sometimes, because I like endings like that, and I try to work them in periodically to my books, where you're like, "Wow. This just changed everything." I've had good friends of mine who are like, "I have to put things like that in my books. I don't have any." Then try to put them in and what happens is, they're... That's not the style of book. The thematic foreshadowing for their novel is not you don't have the ending where the guy and girl don't get together because that ruins your book. Sometimes it's okay to have the expected happen.
[Mary] Yeah. Because again, people are reading for specific effects, and if you... If you're picking up a book and you want surprises and shocks and thrills, that's a different kind of book then when you're picking something up and you want something that is comfortable and cozy.
[Dan] This is also where we should talk about the different degrees of intensity that a plot twist can have. Ender's Game, Sixth Sense, recontextualize the whole story, is on one end of the scale. But you can still have different plot twists of, "Oh, in this romantic comedy, I didn't realize that she actually is a zookeeper." Which doesn't necessarily change the entire thing, but it is going to change a certain aspect of it. So there's still surprises without being THE TWIST!
[Howard] Example from my own work with The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse. When we're trying to catch the bad guys who are doing bad things, and then we have blown a hole in the space station and we need to save everybody. That's a great example of a quote plot twist unquote that does not recontextualize the whole story. It just says we're telling an adventure story and Ah, it's just got bigger and big finish.

[Brandon] We're out of time. I'm going to give you a piece of homework. I want you to go pick a favorite piece of media. Probably easiest with a film or a short story, something you can read or experience very quickly. But it could work for a novel, too. I want you to pick one that has a great plot twist. Your favorite type of plot twist. It doesn't need to be Sixth Sense, recontextualize everything, but the type of plot twist you enjoy. The left turn you enjoy in a story. I want you to look and see how the creator of this piece of media foreshadows it, either thematically or specifically with foreshadowing. I want you to see how they use red herrings. Take that all and make a list out of it. Hopefully, this will teach you a little bit about the subtlety of doing plot twists yourself. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Writing Excuses 10.34: Q&A on Pacing

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/08/23/writing-excuses-10-44-qa-on-pacing/

Q&A Summary:
Q: What are early signs of pacing problems?
A: When you can't name anything that your character has accomplished towards a goal. When you are bored writing. If you, as writer, are frustrated that nothing is happening. This will be cool when I get to X -- make every scene somebody's favorite. What am I going to achieve in this scene that will make the reader feel an emotion? Why is this scene memorable? Ask a beta reader.
Q: How do you chart pacing so it happens evenly with growing tension up to climax and resolution?
A: Good question. Know how the book, and the reveals or payoffs, will end, so you know how you are going to get there. Write down your setups so you can make them coincide at the right time. Note: don't do Brandon Avalanches OR try to make everything too even. Provide a progression, and spread out your climaxes. Do Grand Prix plotting.
Q: You said before it's not always scene-sequel, scene-sequel. I just want to clarify. For faster pacing, we up the scenes and lessen the sequel, right? And the opposite for slower pacing?
A: Generally, yes.
Q: How do you handle the progression of a character over the series of a few months as they travel without the story feeling choppy?
A: Signposting, signal a jumpcut before it happens. Do include some interesting stuff that is not purely plot related! If you set up an urgent item, a ticking clock, don't jump ahead. Do signpost skipping boring stuff here...
Q: It feels like debut authors are expected to start their novel at a breakneck pace. At what point is it okay to slow down? Should the first book be 120 mph until the end?
A: Debut writers can't do what established writers do, because the readers don't trust them yet. New writers must establish quickly that "you want to read what I want to write." You don't have to have a breakneck pace, but you must remember the reader will give you less benefit of the doubt.
Q: Brent Weeks writes 300,000 word books that read like thrillers. How?
A: Short period of time, fast pacing, few sequels.
( Tick, tock, tick, tock... BOOM! )
[Brandon] We are actually out of time. There were a lot of excellent questions on this. I'm sorry that we didn't get to all of them. But Howard is going to give you a writing exercise.
[Howard] We're doing plot twists next month. So let's pace you straight into plot twists, with an exercise that I like to call hard left. Take your pacing, take a scene that is moving forward at a breakneck pace. Imagine a person running or car driving fast straight ahead, and then throw a twist at them and don't break scene. Don't do the cliffhanger, don't do the page turn. Just take a hard left and roll with it. Force us to keep that pace up as we jink to the left, as we move in a new direction.
[Brandon] Take something you weren't expected to do and just run with it. Great. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Writing Excuses 10.32: How Do I Control the Speed of the Story?

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/08/09/writing-excuses-10-32-how-do-i-control-the-speed-of-the-story/

Key points: Where do you put your chapter and scene breaks, and what kind of chapter and scene breaks do you use? Through scenes, with continuous action, or scene breaks (aka camera cuts, cut to black, ###)? Think about the effect on the reader -- keep them going, or give them a break for reaction? A break at a cliffhanger raises tension, a break after a revelation gives the reader a chance to react. If you do cliffhangers, make sure what they come back to is worth it. Which kind of cliffhanger -- open the door, and (BREAK), then see the centurion waiting or open the door, see the centurion waiting, and (BREAK)? Look at white space -- length of lines, paragraphs, etc. Dialogue and short action beats versus expository blocks of text. Exposition may be faster, but dialogue or quick beats reads fast, even if it takes more pages. Commas are one beat, periods two, and paragraph breaks are three beats. But. Be. Careful. Think about pacing in proportion to the length of the story you are writing. Short books, faster pace. Also check your genre! Don't forget the scene-sequel format! Also, look at whether a scene is self-contained, or leaves unanswered questions. Try putting a scene break just before they escape, just after they escape, or after they escape and find the Roman centurion waiting with the next question... the pace changes!
( A ticking clock, a falling shadow, or... )
[Brandon] We are actually out of time. So we're going to let Mary give us some homework regarding scene breaks.
[Mary] Right. What I'd like you to do is take something that you've written already. We're just going to play with converting it from a through scene... Or converting it either from a through scene to a scene break or the other way around, depending on what it is. But just grab an entire chapter that has scenes in it, and take all the... Any place you have a scene break, take it out and replace it with exposition to bridge. Instead...
[Howard] A transitional sentence of some sort.
[Mary] A transitional sentence. See what that does to your pacing. Likewise, look what happens if you... When you put those scene breaks back in, look what happens if you move where that scene break is, just by a line or two.
[Brandon] Excellent. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

Writing Excuses 10.30: Q&A on Middles, with Marie Brennan

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/07/26/writing-excuses-10-30-qa-on-middles-with-marie-brennan/

Q&A Summary:
Q: How do you prevent tedium in the middle bits without something exploding every other chapter?
A: Discovery of new things. Make the characters care about things, and make it clear to the reader why these are important. Impressive failures!
Q: In short fiction, how do you prevent try-fail cycles from resolving too quickly without adding a ton more words? Do you use yes-but, no-and for this?
A: Yes. Don't cram them in, and make your characters try harder. Try-fail should not simply reset. Keep progressing, use yes-but to make variations and complications, and watch out for Brandoning your story.
Q: If Act 2 adds a lot more to the story, new POV characters, new subplots, new locations, etc., how do you spread out the introduction of these elements so that it's not too jarring to the reader?
A: Beware of adding new POVs too late in the story. Finish a subplot, then add a character. Make sure adding the new elements is natural, not forced. Foreshadow, and let us know that new things are coming (signposts!). Don't just add POVs, subplots, and locations and never finish! Beware kudzu plots.
Q: How do I weave subplots in without them turning into outright side quests?
A: Subplots for secondary characters should not have higher stakes or more interest than the main story. Look at how the subplots intersect with the main story and the other characters. Watch for subplots, side quests, that do nothing except make the characters jump through a flaming hoop. At the end of the side quest, something should have changed! Side quests, like ties or shoes, should contrast or complement the main suit.
Q: Especially in a longer story, how important are breather chapters that ease the tension?
A: Check your genre and pacing. Fast-paced, few, slower, maybe. Don't let the tension go, just vary the tension and texture.
Q: Do you have any interesting methods for organizing, developing, and interweaving plot and subplot threads? Even after the brainstorming, outlining, prewriting, how much do you weave in your head versus what you write in your outline notes?
A: Proprioception. When you get to the end, and a character is doing something wrong, there may be a hole in the middle. Try practicing by writing a single thread, then adding threads.
( Betcha can't read just one! )
[Howard] Okay. Well, Michael, thank you for the great question. We are out of time. I've got an exercise for you that should take... Not just you, Michael. All of our listeners. From our month on middles to next month on pacing. I call this murdering the middle darling. You've worked your way through the middle. Go back into it, and remove an element from the entire middle, and see how that changes the read of things. See if that was really necessary to get you to the ending. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. The easiest way to find out is to kill it. So, you're out of excuses. Now go write.