The Internal Arc--compliments of Louise Hawes

We've all heard of the Story Arc, with its rising tension, climax, and then the sharply-falling resolution. If I could do a visual right now, you'd see roughly the shape of an eyebrow. The Story Arc follows the events/tension of the world surrounding your MC --the problem, the obstacles, the feats, the climatic event, and the ending.

The Internal Arc is the exact opposite. The Internal Arc follows what's happening inside your MC, and if I were to show you a visual, the line would be a reflection of the Story Arc (the two lines would create a closed clamshell).

As the MC takes steps toward her "longing" or "goal," her Internal Arc must undergo an evolution of its own, reflecting what's happening to her emotionally. Instead of rising up, and up toward the climax, it's dipping lower, and lower, as the MC's longing grows more intense, more deep, and more necessary. As soon as she reaches her "longing" at the climax (the lowest point of the arc, when it's do-or-die for her emotionally), her Internal Arc begins shifts upward with satisfaction and relief. Not to say there needs to be a happy ending to create the perfect clamshell, but that's just an example.

The hitch: getting these two Arcs to tie together organically. Events in the Story Arc should *wink* cause or reflect what's happening inside the MC's Internal Arc, and vice versa. So, in short, everything that occurs in the outside world surrounding the MC, needs to be the result of the thoughts, wants, longings (both big-picture and small-picture) happening inside your MC.

Not sure if this makes any sense at all, especially without the visuals, but it really resonated with me when Louise explained the need to be paying constant attention to the Internal evolution of your characters.

Tomorrow: Two Questions That Can Shape Your Main Character and Novel

Tags: vt novel retreat wisdom
Current Mood: contemplative

From the Novel Retreat at Vermont College.

Theme for the weekend--Getting to the Emotional Core of Your Novel.

On Saturday, author Louise Hawes spoke of Desire being the Cause of all Plot. Some nuggets of wisdom from Louise about digging deeper into the root of your novel's conflict:

"Without longing, there is no conflict." We've all been told there is no story if there is no conflict. But take another look at your conflict, and dissect it. Is your main character's longing the driving force of the story? Does she reflect the thing she wants? Keep that "longing" in play throughout the book because, as Louise says, "It's the yearning, not the getting, that keeps us involved."

Tomorrow: more on Louise's lecture about the "Internal Arc" of a story.

Tags: vt novel retreat wisdom
Current Mood: artistic

I'm back from the retreat, and my mind is just buzzing with everything I've experienced the last few days. This retreat is simply amazing! 25 writers, two established authors, one amazing editor, all coming together to study the craft of writing and support one another no matter where they are on their writing paths.

I met so many wonderful people this weekend, including my roomie Joette, who helped me out in a pinch right before Open Mic (where everyone read from their work for 5 minutes, and man, was that fun!). A few people even came all the way up from the Virginia/Maryland area. This retreat is THAT good!

I chose the "writing track" over the "critique track" b/c fitting writing time into my regular schedule can be a challenge. But I had no idea I'd have so much time to just write, and being able to do it under the sun out on the gorgeous campus made it feel like even more of a treat. BTW, I did a word count on my computer tonight and saw I added 4,664 words to my WIP. 27 pages!

I want to be able to share all the knowledge deposited into my head via Marsha Qualey, Louise Hawes, Sharon Darrow, and Julie Romeis, but it's kind of all still settling in. Perhaps I will share throughout the week, over a few posts. I'm just too exhausted to do anything now but head upstairs to bed, dreaming about what I'll write tomorrow.

Tags: vt novel retreat
Current Mood: full

No, alas, I am not joining the MFA program there :( However, I am leaving tomorrow for the Novel Writers Retreat happening there this weekend! I can't wait. A whole weekend revolving around writing and books and the opportunity to hang out with other writers....ahhhh....after a day like today has been, I NEED THIS!

You ask how my day has been? Well, let me give you a snippet: This morning I walked down cellar to where my two kitties have their matching kitty litter boxes and find they've snubbed the boxes altogether, choosing instead to rip open the two brand new kitty litter bags, spill out all the new litter over my cellar floor, and use that INSTEAD. Lovely.

Needless to say, I bought two bottles of wine for this weekend to share with my fellow retreaters :)

I plan to write more about the retreat this weekend, and when I return. It should be a blast! Have a great weekend everyone!

Current Mood: excited

A few weeks ago I discovered writing from my couch wasn't overly productive.

This week, I discovered a new place, other than my desk, where my creativity can be tapped—outside.

The sun had a restorative quality to it this week. I wanted to write, but couldn't shake the feeling that my MC had packed up and taken the red eye to another country. I wanted to clean the house, but knew I should be writing instead. I wanted to read, but knew I needed to be sans children before I could really concentrate. Being inside, I felt completely torn. As if they could sense this, A and J demanded we go outside to play.

Grudgingly, I went. But not wanting to shy away from Laurie Halse Anderson's challenge to write for at least 15 minutes every day, I brought my laptop outside. Once I brightened my screen to full capacity, my MC might as well have popped her little head out of my WIP folder and wave at me wearing all her little souvenir pins from whatever-the-heck-country she'd gone off to.

So, today, with the overcast skies and the furnace kicking off and on every now and again, it's no surprise that I only pounded out two pages. Mother's Day looks like good weather though (at least here in New England!).

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

Theme for this week's blogs: Query letters.

Check out http://the5randoms.wordpress.com for some of the best advice I gleaned from my fave writing how-to book.

I don't have a lot of how-to advice books lining my shelves, but this one book really helped lead me through the whole query process before I found my way over to SCBWI, Verla Kay, and LJ. These communities and forums are priceless.

Tonight I had my very first in-person critique group meeting, and it was such a blast. It's just a group of two right now :) but I've been craving the opportunity to connect with other writers in a face-to-face setting, and was not disappointed. Don't you love it when you connect with someone and you never want to stop chit-chatting? Anyway, I arrived home from our 2 and a half hour meeting at Panera in Keene still all bubbly and wanted to share my excitement over this new companionship. To top it off: we get each other's writing. Yay!

Current Mood: excited

Grrr...writers hate being stuck!

I've been hanging out in the same scene for two days now and I'm lost as to what to do. No signal, no bars, no GPS...gotta get out of this scene and on with the story! I'm tempted to skip to the next scene and go back later and fill in the chasm, but never before having done that, I'm worried it will be apparent that I've pulled a filling-in-the-scene job.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Current Mood: confused

If you have two spare minutes today, I invite you to come read my interview with author Melissa Marr (melissa_writing) at http://the5randoms.wordpress.com

She talks about her new book Ink Exchange, and other, well...Random things :)

Thanks!

Getting an ARC of a book.

Reading it with such enthusiasm that when you're not reading it, you're still thinking about it and trying to schedule in time to pick it up again.

Staying up way past your bedtime reading it because you can't bear to go to sleep until you know what happens.

Reaching the last page and finding out it's Book One of more to come and the resolution is no where in sight.

And it doesn't even hit bookshelves until the fall!! Ugh. Not fair!

In this case, the book is HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, author of the Underland Chronicles series. When this book comes out in the fall, it's gonna be HOT.