Tell Me a Story by V. Mark Covington

Please welcome Mark back to the ARW blog... Take it away mark.

 

 

Tell Me a Story

 

 

 

Back when the first primitive humans huddled around an open fire after a long day of hunting and gathering they shared the events of the day by grunting and gesturing. Mostly this was to kill time while watching the day’s kill sizzle to charred doneness over the fire. Then, somewhere along the way, those grunts and finger points turned into actual dinner conversation. I’ve often wondered about that first conversation, the first time that early man managed to string together a subject and a verb into a coherent expression of his thoughts. I don’t think that first sentence was a rambling narrative of the teller’s opinion as to why the weather has turned colder, or a complaint that dinner was a tad overdone. I don’t even think it was about sex or even a recounting of the teller’s heroics during the day’s hunt and why the teller should now be immediately voted chief of the clan. I think the first sentence ever uttered was very simple, ‘tell me a story.’ I think people wanted, and still want, a good, old fashioned story. Of course, I believe the second sentence was probably a rambling opinion or a glorified tale of the hunter’s prowess, his qualifications as clan leader, and why he should have the prettiest woman and the lion’s share of the meat. This later became the political stump speech and even later the ‘blog’. The third sentence uttered was probably a fart joke. I don’t think early man qualified his request for a story with ‘give me a character-driven narrative’ or ‘give me an in-depth description of the main character’s thoughts and feeling as he hurled his spear toward the antelope,’ I think he just wanted to hear about people or animals or even the gods of that time, doing things. It wasn’t until the invention of puffery by the romanticists in the 18th century that character driven narratives and deep introspection evolved to plague the storyline. When Homer penned the Iliad and the Odyssey stories were about people, gods and creatures actually doing things.

 

OK, we all love a good story but I’m finding good stories harder and harder to come by. I read books that have great characters, the heroes and heroines have depth, they are multi-dimensional, full of angst or humor or perseverance in the face of calamity, but they tend not to ‘do’ much of anything throughout the story (unless you count their constant spewing of angst and introspection). I find that a lot of authors tend to get bogged down in the character’s introspection, or in the background information of the novel. I have even seen authors describe the scenery in agonizing length, taking the reader from anticipation to boredom until the story line dies. I tried to read a Barbara Kingsolver novel recently, it started off innocently enough, describing a very bucolic scene of a deer drinking at a stream in the forest with sunlight sifting through the tree branches. Thirty-two pages later that same damned deer was still drinking at the same damned stream and I now knew more than I ever wanted to know about the many ways sunlight can sift through leaves. I personally don’t hunt game, but by this point I was hoping a hunter would come crashing through the forest, shotgun poised, and blow that dear to bits. I also hoped that hunter would then reload start in on those damned leaves. So, on page thirty-three I got up, walked to the window and pitched the book into my back yard. I hope the sun gently filters through the leaves toward it for a long, long time.

 

A novel should be like a river flowing to the sea, the current pushes the plot along and the characters react to the changes in the flow and speed of the water. In their little character boat they survive the white water, curse the doldrums, or go down with the ship, but the focus should be on the journey to the sea, not those journeying. When the current slows, and the boat begins to flounder in the backwater, the reader quickly loses interest. But when that boat is sucked into class five rapids, and rushes along at a good clip, the reader’s heart begins to beat a little faster eyes are glued to the text, fingers poised to flip to the next exciting page. This is not the time so pause and tell the reader what boat company made the boat, that the boat maker’s tools were passed down from his father or that his daughter has a large nose, that’s the best way to lose the momentum of the book, and in doing so, lose the reader. Now, I’m no enemy of sub-plots. A good sub-plot can add to the depth of the book and give the reader a change of scenery, and/or let characters and take a breath after an exciting passage in the book. Notice I said after, not during. I have seen lots of writers try to ‘create suspense’ by switching scenes to a sub-plot in the middle the action. This may suspend the action enough for your reader to start eyeing his open window. Also, be careful of how much time you spend in the sub-plot(s). Never linger in the subplot so long that the reader loses the string of the major plot line. The major plot-line should always be going full speed ahead in the reader’s mind.

 

OK, so yes, I’m a story-driven writer. I feel that the story should drive the characters and the characters should, in turn, react to the twists and turns of the plot. And when my characters start messing with my plot I calmly remind them that ‘I’m the writer here, and with a quick visit to the ‘replace all’ function I could change their names from Brick and Dominique to Eugene and Bertha. Like the Gods of old I speaketh to them; ‘I made thee and I can take thee out, so don’t tryith it’. I’ve even had to threaten to ‘pull this book over and turn it around’ from time to time when my characters started to wander off toward the edges of my story outline.

 

 

Character driven novels move along at the whim of the characters and usually with a lot of ruminating, soul searching and belly-button staring contemplation. I don’t give my characters that kind of time. If you give your characters even a little slack time they will soon be eyeing the edges of the storyline and began to shuffle, ever so casually and stealthily, away from the plot. When I see them start to look introspective I quickly send in a tornado or have an alligator turn up in their bathtub. That’ll show those slackers. Of course I’ll go back a couple of chapters and plant the seeds of catastrophe very subtly so the characters won’t know what’s coming. They may ask ‘why the sudden appearance of my ten year old nephew and why are you having him flush his pet baby alligator down my toilet’’ I smile and say, ‘just keep to the storyline and you have nothing worry about.’ I alone know what these mutineers will be plotting a mere few chapters on, and now I’m ready for them.

 

Whether the plot drives the characters or the characters drive the plot, the major plot is still the overriding premise of the book. You should be able to express the premise in an ‘elevator description’. One or two sentences that describe the major plot that can be communicated in the average ride in an elevator. From that major premise you began to break out your scenes. I find it helpful to create a flow-chart depicting the major actions that will happen in each scene:

 

The flow should depict the continuity of scenes, each following logically from the one before. Once you have a general idea of the action that will happen in each scene you can begin fleshing things out. The first bit of flesh to be added is the opening scene. The first scene should draw the readers in and make them want to read on. This is not the place for background information or a narrative about the history of the characters (or to go on and on about the sun drifting through the leaves). That will mire up your story before it even gets out of the gate and the reader will glance again at that open window (you don’t want to see the sun filtering thorough the leaves onto your book). The first scene should be action or a mystery or steamy, or anything to spark the reader’s interest right away and draw them into the story. You can acquaint them with the characters later, preferably through another character’s eyes and thoughts or through dialogue. Be careful here though, dialogue can also bore the reader and slow the pace if you don’t pair it with some physical movement. I try to have my characters do something while they are talking, even if it’s just driving or eating. Try to break up long strings of dialogue with a visual image of the character doing something. I think everybody who has read Atlas Shrugged has skipped over half of John Gault’s radio speech in the middle of the book - talk about beating a dead horse. You don’t want to do anything that will make the reader put the book down. A tip I got from Tom Robbins is to ‘never mention food or sex in a scene or you will make the reader hungry or horny and he or she may just put your book down and go in search of something more satisfying than the written word’. Of course this doesn’t apply to erotica or restaurant reviews.

 

Here is an example of where I managed to put some action between the lines of dialogue.

 

‘What is it you want Deputy’’ Dorcas still didn’t turn from her keyboard. She was twisting her joystick and moving and clicking her mouse that brought images closer in whatever screen she chose. Blazer watched Dorcas’s eyes scan the screens as the camera changed from location to location, from grocery store, to convenience store to liquor store faster than Blazer could follow them. The fleeting images were different, but similar. A hopeful face in each camera before a backdrop of stocked shelves and beer packed coolers, and a clerk presenting that hopeful face with a lottery ticket.

 

‘Am I interrupting your lunch?’ Blazer Moore lurked, leaning in the doorjamb.

 

 

Ok, we have the action moving along and we have the characters doing something while they are talking, the next thing to worry about is voice. Volumes can, and have been written about the use of voice and tone in novels. In relation to the plot, just remember to be careful when changing voice so as not to disrupt the flow of the story. This was the hardest lesson for me to learn, to use only one narrative voice per scene. My characters all want to be the center of attention and they all have something so say in every scene so I keep my finger threateningly poised over the ‘replace all’ button. Like our caveman story-telling around the fire, it’s a one person job. If too many storytellers start talking the listeners won’t know who to listen to. The reader is seeing action unfold in a scene and he or she can only see it through one set of eyes. More than one voice per scene can confuse the reader and disrupt the pace.

 

Now, your book be cruising along, plot purring like a well oiled machine, your characters spinning in a well greased groove and then you realize you’ve written yourself into a corner. Your main character is poised on the edge of a cliff over an abyss and an army of bad guys is closing in. You will be tempted to use a plot device - suddenly your character looks down and finds a parachute as his or her feet, or the ultimate plot device the deus ex machine. Suddenly a huge bird flies over and your main character grasps his mighty claw and is carried to safety. Resist the temptation to use a cheesy plot device. Or, if you must, go back and first introduce that plot device earlier in the book, like that baby alligator dropped into the toilet.

 

So, you have honed your premise to that two sentence description, you have broken out your story scene by scene and have begun your first scene with something to draw your reader in and you are steering your boat of characters through the fast moving current. Now is not the time to let down your guard and watch that plot boat float gently down the stream. If your characters are anything like mine old Bertha and Eugene are already plotting their next mutiny.

 

 

 

About Mark
Mark Covington was born and raised in Ruther Glen, Virginia. He attended Caroline County public
schools and Benedictine Military School in Richmond. He holds a Bachelors degree in Organizational Behavior from Averett College in Danville, VA and a Masters degree in Industrial Psychology from Springfield College in Springfield MA. Mark has worked as a Banker, a College Professor, a Management Consultant, an Ice Cream Truck Driver, a Cemetery Plot salesman and a State Government Bureaucrat and an Information Systems Project Manager. He currently lives in Richmond Virginia Museum District. with his wife Beverly and their two Australian Shepherds, Journey and Opal, where he writes novels exploring the cosmically comical nature of the universe, the purpose of which is to create someone who lives in Richmond, Virginia and writes novels exploring the cosmically comical nature of the universe.

Heavenly Pleasure 

Strange things are happening in a small bohemian section of Richmond, Virginia, the eternal war between good and evil is facing off over the next jump in human evolution, universal bliss and the end of terrorism, road rage and fighting over the remote control. Welcome to “Perilous” Parkwood Avenue and the residents, Kali Sen, exotic dancer and potential savior of humanity, Eve Savage, whose basement laboratory is the source of earth-shaking explosions that rock the neighborhood, Eric and Ted, life-partners who’s Christian Adult Book Store and John Wye, designated chronicler of the next paradigm of mankind. 

 Link to buy from Amazon:Amazon.com: Heavenly Pleasure eBook: V. Mark Covington: Books

From The Pagan and the Pen -"In Heavenly Pleasure, Mark Covington has created a riveting cast of characters and has woven a masterful, intricately-detailed tale. I loved the author’s sense of humor, an important device when dealing with fate-of-the-world issues. I laughed out loud—real laughter, not just little chuckles—several times. Like Mikhail Bulgakov’s literary masterpiece The Master and Margarita, Heavenly Pleasure takes aim at what’s wrong with society using God and the Devil as literal interpretations of a metaphorical critique. Heavenly Pleasure speaks to the heart and soul in a way few things ever can. 

http://www.vmarkcovington.com/




You can contact mark at
vmarkcovington@comcast.net
Friend me on Facebook at:
www.facebook.com/vmarkcovington    
Or follow me on Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/vmarkcovington

 

The Novel as a Project by V. Mark Covington

It is a great honor to have V Mark Covington here, his books are funny and thought provoking. I have to say this is full of tons of great suggestions. The floor is your Mark…

The Novel as a Project

I know that staring down at a blank page and contemplating a completed 100K-word novel is a scary prospect. It’s like that old adage of eating an elephant; you can’t eat it all at once. A novel is like that pachyderm. When faced with the task of eating the whole thing, it is daunting. But it is a lot more palatable if looked out in digestible pieces. That’s where project management comes in. A novel is a project. Like developing software or building a house, it’s a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Of course sometimes it doesn’t seem temporary (it took Christopher Nolan ten years to write Inception and Ayn Rand 10 years to write Atlas Shrugged) but a novel has a beginning, middle and an end- that day you kiss it goodbye and send it off into the world. Before I began writing novels I was an IT Project Manager so when I started writing novels it was only logical to apply some of the techniques I had used in project management to assure I was using my writing time most effectively. This may sound like I’m making novel writing a ‘science’ instead of an ‘art” but the novel is a mix of art and science. The creative left brain and the structured left-brain working together to build the novel. There are tasks, during all three stage of the novel development process; planning, writing and promotion, that lend themselves to structured, organized processes. The following is a breakdown of some of the tools to use during the planning process:

Planning the Novel

It all starts with a plan. The more time you spend getting organized to write and planning what to do along the way, the less time you are going to waste when you are in the throws of writing and your mind is focused on your characters and your story. Characters can be greedy with you time when you are in the ‘zone” and the last thing you want to distract you is to spend time wondering, “What do I do next?”

1. Time Management Plan - I’m the kind of person that schedules everything. I make dinner menus weeks in advance and am usually packed for a trip three days before the flight takes off. Somewhere scribbled on my Day-planner is; “November 18- 4:00- 4:15- ‘be spontaneous’. But not everyone plans instinctively (or obsessively) so here some time management tricks.

• Block out a time to write - Tom Robbins says that every day at 9:00 he enters his home office and sits and waits for his muse. If she comes, great he is off and writing, if not he sits and waits, fingers hovering over the keyboard until noon. If she doesn’t show by noon he goes out to play. Sit at your computer and wait for the muse at the same time every day if you can for a set amount of time. Granted, not everybody can block out a specific time every day, but sometime every day, tune everything else out and open yourself to your muse. If in that allotted time if she doesn’t show, take a break and try again later or another day, but be there and ready for her visit.

• Eliminate distractions. Turn off your television and avoid checking e-mails or facebook. No excuses when waiting for your muse.

• Break down the novel into tasks and milestones - Like the elephant analogy, trying to conceptualize the whole novel all at once is daunting, but if you break it down into bites it seems more palatable. The following depicts a novel breakdown process:

• Start with a story concept, have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. Once you have a clear vision for your novel from beginning to end it is easier to break your vision down into plot points.

• Break your plot into scenes or chapters. I create a new page for each chapter (hard page break) then I label each chapter (such as Harry Meets Sally) and then write a one or two sentence scene description. I can come back and fill these in with actual narrative, dialogue, scene detail, etc later.

• Create a character profile for each character. Identify the character’s background, likes, dislikes, what they value most in life, what they fear, and desire. Also identify conflicts they will have with other characters.

• Create a time-line for your story. I use a flowchart to map out what happens over time. Each little box in the flowchart represents a scene and the following box the next scene, and on and on. You can also create a second flowchart for a subplot and draw lines connecting where the plot and the subplot connect. If you are like me you may need a third or forth parallel flow chart for sub-sub-sub-plots. Mines usually ends up looking like a Rube Goldberg creation.

• Now you are ready to fill in those chapters you mapped out with you character action following your plot and time-line. One bite at a time and that elephant is a lot easier to eat.

2. Resource Plan
Writing is a lonely job but you can’t do it alone. Sounds like a dichotomy right? The point is that it helps to have a network of people that you can reach out to when needed. When you are stuck on a scene, that word is on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t come up with it, or maybe you want to get some ideas for character names, it is good to have another writer to contact. Hunter Thompson is famous for calling up fellow writers in the middle of the night and asking, “what’s another word for mendacity?” The key is to identify a ‘go to’ list of resources so that help is at your fingertips. Just remember, if someone is your resource you need to be there when they need help.

• Make a list of research you are going to need for your book. What books, videos, music do you need to purchase? What trips do you need to take? Who do you need to talk to? Build these into your time and financial plans.

• Reviewers – A good reviewer is worth his or her weight in gold. Identify your potential reviewers early. Joining a review group will give you some reviewer resources, but be careful try to choose a group with folks in your genre a science fiction reader may not give you effective insight into how to make your romance novel better.

• Editor/proofreader – Don’t rely on your publisher provided editor or proofreader to catch everything, the more ‘nits’ you can catch up front the more time you editor can focus on more substantive work on your novel.

3. Communication Plan
You can have the most wonderful novel ever written but if nobody knows about it they won’t be exactly jumping off the shelves of your local bookstore or clogging the Internet with e-book orders. The best way to promote your book is to get people involved in your project early and often.

• Know your market whether it’s Romance, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Horror, Speculative Fiction or Steampunk, you have a certain group of potential readers. Your job is to figure out where these folks are, how to reach them and go after them.

• Know you medium check out local and national print and electronic newsletters, newspapers, local entertainment weeklies, etc., and make a contact. Put together a chart for quick referral and to guide you in your daily, weekly, etc communication:

 

4. Quality Plan (Edit, Edit, Edit) - For every vision, there is an equal but opposite revision. Quality control in writing is all about editing. I generally go through about five edits.
Story Edit – Does the plot work? Is it too complex that readers get distracted? Is it so simple that readers lose interest? Does your theme convey clearly to the reader? Is the voice effective to tell the story and interesting? Is there enough conflict to keep the reader’s interest?

Time Edit – Impose a timeline on your flowchart, does the time flow day to day, week to week, are the time gaps realistic?

Character Edit – Are the characters consistent with their profiles in every situation or scene? Physical characteristics are consistent - does John have green eyes in one scene and blue later? Are emotional characteristics the same- same sense of humor, consistent fears and dreams in every scene?

Wordsmith Edit – Here is where you go word by word and ask yourself “is this the perfect word for this sentence, the perfect sentence for this paragraph and the perfect paragraph for this chapter. Like Mark Twain said, “the difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

Pre-Editor’s Edit – There is passion in the world like the passion to alter someone else's work. 
This is sometimes one of the most challenging aspects of writing, trying to look at your manuscript through an editor’s eyes and anticipate changes. Ask yourself “is this clear, could anyone understand it?” I remember a writer who had written “He entered the double-wide and tossed his keys on the counter.” Her editor had scribbled “double wide what?” on the page. I am convinced that above Dickens’s draft where it said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” his editor scribbled, “make up your mind!”

Tip: Change the font for the last edit, lets you see things you may have missed looking at the same font over and over.

5. Financial Plan
First and foremost get a professional accountant, set up a LLC and begin keeping track of your expenses, all of them, purchases of everything from research books, music, printer paper and internet fees, to gas in your car to go to that writers conference to that research trip to the south of France. It’s all deductible.

Now with your plans in place, you should be able to begin eating that elephant one bite at a time.


About Mark
Mark Covington was born and raised in Ruther Glen, Virginia. He attended Caroline County public
schools and Benedictine Military School in Richmond. He holds a Bachelors degree in Organizational Behavior from Averett College in Danville, VA and a Masters degree in Industrial Psychology from Springfield College in Springfield MA. Mark has worked as a Banker, a College Professor, a Management Consultant, an Ice Cream Truck Driver, a Cemetery Plot salesman and a State Government Bureaucrat and an Information Systems Project Manager. He currently lives in Richmond Virginia Museum District. with his wife Beverly and their two Australian Shepherds, Journey and Opal, where he writes novels exploring the cosmically comical nature of the universe, the purpose of which is to create someone who lives in Richmond, Virginia and writes novels exploring the cosmically comical nature of the universe.

Heavenly Pleasure 

Strange things are happening in a small bohemian section of Richmond, Virginia, the eternal war between good and evil is facing off over the next jump in human evolution, universal bliss and the end of terrorism, road rage and fighting over the remote control. Welcome to “Perilous” Parkwood Avenue and the residents, Kali Sen, exotic dancer and potential savior of humanity, Eve Savage, whose basement laboratory is the source of earth-shaking explosions that rock the neighborhood, Eric and Ted, life-partners who’s Christian Adult Book Store and John Wye, designated chronicler of the next paradigm of mankind. 

 Link to buy from Amazon:Amazon.com: Heavenly Pleasure eBook: V. Mark Covington: Books

From The Pagan and the Pen -"In Heavenly Pleasure, Mark Covington has created a riveting cast of characters and has woven a masterful, intricately-detailed tale. I loved the author’s sense of humor, an important device when dealing with fate-of-the-world issues. I laughed out loud—real laughter, not just little chuckles—several times. Like Mikhail Bulgakov’s literary masterpiece The Master and Margarita, Heavenly Pleasure takes aim at what’s wrong with society using God and the Devil as literal interpretations of a metaphorical critique. Heavenly Pleasure speaks to the heart and soul in a way few things ever can. 

http://www.vmarkcovington.com/




You can contact mark at
vmarkcovington@comcast.net
Friend me on Facebook at:
www.facebook.com/vmarkcovington    
Or follow me on Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/vmarkcovington