Guidelines for Contributions:
Avoiding the common pitfalls
Updated 08/17/06

The story should primarily revolve around Nick, and the ending should be dependent on his actions, even if the story is not told from his POV.

Since this is detective fiction, Nick should probably do a bit of detecting.

Thou shalt not kill Nick. But you can beat him to within an inch of death. Don't permanantly injure or cripple him either, we need him for more stories.

Likewise, when your story is finished, Nick's situation shouldn't be markedly different in any permanent way than it was when the story began. He can (and should) significantly change the lives of people around him for good or ill, but he can't personally benefit from a "big win" unless you take it away from him again before you are done.

Be pessimistic -- keep the basic noir principles in mind:
* Nobody is completely good or evil, everyone is flawed, everyone has secrets.
* Everybody wants something.
* Even when people's intentions are good, they usually end up causing more harm than good.
* Innocents are either lying, or are easy prey.
* On the grand cosmic scale, nobody wins.

What year is your story set in? Nick was born on December 4th, 1920, how old does that make him in your story? Neither fact has to be revealed in your story, but you should know.

While it is important to be true to the period, it is not necessary to continually belabor historical accuracy. But don't have him whip out a cel phone either, unless you are writing about him in his 80s (which is an option!).

It is not necessary to make reference to every detail of the background dossier just because you can. Sure, try not to contradict it, but only delve into it as much as you need to to support your story.

Whenever you choose to have someone do something so counterintuitive or so unlikely that you have to work extra hard to sell it, think about why you are having them do that, what it buys you, what it does to enrich the story. If it doesn’t give you much, go with what someone would normally do. (What would you do?)

Try to avoid the whole traditional "drawing room disclosure" scene at the end of your story. It would be far better to expose as much of your plot as you can during Nick’s investigation, and minimize the amount of missing pieces that have to be filled in by someone just explaining it to Nick, or by Nick explaining to someone else.

Strive for lean writing. If you can say something just as well with less words, do. Once you have a complete first draft that you are satisfied with, go over it again and see how much "fat" you can trim off. Rewrites should be shorter than the previous version, not longer.

and this is the big one:

Before you start writing your first draft, take some time to outline the the "spine" of your story, breaking down each fact and event into "beats", and arrange them into chronological order. This is the "God view" of your story, with every hidden fact revealed, everyone's motivation delineated. This is the chain of cause-and-effect that drives the story.

Even if it’s not shared with the reader, you should know exactly how much time separates each story beat. When possible to do so you should give the reader a general idea how much time passes between events. Bonus points if you can do so naturally within the story (i.e. not just coming right out and stating it).

If you start out right away writing the story from Nick's point of view, revealing the story in a non-linear manner, following Nick as he discovers each clue, rather than outlining the case first, it's really easy to lose the unseen details of what is going on behind Nick's back.

Work on your master timeline until it is completely seamless. Then you can reverse engineer it into Nick's non-sequential POV for the telling. Really hammer our every detail, even if you don't intend to share it with the reader in the finished piece. It makes a huge difference!


STORY STRUCTURE TIPS

Structure is the overall shape of your story, and controls the plot and the pacing. A well-structured story never loses its momentum.


Begin your story as late as possible, with the “inciting incident”.

Every story starts with an event (called the “inciting incident”) that sets the plot in motion. What happens to the main character that gets him involved with the story? This is the scene that if it didn’t happen, your protagonist would have just kept walking on by, and the story would never have happened (or at least happened to somebody else.)

The inciting incident should also be irrevocable. Once this event has happened and the hero has reacted to it, he should be committed. (even if he may not even know it yet!). The story has been set in motion and now there’s no stopping it. He’s just has to ride it out to the bitter end. Your inciting incident should imply the climax of your story. It should ask a question that the end of your story answers, setting up expectations of where your story is going without giving away how it ends. Dramatic tension is caused by the reader having some idea of the nature of the confrontation that is coming at them like a freight train, but no idea at all who is going to win.


End your story shortly after the “inevitable confrontation”

If your story is about someone being kidnapped, it begins with either the actual kidnapping, or with the hero learning about the kidnapping. But now you’ve put a question in the reader’s mind; “will the victim be rescued?” You can end it any way you like, as long as your climax answers that question.


Use the beginning and ending as anchor points, and hang your plot between them.

Think of the “inciting incident” and the “inevitable confrontation” like the poles of a clothesline, and hang your plot – which you can think of as a chain of scenes -- between them.

Each new scene is a link in the chain, connected to the scene before it and the scene after it. Every scene should arise out of the events of the previous scene, as if no other result were possible, and the events of each scene should make the events of the following scene happen.

Strung together, the scenes follow the protagonist’s path from the beginning to the end. It’s not the only path he could have taken, but it’s the path he did take, solid and unbreakable.


Each scene is a mini-story, with a beginning, a middle and an end.

Before digging into the action in a scene, take a moment to establish where and when the scene is taking place. Describe the surroundings, especially if a character is arriving there for the first time ever. This can be elaborated on during the course of the scene, but don’t make the reader wonder about where the scene is set or who is there for too long.

Once your scene is over, you need a proper “dismount”. It can (and probably should) be done as minimally as possible, but the scene should come to a dramatic conclusion that tells the reader that the scene is over, and hopefully leaves them resonating with the main point of that scene. Think of the last line of dialogue you get in a TV show just before a commercial break.


Likewise, every scene needs to have a purpose that serves the larger story.

Every scene should show us something changing in the world of your story. Someone should learn something, do something, or say something that changes the course of your plot. It doesn’t have to be a major change, but when the reader moves on to the next scene, they should be aware that a corner has been turned, and there is no going back.

If the state of your world is the same at the end of a scene as it was at the beginning, that scene probably needs to be cut.


End your story as soon as possible after the resolution of the conflict, but not too soon after.

Once the core storyline has reached the “inevitable conflict”, and that conflict has run its course and concluded, your story is over. That generally only leaves one final scene to let your characters take a breath, assess the damage, lick their wounds and celebrate any victory they may have achieved.

Here is where you would show the consequences of the story, now that the ride has come to a full and complete stop. Who has gotten their comeuppance? Who walked away with the prize? In the end, was it all worth it?

This is not, however, the time to answer left over questions. There shouldn’t be any. Any questions that still remain should be ones you intend to leave unanswered. If you still have loose ends to tie up at this point, you need to tighten up the weave of your story, and bring everything to light before the finish of the climax.