Secret Pillars of Writing
by
Jeffrey A. Friedberg
Smashwords Edition
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Published by:
Jeffrey A. Friedberg on Smashwords
Jeffrey A. Friedberg: a1.detective@gmail.com
Writers Guild Of America West, Registration Number: 1452002
Secret Pillars of Writing
Copyright © 2010 by Jeffrey A. Friedberg
ISBN: 978-0-615-39659-0
All rights reserved.
This is partly a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or my any means, electronic or mechanical, included photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be reproduced in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web- without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, please contact: Jeffrey A. Friedberg: a1.detective@gmail.com
Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions or any inconsistency herein. Any slights of people, places, or organizations are unintentional.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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* We’re going to start out here slow and easy, with basics presented simply. We will gradually build our basics into the Secret Pillars of Writing.
If you’re writing a book, it’s one thing to be a poet, or have poetry in your writing, but another to write a book that isn’t a poem.
Poetry does not equal book.
There are pitfalls—Rules for your novel, traps to avoid, publishing prejudices. Plot, Structure, Character Arcs, Plotlines, and all kinds of fancy stuff. I’ll boil it down; I’m condensing and simplifying it for you.
At the outset of your book‘s plot and structure setup, you should introduce your Hero or Heroine Character. Introduce them in their every day Real World and set the tone. Make the Hero/Heroine of your book real, fully rounded, compelling, flawed, likeable, relatable to—and do it right off the bat.
Get into his/her head and show their desires, fears, and their admirable or hateful or other compelling traits.
They don’t have to be “good,” as long as they’re really good at something, even Evil, thievery, conning people, or whatever traits you choose.
But—and this is all-important, so pay attention—you Must Hook the reader into the plot immediately, via the characters or action, to keep the reader reading.
Start by showing that the Hero/Heroine is trying to have a life (or not), trying to get along, just being himself, or whatever they generally do, when some Great Outside Disturbance occurs, something that changes their life forever.
As a result, s/he must become Desperate to get, find, or do Something that s/he needs to survive the Disturbance.
Pack the scenes with emotion, conflict, and passion—write with abandon, write like you’re announcing the cure for cancer or the Second Coming, but write it (you can clean up the wild and crazy parts later.)
No book ever got published by not writing it.
Your book ‘s Hero/Heroine character must have an Objective, a Goal. For that they need a Desire, a Great Want. It must be something that will interest the reader and move the story, plot, and structure forward.
S/he must be Desperate to get to the Great Goal. There must be Tension, Conflict, Doubt, and Suspense about The Great Goal. It must drive the book forward, or there’s just no story worth turning the page for.
There has to be a Great Question: Will s/he get that Great Thing s/he desperately needs to survive?
Will s/he make it through, survive, and deliver the Elixir, or the Great Answer, to all humankind?
A driving force in your book’s plot has to be Obstacles to that process of seeking the Great Goal, conflict and Confrontation with Inside (psychological emotional) and Outside Forces (antagonists, opponents, sexy vampires, aliens, rain, dragons, etc.)
Imbued in the structure of your book’s plot, there has to be a More Powerful Antagonist-Opponent, who either wants the same Great Thing that the Hero/Heroine wants—or wants to prevent the Hero/Heroine from getting it. The situation has to be Desperate, a battle to the End. The Opponent must be more powerful than the Hero/Heroine, otherwise there’s no story. It’s just reduced to: Hero/Heroine smacks Opponent, takes away the Great Thing, goes home, watches TV, and has a beer.
There’s another important furrow to hoe here. The Hero/Heroine and the Antagonist necessarily have to be cemented to each other, forever, by something. There has to be a Great Reason for why they don’t just walk away from each other.
I mean, why would they want to go through all that aggravation, right?
Make sense?
Whatever it is that Bonds them together forever has to be something that makes sense, something that neither can avoid. It might be Revenge, Love, Hate, Blood—something like that.
Otherwise, there’s nothing that could reasonably prevent the Hero/Heroine from just walking away from the Problem, going home, watching TV, and having that beer, right?
See?