Agile Writer: Method by Greg Smith Agile Writer Press
PU BLISHED BY AGILE WRITER PRESS Richmond, VA
Agile Writer is a registered trademark of Agile Writer Press.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Greg Smith
All Rights Reserved.
Printed in the U nited States of America
J une, 2014
Cover design by Bonnie Watson
Dedicated to all the Agile Writers who helped create the Agile Writer Method.
Agile Writer: Method
Acknowledgements My thanks to the original members of Agile Writers who took up my challenge in January, 2011 to create a first-draft novel in six months: Alex Sharpman, Audry Jones, Camron Savage, Christine Phillips, Cyndy Kelly, Dillon Wilson, Gabriela Allen, Jackie Barbour, James Monroe, Krista Gutzwiller, Lisa Mistry, Rishonda Anthony, Susan Welch, Suzan McKenzie, Tonya Rice, and Win McKinnie. My special thanks to those who had confidence in my vision and worked with me to complete their first-draft novels. These people helped to shape the Agile Writer Method: Christine Phillips, Cyndy Kelly, Jackie Barbour, Lisa Mistry, Rishonda Anthony, Susan Welch, Suzan McKenzie, Tonya Rice, and Win McKinnie. Thanks to the Agile Writers who went on to publish their novels and were the inspiration for what has become Agile Writer Press: Christine Phillips, D.L. Farrar, Cyndy Kelly, and Suzan McKenzie. Thanks to the Agile Writers who edited the first draft: Angel Fontenla, Luanne Kelly, Michele Smith, and Jane Bono. Finally, a very special acknowledgement to my friends Ron and Maryann Ferland who curated the Chesterfield Writers Club in 2005. Their vision to foster a love of reading and writing at the community level was the genesis of what has become Agile Writers. Wherever you are, I hope you know we all appreciate your inspiration.
Preface The purpose of this book is to help new and experienced writers discover how to write a first draft novel in 6 months. This book is the culmination of 3 years of study with over 100 writers. In that time we created 20 first draft novels, published 5 of them, and two were finalists in the James River Writers Best Unpublished Novel Contest. Agile Writer: Method is the first in a series of books that helps writers of all experience levels learn what makes a great story. This book is based on my seminar which I’ve delivered over 100 times in the last three years to hundreds of people. I want you to feel free to contact me if you have questions. Just email me at
[email protected]. Greg Smith
1 Welcome You’ve read books that tell you how to write a novel. They’re generic. They try to cover all aspects of novel writing from how to pick an idea, how to construct a character, and explain the elements of writing. They try to cram all of novel-writing into one volume. Frankly, you can’t cover all of novelwriting in 250 pages. These books cover too many topics giving only the minimum attention to each. Agile Writer: Method is different. This book is specific. It’s a practical explanation of what makes a great story and how to create a plan to write it. Sure, there will be moments where I will lead a cheer to remind you that YOU CAN DO IT! But mostly we’re going to focus on plotting your novel. You’ll be working to create a first-draft novel in 6 months. There will be further drafts to follow. However, following the Agile Writer Method will reduce the number of drafts you will have to write because you’ll have resolved many of your plotting problems ahead of writing your manuscript. There are other books that promise to deliver a novel in 30 days or 90 days so you may wonder what makes the Agile Writer Method different: 1. The Agile Writer Method is based on storytelling methods that are centuries old. 2. The Agile Writer Method borrows from the best. I’ve studied mythology, documentaries, screenwriting, project management and psychology to bring you the tools you need to tell a great story. 3. I’ve borrowed from my own experiences as a software engineer using the Agile Software Methodology to help you create a plan for writing your novel that breaks it down into manageable chunks. 4. Finally, it works. We’ve used this method at the Agile Writer Workshop for three years and we’ve produced twenty first-draft novels. More than anything I want you to know that you can do this. Every Agile Writer started out with doubts. But they stuck with the program and completed their first-draft novels. You can too.
1.1 Misconceptions About Novel Writing ∙ I don’t have anything to say. This is the biggest misconception about novel writing. You’ve lived long enough, you have an opinion, you matter. No matter how old you are you’ve had experiences that no one else has had. You live in a place that is unique. You know people that no one else has met. You have had challenges that you’ve had to overcome. So you’re different from other people. Your uniqueness makes you interesting enough to write a story other people will want to read. On the other hand, you have had experiences that other people have also had. You have had the same experiences and feelings that drive every reader on the planet. This gives you an immediate kinship with all your fellow humans. You can imbue your characters with these common experiences and feelings and your readers will identify with them. You are simultaneously unique among, and
aligned with, every person on the planet. With your uniqueness you can create a story no one has ever read, and with your common experiences make it a story that others will relate to. You really can do this. ∙ I don’t have enough education. I hear this from so many new writers and it is one of the biggest indignities that has been pushed upon new writers. We think that we have to go to school and get a Master ’s of Fine Arts (MFA) or other degree. Not true. If you have a high school education, heck even a middle school eduction, you’ve learned enough to write your first novel. What you haven’t been given is a blueprint for what makes a great story. The Agile Writer Method will give you that blueprint. ∙ I am lousy at spelling and grammar. I’ll let you in on a secret: we all are lousy at spelling and grammar. The fact is that we have tools at our disposal that will fix these problems. At Agile Writers we don’t worry about spelling and grammar during the first-draft phase. Just get your story down on paper any way you can! Computers are pretty good at spell-checking your work. Grammar checkers still have a way to go, so we recommend you hire an editor when your book is complete. That’s what the big guns do. Do you think Nora Roberts goes through her manuscript with a fine-tooth comb before handing it off to her publisher? No, they punch up her work for her. You don’t have to worry about spelling nor grammar. ∙ I will never get published, so why start? There has never been a better time to get your work in front of readers than right now. It is possible to publish your book on Amazon.com for free. And you can make money at it too. The Agile Writer Method is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and we don’t go into the publishing process in this book. But you need to know that when you finish your book, there are ways to get your writing in front of readers for little or no money. Again, there has never been a better time to get published than now. ∙ I’m a lousy storyteller. You’ve read books, watched television, gone to the movies and you know what you like. You know a great story when you see one. What you may not know is what makes it a great story. The Agile Writer Method will lay out a plan for creating a story that readers will recognize. It will be like others they’ve seen, but because you’re a unique and special individual, it will be like no story they’ve ever read. ∙ I’ve never completed anything. I hear this a lot. I hear from beginning writers how they have written 100 pages and then go back and edit them over and over again. Or they’ve completed a dozen chapters and get stuck not knowing what comes next. Or they have family members who tell them they’re crazy for thinking they can write a novel. With the Agile Writer Method you’ll have a plan that will tell you just where you should be at any given time. It will also show you where certain events should happen. All of this is based on classic mythology, screenwriting techniques, psychology, and a little project management. Don’t listen to people who tell you what you cannot do. They’re just showing you where their fears lie. Focus instead on the people who encourage you. You can do this. Others have. You will be next. ∙ A novel is a big project. Yes! A novel is a big project. But like any big project it can be managed if you break it into small enough pieces. The Agile Writer Method breaks a novel down into 8 stages, each stage takes 30 pages. You’ll tackle your novel in 10 page tasks - one task per week. You
can write 10 pages (double spaced) can’t you? Sure you can. Do it for 25 weeks and you’ll have a first-draft novel in 6 months. I can’t emphasize enough how confident I am that you can write a novel in six months. It isn’t easy. You have to work. You’ll have to put your butt in a chair and write 10 pages a week. But if you dedicate yourself to your goal, you will be the proud owner of a first-draft novel in six months. I’ve done it and so have many other Agile Writers. You will be next.
1.2 What Makes a Great Story? You may wonder what qualifies me to write a book on novel writing? Truth be told, a few years ago I knew less than you do right now. But I had some interesting experiences which led me to pursue writing and developing the Agile Writer Method. 1.2.1 The Video In 2001 my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. I wanted to do something special for them and decided to create a video that they could have as a keepsake. At first my family members told me to just get people waving at the camera and shouting “Happy Anniversary!” But I wanted something more. I wanted to tell the story of my parents’ lives together from the beginning. My family was reluctant, but I persevered and set out to create my first video documentary. My first step was to watch a lot of documentaries. I spent a good deal of time watching the Biography video series on the A&E network. I also bought a book on directing documentaries by the great documentarian Barry Hampe. I studied his books and took a lot of notes on what makes a great biography. What I learned from Barry Hampe is that it is best to let your subjects (interviewees) tell the story in their own words. I interviewed all my parents’ siblings and children and grandchildren. I collected 17 hours of video tape. Then I had to create a narrative of my parents’ story. I started with the story of their parents (my grandparents) and worked my way up to the time my parents met and up to the present time. Then came the painstaking task of selecting the interview scenes that would tell their story. I was focused on letting my subjects tell the story. I didn’t have a powerful computer for editing the video, but my brother in California did. So, I sent the tapes to him along with a spreadsheet of which scenes to cut from the interviews and the order in which to splice them together. Well, the project was a success. My parents were surprised and we now have a family heirloom that we can pass down for generations to come. And I learned something about storytelling. I learned how to create a storyboard that outlines a story from beginning to end. Additionally, I learned that there is more to storytelling than just stitching together a bunch of events, one after the other. My video did a fine job of retelling our family history. But it was only interesting to family members. Frankly, anyone from outside the family (and a few from inside) would be bored. There was something missing. So I set out on a quest to find what makes a great story. 1.2.2 Chesterfield Writers Club
In 2005 I visited my local independent book store. It was the Little Professor Book Center in Chester, Virginia. The owners Maryann and Rob Ferland were conducting monthly seminars on novel writing. I became very interested and sat in on every meeting. The Ferlands and I became good friends. Before long they asked me to run a monthly writers group for local area writers. I accepted the challenge and the Chesterfield Writer ’s Club was born. During my tenure running the CWC for the next 5 years, I came in contact with over 200 writers. Somewhere along the way I was introduced to Christopher Vogler ’s book The Writer’s Journey[14]. This was the first in a series of events that would lead me to the Agile Writer Method. In his book, Vogler talks about Joseph Campbell - a comparative mythologist who discovered that all stories of mythology follow the same pattern. Campbell called this “The Hero’s Journey” and documented it in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces[4]. Between Vogler and Campbell I had found the first key to understanding what makes a great story. I’ll tell you more about that in Chapter 4: The Hero’s Journey. I tried to use the Hero’s Journey in my writing but I found it hard to get the pacing right. Vogler ’s pattern has 12 stages to it. But it seemed that the first 5 stages happen early in the story and there were long gaps between the beginning and middle parts of the pattern. I couldn’t get a grip on where each stage belonged in the story. Enter Michael Hauge. He is a screenwriter and script doctor. His book Writing Screenplays That Sell[7] is required reading for wannabe screenwriters. He had produced a video with Christopher Vogler entitled The Hero’s Two Journeys[15]. This was an aha moment for me. In this video Hauge outlines his method for breaking a screenplay into 6 stages. Each stage has a distinct purpose in the screenplay. At the same time, Vogler overlaid his 12 stages for storytelling on top of Hauge’s. The two methods together solved my problem. I now knew what had to be told and when it was to be told. 1.2.3 Movies and Heroes I spent the next year taking Hauge’s advice and I went to every newly released motion picture I could. I must have watched 100 movies that year. I would look for the break down of the stories into Hauge’s 6 stages. I started looking for the mythical story elements. Not every movie had them, but the good ones did. I also rented classic movies on Amazon.com and broke the scenes down in a spreadsheet so that I could analyze how the screenwriter told his great story. I analyzed Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, The Karate Kid, and a dozen more. I wanted to become as much of an expert on storytelling as I could. I am good friends with Dr. Scott Allison. Scott and I were in the same improv troupe for a few years. He’s a funny guy and very wise in the ways of heroes. He studies heroism at the University of Richmond where he’s a psychology professor. We started going to movies together and discussing the heroes in these movies. (Currently, Scott and I blog about movies and heroes on our website ReelHeroes.net). Scott’s book Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them[1] had a big impact on my understanding of the hero in movies and literature. By now I recognized a problem in the Chesterfield Writers Club. We had been meeting for five years and I had my doubts about where the group was going. A friend had asked me how I was measuring our success. I had no idea I was supposed to be measuring our success! But when I looked at the group I realized we were a social club for writers. No one was required to write anything. When
a long time member of the club quit, I had to ask myself if I had really lost a “writer.” I also noticed that attendance was optional. People came and left as they saw fit. We didn’t critique each other ’s work. So there was no feedback. Each meeting we spent an hour reviewing some element of the craft of writing - that was a good thing. Then we spent another hour talking about writing. There was no output from the Chesterfield Writers Club. 1.2.4 Agile Writers That’s when I decided to create a new group. I wanted to focus like a laser beam on one topic, rather than trying to meet the needs of all writers, as we did in the CWC. I decided we’d focus on the novel. Not just any novel, but the genre novel. Hence the birth Agile Writers in January of 2011. I felt that the lessons I learned from Campbell, Vogler, Hauge, and Allison would be perfect for genre stories. Genre stories are heavily plot-driven, as are screenplays, so it seemed a natural combination. I wanted the group to employ critique as a way of motivating people to write, and to produce a first-draft novel in a reasonable timeframe. I also wanted to create a process that was repeatable so that anyone could write a novel. The Agile Writer Method didn’t spring from my brain immediately. I invited all 18 of the initial members of Agile Writers to engage in an experiment with me to create the Agile Writer Method. To their credit, they agreed and were excited at the prospect. We started using Hauge’s six stages. I reasoned that stories are stories. Screenplays are heavy in dialog whereas novels are equally divided between dialog and narration. However, both require a strong plot. But we found Hauge’s method was lacking things we needed in the novel. There was no discussion of the prologue or its purpose. The middle of Hauge’s method took a full 50% of the story with very little direction on what happens in this middle area. I spent a lot of time analyzing more movies trying to figure out what makes a great prologue and how to breakdown the middle of the novel. We received a lot of criticism from the writing community for analyzing movies for insights into novel writing. But we’ve produced a good number of first-drafts using this method, and the writers who are using it are telling me it works. What I ended up with is 8 stages in the novel, 30 pages to each stage, plus a well-defined and optional prologue. This adds up to 250 pages. We’ll talk more about why 250 pages is important in Chapter 2: The Agile Novel.
1.3 Why Do People Read Novels? I give the Agile Writer: Novel in 6 Months seminar twice a month. At the start of every session I ask the attendees: “Why do people read novels? Why do you read novels?” The answers are always pretty much the same: To escape reality To go on an adventure To experience something different At Agile Writers we sum it up this way: People read novels to experience some emotion through
the main character in the novel. Remember this because it is central to how we construct a novel.
1.4 Why Do You Want To Write a Novel? I also ask this question: “Why do you want to write a novel?” Here is a sampling of what I hear: To make money To tell my story my way To tell someone else’s story I want to warn you right now, very few people make any money writing fiction. I don’t want to discourage you but the typical self-published author makes about $1.00 per book once all expenses are paid. The margins improve with eBooks. At Agile Writers we aim to write a novel that other people will want to read. This is important. Some people just want to have the accomplishment of completing a novel. The act of writing the book is satisfaction enough. The Agile Writer Method is designed to help you write a novel that other people will want to read. This means that you’re going to have to do some things that may not appeal to you right away. Like write a story synopsis and fit your story to a storyboard. We’re looking to help you create a commercially viable novel. If all you want to do is write whatever comes out of the tip of your pen, you really don’t need a method.
1.5 Know Your Audience The first thing you’ll do as an Agile Writer is define your audience. To do this you must ask yourself these questions: Who will read your book? What Genre will you write in? What age range are your readers? What gender will read your book? What educational level are you writing to? I know what you’re thinking: “I want to write a book EVERYONE will want to read.” This is a mistake. You need to create in your mind a very specific type of reader. The items I listed above are key elements to knowing your audience. You have to ask yourself this question: Are you writing to please your audience - or are you writing to please yourself? The answer is: You must do both! If you aren’t enjoying the process it will come out in your writing and the reader will sense it. And you must write something your reader wants to read. Remember, we’re looking to create a commercially viable genre novel.
We’ll come back to this topic in Chapter 2: The Agile Novel.
1.6 How This Book Is Orgainized We’ll start out identifying what it is we’re about to create. In Chapter 2: The Agile Novel we’ll dissect the novel and lay bare what our end-goal is. In Chapter 3: The Story Abstract, I’ll expose what you have to identify before you get started. We’ll look at your audience, the message of your story, the one-line description and your elevator speech. In Chapter 4: The Hero’s Journey we’ll meet Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler and discover the elements of the Hero’s Journey. Then we’ll break out the elements of the hero of your story in Chapter 5: The Hero Abstract. In Chapter 6: Plotting And Pacing we examine the problems and solutions for laying out the plot of your story and making sure that your story moves along at a proper pace. Then, we’ll unveil the cornerstone of the Agile Writer Method in Chapter 7: The Agile Storyboard. Finally, we will pull it all together in Chapter 8: Writing Your Novel. As a bonus, I’ve included two chapters based on seminars I run at the Agile Writer Workshop. Chapter 9: The First Thirty Pages, gives you an idea as to how to start writing your first few chapters. And Chapter 10: Agile Writer Critique will give you guidelines on how to conduct a critique with your critique partners. In the appendix, I give you templates for each of the Story Abstract, the Hero Abstract, and the Agile Storyboard. I’ve also included the Agile Storyboard for my science-fiction novel Luddite Planet as an example of how to fill in the template.
1.7 Summary You know a great story when you see one. What you may not know is what makes it a great story. The Agile Writer Method will help you with this. We are looking to write a commercially viable novel that appeals to a specific demographic. The Agile Writer Method is based on mythology, screenwriting, psychology, and a little project management. This method works. Others have used it and are currently published authors. The Agile Writer Method breaks your story down into 8 stages of 30 pages each. Chunking up your story makes it easier to organize and complete. You’ll be writing 10 pages a week for 25 weeks resulting in a first-draft novel in 6 months YOU CAN DO THIS!
2 The Agile Novel What is a novel? What is it about a novel that makes it not a short story or novella or a memoir or autobiography or essay? A lot of people come to Agile Writers wanting to get published without knowing what it is they want to publish. So, let’s go over the things that make a written work a novel and what, specifically, is an Agile Novel.
2.1 An Agile Novel Is Fictional I’ve had people come to Agile Writers not knowing the difference between fiction and non-fiction. A novel is a fictional narrative - meaning it is a made up story. In our society we consider truth to be the default situation and non-truth to be the exception. What I find fascinating is that in the writing world the default is fiction and truth is the exception. That’s how important fiction is to writers. A novel is not the telling of actual events. For example, a novel is not an autobiography. An autobiography is a retelling of the events of a person’s life. The Agile Writer Method doesn’t work for these types of books because, frankly, unless you’re famous or infamous, most people aren’t going to want to read your life story. We’ve had Agile Writers attempt to use the method to create a memoir. This is usually a “slice” of life. Sometimes the events in a memoir are altered from their original telling to make the story easier to tell. You may argue that a memoir is a fiction that is merely “based on actual events.” For example, Barak Obama’s 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father [10] included a “New York girlfriend” who was a composite of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago. This was not an elaborate lie. It was merely a literary device used to make the story easier to tell.[3] Occasionally the line between the novel and the memoir is blurred. Take, for instance, the 2003 memoir A Million Little Pieces[6] by James Frey. It tells the story of his drug addiction and rehabilitation. In 2005 Oprah Winfrey picked this book for her book club and it subsequently became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2006 it was revealed that Frey made up a good deal of the story. This is a case of a memoir that was actually a novel.[17] The Agile Writer Method has been used to create memoirs with some success. The problem is that the author has to convert their closely held personal stories into a fictional account. Most people don’t want to alter their true-to-life stories to fit the fictional narrative. As I learned in my parents’ documentary, you cannot simply stitch together a series of events and expect it to be interesting to a stranger. You have to pick an event that was life-changing and then fashion it into a narrative that readers will want to read - that of the novel. A novel is not the retelling of an actual event, either. For example, the story of the 9/11/2001 bombing of the World Trade Center Towers is an actual event, so it isn’t fiction. However, you may want to tell about your personal experiences on that day. But then we’re back to memoir. One Agile Writer used the backdrop of 9/11 for her story of a woman suffering from amnesia. Now we’re
talking about a fictional story with a historical event as the stage - and that is a novel. Real life is not a story. Real life is pretty boring - running steadily from one event to the next. A story has dramatic peaks and valleys. In Chapter 7: The Agile Storyboard we’ll see how to structure a story so that it appeals to the reader . So remember: an Agile Novel is a fictional narrative and not the retelling of actual events.
2.2 An Agile Novel Is Genre Fiction At Agile Writers we divide literature into two categories - literary fiction and genre fiction. Literary fiction focuses on the characters in the story. It looks for depth and style. Literary fiction is constantly expanding the novel art form. This is the form of novel-writing that people go to universities to study and get a Master ’s of Fine Arts (MFA). We don’t attempt literary fiction at Agile Writers. Genre fiction (or popular fiction) is plot-driven. It is a series of events that unfold to tell a story. The Agile Novel is genre fiction. Now that’s not to say that a literary novel doesn’t have a plot. It may. It’s just that the focus is on the internal thoughts, desires, and dreams of the characters. Good examples of literary novels are To Kill a Mockingbird or A Catcher in the Rye. These are stories that focus on the internal lives of their main characters. Genre fiction focuses more intently on the events of the story, on the plot. At Agile Writers we analyze our story from the point of view of the events in the story and plot them out for a particular outcome. A genre fiction novel falls into one of several popular types of stories (mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, etc...)
2.3 An Agile Novel Is Hero-Based In a later section we’ll talk more about Joseph Campbell and his “Hero’s Journey.” For now it’s enough to know that the Hero’s Journey is a time-tested pattern for story telling. It involves a main character (the hero or protagonist) who is introduced in his ordinary world. Some inciting incident occurs that throws the hero into a new and uncharted place or situation (the special world). The hero must learn the rules of the special world and find the object of his desire. Once the object is found, the hero then must journey home to his ordinary world to tell of his journey. While this simplified explanation of the Hero’s Journey may sound like a knight’s quest, it fits most genre novels and screenplays. The hero can be a woman who runs a yoga studio in New York City (her ordinary world). She gets a call that her mother is ill (the inciting incident). She then returns home to live with her cantankerous mother in Ohio (the special world) where she must work to get her mother to good health (the object of her desire). In the end she returns to her yoga studio having learned from her experiences. This is the actual plot of a novel that was published by an Agile Writer. [8] From this example you can see that the hero can be either gender. That the ordinary world and
the special world can be real places. And the object of desire can be anything tangible. While the Hero’s Journey is based on the stories of mythology, the elements can be applied to nearly any story.
2.4 An Agile Novel Is 60,000 Words One thing that separates a novel from other forms of literature (short story, essay, novella) is its length. If you go to the bookstore and pull a novel off the shelf you’ll notice that it has a certain heft to it. The number of pages in the novel is what, in part, defines it as a novel. See Table 2.1 for some benchmarks of different forms of literature. Form Words Pages Flash Fiction 500 - 2,500 2 - 10 Short Story 2,500 - 7,500 10 - 30 Novellette 7,500 - 17,500 30 - 70 Novella 17,500 - 40,000 70 - 160 Novel 40,000+ 160+ Table 2.1.: Literary Forms and Lengths At Agile Writers we consider a novel to be 60,000 words (or around 250 pages). The reason is that when you take your book to a publisher, they won’t want to publish a book that is much less than 250 pages. There are economies of scale that make publishing smaller works less profitable. On the other hand, most publishers won’t want to take a chance publishing a work from a first-time author that is a tome of 800+ pages. So, we shoot for 250 pages. A side-effect of the digital revolution is that eBooks all cost about the same to produce. So, publishers of eBooks may not care how long your book is. Whether it is 100 pages or 800 pages, it costs the same to deliver the eBook to the reader. However, your reader may care. Amazon.com has started publishing the page count of eBooks along with other statistics. So, if you try to sell your tiny 100-page novella as an eBook for $9.99, your reader may turn their nose up at your work. The other reason we picked 250 pages is that it nicely breaks down to 25 weeks (6 months) when you write 10 pages a week. Through trial and error, we’ve found 10 pages a week an achievable goal for most new writers. We also find 6 months to be a time period most people are willing to work to create a novel at a decent pace of work.
2.5 An Agile Novel Is Commercially Viable At Agile Writers we aim to create a work that is commercially viable. That is, it is a book that the public at large would want to read. There are writers who are writing for the pleasure of writing itself. They don’t care if their work is appreciated by a larger audience.
However, we’re aiming to help writers create a novel that others will want to read. So, as a writer you will want to pick a specific demographic to write to. You’ll want to think about the age, gender, and educational level of your reader as well as the genre you want to write in. You will also want to deal with certain topics in moderation. For example, sex, violence, politics and religion. If you are too extreme in any of these categories you will alienate large populations of readers.
2.6 Summary An Agile Novel is A Fictional Narrative Genre Fiction Hero-Based 60,000 words (or 250 pages) Commercially Viable
3 The Story Abstract The first step in writing your Agile Novel is to write a Story Abstract. This is a one-page description of your novel. It defines your audience and asks you to think about the point of your story before you start writing. This will help you to define what your story is about. It is also dynamic - you’ll come back to this and change it as your story develops. At a glance: Story Title Author ’s Name Audience Message One-Line Description Elevator Speech
3.1 Story Title This is the working title of your story. It is not set in stone. You may change it later. Many authors don’t know the title of their novel until the story is finished. Use this working title so you have a way of describing the work to someone else. Publishers generally have the last word on the story title, as it is part of the marketing of your work and may change it. Here is an example of a working title that will likely get changed. My uncle Don Bellew died in 2009 and left behind an untitled manuscript. Aunt Betty wanted to publish the book for friends and family. It was the story of a young boy who is given a colt by a wealthy neighbor. The boy raises the colt and trains it to run in the Kentucky Derby. When it came time to create cover art for the book we had to have a title. Since it was Aunt Betty’s book I let her pick the title. She decided on “A Neighbor of Love.” This is an obvious pun on “a labor of love” but since it was a neighbor who gifted the colt, she felt the title reflected the meaning of the story. However, a publisher would likely change the title. Since the story is about the boy and the horse, a different title reflecting the main elements of the story might be chosen.
3.2 Author’s Name This seems like an obvious item - just enter your name, right? Well, some authors use a pseudonym or pen name because they want to hide their true identity. Sometimes the content may be too personal. We had a writer come to Agile Writers whose friend had been murdered. She was pretty sure it was a mob hit and wanted to tell her story in novel form. She wanted to protect her identity and so chose to use a pseudonym. A friend of Agile Writers, Michelle Young-Stone wrote the novel The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors[18]. It was picked up by Crown books and they put it on the end-caps of all the Target stores in the United States. The book was popular and eventually she signed a two-book deal with
Simon and Schuster. But in the meantime she started getting visits on her doorstep in the wee hours from people asking for advice on their manuscripts. And people would stop her on the street while she was walking her dog and pitch story ideas. She wished she had used a pseudonym to protect her anonymity. Another friend of Agile Writers is Pamela K. Kinney. She writes “sweet paranormal romance” under the pseudonym “Sapphire Phalen.” She also writes non-fiction books about haunted houses in Richmond and Virginia. She writes those books under her real name. She uses two names to separate her two genres of books. We all wish we had these problems, I’m sure. Even famous authors have written under pseudonyms for various reasons: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) Mark Twain (Sameul Langhorne Clemens) O. Henry (William Syndney Porter) Richhard Bachman (Stephen King) In the case of Stephen King, early in his career he was accused of being more lucky than literary in his success. So, he took on the name Richard Bachman to prove his critics wrong. He wasn’t quite successful, but he still uses the pseudonym from time to time.
3.3 Audience You will be writing to a specific, well-defined demographic. It is important that you stay true to them. You must keep your audience in mind while you are writing. You will want to be consistent and not switch between demographics midstream. You must not try to cover everyone generically or the story will be too bland. And don’t try to cover too narrow a spectrum or you won’t find enough readers to make the effort worthwhile. We had a writer come to us who wanted to write a book that he would sell only to his graduating class of 1957. There were probably 150 people in his class. He had clearly defined his audience (his classmates) but the topic was too narrow for a wider audience. (The book was successful with his classmates in the end.) I have studied the demographics that book publishers use to make their buying decisions. This demographic data is what I used to assemble the advice in the following sections. 3.3.1 Age Range It’s important to know what age range you will be writing to. A book that is satisfactory for 12-year olds will often not be as interesting to 55-year olds. Publishers divide readers into demographic groups based on age spans. These are shown in Table 3.1.
Demographic Age Range Generation Z 12-22 Generation Y 23-33 Generation X 34-45 Baby Boomers 46-64 Matures 65+ Table 3.1.: Demographic Groups When you write to younger audiences you have to handle the big three topics of sex, religion, and politics differently than when you write to adults. You may sanitize your young reader prose to make it age appropriate. However, adults live in an adult world. They expect more mature content. You must also keep the content consistent. A friend of Agile Writers who was a 75-year old man was writing stories for young girls about teenage witches from outer space. He was consistent in his storytelling until the last chapter. He had the least experienced teen witch save the day with a big spell. Her friends congratulated her and asked her where she learned the spell. This is where he broke his contract with his readers. He intimated that she performed a sexual favor on a professor who then gave her the spell. Up until this point sex was not a part of the story. Throwing in an off-handed reference to pedophilia was not in keeping with the age group he was writing to. He agreed with his critique partners and took the section out. Also consider who is buying books. By far, Baby Boomers are buying more books than any other demographic. See Table 3.2. So if you want to write young adult fiction (Gen Z) you may find it a hard sell as they only comprise 10% of sales. Demographic Percent of Sales Generation Z 10% Generation Y 25% Generation X 20% Baby Boomers 30% Matures 15% Table 3.2.: Age and Book Purchases 3.3.2 Gender
Will you be writing to men or to women, or will you try to appeal to both genders at the same time? It may seem like a simple matter to write to both genders. But consider that men generally like to read about action and women generally like relationships. I know it’s a stereotype but it is often true. You may try to appeal to both men and women simultaneously. If you look at the movie Jerry Maguire you can see how both genders are satisfied at the same time (we will make many references to movies in this book. The Agile Writer Method is based in part on screenwriting techniques, after all). In Jerry Maguire, Jerry is a sports agent. He has quit his job with a big-time sports agency because he feels they have become too impersonal. He leaves taking only a fish, a secretary (Dorothy Boyd), and one client (Rod Tidwell). Jerry has a problem to solve: he has to get Rod a new contract. But Rod doesn’t want to be an exhibitionist for the cameras. So on the one hand we have a strong buddy-hero story going on as well as football and big business. This part of the film appeals strongly to a male audience. On the other hand we have Dorothy who has a 5-year-old son, Ray. Jerry and the boy bond and the boy looks to Jerry as a father figure. Dorothy, in the meantime, has fallen head over heals in love with Jerry. Now we have a strange love triangle. This relationship part of the story appeals strongly to women. So, while it is possible to appeal to both genders, you can see that it takes a little thought and planning. 3.3.3 Educational Level Table 3.3 shows which educational levels are the biggest buyers of books. When you examine this table it is clear that writing a book that appeals only to people who have some graduate school education will attract only 13% of readers. Aiming for college graduates garners 33% (graduate school students + college graduates). Dropping down another level and you pull in the readers with some college and you satisfy 64% of readers. Finally, if you aim at high school graduates you can capture 98% of readers. Educational Level Percent of Sales (didn’t graduate) 2% High School 31% Some College 31% College Graduate 21% Graduate School 13% Table 3.3.: Education and Book Purchases
There is a problem with writing to the least common denominator, you may lose some readers at the higher levels. Of course the opposite is also true. Writing to the level of the graduate school reader will alienate those below them. As an example consider the book Valis by my favorite author Philip K. Dick. Valis is the first in a trilogy where the main character is in search of God. Dick had studied religion and philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He applied this knowledge in his book and used the language of graduate-level students in the text. I had to keep a dictionary on my bedside table in order to keep up with his prose. When I finished the book I was exhausted and I had no interest in reading the followon books. Dick had successfully alienated me. 3.3.4 Genre You are going to have to pick a genre and stick to it. Publishers want to put your story in a box so they know how to sell it. Some writers come to Agile Writers with a plan to create a new genre. This is a bad idea. Regardless of what you write, someone is going to want to put it on a book shelf and you also want readers to find your book. So if you write a Science Fiction / Romance, which shelf do you want it to sit on - the Science Fiction shelf or the Romance shelf? If a romance reader comes in and picks up your science fiction book they will likely not recognize it as a typical romance. Likewise if a science fiction reader is perusing the Science Fiction section they will not find your book if it is in the Romance section. Pick a genre. Stick to it. That doesn’t mean that you can’t successfully write a cross-genre book. A good example of cross-genre is the Twilight series. Not only was it a hit as a young adult fiction, but it was a Fantasy / Romance. However, you’ll notice that when you find the book on the shelves of your local bookstore, it is in the young adult Fantasy section. Genre Popularity Young Adult 8% Espionage/Thriller 7% Romance 6% General Fiction 6% Mystery/Detective 4% Auto/Biography 4% Literary/Classics 4% History 3% Fantasy/SciFi 3% Cooking 2% Table 3.4.: Genre Popularity
Table 3.4 shows the genres that are tracked by publishers. As you can see Young Adult fiction is the most popular. If you don’t see your favorite genre in the table it’s because it fell below the 1% mark. So before you commit to a genre you may want to consider how popular it is. You may also want to consider what age ranges are buying which genres. Table 3.5 lists the major genres that book publishers focus on and the percentages of who is buying them. Genre Z Y X Boomers Matures Young Adult 27% 29% 21% 18% 5% Espionage/Thriller 4% 14% 15% 34% 33% Romance 3% 15% 21% 36% 24% General Fiction 7% 21% 17% 31% 24% Mystery/Detective 3% 11% 13% 36% 37% Auto/Biography 6% 23% 18% 31% 21% Literary/Classics 17% 33% 15% 31% 31% History 5% 32% 24% 28% 10% Fantasy/SciFi 6% 32% 24% 28% 10% Cooking 3% 22% 20% 36% 19% Table 3.5.: Genre vs. Age Looking at the table a few things become clear. If you’re going to write Espionage/Thriller or Mystery/Detective books, your main audience is going to be people over 46 (Baby Boomers and Matures). Baby Boomers are the biggest consumers of Romance novels, General Fiction, Auto/Biography, and History. Fantasy & Science Fiction is appreciated most by Generation Y (23-33 year-olds). There is good news if you are writing Young Adult fiction (the most popular): Generations X, Y, and Z combined make for a big audience. Can you write a Young Adult novel that will appeal to all age ranges 12-45? J.K. Rowling did it. You may want to decide which is more important to you - choosing a genre or choosing a demographic. Pick one and let it determine the other.
3.4 Message Even if you’re a high school student, you have lived long enough to have an opinion about how things work in the world. Your novel will reflect these opinions. Also, readers expect a payoff for spending the time to read your book. That payoff comes in the message or lesson that you present. In other books on writing this is called the proposition. Basically you establish your message (or proposition) and your book is the proof of that message.
Stories that don’t have a message are empty and often little more than a roller-coaster ride. You want your novel to have substance and having a message will give it that substance. There will be times in your novel writing that you will have choices to make. These choices come in the form of how you want your hero or other character to act. In fact, these become the character ’s choices. The message of your book will guide you on which choices to make. The idea of having a message in a story is not unique to the Agile Novel. It goes back hundreds, even thousands of years. The myths of antiquity, fairy tales, even modern movies all have a message that the reader can take home. Your novel should too. The Message is often simple: a person can change love conquers all you are not alone As you can see, the message is a simple phrase or single sentence.
3.5 One Line Description This is a single sentence that describes your story. It is in a specific form: It is a story about (the hero) who wants (the main goal) and learns (the message). Example: It’s the story of a girl who wants to get back to Kansas and learns that she has more courage, heart, and brains than she thought. Example: It’s the story of a boy who wants to save a princess and learns to trust in himself. At Agile Writers we break your story idea down to its simplest concepts. Creating the one line description forces you to think about the barest meaning of your story. As we progress, we’ll build your story up from this one line to a paragraph (the elevator speech), then eight stages, then scenes, and finally your manuscript. This is called successive refinement and it is a proven way to take a complex subject and break it down into its simplest forms - and then build it back up again.
3.6 Elevator Speech This is a paragraph (about 250 words) that describes the story. It’s not the entire plot or synopsis, but what the story is about. I like to advise Agile Writers to recap the first act of the story and pose a question. Imagine you are lucky enough to find yourself in an elevator with an agent. You have until you get to the 30th floor to describe your story - about 30 seconds. You want to impress the agent before she gets off the elevator. Example: We meet Luke who buys some Droids that belong to Old Ben Kenobi. He meets an Obi
Wan who tells him he must go to Alderon. They go into a cantina where he meets weird people. Among them are Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookie. They fly to Alderon to return the Droids but are hijacked by a looming Death Star. They save a princess and return her to her planet. There is a thrilling dog fight and they blow up the Death Star saving the Republic. This example is from Star Wars and has too much detail – it’s the actual plot. Example: It’s the story of a young boy who lives on a desert planet. He meets an old man who gives him a magical sword. They go off to space in search of a kidnapped princess. The boy learns that the most important things in life aren’t those that you keep in your hands, but that you keep in your heart. This is better. It’s not a retelling of the whole story, just a recap of the first act and the lesson learned.
3.7 Summary The Story Abstract is a one-page description of your novel. It defines your audience and asks you to think about the point of your story before you start writing. This will help you to define what your story is about. It is also dynamic - you’ll come back to this and change it as your story develops. At a glance: Story Title Author ’s Name Audience Genre Demographic Educational Level Gender Message One-Line Description Elevator Speech A template of the Story Abstract that you can fill in can be found in Appendix A.
4 The Hero’s Journey 4.1 Joseph Campbell The Agile Novel is a Hero’s Journey inspired by the works of Joseph Campbell[4]. The story is herocentered. When we say “hero” we simply mean the central character of the story. This is sometimes called the protagonist. This is not to be confused with the common use of the word “hero” which means someone who acts in a heroic, selfless fashion (like first responders or our military men or women). The “hero” may be male or female, we still call them the “hero.” Joseph Campbell was a comparative mythologist. He studied the legends and myths from many cultures, both present-day and back through antiquity. He found that stories from all cultures follow the same pattern. He called this pattern “The Hero’s Journey.” These stories teach lessons like how to act within the culture and how to resolve differences. The history and values of a culture are passed on by telling these heroic stories. In the Hero’s Journey, the hero starts in their Ordinary World. They’re doing pretty well in the Ordinary World when “Something Happens.” This is usually an event that is of such magnitude that they are then cast into a Special World where they are on a quest or journey. There, the hero meets friends, allies, and enemies. The hero must overcome some great obstacle to gain their reward. Once the hero resolves their quest, they return to their Ordinary World having learned from their experiences. They are then the master of both worlds. While this pattern appears to work only for quest-type stories (fantasy and science fiction, for example) it works for general fiction as well. It is important to realize that stories are not reality. Campbell would say that stories are metaphors for our daily lives. Stories have an arc with clearly defined high and low points, whereas reality proceeds chronologically at a steady pace. Reality is a fairly stable “non-arc” and can be pretty boring. This is why we look to patterns like the Hero’s Journey to shape the Agile Novel. We want to define an arc for the Hero’s Journey. Campbell teaches us that the hero is all about self-sacrifice (but rarely about martyrdom). The hero starts out self-absorbed. There is a separation from family, friends, and society. The hero is then on a journey for identity and to return to those they are separated from. During this journey, the hero encounters many characters. Often, these characters reveal the hero’s Missing Inner Quality (more on that in Chapter 5) The hero must find a way to integrate these characters into himself. Take, for example, J. R. R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings[13]. It begins with Frodo who is a happy Hobbit. He enjoys life in the Shire, tending to his uncle Bilbo’s garden. Gandalf the wizard appears and challenges Frodo to return Bilbo’s ring to its origin and destroy it. Frodo resists but ultimately goes on the journey accompanied by a few of his Hobbit friends. Later, he meets Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir. Together they engage on a quest to return the ring to Cracks of Doom and destroy it. In this story, Frodo starts out in his Ordinary World (the shire). Then “something happens” (Gandalf lays down a challenge). Frodo is separated from friends and family as he embarks on the
quest. He meets new friends who each have a quality that Frodo will need to acquire to accomplish his mission. We also see this in The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy encounters the Scarecrow who lacks brains, the Tin Man who lacks heart, and the Cowardly Lion who lacks courage. These are all things that Dorothy doesn’t seem to have. In helping her new friends find their missing qualities, she incorporates them into herself.
4.2 Christopher Vogler’s 12 Stages Christopher Vogler is a screen writer and Hollywood development executive. During his time at Disney studios he read Campbell’s work and felt there was a strong correlation between the Hero’s Journey and the great movies of our time. In 1986 Vogler wrote a memo that took Hollywood by storm. The original memo was entitled A Practical Guide to the Hero With a Thousand Faces.[16]. It is often affectionately called, merely, The Memo. Later, Vogler would go on to write an instructional guide for screenwriters called The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers[14]. Here are Vogler ’s 12 stages and how we use them at Agile Writers: 4.2.1 The Ordinary World The hero starts out in her Ordinary World. This is how she lives her daily life. We get to know the hero and what motivates her. In Agile Writer terms, we learn the hero’s Life Goal. It is often a desire to go somewhere or do something far down the road. For example, in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker desires to go to the Academy and fly with his friends. Some other examples of the Life Goal are: running away to New York City to become a rock star becoming the vice president of marketing getting out of Kansas Another important element of the hero that we learn in the Ordinary World is what we at Agile Writers call the Missing Inner Quality. This is a personal hurt or personality flaw that impedes the hero from moving forward in their life. This can be such things as: lack of confidence lack of intelligence lack of compassion cowardice selfishness lack of empathy lack of humility As we’ll learn soon, this Missing Inner Quality is the single most important element to define in your hero. It is the thing that your hero must overcome to complete their heroic arc. The Missing Inner Quality, more than anything else, is what your story is about. 4.2.2 The Call To Adventure
The Call to Adventure is an event that alerts the hero that there is something more to the world than what she already can see. It is often a request from a mentor character (as in the case of Frodo as we saw earlier) but can also come in other forms. The Call is often accompanied by an Inciting Incident which launches the hero into her Special World. However, when The Call is issued, the hero rarely accepts it right away. In Agile Writer terms, this is where the Main Goal is described. This is a tangible desire that the hero will take on in place of their Life Goal. This is the thing the hero is chasing for the rest of the story. 4.2.3 The Refusal of the Call There is usually a refusal of The Call that includes reasons why the hero cannot go. This is important as it reflects the hero’s ties to the Ordinary World. In Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi (the mentor) lays down the challenge to Luke Skywalker when he says “You should come with me to Alderon and become a Jedi Knight like your father before you.” Luke doesn’t take up this call right away. The first thing he says is “I have obligations on the farm.” This clearly defines his attachment to his Ordinary World. It’s only when he realizes that his aunt and uncle have been killed that these ties are broken and Luke is free to go with Obi-Wan on his adventure. Once the hero has accepted the Call to Adventure, she crosses a threshold into the Special World. We’ll talk about that soon. 4.2.4 Meeting the Mentor There is often a character that guides the hero in the Special World. Vogler lists this as the fourth stage in the Hero’s Journey, but it can occur at any time before then as well. The mentor is any character who gives sage advice to the hero and bestows gifts upon the hero. A mentor is often considered an older person, but that’s not always the case. The mentor can be a teacher, or a pastor, or even a younger sibling. There may be more than one mentor character. Any character who gives advice to the hero that the hero uses to maneuver the Special World is considered a mentor character. In Star Wars Luke has an obvious mentor in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Katniss Everdeen finds a mentor in Haymitch Abernathy. As you can see, the “look and feel” of the mentor character is wildly variable. On the one hand we have a wise old man in the form of Obi-Wan Kenobi and on the other hand we have the drunken ne’er-do-well Haymitch. But in both cases, the mentor gives advice and gifts. 4.2.5 Crossing the First Threshold Once the hero has accepted the Call to Adventure, she is ready to cross over into the Special World. The Special World is not necessarily a different location. It can be just a new situation to deal with. This transition from the Ordinary World to the Special World is often accompanied by some form of transportation. The hero may take a flight from one city to another. Or she may go on a long car trip. Luke Skywalker crosses his first threshold when he walks into the Cantina on Tatoine. The Cantina is a very different place from his Ordinary World. It is filled with many strange creatures. It
is loud with bizarre music. And life there is cheap. Obi-Wan has to rescue Luke by killing a man. By the time Luke leaves the Cantina, he has a new Main Goal - to return the droids to the rebel base on Alderon. This is a clear and tangible goal. We will know when this goal is achieved because the droids will be in the rebel hands. And if the droids are destroyed, then we’ll also know that our hero has failed. 4.2.6 Tests, Allies, Enemies In this stage, the hero is tested in ways that prepare her for the upcoming challenges. The hero will also make new friends (allies) and enemies. This stage covers a lot of ground, in a literary sense. We will bring more focus to this in the chapter on Storyboarding, Chapter 7. If you look at Luke Skywalker at this point, he is making new friends in the form of Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookie. He’s also being tested by learning to use the light saber. 4.2.7 Approach to the Inmost Cave After having established her friends and allies, the hero must come face to face with her enemy. In old legends this was shown by the knight vanquishing all his enemies in the outer caves and then coming to face down the dragon in the innermost cave. For Luke, he and his friends are being pulled into the Death Star where they will face the forces of the Imperial Guard. 4.2.8 Ordeal At about the midpoint of the story the hero does fierce battle with her enemies. This is an important stage of the story as it is where the hero will put all her energy into a decision that forces her to either move forward or go back. Once the decision is made, there will be no opportunities for the hero to go back. The hero will be totally committed to her new path. For Luke, he blows up the detention bay to rescue the princess and becomes an enemy of the state. From here, Luke cannot go back to the farm on Tatoine. He is fully committed to being a rebel. And now, things start to go badly for our hero. 4.2.9 Reward The hero gains an interim reward that she must return to the Ordinary World. In the days of dragons and knights, it wasn’t enough to have killed the dragon and collect the treasure. The knight still had to get back to the castle without falling prey to other dangers. Luke saves Princess Leia from the detention bay. Now, the second half of his journey begins. He has to return the princess and the droids to the rebel base. 4.2.10 The Road Back Now that the hero has attained her reward, she must return it to her Ordinary World. This is not an easy thing as she must cover the same ground she covered to get the reward to begin with.
Luke escapes the Death Star and enters into deadly battle with the tie fighters. Just as he thinks he’s escaped, Princess Leia points out that they are probably being tracked back to the rebel base. They aren’t out of danger yet. 4.2.11 Resurrection In this stage, the hero must have a climactic battle with the forces mounted against her. The hero may look to have failed in her quest. But that failure is a prelude to the thrilling completion of the Main Goal. At this point Luke and his new allies must battle the Imperial Fleet and destroy the Death Star. There is a point where Luke appears to be doomed, but he is saved at the last moment and destroys the Death Star. 4.2.12 Return With the Elixir Finally, the hero returns to the Ordinary World, not necessarily with the Main Goal, but with the lessons learned on her Hero’s Journey. Vogler points out that the elixer is not a potion, but a lesson learned. In the relatively short ending of Star Wars, Luke has conquered his lack of confidence which he now finds in The Force.
4.3 Summary The Agile Novel is a Hero’s Journey. The story starts in the hero’s Ordinary World, then “Something Happens” and the hero is propelled into a Special World. The hero meets friends, allies, and enemies and will suffer trials and tribulations. The hero overcomes her character flaws to obtain her desire. The hero then returns home with the lesson learned. I’ve given only the barest overview of Vogler ’s 12 Stages here. I recommend you read The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers[14] for the full treatment. 1. The Ordinary World 2. The Call To Adventure 3. The Refusal of the Call 4. Meeting the Mentor 5. Crossing the First Threshold 6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies 7. Approach to the Innermost Cave 8.
Ordeal 9. Reward 10. The Road Back 11. Resurrection 12. Return With the Elixir
5 The Hero Abstract Now that you know what we consider the hero of the story, take a look at the second document you’ll create to describe your Agile Novel. The Hero Abstract is a one- or two-page description of your hero. Remember that regardless of whether your hero is male or female, we still call them the hero. You want your reader to “become” the hero. The reader will experience your world through the hero. The hero should have universal qualities, emotions, and motivations so that your readers will identify those qualities in themselves.
5.1 The Missing Inner Quality The hero should start out with a Missing Inner Quality. This is an internal character flaw that the hero must overcome by the end of the story. This is the single most important element of your novel. The Missing Inner Quality is the one thing your hero must acquire. Even more than the Main Goal, your hero is on a quest to discover the Missing Inner Quality and resolve it. The Missing Inner Quality can be nearly anything. Here are a few examples that other Agile Writers have used in their stories: Lacking Courage Lacking Empathy Lacking Self-Confidence Cowardice Selfishness Crankiness Lack of Compassion Lack of Empathy Lack of Humility Self-Absorption Antisocial behavior Naiveté Stubbornness Disobedience Shyness For Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, the Missing Inner Quality is a lack of confidence. We see this in his interactions with his uncle. Luke is not confident enough in himself to stand up to his uncle and make his own decisions.
5.2 The Main Goal The hero should have a clear, identifiable desire. We call this the “Main Goal” and it is established in Stage 2: The Special World. It must be a tangible desire so that it will be clear when the hero attains it. Surprisingly, it isn’t important if the hero gets her Main Goal. Remember, it is the hero’s Missing Inner Quality that must be attained by the end of the story.
The Main Goal for Luke Skywalker is the return of the droids to the rebel base and the destruction of the Death Star. Dorothy’s Main Goal is to return to Kansas and her Auntie Em. In both cases the Main Goal is tangible - we’ll know clearly whether the hero has achieved the Main Goal or not. I can’t stress how important it is to create a tangible Main Goal. The Main Goal is not to get out of one’s miserable existence, or to be happy, or to be rich. These things cannot be touched and it will not be clear when they are acquired. The Main Goal is a particular thing that the hero and the reader will identify as something that can be accomplished. So, translate “get out of one’s miserable existence” into “living in the old mansion on the hill.” Translate “to be happy” into “putting a wedding ring on Mary Hatch’s finger.” Translate “to be rich” into “owning the yellow Lamborghini on the show room floor.” These things are tangible - they can be touched. For a good example of a story where the hero doesn’t get the Main Goal, consider Rudy. In this movie, Sean Astin plays Rudy Riettiger who is a high school senior and wants nothing more than to play football for the Fighting Irish (his Main Goal). But he doesn’t have enough money or the grades (his Missing Inner Quality - intelligence) to enter Notre Dame. So, he works hard in junior college and gains acceptance. Eventually, he is permitted to play on the practice squad but is not on the official roster. By the end of the film, Rudy confides in his mentor (Fortune) that he has failed. He feels that he didn’t get to play and he’s wasted his time. His mentor reminds him that he has accomplished a great deal: as a graduate of Notre Dame he will have opportunities that his friends and family never had. In this example we see clearly that Rudy did not achieve his Main Goal of playing for Notre Dame. But he did overcome his Missing Inner Quality of a lack of intelligence. Make the Main Goal something real, tangible, and solid so that the hero and the reader will know when it is acquired. It was clear when Luke Skywalker achieved his Main Goal because the Death Star was destroyed. Not only did he destroy the Death Star, but he acquired his Missing Inner Quality by overcoming his lack of confidence using the Force. We know Dorothy has achieved her Main Goal when she wakes up in her own bed in Auntie Em’s house. These are clear, identifiable and tangible Main Goals.
5.3 The Life Goal The hero starts out in her Ordinary World as having an overall goal in life. It’s often nebulous: to get away, to go someplace, or to do something down the road. Often a young hero wants to graduate high school or college. Or perhaps the hero wants to go to New York City and become a rock star. The Life Goal is the reason the hero gets out of the bed every day. The Life Goal is interrupted by the Inciting Incident at the end of Stage 1: The Hero and is replaced with the Main Goal at the end of Stage 2: The Special World. (We’ll talk more about them in Chapter 7.) In The Wizard of Oz Dorothy wants to get out of Kansas – to go over the rainbow (but that is interrupted by the Inciting Incident of the twister). In Star Wars Luke wants to go to the Academy and fly with his school buddies (that plan is interrupted when the Imperial Stormtroopers murder his aunt and uncle). In Rudy, he wants to work in
the steel mill until one day his best friend is killed in an explosion. In each case the hero has a Life Goal that is to get away or to do something down the road until it is interrupted by the Inciting Incident.
5.4 Sympathetic Qualities Your reader should sympathize with the hero. So you’ll want to endow her with characteristics that make the hero relatable. For example, classic Disney characters are missing one or both parents. Orphans get instant sympathy. If you will recall, Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, and Dorothy Gale are all orphans being raised by aunts and uncles. You can also instill sympathy for the hero if they have a physical shortcoming. If you recall Dr. Gregory House from the TV series House, we’re introduced to a character who is very unlikable. He’s rude, acerbic, condescending, and mean. However, we give him instant sympathy because he walks with a limp due to pain in his leg. (House is also a healer and very smart. These are two qualities that endear us to him.) Giving the hero an economic or social shortcoming can also create sympathy. In Dickens’ Great Expectations young Pip (also an orphan) is a street urchin who is taken in by a blacksmith. One day a lawyer comes to his home and tells him he is to be taken to London to become a gentleman. We have an initial sympathy for Pip because of his low social status. Other examples include Aladdin and Cinderella. Yet another way to garner sympathy is for the hero to start out at the bottom of their social or professional ladder. These underdogs garner instant sympathy as we all like to see the little guy overcome their challenges and rise to the top of their game. Such movies as Rocky and The Karate Kid are examples of the underdog story.
5.5 Flaws The hero should have flaws. The reader will identify with the hero’s flaws and see them in himself. There are emotional and character flaws – some serious, others not so serious. Some common flaws are: Alcoholism Sex Gambling Anger Faulty memory A “perfect” hero is boring. Superman is nearly too powerful and perfect. Batman, on the other hand is a tortured character. Often, the hero’s flaws interfere with their goals. Overcoming obstacles grows the hero.
5.6 The Greatest Fear
It is useful to identify the hero’s Greatest Fear. This is not the Missing Inner Quality. At some point – especially near the climax, you will want to force the hero to face this fear. If you remember the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones has a fear of snakes. When he finally finds his Main Goal (the Ark of the Covenant) there is a sea of snakes between him and the ark. He rolls onto his back and mutters “Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?” Indiana must ignore his fear of snakes to get the object of his desire.
5.7 The Mentor The Mentor is any character who gives advice or special gifts to the hero. The Mentor guides the hero through the “Special World.” The hero may have more than one Mentor. Often, the Mentor/Mentee relationship ends and the hero goes on alone. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi was Luke’s mentor. He informs Luke that his father was a Jedi Knight and lays down the “Call to Adventure” by saying “You should come with me to Alderon and become a Jedi Knight like your father before you.” Obi-Wan also gives Luke a special gift in the form of a light saber. These are both invitations to the Special World of outer space adventure.
5.8 Allies Allies are characters who are friendly to the hero. Usually Allies are accumulated in the first half of the Agile Novel. A great example of allies is in the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. These characters then assist the hero in her Main Goal for the rest of the story. For Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca the Wookie, and Princess Leia are Allies.
5.9 The Opposition & Enemies The Opposition (aka Villain) is the character who keeps the hero from the Main Goal. The Opposition is usually introduced in the Special World stage of the story. The Opposition is very much like a hero, but lacks selflessness and caring attributes. The best Opposition characters are equal to, or better than the hero in strength and cunning. The stronger the Opposition, the stronger the hero. Great Opposition characters from the movies include the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, Darth Vader from Star Wars, and Cruella de Vil from One Hundred and One Dalmations. It is important to realize that the Opposition is always a character in the story, not the hero’s circumstance and not “nature” and her friends. Think about Sheriff Brodie in Jaws. Many people think of the shark (named “Bruce”) as the Opposition character. But in fact, killing the shark is really the Main Goal. The Opposition is the mayor of the town. This is the character who tells Brodie that he can’t do what he most wants to do shut down the beach to keep the townspeople and tourists safe from the shark. The mayor puts obstacles in the way so that Brodie must take drastic measures.
Another example of the Opposition character is in The Perfect Storm. Here, it seems that the Opposition is the storm itself. And in many ways, this is a story of “man vs. nature.” But back on shore, there is an Opposition character in the form of Bob Brown, the owner of the ship. Brown is a lightning rod for the town’s anger and concern for the men on the ship. Remember, even when the Opposition is a force of nature, you will still need a character that represents the challenges the hero faces. Finally, notice that we don’t use the word villain when describing the Opposition. This is because “villain” implies evil intent. The Opposition isn’t always a villain. Consider the story of a young girl who wants to go to prom with a boy from the wrong part of town. Her mother may disapprove of the boy and attempt to hamper the girl’s efforts to see him. The mother isn’t necessarily a villain - she has her daughter ’s best interests at heart. So we say the mother is the Opposition character in the story. Enemies are the friends of the opposition. They are the ones who help the Opposition thwart the efforts of the hero in achieving the Main Goal. Such characters as the Stormtroopers in Star Wars, the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, and the henchmen in One Hundred and One Dalmations are all enemies. These characters do the Opposition’s dirty work for them.
5.10 Summary The Hero Abstract helps you to fully describe your hero and the characters surrounding her. The Missing Inner Quality The Main Goal The Life Goal Sympathetic Qualities Flaws The Greatest Fear The Mentor Allies Opposition & Enemies A template of the Hero Abstract that you can fill in can be found in Appendix B.
6 Plotting And Pacing 6.1 The Problem At Agile Writers we started out using Vogler ’s 12-stages of the Hero’s Journey. We had a problem: where do each of the stages occur in the story? That is, how long should one spend on each stage? This problem was abundantly clear when a friend of mine asked me to review his book. It was a science fiction novel about giant chickens from outer space who come to Earth to kill and roast humans on a spit. Sort of Kentucky Friend Chicken, but in reverse. The problem with his book was that by the time I had read up to page 100, he had killed off all the characters he had introduced. So I called him up and asked him who was the main character in the story. He replied that I’d meet a young co-ed around page 150 who befriends a professor and his wife. They are in a car heading east from California for Florida where a rocket waited to take them to a safe planet. Well, there was the story! We have a hero (the co-ed), a mentor (the professor), an ally (the wife), a Life Goal (college education), and a Main Goal (to escape to a safe planet). But most people aren’t going to read 150 pages to get to the meat of the story. You really need to introduce the hero on page 1. So I went in search of examples of methods of storytelling that not only followed the Hero’s Journey but also helped us know where each part of the Hero’s Journey occurs and how long to spend there.
6.2 Structure I started my search for structure with Aristotle. He had analyzed plays and declared that they have a beginning, middle, and end – the classic three-act structure. This was what I had been taught in grade school but it left a lot to the imagination about what was contained in each act and how long to spend there. My next stop was Gustav Freytag’s 5-act structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The details of what goes into each of these stages were still vague. I picked up a copy of Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting[5]. In it Field describes a three-act structure like Aristotle’s but he gets very specific about what happens in each act. Screenwriters have a different set of problems to solve than novelists. A typical movie lasts just two hours. That’s 120 minutes to tell a complete story. As novelists we have a lot more flexibility. Our novels can span anywhere from 200 to 800 pages. Screenwriters reckon that a page of a screenplay translates to about one minute of screen time. So a good screenplay is going to be 120 pages long. Field gets very specific in his book about how long to spend in each act of the story. At last, I had found the level of detail I was looking for. Not only was Field more specific, but he also laid out important plot points that occur within each act. The Inciting Incident occurs about halfway into the 30-page first act. The First Turning Point
occurs at the end of the first act and frames the dramatic question that must be answered by the end of the movie. The second act occurs on pages 30 through 90 and is divided in half by the Midpoint which marks the beginning of the decline of the hero. (Some people use the midpoint to divide the second act into act 2a and act 2b.) This set of pages ends with the second turning point which is a devastating moment for the hero of the movie. The third act runs from pages 90 through 120 and is divided in half by the climax of the story. After the climax comes the resolution. This came much closer to describing what specifically happens in a story’s plot. But I still needed to figure out where the Hero’s Journey fit into each act of the story. A friend had purchased some screenwriting software and with it came a video called The Hero’s Two Journeys.[15] In it Christopher Vogler (remember him?) and fellow screenwriter Michael Hauge (author of Writing Screenplays That Sell[7]) compared their two methods of storytelling. Hauge had defined a 6-stage structure similar to Field’s. In it he lays out the six stages of a story: The Setup (10%), The New Situation (15%), Progress (25%), Complications and Higher Stakes (25%), The Final Push (15%), and The Aftermath (10%). Each stage ends with a major turning point. In the same video, Christopher Vogler explained his 12 stages and overlaid them on Hauge’s 6 stages. Finally, I had found the mapping I was looking for. I felt that what the screenwriters were doing was laying down the pace and tempo for a good plot. The plot of the story should be independent of the medium it is presented in. So, if these methods worked for movies, they should work just as well for novels. Hauge issued a challenge to all his students to go to every new-release movie for a whole year and see how his 6-stage structure matches popular films. I took up that challenge in 2012 and continue to go to every major release film that comes to local movie theaters. In fact, my good friend Scott Allison now joins me in this exercise. Scott is a professor of psychology at the University of Richmond where he studies heroes and heroism. Together we review one or two new movies a week on our blog ReelHeroes.net. We analyze not just the movie’s quality but also the quality of the hero in the story. Together we published a collection of our reviews in the book Reel Heroes: Two Hero Experts Critique The Movies[12]. When I started Agile Writers we attempted to structure our stories around Hauge’s 6-stage structure but we ran into some problems. The first problem was that the “Progress” and “Complications and Higher Stakes” stages together took 50% of the story. This was just too large a portion of the story to write without some further turning points. Another problem was the divisions of the percentages of 10%, 15%, 25%, 25%, 15%, and 10%. These percentages didn’t seem to work within the framework of a novel. Finally, there was no stage that described where a prologue or epilogue fit into the story. After watching about 100 movies I was able to fully understand Field’s, Hauge’s, and Vogler ’s methods and then apply their lessons to novel writing.
6.3 Stories Are Stories The patterns of the Agile Writer Method are derived from screenplays, but we find these patterns apply to novels, too. The difference between screenplays and novels is in detail and presentation. Scripts are dialog-heavy whereas novels balance dialog and narration. Following these patterns will shape your plot and solve pacing issues. While I get specific about how many pages you spend in each section of the story, there is a lot of flexibility. For example, I recommend spending 30 pages introducing the hero. Don’t be concerned if your novel ends up taking just 20 pages for this. What is important is that you don’t wait until page 150 to introduce your hero as my friend did in his story.
6.4 Simplifying Assumptions We make several simplifying assumptions... You are going to write a novel of 250 pages. This is not an arbitrary number. Publishers do not want to take a chance on an untested author with an 800-page tome. Also, most readers want to read a book with a certain amount of substance. A novel of 250 pages is on the low end of what most readers expect. You are going to write 250 words per page. If you go to the bookstore, pull a few novels off the shelves, and count the number of words on an average page you’ll find about 250-300 words to each page. So you’ll want your typed manuscript to come in at about the same number of words per page. To accomplish this, set your word processor to the right font and page dimensions. We find that setting the page margins to 1 inch all around (top, bottom, left, and right margins) and the font to Times-New-Roman 12-point (double-spaced) works best. With these settings you’ll write about 250 words per page. This way, a type-written manuscript page will approximate the final size of a printed page. In other words, however many pages you type will be about the number of pages in your printed book. Our final simplifying assumption is that you are going to write 10 pages (double-spaced) per week for 25 weeks. This will amount to 250 pages in six months. This adds up to around 60,000 words (250 words x 250 pages = 62,500 to be exact). Don’t be daunted by this number. It is a very achievable goal. Most of our writers find 10 pages a week (2,500 words) is a comfortable amount of writing and fits most lifestyles.
6.5 Summary The Agile Writer Method is based upon screenwriting techniques. Stories are Stories: The lessons from screenwriting translate to novel writing. Introduce the hero on page one Simplifying assumption #1: You’ll write a novel of 250 pages Simplifying assumption #2: You’ll write 250 words per page Simplifying assumption #3: You’ll write 10 pages per week amounting to a first-draft novel in 6 months
7 The Agile Storyboard 7.1 Introduction
Figure 7.1.: The Agile Storyboard The Agile Storyboard is a structured outline of your story. It draws upon Aristotle, Campbell,
Vogler, Field, and Hauge to create a framework for your novel. By using this approach you “chunk up” your story into manageable portions. The Agile Storyboard requires you to think about your story before you start writing manuscript pages. You’ll find it easier to change your Storyboard than to change your manuscript. The Agile Storyboard divides your story into 8 stages. Each stage ends with a major turning point. When you finish your Storyboard, you’ll have a high-level description of your story. Then, you’ll begin writing your manuscript pages. Each stage of the Storyboard represents 30 pages of your manuscript. The stages of the Agile Storyboard are as follows: Stage 0: The Prologue. This is an optional stage that includes foreshadowing of The Special World. Stage 1: The Hero. Where we learn the hero’s Ordinary World, Missing Inner Quality, and Life Goal. Stage 2: The Special World. The hero is cast into a special situation or location and must learn the rules of the Special World. The Special World ends with a new Main Goal for the hero. Stage 3: Discovery. The hero has learned the rules of the Special World and is now discovering who she is in the Special World. Stage 4: Growth. The hero is growing in the Special World and becomes the master of the Special World. This stage ends with the point of Commitment where the hero makes a plan to get the Main Goal. Stage 5: Decline. Things start going badly for our hero. The plan for getting the Main Goal is still working. Stage 6: Despair. The plan for getting the Main Goal is in jeopardy. Near the end of Despair someone close to the hero may die. Getting the Main Goal appears to be impossible. Stage 7: The Gathering Storm. The hero and her friends come together to create a new plan for getting the Main Goal. The Gathering Storm ends with the climax where the resolution of the Main Goal is determined. The hero uses his Missing Inner Quality to achieve the Main Goal. Stage 8: Resolution. We wrap up any subplots. We learn the final disposition of the hero and friends. This may end with an optional Epilogue showing the disposition of the hero and friends years down the road.
7.2 Stage 0: The Prologue
I call the Prologue “Stage 0” because it is optional. Most stories don’t require a prologue. In fact, many writers misuse the prologue by setting up the world that the reader is about to enter. This is a mistake. We call it “homework for the reader.” You don’t want to force the reader to learn about your hero or his world by dumping a lot of exposition in the prologue. We have seen this at Agile Writers and I discourage it. In one case a writer created a futuristic world where people were put on trial and subjected to a virtual reality for their sentence. This was a fantastic idea. But the author dragged the story down by creating a lengthy prologue that described the future world in detail. It also described the hero’s backstory and motivations. These are all things that the reader should learn for themselves through the execution of the main story, not in a brain dump in the prologue. When you meet me in person for the first time I might introduce myself like this: “Hello! My name is Greg Smith. I was born in Maine. My father was a traveling salesman. He was always on the road when I was a child. I really think this affected me deeply as I was missing a father figure in my formative years. My mother had always wanted to be a dancer but suffered from a limp she acquired after a car accident in her teens...” This sort of personal introduction is probably not necessary and quite frankly could be very uncomfortable for you as my new friend. You will learn these bits of “backstory” about me and my life as we get to know each other. What we actually do in real life is start with where you and I are today and move forward. The prologue in your book is no different. You don’t want to dump all the details of your hero and her life in one section of the book. You want to inject it into your story and let it unfold naturally. So, if the prologue is not the place to expose your hero and her backstory - just what is a good prologue for? The properly written prologue is set in the past (sometimes the distant past). It foreshadows events that will occur in the second stage - The Special World. It should be a self-contained story in its own right and should be as active as possible. For example, in my reimagining of the King Arthur legend, the story doesn’t start with young “Wart.” Instead it starts with a prologue in which we meet Uther Pendragon. He is riding his horse through the dark forest and is being chased by the black knight. If the black knight captures the sword Excalibur then Camelot falls to the dark forces forever. Pendragon realizes that he can’t escape the knight and dismounts his horse. He pulls Excalibur from its scabbard and plunges it into a large rock saying “Let only a man pure of heart pull the sword from the stone.” The black knight overcomes and kills Pendragon. But he cannot pull the sword from the stone. Camelot is safe for now. End of prologue. Then we start chapter one with the introduction of young Wart who is an orphan being raised by his uncle. Wart’s older brother is a wannabe knight. They have travelled to the city for a joust where all the young men will attempt to pull the sword from the stone. Wart’s only job is to keep track of his older brother ’s sword. But he’s forgotten the sword and goes looking for a replacement when he comes upon the sword in the stone. He tries his hand at pulling the sword out and it comes out easily
in his hands. Thus the boy king is born and Wart enters the next stage of the story - The Special World. We later learn that Wart is really Arthur who is the son of Uther Pendragon. In my version of King Arthur ’s legend the prologue is its own mini-story with a beginning, middle and end. It creates the backstory of the sword in the stone so that we know how important it is when Wart pulls the sword from the stone. Likewise, the prologue foreshadows The Special World in which Wart becomes Arthur, King of Camelot. We see this in Star Wars, too. The story doesn’t start on the dusty planet of Tatoine with Luke Skywalker. No, it begins in outer space where a large Imperial destroyer space ship overcomes a much smaller ship. Darth Vader bursts into the ship and abducts Princess Leia. But not before she dispatches a life boat containing the two droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. She has entrusted R2 with some important information and a message for Obi-Wan Kenobi. This prologue introduces us to what will become Luke’s Special World - the world of outer space and the Empire. Now that the stage has been set we can meet Luke in his Ordinary World and his adventure can begin.
7.3 Stage 1: The Hero The first thirty pages of your book are critical. In fact, the first page, even the first paragraph and sentence are critical. Once someone looks at your book cover and is motivated to open your book to look at the first page, you need to create a question in the reader ’s mind that will compel them to want to read more - and hence buy your book. You must establish four things in Stage 1: The Ordinary World The Life Goal The Missing Inner Quality The Inciting Incident In addition, you should expose these elements of the Hero’s Journey: Meeting the Mentor The Call to Adventure The Refusal of the Call Crossing the First Threshold 7.3.1 The Ordinary World In the first thirty pages you need to introduce your hero and her Ordinary World. This is the world your hero lives in before her journey begins. It is critical that the reader know who the hero is at the beginning of the story so that they will understand when the hero changes. In Star Wars we’re introduced to Luke Skywalker. He lives on a dusty desert planet called Tatooine. He is an orphan and lives with his aunt and uncle on a moisture farm.
7.3.2 The Life Goal Along with the Ordinary World, the hero must have a Life Goal. This is what the hero wants at the beginning of the story - her hopes, dreams and aspirations. It is often very simple, even nebulous. It’s usually to go somewhere or do something down the road. For the teenager it may be to go to New York City and become a rock star. For a waitress it might be to have a restaurant of her own. For the corporate employee it might be to become the vice president of her division. Whatever it is, it is a long-term goal. It is why the hero gets up in the morning. It is what motivates our hero to push on every day. Whatever it is, this is the path that the hero is on that will be interrupted by the Inciting Incident when a new Main Goal is selected. Luke exposes his desire to fly with his schoolmates early in the story. He wants to get away from his dull life on Tatooine. 7.3.3 The Missing Inner Quality The Missing Inner Quality is something we’ve discussed before (see Section 5.1 : The Missing Inner Quality) and must be exposed in the first thirty pages. It is an inner pain that must be mended by the end of the story. Remember, regardless of what the Main Goal is, it is the Missing Inner Quality that must be found by the end of the story. As mentioned earlier, these are such things as a lack of confidence, a lack of empathy, or some other missing quality. Ultimately, this Missing Inner Quality must be used to gain the Main Goal. Luke shows that he lacks confidence when he is at breakfast with his Uncle Owen. He expresses his desire to go the academy and fly with his old friends. But is not confident enough in himself to stand up to his uncle and do what he wants to do with his life. 7.3.4 Meeting the Mentor The hero should meet their mentor in Stage 1 (The Hero) or in Stage 2 (The Special World). Rememer, the Mentor is a character who gives advice or gifts. This is the character who explains and guides the hero through the Special World. Very often, the mentor / mentee relationship ends and the hero must go on alone. Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi when R2-D2 runs away and Luke must retrieve him. 7.3.5 The Call to Adventure The hero must be challenged to change their current path and go on to the path of The Special World. This challenge is often laid down by the Mentor. It can be a verbal challenge or it can be a situation. For example, in Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi says “You should come with me to Alderon” - a verbal invitation to The Special World. 7.3.6 The Refusal of the Call The hero almost always turns down the Call. This is the mark of a true hero, and it exposes the hero’s ties to his ordinary world.
In Star Wars Luke replies to Obi-Wan’s call by saying “I can’t go with you, I have obligations on the farm.” This is a clear exposition of Luke’s ties to his Ordinary World. 7.3.7 Turning Point #1: The Inciting Incident The Inciting Incident is the event in the story that upsets the hero’s Ordinary World. It severs the hero’s ties to the Ordinary World and allows him to move on. In Star Wars, Luke returns to the farm and learns that Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have been murdered by the Imperial Stormtroopers. This breaks any ties Luke has to his ordinary world and he can go on his adventure. 7.3.8 Crossing the First Threshold Once the hero is free to go on their adventure, they cross over from their Ordinary World into the Special World. This often appears in the story as some sort of travel. It can be a plane ride, train ride, or some other mode of transportation. In Star Wars we see Luke race along in his land speeder. Then he crosses a literal threshold when he walks through the door of the Cantina where he is introduced to The Special World - a world of strange music, strange creatures, and where life is cheap. In The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen rides a train from her Ordinary World of District 12 into the Special World of the Capitol. Note that this is just the first threshold for both Luke and Katniss. There are others to come. 7.3.9 Summary of Stage 1: The Hero You have a lot to do in the first thirty pages. Many people are challenged to get it all in there and create a compelling opening for the reader. You must establish four things in Stage One: The Hero. The Hero’s Ordinary World The Hero’s Life Goal The Hero’s Missing Inner Quality Turning Point #1: The Inciting Incident And these elements of the Hero’s Journey as well. Meeting the Mentor The Call to Adventure The Refusal of the Call Crossing the First Threshold
7.4 Stage 2: The Special World Once the hero has Crossed the First Threshold, they enter a Special World. This could be a physically new location or just a new situation. As we have already discussed, Luke Skywalker ’s transition to the Special World of outer space is illustrated by the entry into the Cantina where there are many different
species and the rules are different than they were on the farm. Whatever the Special World is, it should be significantly different from the Ordinary World the hero came from. If you wrote a Prologue, there should be some sort of link from the Prologue to the Special World. For example, in Star Wars Luke meets up with Han Solo who takes him away to outer space Luke’s new Special World. There are four things you must expose in the Special World: The Rules of the Special World Tests, Allies, and Enemies The Opposition The Hero’s Main Goal 7.4.1 The Rules of the Special World Once leaving the Ordinary World the rules of the Special World must be learned. We see this in The Hunger Games as Katniss and Peeta ride the train to the Capitol. Their mentor, Haymitch, instructs them in the ways of the Hunger Games. This is a classic example of the mentor giving sage advice and it often occurs in the Special World. In Star Wars we see Luke get in trouble at the bar of the Cantina. Two unsavory characters approach Luke and tell him they don’t like him. Luke tries to ignore the two but they prepare to attack him. Obi-Wan Kenobi interposes himself and kills one of the attackers. The lesson learned is that in this Special World, life is cheap. While in the Special World the hero’s Missing Inner Quality must be further exposed. Luke’s naiveté and lack of confidence is shown in the last example as well. 7.4.2 Allies and Friends The hero will also meet new allies and friends. Allies are people who are interested in helping the hero attain the Main Goal. In the Special World, Luke meets Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookie. Han represents what Luke wants to be - a space pilot with his own ship. Han is going to help Luke achieve his Main Goal of returning the droids to the rebel base. As such, Han is an ally. Chewbacca is a lesser character and doesn’t interact with Luke much. Chewie is Han’s sidekick and so is more of a friend to Luke. The friend is someone friendly to the hero but may not be invested in his Main Goal. And lest we forget Luke’s extant allies in the form of the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. 7.4.3 The Opposition and Enemies The hero will likely meet the Opposition for the first time in the Special World. As we’ve discussed previously, the Opposition character is not “nature and her friends.” Nor is the Opposition the hero’s difficult situation or lot in life. In the Agile Novel the Opposition is always a character. The Opposition is very much like a hero. In fact, the Opposition is often someone else’s hero. From our hero’s point of view, the Opposition lacks the qualities of caring and selflessness. Darth
Vader in Star Wars is a great example. He has many of the qualities that make up a great hero (strong, smart, resilient, charismatic, and inspiring - at least to his followers). But he lacks the qualities of caring and selflessness as demonstrated by his treatment of Princess Leia. You can read more about the Great Eight Characteristics of heroes in Scott Allison’s book[1]. The hero may also meet enemies - these are friends of the Opposition. In Star Wars Han Solo meets up with Greedo, the bounty hunter. The Stormtroopers are also enemies. 7.4.4 Turning Point #2: The Main Goal Stage Two concludes at the critical 25% point with the hero trading the Life Goal for the Main Goal (see Section 5.2: The Main Goal). The Main Goal is a physical, tangible desire. It is not an emotional achievement (feeling better, stronger, or more confident). It must be a tangible object so that the reader will know when it has been achieved. As we’ve discussed earlier, it isn’t necessary for the hero to actually achieve the Main Goal. The Main Goal is the thing the hero is chasing for the rest of the novel. What the hero must acquire is the Missing Inner Quality. Make note that the hero can “trade up” their Main Goal. Luke Skywalker starts out wanting to return the droids to the rebel base. Once that goal is achieved, the stakes are raised and he becomes a fighter pilot with the Main Goal of destroying the Death Star. Remember, if you change the Main Goal be sure the stakes are raised and never lowered. 7.4.5 Summary of Stage 2: The Special World By the end of Special World the reader should know: The Rules of the Special World The Hero’s Opposition The Hero’s initial Allies, Friends, and Enemies Turning Point #2: The Hero’s Main Goal The remainder of the story is the overcoming of the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality While searching for the Main Goal Which the hero may or may not acquire But he must always attain the Missing Inner Quality
7.5 Stage 3: Discovery In Stage 1 we introduced the reader to the hero and her Ordinary World. In Stage 2 the hero passed from her Ordinary World into the Special World. Once the rules of the Special World have been learned, the hero must discover who she is within the Special World. That occurs in Stage 3, Discovery. Learn More about the Hero’s Allies and Friends The Hero should be exploring the Special World Tests and Trials Approaching the Inmost Cave Turning Point #3: The Reminder
7.5.1 Allies and Friends As with The Special World, during Discovery the hero meets new friends and firms up her relationship with friends she met in the previous stage. These characters often show the hero what she is lacking. The hero then is learning from her allies and must incorporate their traits into her self. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is a young girl who lacks intelligence, courage, and heart. She no sooner starts down the yellow brick road before she meets the scarecrow. The scarecrow sings a song about having no brain. However, he immediately demonstrates that he has some innate intelligence by tricking the apple trees to throw apples at him so that Dorothy can have a snack. This, then, is a character who reflects Dorothy’s own lacking quality and by the end of the story she takes on that characteristic. For Luke, he has experienced the Special World of the Cantina and is now getting acclimated to the Millennium Falcon. While there he is learning more about Han and Chewie. For instance, he learns that Han is a nonbeliever when he says “I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything.” He also learns that Wookies have an ill temper when R2-D2 is beating him at chess. Han warns “It’s not wise to upset a Wookie.” 7.5.2 Exploring the Special World The hero often starts to apply the lessons learned in the Special World. In Luke’s case we see him fighting a remote device that fires pellets at him. Luke is learning to use the light saber that Obi-Wan has given him. Here, Obi-Wan is exercising his role as mentor - teaching Luke how to maneuver within the Special World. Luke is having some trouble with the remote when Obi-Wan suggests he try again but this time with a helmet and blast shield covering his eyes. Now Luke is truly working within the Special World as he must “reach out” with the Force to “see” the attack from the remote device before it shoots at him. 7.5.3 Approaching the Inmost Cave The hero may realize her first trial in the Discovery stage. This is an encounter with the Opposition that the hero is probably not quite ready for. It will be a test that the hero may fail. But it is an important trial as it exposes that the hero is not fully acclimated to the Special World and still has a way to go. In Vogler ’s terms this is “Approaching the Inmost Cave” that we discussed earlier. For Luke and friends, the Millennium Falcon has dropped out of hyperspace and is in the debris field that is what is left of Alderaan. They notice a tie fighter flying toward a small moon and they fly towards it. They soon realize that it is not a small moon but a space station - the Death Star. Before they can retreat they are trapped in a tractor beam and are soon to be sucked into the landing bay. This is a “Belly of the Whale” moment where the hero is brought into the Opposition’s world most likely before she is really ready for it. 7.5.4 Turning Point #3: The Reminder With all the activity surrounding the events of the Special World and the hero Discovering who she is
in it, the reader may forget that the hero is on a quest for the Main Goal. This is why the Discovery stage ends with a Reminder scene to emphasize and remind the reader what the hero’s mission is. In Star Wars Luke and friends all hide in the cargo bay of the Millennium Falcon. This is because they don’t want the Imperial Stormtroopers to find the droids (remember them?) who have the plans to the Death Star. This scene reminds the reader of the importance of Luke’s mission and how high the stakes are. 7.5.5 Summary of Stage 3: Discovery By the end of Discovery: Learn More about the Hero’s Allies and Friends The Hero should be exploring the Special World Tests and Trials Approaching the Inmost Cave Turning Point #3: The Reminder
7.6 Stage 4: Growth The fourth stage is Growth. Here the hero has Discovered who she is within the Special World. So, in this 30 pages she is growing in and mastering the Special World. The hero will be tested in ways that prepare her for the second half of the story. The hero is taking more initiative and exercising the rules of the Special World with more control and deft. Final Allies and Friends The Hero is mastering the Special World More Tests and Trials The hero goes through an Ordeal with a corresponding Reward Turning Point #4: Commitment 7.6.1 Final Allies and Friends There may be more friends and enemies introduced at this point - but this is the last time any significant characters are introduced. The problem with introducing important characters after the 50% point is that it tends to look like a deus ex mechina. In the days of the early Greeks, poets loved to tell stories that put the hero into an impossible situation that could only be resolved by a god flying in from Mount Olympus. In fact, during such plays, they would have the actor dropped into the scene by a crane. Hence “god” (deus) “from” (ex) “the machine” (machina). When you add a character late in the story that fixes all problems, this is considered a modern deus ex mechina - and that is why I recommend against introducing any new significant characters after the Growth stage. 7.6.2 Turning Point #4: Commitment The ending of this 30-page stage is Commitment. This is an event or decision that causes the hero to
burn all her bridges such that going back is no longer an option. This occurs at the critical 50% point in the story. In Vogler ’s terms this is the Ordeal. It should be a big event in the story. The hero may receive a Reward (again using Vogler ’s terms) at the end of the Ordeal. Let’s look at what is going on with Luke at this point in the movie. Obi-Wan Kenobi has decided to venture out and disable the tractor beam such that Luke and friends can escape the Death Star. Luke, Han, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2 are all waiting in a control room for his return. Then, R2-D2 alerts Luke that Princess Leia is being held prisoner in the detention bay. Luke then convinces Han and Chewie to attempt a rescue by storming the detention bay. Note that at this point in the story Luke is of no interest to the Empire. He’s just a farm boy who is hanging out with some seedy characters. However, at the moment that he shoots up the detention bay he becomes an enemy of the state. This is Luke’s moment of commitment. This is his point of no return. There is no going back to the farm for Luke. He is a renegade and a rebel. Luke is demonstrating an emerging confidence - which is his Missing Inner Quality, remember? Now that he has found something that he wants, he is breaking out of his shell and taking control of the Special World. Make sure that your hero makes just such a commitment. This is the second most important scene in your story (second only to the climax). Be sure to give careful consideration to your hero’s Missing Inner Quality. Create a scene that puts the hero in the position of burning all her bridges. The Commitment is huge and you must make sure that the impact on your hero is huge as well. 7.6.3 Summary of Stage 4: Growth By the end of the Growth Stage The Hero is mastering the Special World More Tests and Trials You’ve introduced the last of Allies or Friends The hero goes through an Ordeal with a corresponding Reward This stage ends with an event or decision of Commitment
7.7 Stage 5: Decline After the point of commitment, things start to go badly for our hero. Up to this point the hero has been pretty successful at making her way through the Special World. But now the tides are going to turn and things are going to get tougher. Things start going badly for our hero The hero is thwarted by the Opposition in her plan to achieve the Main Goal Turning Point #5: Why are we here? The hero should be making a plan to acquire the Main Goal. This plan is the subject of these 30 pages. The plan may be thwarted by the Opposition and the Opposition’s friends (enemies of the hero).
In Luke’s case, he no sooner rescues Princess Leia when he is faced with the problem of escaping the detention bay. Leia takes his blaster and blows a hole in the wall which our hero and his allies jump through. Just as they’ve escaped the Stormtroopers, they find themselves in another “Belly of the Whale” situation where they are trapped in a trash compactor. The walls of the compactor start to close in on the group and they need help from their friends R2-D2 and C-3PO. Finally, the trash compactor is turned off and our hero and allies escape into the hallways of the Death Star. 7.7.1 Turning Point #5: Why are we here? As with the ending of Stage 3 (Discovery) our reader has been distracted by a number of events which may have overshadowed the Main Goal. The end of Stage 5 is a good time to remind him what the hero is chasing after. So the last 10 pages are a second reminder of the Main Goal. In Star Wars we see the reminder spliced into a chase scene. While Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca are in a running gun battle with Stormtroopers, R2-D2 and C-3PO are back at the control room. While waiting for the return of their friends, a group of Stormtroopers run into the room and R2-D2 and C-3PO hide in a closet. This is a reminder that the droids are the Main Goal - returning them to the rebel base is what our heroes are attempting to accomplish. Make sure that you don’t let your reader forget that your hero has a Main Goal. The last few pages of Decline is a great place to do that. 7.7.2 Summary of Stage 5: Decline By the end of Decline Things start going badly for our hero The hero is thwarted by the Opposition in his plan to achieve the Main Goal Remind the reader what the Main Goal is
7.8 Stage 6: Despair The next 30 pages represent a series of failures for the hero that cause her to fall into despair. By the end of this stage, at the critical 75% point, the plan for getting the Main Goal looks impossible to achieve. The hero will suffer more trials and tribulations The hero will experience a Death, Disappointment or Crisis of Faith Achieving the Main Goal seems impossible The hero is on The Road Back 7.8.1 Turning Point #6: Death or Disappointment By the end of Despair, someone close to the hero may die. Or, there may be a significant disappointment that makes accomplishing the Main Goal seem impossible. In Christian and Inspirational genres there may be a crisis of faith.
In Luke’s case, the main players have converged on the docking bay and are running toward the Millennium Falcon. Just then, Luke turns to see Obi-Wan Kenobi in a light saber duel with the Opposition - Darth Vader. Obi-Wan is struck down and Luke is completely demoralized by the loss of his friend and mentor. When the group escapes in the Falcon, they realize that they must have a tracking device attached - thus they are leading the Empire to the rebel base. This is both a Death and a Disappointment for Luke. In Vogler ’s terms, Luke has his Reward in the form of Princess Leia. He is now on The Road Back to the Ordinary World of the rebel base. In Christian and inspirational stories the hero will experience a “crisis of faith” moment. Consider the movie Soul Surfer. Young Bethany is a promising champion surfer and has an offer to model for a surfing magazine. Tragedy strikes and her arm is bitten off by a shark. At her Death or Disappointment point, she seeks out her minister (a mentor character) and asks her how the loss of her arm fits into God’s plan. This is a crisis of faith moment. The minister admits that she doesn’t know and advises Bethany to go on a mission trip. This then is the beginning of Bethany’s stage of “The Gathering Storm” which we discuss next. 7.8.2 Summary of Stage 6: Despair By the end of Despair The hero will suffer more trials and tribulations Turning Point #6: Death or Disappointment Achieving the Main Goal seems impossible The hero is on The Road Back
7.9 Stage 7: The Gathering Storm The hero and allies have suffered a major blow and getting the Main Goal seems impossible. Now they must regroup and make a new plan to achieve it. This is the Gathering Storm stage and is the beginning of the end of the story. The hero should make a new plan to get the Main Goal The Resurrection Turning Point #7: The Climax In Star Wars there are two Gathering Storm moments. The first one occurs after Luke returns with the droids. There is a scene in an auditorium where all the fighter pilots (Luke included) are assembled and the stolen plans to the Death Star reveal a weakness. Since our hero has led Darth Vader and his followers to the rebel base, they trade up their original Main Goal (returning the droids to the rebels) for a new Main Goal - that of destroying the Death Star. This meeting and the information about how to destroy the Death Star is a Gathering Storm moment. The second Gathering Storm moment occurs on the flight deck. Luke is saying goodbye to Leia and the droids are preparing his X-Wing fighter for battle. Han and Chewbacca arrive and make their goodbyes. This is a classic Gathering Storm moment where our hero and his allies are reunited for a
last meeting. 7.9.1 Turning Point #7: The Climax The climax occurs at the end of the Gathering Storm and is the most important scene in your novel. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the Main Goal must be resolved by the end of this 30-page stage. When I say ’resolved’ I don’t mean that the hero always achieves it. In fact, it doesn’t matter if the hero gets the Main Goal or not. What matters is that the hero acquires her Missing Inner Quality. This is what your novel is all about. In Luke’s case the climax comes in a thrilling space battle as the rebels attempt to fly into a corridor of the Death Star and fire lasers into the exhaust port. Luke has a Resurrection moment when he is nearly taken out by Darth Vader but Han Solo arrives and shoots Vader ’s ship just in time. Luke then demonstrates his newly found confidence when he turns off his targeting computer and “uses the Force” to fire his lasers into the exhaust port and destroys the Death Star. It is critical that Luke used his Missing Inner Quality (confidence) to defeat Darth Vader and the Empire. While he does achieve his Main Goal, the story would mean nothing if Luke was still an insecure farm boy by the end of the story. 7.9.2 Summary of Stage 7: The Gathering Storm By the end of The Gathering Storm The hero should make a new plan to get the Main Goal The hero may appear to have lost all, but regains himself (Resurrection) There must be a thrilling Climax The Main Goal will be resolved Either the hero attains it or not - but definitely one way or the other Regardless, the Missing Inner Quality is attained.
7.10 Stage 8: Resolution The final 30 pages of your novel is the Resolution. This is the tidying-up of any loose ends and the exposition of the message of the story (remember that from the Story Abstract?). Vogler calls the exposition of the message the “Return with the Elixir”. The Resolution in Star Wars is quite short. We are treated to a scene where Luke and Han walk down the red carpet and receive medals. So, we see that Luke is no longer a farm boy, but a full grown man (possibly a Jedi Knight). And we also see that R2-D2 (who was shot up during the climax) has been restored to full glory. Other movies usually have a longer Resolution. If you consider Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she clicks her heels three times and returns home. Everyone gathers around her and asks what she learned. She says “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!” In other words, she already had all the things she thought she lacked.
7.10.1 Epilogue The Resolution may end with an optional Epilogue. The Epilogue is the opposite of the Prologue. The Prologue, you may remember, happens some time before the start of the story. The Epilogue starts some time after the end of the story. We see this in such novels as the Harry Potter series. In the final book, we see Harry married to Jennie Weasley and Ron married to Hermione. They each have a child that is getting on the train to Hogwarts. So, the story has come full circle. 7.10.2 Summary of Stage 8: Resolution The Resoultion Wrap up the loose ends for the hero and allies Wrap up any subplots An optional Epilogue
7.11 Summary The Agile Storyboard borrows from many sources Stories are Stories There are 8 Stages 7 Turning Points The Storyboard helps to tell you where things should happen Aids in plotting and pacing NOTE: Not all plots fall into this pattern Genre Novels fit this pattern exceedingly well The Percentages and Page Numbers are Guidelines, but it’s a good idea to stick close to them A template of the Agile Storyboard that you can fill in can be found in Appendix C.
8 Writing Your Novel 8.1 Introduction Now that we’ve introduced all the elements of the Agile Writer Method, it’s time to put them to work. There are 6 steps to writing the Agile Novel. They are: Step 1: The Story Abstract Step 2: The Hero Abstract Step 3: The Synopsis Step 4: The Agile Storyboard Step 5: Scenes Step 6: Manuscript Pages - 10 per week The big idea here is to think about your story at a high level of detail and then break your story down into more and more detail as you progress. The Story Abstract encourages you to write your story idea as a One-Line Description. This is a very high level of detail. Then you write an Elevator Speech which is a paragraph - still a high level of detail, but more detailed than your One-Line Description. Next you’ll move on to an 8-page Synopsis. This is a finer level of detail. Followed by the Agile Storyboard which breaks your story into 8 stages and 7 turning points. Next you break the 8 stages into scenes. And finally you tell your story in fine detail by writing manuscript pages - 10 pages per week. Breaking your story up into “chunks” this way helps you to get your mind around your story and break it into manageable pieces. Thus we take a big project and turn it into a number of smaller ones. Suddenly, your novel is not such a big project after all.
8.2 Step 1: The Story Abstract We covered the basics of the Story Abstract back in Chapter 3. As the first step to writing your Agile Novel, you’ll fill in the details of the Story Abstract. I’ve created a template for you to use in Appendix A. You can fill in the blanks there or create your own in your word processor. Remember that this is a high-level description of your story. You may not have a clear idea as to what your story is all about right now. But try to fill in the blanks anyway. You’ll come back and update your Story Abstract as you progress with your project. You’ll want to define your audience by picking a genre, demographic, educational level, and primary gender. Don’t be worried if your genre doesn’t appear in the list. The choices I’ve listed are standard industry genres. If you don’t think your genre is represented, it is probably a sub-genre of one of these. Go ahead and pick one and then write your sub-genre to the right. Remember, in the Agile Writer Method we are building your story up from very high-level concepts to low-level details. We start with the “One Line Description” which is the basic idea of your story in one sentence. Many people have trouble with this the first time around, so don’t feel discouraged if you do too. As you can see from the template, it is “A story about (the hero) who wants
(the main goal) and learns (the message)”. From there, you’ll be asked to fill in the Elevator Speech. Now we’re expanding on the idea of your One Line Description into a full paragraph. Think about the back-flap description of your Agile Novel. You’ll want to mention the hero, her goal, and the conflict. Don’t give away the ending. You want to entice the reader to buy your book. Give them enough information to whet their appetite, but not so much that they won’t be surprised by the ending. When we get to the Agile Storyboard, you’ll be expanding on what you’ve written here, creating more detail as we go.
8.3 Step 2: The Hero Abstract The second step to creating your Agile Novel is to fill out the Hero Abstract which we detailed in Chapter 5. The Agile Novel is hero-based, so you’ll want to get an overall view into the attributes of your hero. Remember that if you don’t know everything right now, that’s fine. We’ll return to this page after you write your synopsis. As with the Story Abstract, I’ve created a template for you to fill in in Appendix B. You can use mine or create your own in your word processor. Regardless, be sure to cover all the elements of the hero that you can. Pick a name for your hero. If you aren’t sure, go ahead and pick one at random. We’ll be coming back to this section later. Identify your hero’s Missing Inner Quality. This is the thing your hero is lacking and needs to be discovered by the end of the story. Think about your hero’s Life Goal. This is the reason the hero is getting out of bed every morning. It is the thing your hero is chasing and is interrupted by the Inciting Incident and replaced by the Main Goal. Be sure that you pick a Main Goal that is tangible so that the reader will know when it occurs. Your hero should be flawed so you should pick some character flaws that the reader will identify with. You’ll want to pick some qualities that will make the reader sympathize with the reader. It’s not critical, but if you can create a Greatest Fear in your hero it will create a nice turning point in your story when your hero has to confront it to get the Main Goal. Your hero should have a Mentor character to guide her through the Special World. Remember, it isn’t necessarily a wise old man. It is generally any character who is wiser than the hero in the ways of the Special World. Identify any characters who are Allies to the hero. Likewise, identify the Opposition character remembering that the Opposition is not the hero’s bad situation or society. The Opposition is always a character who prevents the hero from attaining the Main Goal.
8.4 Step 3: The Synopsis The third step toward writing your Agile Novel is to write an 8-page (2,000 words, double-spaced) synopsis. It is a narrative telling of your story from beginning to end. You’ve already described your story in a single sentence (the One Line Description) and in a paragraph (the Elevator Speech). Now, it’s time to go into more detail. The first time you sit down to write your synopsis you should let your mind wander. Tell as much or as little of the story as you like. Be careful not to get too mired in details, you’re not writing your manuscript at this point. But think of the synopsis as a “brain-dump” of your story. Just get it out on paper. It is likely that you may come up with more than 8 pages. Many Agile Writers end up with 20 or more pages. That’s fine. But you’ll want to edit your synopsis down to just 8 pages. The reason is that you’ll want to focus your thoughts on the “spine” or “straight line” of the story. You’ll probably leave out subplots and backstory. Once you’re done with the synopsis, ask some other people to review it. It won’t take long. They may have questions. That’s expected. What is also possible is they’ll want to advise you on how to make the story better. We find that this kind of advice is detrimental to your storytelling. Politely listen to such advice and ignore it. This is your story. If others want to write a better story, let them do their own work. What you’re looking for are questions about the story, not advice. If people are confused about the story, take that to heart and try to find a way to make things clearer. You should be able to get your full story idea across in this 8-page treatment. If people have a lot of difficult questions, integrate them into your synopsis and try again.
8.5 Step 4: The Agile Storyboard The next step is to add more detail to your story. Fold your synopsis into the 8 stages of the Agile Storyboard we learned about in Chapter 7. This is not just a matter of copying the first page of your synopsis into the first stage of the Storyboard, and the second page to the second stage, etc. You will have to really think about your story and make sure that you put the events of your story into the stage that represents what is happening. And make sure you hit the turning points at the right times, too. These turning points are critical to proper plotting and pacing. You may want to write your stages out as a set of 3 paragraphs (about 250 words) or as bullet points. It doesn’t really matter as long as you hit the turning points at the right times. I have provided the Agile Storyboard for my novel Luddite Planet in Appendix D. I used bullet points because I’m a rather terse writer and bullet points appeal to me. I’ve also included a blank template of the Agile Storyboard in Appendix C. During this phase it’s important to use the technology or medium that best appeals to you. I like Microsoft Word but other Agile Writers have used different tools to create their Agile Storyboard. One writer had her story take place over 7 days. So, she laid her Storyboard out on index cards which she laid out on the table like playing cards - one row for each day. Another writer put all her
Storyboard ideas on sticky notes and stuck them to a whiteboard so that it was easy to move them around. The important thing to remember is that you want to get the story elements into the right stages and end on the right turning points. Once you’ve finished with your Agile Storyboard, go back and re-read your Story Abstract and Hero Abstract. You will probably find that they are easier to fill in now and you may have some significant changes to make.
8.6 Step 5: Scenes Once your Agile Storyboard is complete, start breaking each stage into scenes that will realize the stages you created. This is a finer-grained telling of your story. Write each scene as one-sentence descriptions of what happens at each point in the story. For example, start each sentence with In which ... Where ... We find ... You want to create enough scenes in each stage that you fully covered that stage. Now, go back and “cost” each scene by estimating how many pages you think it will take to write that scene in your manuscript. Scenes can run anywhere from 3-10 pages. On average a scene will take 5 pages and there will be about 50 scenes in your Agile Novel. Once you’ve estimated the “cost” of each scene, go back and check to see if the number of pages in each stage is around 30 pages. If you are lower than 30 pages in a stage, you’ll want to either expand some scenes or add a few scenes. If you have gone over 30 pages you may want to cut some scenes. Most Agile Writers find that cutting scenes is easier than adding them. So feel free to put as many scenes as you like into your stages and cut them in your second run through.
8.7 Step 6: Write Your First Draft You’ve done a great job of refining the level of detail in your story to the point where you have a full plan. You have 8 stages, 7 turning points, and around 50 scenes. You started with a single sentence, then a paragraph in your elevator speech, then you got into more detail in your synopsis and Storyboard. And finally you created a set of scenes that outline your entire novel. Now it’s time to start writing manuscript pages. We recommend starting at the beginning of your novel and continuing through to the end. This works best especially if you’re working with a critique group who will be reviewing your work. It allows your critique partner to see the story unfold logically and chronologically. Plan to write 10 pages per week. Work from the beginning of your book and write toward the end. You are now in “novelist mode” and it’s time to put all that creative energy to work. Take the first scene and write the number of pages you estimated. You may have to write two or three scenes a week to make your 10 page quota. Remember, you want to use Times-Roman, 12-point font with 1-inch margins all around and
double-spaced. This will average about 250 words per page (the same as the printed page in a trade paperback). This way you’ll know that a typed page is equal to a printed page. You should find a critique group and visit it every week with your newly typed 10 pages. It’s best if you can find two other writers to work with and see them weekly. This is what we do at the Agile Writer Workshop. We have weekly meetings and people meet with the same critique partners every week. You don’t want your critique partners to critique your spelling and grammar (not that it is forbidden). You want them to look at your story and let you know what they have trouble with. We’ll cover the critique process in more detail in Chapter 10. When you get your critique feedback, go ahead and make any changes you need to make to your critiqued pages. Then put them away. Do not bring them back to your critique partners to re-critique. This will slow you down. At Agile Writers we strive to Constantly Move Forward.
8.8 Embrace Change When you receive your critique, you’ll want to make changes. This is fine. But sometimes your critique feedback will make you want to change some important parts of your story. This is not only fine, it is expected. When you find that you have to make a change - make it to your Agile Storyboard first. This will tell you where in your manuscript to make corresponding changes. You may find that you’re making a lot of changes to your Storyboard. If that is the case, drop back and regroup. Examine your Storyboard and edit it. Once you’ve updated your Storyboard, go back and update your manuscript. Regardless of what you change, save all your manuscript pages as they may come in handy later. Don’t bring the updates to your critique group, but let them know what changes you made and pick up from where you left off. Remember, at Agile Writers we strive to Constantly Move Forward.
8.9 Summary The Agile Writer Method breaks your story down into manageable pieces It requires you to think about your story before you begin The Story Abstract and Hero Abstract are a high-level of detail The Agile Storyboard breaks your story into 8 stages, 7 turning points and (around) 50 scenes You’ll find it easier to change your Storyboard than your manuscript Use whatever technology suits you Write your story 10 pages per week Get critiqued by the same 2 people each week Critique based on story elements, not spelling and grammar At Agile Writers we strive to Constantly Move Forward
9 The First Thirty Pages You must make sure that the first thing your reader reads creates a question in their mind. You want to grab them as soon as possible. Some Agile Writers have asked that the reader hang in there for 30 pages as they set up the situation for their hero. This is a mistake. With the vast amount of information that readers have at their disposal, attention spans have been reduced from hours to minutes to mere seconds. People can surf channels on their cable boxes hovering for a few seconds to see if they will be entertained before they click through to the next station. The internet and social media are other avenues for information seekers. Most people will scan their Facebook news feeds and just read the headlines to determine if they will read more. You don’t have the luxury to ask your reader to read 30 pages, or 5 pages or even 1 page. You must capture the reader ’s interest in the first three sentences.
9.1 The First Three Sentences In the first three sentences of your story, on page one, you must create a question in the reader ’s mind that will encourage them to read on. Answer these three questions: Where am I? Whose Head am I in? What has changed or may change? These three questions inform the reader and spark suspense. They enable and compel the reader to continue reading. Here is the first paragraph from a popular novel: All during the flight from London and the long, winding drive north from Boston to Quiet Valley, New Hampshire, population 326 – or it had been ten years before when Jason Law had last been there – he’d thought of how different things would be. A decade, even for a forgotten little town in New England was bound to bring changes. There would have been deaths and births. Houses and shops would have changed hands. Some of them might not be there at all. Nora Roberts: The Gift[11] How does this measure up to the three questions we mentioned earlier? Where Am I? On a trip from London to Quiet Valley, New Hampshire Whose Head Am I In? Jason Law’s What Has Changed or May Change? The town may have changed (deaths, births, houses and shops) Here’s another example: Robert Langdon awoke slowly. A telephone was ringing in the darkness. He fumbled for the bedside lamp. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis
XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed. “Where the hell am I?” Dan Roberts: The Davinci Code[2] Here the author has created a question in the reader ’s mind. Who is calling? Where is the character? Let’s look at the three questions: Where Am I? A plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture Whose Head Am I In? Robert Langdon’s What Has Changed or May Change? The phone is ringing. There is another character coming soon.
9.2 The First Three Paragraphs Once you’ve captured the reader ’s interest in the first three sentences and created a question in their mind, you need to keep on the roll with the first three paragraphs. Don’t try to explain everything up front. Avoid backstory. You can sprinkle your exposition and backstory throughout the body of your Agile Novel. The first three paragraphs should do the following: Paragraph 1: Start with a great opening (the first three sentences) Paragraph 2: Establish something interesting that is happening Paragraph 3: Describe the setting. Foreshadow the rest of the story Avoid backstory Use good amounts of dialog, action, and interior monologue
9.3 The First Three Chapters You’ve captured the reader ’s interest in the first three sentences. You’ve pulled them in with the first three paragraphs. Now you need to keep up the pace with the first three chapters. These first three chapters correlate roughly to the first stage of your Agile Storyboard - The Hero. Chapter 1: Introduce the Hero in the middle of their life Chapter 2: Introduce the Hero’s Ordinary World and their Life Goal Chapter 3: The Inciting Incident
9.4 The Next Three Chapters You’re off to a good start. You’ve captured the reader ’s interest and pulled them into the hero’s Ordinary World. Now it’s time to lay down the Special World. Chapter 4: The Special World (Physically described) Chapter 5: The Hero learns the Rules of the Special World
Chapter 6: Identify the Hero’s Main Goal (that replaces the Life Goal)
9.5 Summary Make the First Three Sentences draw the reader into the scene Make the First Three Paragraphs draw the reader into the chapter Make the First Three Chapters establish the Hero’s Ordinary World Make the Next Three Chapters establish the Special World Don’t fret over exact numbers. If you can do it in 2, 4, or 5 Chapters that’s fine.
10 Agile Writer Critique 10.1 Overview The purpose of critique is to get feedback from other writers about your work. You want to get a first impression from unbiased readers. And you want to get a second opinion about what you’ve written. While it is useful to learn about mechanics of writing (spelling, grammar, etc.) what is most important is that you learn about structure (plot, character, etc.). You will improve your craft through receiving criticism but also by giving criticism as well. At the Agile Writer Workshop we’ve found that the optimum number of critique partners in a group is three. Fewer than three is not enough feedback to make the critique work. More than three partners in a group and the critique meeting takes too long. We have had groups of four work together with good success, but the critique session may take up to two hours. With three critique partners a full critique is possible in about an hour ’s time.
10.2 Formatting Your Work You might think that formatting your pages is unimportant during the first draft process. At the Agile Writer Workshop, we have found that it is critical that you format your pages appropriately. 10.2.1 File Format First, you should agree on a file format. You’ll be exchanging your pages electronically by email and your partners will want to be able to read your work. We’ve found Microsoft Word ’97 is a good baseline for most writers. There is free software available that will print files in that format. Also, there is free open source software that will read and write Microsoft Word documents. Check out LibreOffice and OpenOffice suites if you don’t have access to the pricey Microsoft Office Suite. They are free for downloading and work on almost all platforms (Windows, Macintosh, and Linux). 10.2.2 Fonts You should set your word processor to 12-point, Times-New-Roman font, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins all around. As we’ve explained before, this creates about 250 words per page and is close to the average for the printed pages in a trade paperback. The double-spacing and margins leave room for your critique partners to mark up the printed pages. 10.2.3 Header The heading of your pages should contain the following elements: Working Title Author ’s Name Chapter Number / Name While it may seem obvious to you what your name is and what chapter this is, you need to remember that you’ll be sending these pages to critique partners who have two other partners to
critique. You want to give them enough information to keep their pages separated from each other. Suppose your critique partner drops your pages in the parking lot on the way to your critique meeting. How will they get the pages back together again? The header will help to keep things straight. 10.2.4 Footer The footer of your pages should contain the following items: Page Number Total number of pages As with the header, you’ll want your critique partners to know which pages go where in the event of a mishap. Also, some people will print out your work on a double-sided printer. It can get confusing to know which page you’re critiquing if you don’t have page numbers on each page. 10.2.5 One File Per Critique It’s a really good idea to create one file for each critique session. This makes it easy for your critique partners to know what to read and what to critique for the upcoming session. Sending multiple, partial files gets confusing, especially when printed. Also, avoid sending the whole manuscript and asking your critique partners to read a range of pages (say “read pages 134-155”). This is a burden on your partners to open the document and print out only the pages for the critique. Send only the pages you want to have critiqued in the file. 10.2.6 Example Format
10.2.7 Summary The standard ensures:
You know whose work it is You know what story it is Ample space for comments Ability to keep pages in order Ability to know where we are in the story Easy to read
10.3 Sharing Your Work You’ll need to share your work with your critique partners. At the Agile Writer Workshop we meet weekly on Wednesday nights for critique. So, we email our critique partners on Sunday night with work to be critiqued on Wednesday. This gives everyone plenty of time to critique the work before the meeting. 10.3.1 Agree On A Medium For Exchange We’ve had good luck with two methods of file exchange. Since our files are typically 10 pages of text, they are small enough to be sent as attachments to email. Some people have used the file sharing web site Dropbox.com as a way of sharing files. You can drop your files into Dropbox.com just like dropping a file into any folder on your computer. And it magically appears in your critique partner ’s Dropbox folder. It is very easy to set up and many of our writers have found it useful. However, it can be more technically challenging than a simple email attachment. Another method of file sharing includes Google Documents. This is a system that allows you to write and edit your work in a web browser and share it with anyone on the internet who has a Google email account. The downside is that Google Documents are not MS Word compatible and we’ve had trouble with formatting the work when printed. 10.3.2 Agree on Amount At the Agile Writer Workshop we strive for 10 pages a week. No more and no less. Writing less than 10 pages a week means that it will take longer than 6 months to create the first draft. Writing more than 10 pages a week is a burden on your critique partners. But the amount you share with your partners is strictly between the three of you. 10.3.3 Time Frame As I’ve already mentioned, you want to give your critique partners enough time to give you a proper critique. We find that emailing the work on Sunday night in time for a Wednesday review is ample time. Remember that you and your critique partners will have 20 pages to review. And, during that time you’ll probably want to start working on the next 10 pages for next week’s critique. It’s very rude to send your 10 pages to your critique partners the night before (or heaven forbid the day of) your review. Typically three days review time is ample. 10.3.4 Don’t Resubmit
We have also found that you should not resubmit pages previously critiqued. This is another burden on your critique partners and will slow your progress. Once a set of pages have been critiqued it should not be resubmitted. Go ahead and update your pages with your critique partners’ suggestions then put them away. If you find that your story has changed significantly due to a rewrite, write a summary for your critique partners and update your storyboard appropriately. 10.3.5 Strive To Constantly Move Forward All of these rules are designed to help you constantly move forward. One of the biggest problems writers have had before coming to Agile Writers is that they get stuck on the first few chapters. You want to keep moving forward. Remember this is the first draft. There will be others. So don’t worry if your work isn’t perfect. If you change someone’s name halfway through the story, just make a note to yourself to clean it up in the second draft and keep moving forward.
10.4 Before The Meeting When you receive your critique partner ’s work, you will want to read it from beginning to end, just as the ultimate reader might. Make comments as you go. We have found that printing the work out offers the best critique experience for the writer. If your critique partner has followed the formatting guidelines there will be space for you to write your comments between the lines and in the margins. You can make comments about mechanics (spelling, grammar) on the paper but these are not the subject for discussion at the critique meeting. At the meeting you’ll want to focus on the story. If something about the structure (plot, characters, scene) leaves you confused, write a comment on the paper immediately. Not only were you confused, but the ultimate reader may be equally confused. You want your critique partner to be alerted to this right away. However, your confusion may be cleared up in a later section. You should make a comment about that as well and do it at the point the confusion was cleared up. Don’t go back and update your earlier comment. It’s important to let your critique partner know exactly when and where the confusion is resolved. This may have been done on purpose for literary effect. Do not attempt to write your critique in the actual document using your word processor. This causes the page numbers to change and it will become difficult for you and your critique partner to “sync up.” Imagine the confusion when you’ve inserted your comments in the middle of page two and that pushes the next section onto page three. Now, everything is one page off. When you tell your critique partner you had a problem with the wording on “page four” - that original text was on “page three” and your critique partner will be lost. There is one exception to this rule: MS Word’s “Track Changes” capability. This allows you to insert comments into the document and they appear on the right margin without modifying the pagination of the document. If you use this method of critique, be sure to be consistent and do not insert changes in the body of the document. Also, be sure to print the work out with the “Track
Changes” turned on so that your critique partner gets all your comments. Finally, on the last page of the work, end the review with your overall impressions of what you just reviewed. This is a nice way to let your partner know what you thought of the whole thing. Be sure to bring the printed, marked up, critique to the meeting.
10.5 Your Comments More than anything, you want your comments to be honest and constructive. Don’t be afraid to let your critique partner know when something is not working. The worst thing you can do is give your critique partner a glowing review when there is something flawed with the work. Don’t be afraid that you’ll hurt their feelings. Their feelings will be much more hurt if you don’t give them the review they need. The comments you give should never be personal. You should never use strong language like “stupid” or “ridiculous” in your review. Never attack the writer. Your comments should always be about the work itself. Definitely include things that you liked. The worst thing that can happen to a writer is to change something that works in exchange for something that does not. So when you see something that you thought was good say something like “I liked this part where you...” Also, don’t give unsolicited advice on how to problem solve. I remember a time when one writer was writing a alternative history and had Canadian Mounties using crossbows. The critique partner said that crossbows seemed archaic and then started listing other weapons that the Mounties might use. This is an affront to the writer. Surely, if you think crossbows are archaic, say so. But stop there. Don’t offer unsolicited advice.
10.6 At The Meeting First determine how much time you have. At the Agile Writer Workshop we allot one hour to a group meeting (of about 16 people) where we share our progress and share writerly news. Then the second hour is for critique. In your critique meeting be sure that you know how much time you have and divide that time equally between the three of you. If you have an hour, that means that each critique should last no more than 20 minutes. Focus on one work at a time. Don’t try to critique everyone’s work at the same time. Critique writer ’A’ for 20 minutes, then writer ’B’. Remember to focus on the work. Don’t get sidetracked by idle conversation. Save socializing for after the meeting. (There will be time to talk about grandchildren and vacations after the critique). Never try to review the work in real time at the meeting. It is very rude not to come prepared and not to have read your critique partners’ work before you arrive. We’ve seen people reading the work cold in a meeting and trying to give a good review and it is impossible. Definitely review the work before you arrive. And if for some reason you can’t do that (emergencies happen and sometimes we
cannot be prepared) let your critique partner know. Be honest. And promise to deliver that critique by email the next day. Do not try to review your critique partner ’s work for the first time at the meeting. It’s just rude.
10.7 Receiving Critique If you are the writer being critiqued you have some obligations, too. Firstly, you should remain as silent as possible. Don’t be defensive about the work. Positive, constructive criticism is not a personal attack. It is an attempt to help you improve. If someone gives you a critique that you don’t understand, by all means ask them to elucidate. Also, your critique partners may have questions for you. Go ahead and answer them - but again, don’t be defensive. Practice saying “Thank you” with each comment that your critique partners make. Remember they are your friends and they are giving you free advice. Treat it as if it were quite valuable. I encourage all Agile Writers to consider their critique as a gift your friends give you. Be appreciative and encouraging. As with any gift, say “Thank you.”
10.8 The Critiquers As a critiquer of someone else’s work you should proceed from the beginning of the work towards the end. Don’t jump around (don’t jump to page 3 where your first comment is, the other critiquer may have a comment on page 1). Please avoid criticizing and pointing out spelling and grammar errors. By all means mark up the paper with these corrections. But in a first draft we don’t much care about spelling or grammar. What we care about is the story, structure, plot, and characters. Focus your attention on these elements of the work. Remember, comment only on the work and never on the writer. You want to foster a sense of mutual trust and admiration. So make your comments honest, positive and constructive. The writer should be adhering to their storyboard and you should have a copy of it. Be sure that the story somewhat represents what is in the storyboard. However, writers are creative. They may stray from the storyboard. If so, the writer should be alerted and they should update their storyboard appropriately. If the writer is constantly veering from the storyboard, they may want to go back and rework it. At the end of the critique meeting, give the reviewed and marked-up paper to the writer. As mentioned earlier, your comments in the meeting should be as supportive as your comments on the paper are: Honest Positive
Constructive Never Personal (never use “stupid” or “ridiculous” or such words) Include the things you liked Never attempt to problem solve Comment only on the work Never comment on the writer 10.8.1 Resources At the weekly Agile Writer Workshop meeting we devote about 20 minutes to some element of the craft of writing. Each week a writer volunteers to read a chapter from a selected book on writing and digests it for the rest of the group. One book we’ve used is by Becky Levine entitled The Writing & Critique Survival Guide[9]. We’ve found it an invaluable guide to the elements of writing (plot, character, point of view, etc.), and her advice on critique is spot on.
11 Summary The Agile Writer Workshop has been in existence since January of 2011. It has been my greatest joy to work with writers from all walks of life who are motivated to create a first draft novel in six months. I feel a great sense of pride in the work we’ve done together in this time. And it has been my great pleasure to share this method that we’ve created together with you. You’ll want to first make the decision to write your Agile Novel. Don’t underestimate the power of that first, small step. Don’t approach your novel with timidity and uncertainty. Jump in with both feet and plan to work on this project for six months. It will go by faster than you think! The steps to writing your first-draft are: 1. Make the decision to create a novel in 6 months 2. Create the Story Abstract 3. Create the Hero Abstract 4. Write your 8-page Synopsis 5. Create your Agile Storyboard with 8 Stages and 7 Turning Points 6. Break the 8 Stages into Scenes and assign a number of pages to each Scene 7. Write your Manuscript 10 pages a week for 25 weeks 8. Critique your work each week with 2 other critique partners. I am 100% committed to your success. I want you to consider me your Agile Writing Coach and as such I’ve set up an email address for you to write to for help. Write and let me know how your project is going. Feel free to ask for my advice.
[email protected] You can also follow the progress of the Richmond Agile Writer Workshop at: AgileWriters.com You can catch my review of the latest movies and their heroic content at my blog: ReelHeroes.net Finally, check out books published by Agile Writers at Agile Writer Press: AgileWriterPress.com
11.1 Future Works This book Agile Writer: Method is just the first in a series of books that will help you write your firstdraft novel in 6 months. Other planned books are: Agile Writer: Hero Agile Writer: Villain Agile Writer: Character Agile Writer: Workshop By all means if you have a topic that you feel needs addressing, please drop me a note and let me know. Until then, keep writing, let me know about your progress, and Constantly Move Forward!
A. The Story Abstract Template
Title: _____________________________________________________________________________________
Author: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Audience: Genre:(pick one) □ Young Adult □ Espionage/Thriller □ Romance □ General Fiction □ Mystery/Detective □ Memoir □ Historical □ Fantasy □ Science Fiction Demographic: (pick one or two) □ Gen. Z (12-22) □ Gen. Y (23-33) □ Gen. X (34-45) □ Baby Boomers (46-64) □ Matures (65+) Educational Level: (pick one) □ High School □ Some College □ College Graduate Primary Gender: (pick one) □ Male □ Female
Message:_________________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________________________ One-line description: It’s a story about ___________________________________________________________________________(the Hero) Who wants __________________________________________________________________________(the Main Goal)
And learns ____________________________________________________________________________________( Message) Elevator Pitch: (250 words)
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B. The Hero Abstract Template
Hero’s Name: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Missing Inner _________________________________________________________________________
Quality:
This is the thing that will give the hero his ‘arc’. The hero should attain this by the end of the story. This is something like: lack of courage, lack of confidence, selfishness, lack of compassion, lack of empathy, lack of humility, self-absorbed, antisocial, naive, stubborn, disobedient, shy.
Life Goal: _____________________________________________________________________________________ This is what the hero desires at the beginning of the story. It is often a desire to be in a different place or a different situation. Something like “To get out of Kansas,” “To get away to Mexico,” “To join my friends at Star Fleet Academy”
Main Goal: _____________________________________________________________________________________ This is the goal the hero wants at the end of “The Special World”. This is the goal that the hero is pursuing for most of the story. It is what causes the story to move forward. It must be a tangible goal. “A Harvard Education,” “To return home to Kansas,” “To return the droids to the Rebel Alliance.”
Flaws: _____________________________________________________________________________________ The hero should not be perfect. He should have some personality or physical flaws that endear us to him. Such as: stuttering, shyness, a limp, and grumpiness. Sympathetic _________________________________________________________________________
Qualities:
Endearing qualities are positive aspects of the hero that causes us to like him. These can be personality or situational qualities. Such as: kindness, awkwardness, intelligence, small stature
Greatest Fear: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Your hero should have at least one strong fear. At some point you should make your hero face his fear. Such as: snakes, heights, water, being alone
The Mentor: _____________________________________________________________________________________ The mentor is a person who imparts wisdom and / or gifts upon the hero. There can be more than
one. The Mentor guides the Hero through the Special World. Allies & Friends: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Allies are the characters who help the hero in their quest. Friends are supporting characters. The Opposition: ____________________________________________________________________________________ The hero must have at least one person who gets in the way, often pulling the hero back to the Ordinary World. This is not an environmental or ephemeral obstacle (like the weather or the sea). It should be a person. Enemies: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Enemies are friends of the Opposition.
C. Agile Storyboard Template Stage 0: Prologue (0-30 pages) We hate prologues It’s like homework for the reader But if you must ... Make sure it sets up the Hero’s Special World Make sure it is more than pure backstory Usually set at a time period well before we meet our Hero
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Stage 1: The Hero (30 pages) Getting to know the Hero Getting to know the Hero’s Ordinary World Getting to know the Hero’s Life Goal Getting to know the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality the Call to Adventure the Refusal of the Call Exposing the Hero’s ties to the Ordinary World Expose the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality Turning Point #1 : Inciting Incident Crossing the Threshold Something happens to our Hero that transports them into a new situation This can be a big event or a small event But whichever it is, it is something that puts the Hero in uncharted territory The Life Goal for the Hero is defined Often the Hero meets the Mentor for the first time And can also meet the Opposition for the first time
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Stage 2: The Special World (30 pages) the Hero is propelled into a new situation the Hero has to learn the rules of the Special World the Hero is doing pretty well pursuing their Life Goal in the Special World Further Expose: the Hero’s Main Goal the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality Turning Point #2 – The Main Goal something significant happens...
the plan for getting the Life Goal Is replaced with an even more urgent Main Goal
the Hero must make an adjustment to their plan in order to get the Main Goal
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Stage 3: Discovery (30 pages) The Hero makes new friends And new enemies The Hero discovers more about himself The Hero starts to realize how to get the Main Goal Turning Point #3 – the Reminder A scene in which the reader is reminded of the Main Goal
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Stage 4: Growth (30 pages) More tests and trials The Hero is tested in ways that prepare them for the second half of the story Possibly more friends and enemies Turning Point #4 – Commitment This will be a hard decision for the Hero : to move forward or go back Or, a situation or event that forces the Hero to move forward
Whatever the reason, the Hero must now be so committed that going back is no longer an option No new (significant) characters are introduced after this point
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Stage 5: Decline (30 pages) Things start to go badly for our Hero The Hero has to overcome problems Turning Point #5: Why Are We Here? This is a major event that reminds the reader of the Main Goal in our story It should somehow be linked to Turning Point #3 the Hero has to overcome problems
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Stage 6: Despair (30 pages) Things are getting desperate for our Hero
The Hero suffers setback after setback Turning Point #6 : Death or Disappointment Someone important to the Hero may die or An event occurs that makes achieving the Main Goal seem impossible In Christian / Inspirational stories, the Hero suffers a crisis of faith The Hero falls into a situation that makes his Main Goal unattainable
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Stage 7: The Gathering Storm (30 pages) The Hero and friends make a new plan for getting the Main Goal Turning Point #7 – Climax There may be a false climax or false ending The Hero must exploit the Missing Inner Quality to resolve the climax The Main Goal is resolved The Hero may, or may not get the Main Goal But, the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality has been found
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Stage 8: Resolution (0-30 pages) Resolution of subplots Let the reader know where the major characters go from here The Epilogue is often set in the future Shows where the Hero and others end up
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D. Luddite Planet Example Storyboard Stage 0: Prologue (0-30 pages) We hate prologs It’s like homework for the reader But if you must ... Make sure it sets up the Hero’s Special World Make sure it is more than pure backstory Usually set at a time period well before we meet our Hero
Year 2350: Walth is running away from the living quarters of the cargo ship Aether which is on fire He is carrying 3-year-old Gym Ruby, his wife is following him Walth deposits them outside in the lush green flora of the new planet Mistress XXX approaches “How many more are inside?” “About 50 – did you get the Pearl out?” “Yes – it was the first thing we got out.” “I’ll go back for the others” Ruby: “Walth, you will stay here with your wife and son! I told you trusting in this technological behemoth was a bad idea.” “The Law is clear, no man shall rest while woman or child is in need.” She relents and says through clenched teeth: “If that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it shall be.” Gym holds on to his father ’s leg: “Daddy, don’t go!” Walth picks the boy up, “Don’t worry – I’ll be right back.” He kisses the boy and hands him to his mother. Walth kisses Ruby on the lips and looks into her eyes, “I’ll be right back.” He runs into the burning wreck just as it explodes.
Stage 1: The Hero (30 pages) Getting to know the Hero Getting to know the Hero’s Ordinary World Getting to know the Hero’s Life Goal Getting to know the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality the Call to Adventure the Refusal of the Call Exposing the Hero’s ties to the Ordinary World Expose the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality Turning Point #1 : Inciting Incident
Crossing the Threshold Something happens to our Hero that transports them into a new situation This can be a big event or a small event But whichever it is, it is something that puts the Hero in uncharted territory The Life Goal for the Hero is defined Often the Hero meets the Mentor for the first time And can also meet the Opposition for the first time
Year 2355: Jod fights and damages a MechaCorp battle ship by pretending to be dead allowing his ship to get close to the battle ship. Jod’s ship is replete with odd technical devices “Who’s the best fighter pilot in the galaxy?” “As of today, Yan Hammer is the best.” “Well where am I?” “You are still third best, Jod” “Man, I can’t catch a break” (Jod’s catch phrase) The MechaCorp ship is badly damaged and retreats. Jod returns to base with his friends. Jod is a fighter pilot for the Conglomerate – one of two mega-corporations that have replaced all governments. There are numerous planets with human life (all originating from Earth) and no other intelligent life in the galaxy. Jod explains his death-defying trick that destroyed the MechaCorp ship to Buddy. He succeeded, but the MechaCorp ship learns from its mistakes and playing dead will never work again. (MechaCorp is typified by using rebotic/artificial intelligence whereas the Conglomerate relies on human intelligence. Conglomerate does not allow self-aware machines.) Jod’s captain chides him for not working with the team. This exposes Jod’s desire to be independent and “do his own thing” Jod meets a strange old man (Dodge) who barters for a lift to a dark corner of the galaxy. in exchange, he offers Jod enough money to pay off his debt to the Conglomerate and keep his ship. This allows Jod to start a venture of his own and sell electronics to inhabitants of the outer worlds (life goal). As a condition of this payment, Jod must take Dodge to a planet on the outer rim of the galaxy – the Dark Zone. (call to adventure) Jod objects – he travels alone. He doesn’t want any attachments or to belong to anything. (missing quality) (refusal of the call) Dodge retracts his offer of paying off the debt and Jod relents. The trip will take two days. (NOTE: They still use Earth-standard time even though they’re in outer space. Jod makes a wry comment about this since he’s never been on Earth). They make their way to one of the outer planets called “Tranquility” (Dodge is after the Luddite Treasure) They land on “Tranquility” but badly (there is a strange power-dampening field surrounding the planet), causing the ship to be damaged. They meet up with Gim (a young boy) and mother Ruby (a red-headed widow). Ruby takes them into her home.
Stage 2: The Special World (30 pages)
the Hero is propelled into a new situation the Hero has to learn the rules of the Special World the Hero is doing pretty well pursuing their Life Goal in the Special World Further Expose: the Hero’s Main Goal the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality Turning Point #2 – The Main Goal something significant happens... the plan for getting the Life Goal Is replaced with an even more urgent Main Goal
the Hero must make an adjustment to their plan in order to get the Main Goal
The inhabitants of Tranquility are of the “Luddite” religion, a fact that Dodge failed to mention to Jod. They shun technology and are pacifists. In fact, they left the central planets of the Conglomerate to avoid contact with technology. The tribal leader tells Ruby that as she was first to find the strangers that she must put them up, as that is the tradition. Ruby agrees saying “If that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it shall be.” (ruby’s catch-phrase) Dodge has other plans. He approaches the tribal leader and says that he doesn’t want to be a burden on the young woman and perhaps there is another place he can stay. The tribal leader tells him that she is a widow and there is room in her home for him. He gleefully accepts. (There is an obvious attraction between the two elderly people) Jod’s main goal is to get off this planet and start his new venture “All I want to do is get off this rock and start making my fortune selling useless junk to brainless idiots”
Stage 3: Discovery (30 pages) The Hero makes new friends And new enemies The Hero discovers more about himself The Hero starts to realize how to get the Main Goal Turning Point #3 – the Reminder A scene in which the reader is reminded of the Main Goal
Jod learns that there is a group of “Untouchables” who manage what little technology is on the
planet. They are not allowed contact with the main group of Luddites. But when things get really hard on them, the Untouchables occasionally bail them out. ***BACKSTORY*** The luddites left the central core planets 5 years ago. They chartered a cargo ship to take them through the Dark Zone to the outer rim planets. Unfortunately, the cargo ship crash landed. This was fine for the Luddites, because they didn’t want to go home. However the crew and families of the cargo ship were stranded with no way home. They started their own colony and maintained what little technology they had left, occasionally helping the luddite when there was a problem. The Luddite kept their distance from the untouchables. Occassionally, a luddite child had “developmental problems” and would not adhere to the strict luddite way. They were outcast to the Untouchable tribe The MECHACORP (MechaCorp) is a corporation run completely by people who use machines to do their dirty work and (the machines) are self-aware. The Conglomerate is constantly at war with the relentless Mechacorp. The Conglomerate use technology but does not allow the use of artificial intelligence. *** END BACKSTORY *** Gim is a loner not playing the games other children play. They have a way of sharing their history by acting it out. There are no books, too technical. “Any story worth telling is worth living” Instead they use improvisation to tell and retell their stories. Gim doesn’t like to play along. He likes gadgets and takes an instant liking to Jod. Gim was on the track to become an untouchable. And Ruby was fighting that tooth and nail. Jod is getting fond of the boy and teaches him to ride his “ionoslider” (a board designed for skimming along the ionosphere) but only over the ground. Jod learns from the boy that his father died while going on an expedition with the Untouchables. Ruby is furious that Jod is exposing her child to technology. The boy goes for a ride and hurts himself. “There will be none of it in my house. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it shall be!” (Ruby’s catch phrase). Jod sees a ship overhead which crash lands to the north
Stage 4: Growth (30 pages) More tests and trials The Hero is tested in ways that prepare them for the second half of the story Possibly more friends and enemies Turning Point #4 – Commitment This will be a hard decision for the Hero : to move forward or go back Or – a situation or event that forces the Hero to move forward
Whatever the reason, the Hero must now be so committed that going back is no longer an option No new (significant) characters are introduced after this point
They find a MechaCorp probe designed for seeking out raw minerals and energy sources. When it finds raw materials it takes several samples and sends a report to MechaCorp. The MechaCorp then sends a mining ship which strips the planet of raw materials and returns to turn them into
products. Unwittingly, the Luddites destroy the probe. This alerts the MechaCorp that something on the planet has technology enough to kill a probe and that requires investigation. Technology is coming to Tranquility. Jod explains to the Luddite elders that the MechaCorp will likely interpret the destruction of their probe as a hostile act and dispatch a battle ship instead of a mining ship to eradicate the planet of harmful human inhabitants. Jod will not be able to get off Tranquility before the MechaCorp ship arrives. And he will have to fight the MechaCorp either way. Jod agrees to lead the Luddite in their fight against the oncoming MechaCorp ship. (The point of no return). The MechaCorp ship will arrive in 2 days (ticking clock) Jod puts in a call to his buddies to come help. It will be a race as to who arrives first. He warns them about the power dampening field. Jod and Ruby nearly kiss.
Stage 5: Decline (30 pages) Things start to go badly for our Hero The Hero has to overcome problems Turning Point #5: Why Are We Here? This is a major event that reminds the reader of the Main Goal in our story It should somehow be linked to Turning Point #3 the Hero has to overcome problems
Ruby is furious with Jod and blames him for bringing this technology upon them. She fears that her way of life is over and she hits Jod. She refuses to allow her people to fight the MechaCorp as that would mean giving up their pacifism and shunning of technology. Jod struggles with her and argues that he didn’t bring the technology to her, but the technology found her and her planet on its own. The outside “world” is expanding and finding the Luddites. Whether they fight or not, their world is over. They can either let the MechaCorp come and destroy their culture, or they can fight to retain what they have. Either way, the Luddite world is done. Jod contemplates running. After all, all he wants is to sell worthless trinkets to people with more money than sense. He discusses it with Dodge. Dodge: “A battle like that could be a good diversion for a getaway”
Stage 6: Despair (30 pages) Things are getting desperate for our Hero The Hero suffers setback after setback
Turning Point #6 : Death or Disappointment Someone important to the Hero may die or An event occurs that makes achieving the Main Goal seem impossible In Christian / Inspirational stories, the Hero suffers a crisis of faith The Hero falls into a situation that makes his Main Goal unattainable
The Untouchables relate that they have fixed Jod’s ship except for a single part that they do not have. The Untouchables arrive with an analysis of the probe. It apparently was seeking out whatever the Luddite Treasure was made of. So, the Luddite brought this technology upon themselves. Now the Luddite have something to fight for. Dodge has found the Luddite Treasure Dodge is found in a near-comatose state. He has been gazing into the Luddite Treasure. It was a religious experience, but it was too much bliss at one time. As he dies he says “Well, I got what I came for” Ruby: Well you didn’t want any attachments. Now you should be satisfied. You’re alone.
Stage 7: The Gathering Storm (30 pages) The Hero and friends make a new plan for getting the Main Goal Turning Point #7 – Climax There may be a false climax or false ending The Hero must exploit the Missing Inner Quality to resolve the climax The Main Goal is resolved The Hero may, or may not get the Main Goal But, the Hero’s Missing Inner Quality has been found
Buddy and friends arrive just ahead of the MechaCorp ship. They all have a hard time landing and one of the ships is damaged beyond repair. But it has the part that Jod needs. The pilot of the damaged ship stays behind and uses his radio to keep track of the battle for the Luddite. Touching scene with Jod saying goodbye to Gim. Gim: “You won’t be back – just like my dad. He never came back.” Jod gives him something???. “Are you kidding, Kid? I’ll be back. I always come back! Hold this for me. You can give it back when I return.” Ruby gives him a handkerchief. The MechaCorp ship arrives and Jod and friends take off to do battle There is a stunning battle – the Luddites are listening in on the Untouchable’s radio Jod contemplates leaving the battle. He could get away unscathed and undetected. He could start his little trinket business and live the high life with no attachments. He takes off for parts unknown while a dismayed Buddy and team realize they’ve been had. Jod realizes the MechaCorp ship is going to beat the small troupe. He decides to “play dead”
like he did in the opening scene. His friend “Buddy” radio’s him to remind him (strongly) that it won’t work a second time. But Jod plays dead again. Jod says goodbye to Athena “You were the best, girl.” “You were always third from the best, Jod.” “Man, I can’t catch a break today.” The MechaCorp battleship sees Jod’s ‘dead’ ship and recalls the earlier battle. The ship focuses its attention on Jod’s ship. Buddy is horrified at the prospect of Jod’s pointless maneuver until he sees a small hole in the battleship’s defenses due to the fact that it overextended its firepower on the ‘dead’ ship. Buddy and the others focus their attention on the weakpoint in the battleship’s defenses and destroy it. But not before they witness Jod’s ship exploding. Back on the planet Ruby sheds tears as she realizes that Jod is dead
Stage 8: Resolution (0-30 pages) Resolution of subplots Let the reader know where the major characters go from here Often short
Buddy and friends return to the planet. He tries to console Ruby. Gim (the boy) gets out of his sick bed and refuses to believe Jod is dead. “He’s too smart – he said he’d be back!” As the elders and Buddy discuss the battle and everyone exchanges congratulations and condolences, Gim stands off looking into the sky. “He said he’d be back –he’ll be back.” Gim shouts “There!”, In the distance is a thin red streak that grows into large dot. Eventually, Jod can be seen skimming along the horizon in his “ionoslider”. “I told you he’d be back” Jod rejoins the group and explains that he ejected from his ship just before it was destroyed and orbited a few times on the ionoslider before landing. He saw Buddy and the rest destroy the ship using the hole he hoped would be created if the battleship attacked him. Ruby stands off to the side, quietly listening, with tear-streaked face. Gim is pulling on Jod’s arm and Jod picks the boy up. “I knew you’d come back!” “I said I would and I always will” The elders shake his hand. Jod says, “This isn’t over. The MechaCorp lost a valuable asset today. They will be back.” The elders ask Jod to lead them in preparation for the day when the MechaCorp does return. Jod explains that it will be a hard job. They will have to integrate with the Untouchables. He doesn’t have the knowledge of the people or the culture. He looks to Ruby and says “I’ll need someone strong who can guide me.” The elders say that only a union of marriage can allow him to lead with a partner. Jod says, “If that’s the way it is…” and Ruby joins hands with him and says “Then that’s the way it shall be.” EPILOGUE Gim is playing improv games with the other children. He acts out the battle that saved their planet. Ruby is pregnant with Jod’s child. There is talk of expanding to other planets.
Bibliography [1] Scott Allison, George Goethals, Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them. Oxford University Press, October, 2010, ISBN: 978-0199739745 [2] Dan Brown, The Davinci Code, Doubleday, March 2003, ISBN: 978-0385504201 [3] Dylan Byers, Obama: ’New York girlfriend’ was composite. Politico, On Media Blog, 5/2/2012. [4] Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. New World Library; Third Edition (July 28, 2008), ISBN: 978-1577315933 [5] Syd Field, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. Delta; Revised Edition (November, 2005) ISBN: 978-0385339032 [6] James Frey, A Million Little Pieces. Anchor Publishing, September 2005, ISBN: 978-0307276902 [7] Michael Hauge, Writing Screenplays that Sell (20th Anniversary Edition). Collins Reference, March 2011, ISBN: 978-0061791437 [8] Cyndy Kelly, Inhale. Agile Writer Press, 2012, ISBN: 978-0985744038. [9] Becky Lavine, The Writing & Critique Survival Guide. Writers Digest Books, January 2010, ISBN: 1582976066 [10] Barak Obama, Dreams from My Father, Broadway Books, August 2004, ISBN: 978-1400082773 [11] Nora Roberts, The Gift, Silhouette, October 2011, ISBN: 978-0373281534 [12] Greg Smith, Scott Allison, Reel Heroes: Volume 1, Agile Writer Press, April 2014, ISBN: 978-1941526-00-2 [13] J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings . Mariner Books (June 1, 2005), ISBN 978-0618574940 [14] Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey. Michael Wiese Productions; 3rd edition (November, 2007), ISBN: 978-1932907360 [15] Michael Hauge, Christopher Vogler, The Hero’s Two Journeys. DVD. Screenstyle.com, August, 2009, ASIN:B002M3WWKO [16] Christopher Vogler, David McKenna, Memo From the Story Department. Michael Wiese Productions. July, 2011, ISBN:978-1932907971 [17] Wikipedia, A Million Little Pieces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Little_Pieces, 1/4/2013. [18] Michele Young-Stone, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors. Crown Books, 2010, ISBN: 0307464474.
About The Author
Greg Smith founded the Agile Writer Workshop in 2011 with the mission of finding a new approach to helping beginning writers complete a first-draft novel in 6 months. Greg created “The Agile Writer Method” based upon the writings of experts in mythology, screenwriting, psychology and a little project management. Greg also writes a blog at ReelHeroes.net with noted psychologist Scott Allison. Scott studies heroes and heroism at the University of Richmond. Together they review movies and analyze them for their heroic content. The two co-authored Reel Heroes: Two Hero Experts Critique The Movies which compiles their reviews of 75 movies from 2013. The book also contains insights into what makes for great heroes as depicted in the films they reviewed. The book can be found in paperback and ebook form on both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. Greg’s seminars on the Agile Writer Method have informed and delighted hundreds of writers, scholars, and university students. Since 2011, Agile Writer authors have completed 20 first draft novels, 5 published novels, and two members were finalists in the coveted James River Writer Best Unpublished Novel Contest. Greg can be contacted at
[email protected]. Follow the progress of the Richmond chapter of Agile Writers at AgileWriters.com and join other Agile Writers at our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/AgileWriterMethod.
Table of Contents Agile Writer: Method Acknowledgements Preface 1 Welcome 1.1 Misconceptions About Novel Writing 1.2 What Makes a Great Story? 1.2.1 The Video 1.2.2 Chesterfield Writers Club 1.2.3 Movies and Heroes 1.2.4 Agile Writers 1.3 Why Do People Read Novels? 1.4 Why Do You Want To Write a Novel? 1.5 Know Your Audience 1.6 How This Book Is Orgainized 1.7 Summary 2 The Agile Novel 2.1 An Agile Novel Is Fictional 2.2 An Agile Novel Is Genre Fiction 2.3 An Agile Novel Is Hero-Based 2.4 An Agile Novel Is 60,000 Words 2.5 An Agile Novel Is Commercially Viable 2.6 Summary 3 The Story Abstract 3.1 Story Title 3.2 Author ’s Name 3.3 Audience 3.3.1 Age Range 3.3.2 Gender 3.3.3 Educational Level 3.3.4 Genre 3.4 Message 3.5 One Line Description 3.6 Elevator Speech 3.7 Summary 4 The Hero’s Journey 4.1 Joseph Campbell 4.2 Christopher Vogler ’s 12 Stages 4.2.1 The Ordinary World 4.2.2 The Call To Adventure 4.2.3 The Refusal of the Call 4.2.4 Meeting the Mentor 4.2.5 Crossing the First Threshold 4.2.6 Tests, Allies, Enemies 4.2.7 Approach to the Inmost Cave
4.2.8 Ordeal 4.2.9 Reward 4.2.10 The Road Back 4.2.11 Resurrection 4.2.12 Return With the Elixir 4.3 Summary 5 The Hero Abstract 5.1 The Missing Inner Quality 5.2 The Main Goal 5.3 The Life Goal 5.4 Sympathetic Qualities 5.5 Flaws 5.6 The Greatest Fear 5.7 The Mentor 5.8 Allies 5.9 The Opposition & Enemies 5.10 Summary 6 Plotting And Pacing 6.1 The Problem 6.2 Structure 6.3 Stories Are Stories 6.4 Simplifying Assumptions 6.5 Summary 7 The Agile Storyboard 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Stage 0: The Prologue 7.3 Stage 1: The Hero 7.3.1 The Ordinary World 7.3.2 The Life Goal 7.3.3 The Missing Inner Quality 7.3.4 Meeting the Mentor 7.3.5 The Call to Adventure 7.3.6 The Refusal of the Call 7.3.7 Turning Point #1: The Inciting Incident 7.3.8 Crossing the First Threshold 7.3.9 Summary of Stage 1: The Hero 7.4 Stage 2: The Special World 7.4.1 The Rules of the Special World 7.4.2 Allies and Friends 7.4.3 The Opposition and Enemies 7.4.4 Turning Point #2: The Main Goal 7.4.5 Summary of Stage 2: The Special World 7.5 Stage 3: Discovery 7.5.1 Allies and Friends 7.5.2 Exploring the Special World 7.5.3 Approaching the Inmost Cave 7.5.4 Turning Point #3: The Reminder
7.5.5 Summary of Stage 3: Discovery 7.6 Stage 4: Growth 7.6.1 Final Allies and Friends 7.6.2 Turning Point #4: Commitment 7.6.3 Summary of Stage 4: Growth 7.7 Stage 5: Decline 7.7.1 Turning Point #5: Why are we here? 7.7.2 Summary of Stage 5: Decline 7.8 Stage 6: Despair 7.8.1 Turning Point #6: Death or Disappointment 7.8.2 Summary of Stage 6: Despair 7.9 Stage 7: The Gathering Storm 7.9.1 Turning Point #7: The Climax 7.9.2 Summary of Stage 7: The Gathering Storm 7.10 Stage 8: Resolution 7.10.1 Epilogue 7.10.2 Summary of Stage 8: Resolution 7.11 Summary 8 Writing Your Novel 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Step 1: The Story Abstract 8.3 Step 2: The Hero Abstract 8.4 Step 3: The Synopsis 8.5 Step 4: The Agile Storyboard 8.6 Step 5: Scenes 8.7 Step 6: Write Your First Draft 8.8 Embrace Change 8.9 Summary 9 The First Thirty Pages 9.1 The First Three Sentences 9.2 The First Three Paragraphs 9.3 The First Three Chapters 9.4 The Next Three Chapters 9.5 Summary 10 Agile Writer Critique 10.1 Overview 10.2 Formatting Your Work 10.2.1 File Format 10.2.2 Fonts 10.2.3 Header 10.2.4 Footer 10.2.5 One File Per Critique 10.2.6 Example Format 10.2.7 Summary 10.3 Sharing Your Work 10.3.1 Agree On A Medium For Exchange 10.3.2 Agree on Amount
10.3.3 Time Frame 10.3.4 Don’t Resubmit 10.3.5 Strive To Constantly Move Forward 10.4 Before The Meeting 10.5 Your Comments 10.6 At The Meeting 10.7 Receiving Critique 10.8 The Critiquers 10.8.1 Resources 11 Summary 11.1 Future Works A. The Story Abstract Template B. The Hero Abstract Template C. Agile Storyboard Template Stage 0: Prologue (0-30 pages) Stage 1: The Hero (30 pages) Stage 2: The Special World (30 pages) Stage 3: Discovery (30 pages) Stage 4: Growth (30 pages) Stage 5: Decline (30 pages) Stage 6: Despair (30 pages) Stage 7: The Gathering Storm (30 pages) Stage 8: Resolution (0-30 pages) D. Luddite Planet Example Storyboard Stage 0: Prologue (0-30 pages) Stage 1: The Hero (30 pages) Stage 2: The Special World (30 pages) Stage 3: Discovery (30 pages) Stage 4: Growth (30 pages) Stage 5: Decline (30 pages) Stage 6: Despair (30 pages) Stage 7: The Gathering Storm (30 pages) Stage 8: Resolution (0-30 pages) Bibliography About The Author