Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook Read Online Free
Author: Donald Maass
sparing a set of forest surveys from the flames may not seem particularly notable, but there is something calm, deliberate, and purposeful in de Milja's order to set them aside. We suspect that something is at work under the surface—something strong. As the action unfolds in the following pages we realize what it is. De Milja has grasped his country's essential situation: The Germans will conquer Poland. Maps, surveys, and plans will be needed for the resistance into which he is later recruited.
De Milja's intelligence, deliberate care, and ability to face a dawning reality set him apart. He has unusual strength. Even though Furst has not yet taken us inside his hero's head and heart, we already admire him for his actions.
How do you hint at the heroism of your protagonist in the opening pages of your current manuscript? How do you make us care? What about this character will we find admirable and attractive? More to the point, what is it that you find likable about this character at this precise moment? Figure that out, and you will be most of the way toward making us, your readers, care as much about your protagonist as you do.
__EXERCISE
Adding Heroic Qualities
Step 1: Who are your personal heroes? Write down the name of one.
Step 2: What makes this person a hero or heroine to you? What is his or her greatest heroic quality? Write that down.
Step 3: What was the moment in time in which you first became aware of this quality in your hero/heroine? Write that down.
Step 4: Assign that quality to your protagonist. Find a way for he or she actively to demonstrate that quality, even in a small way, in his or her first scene. Make notes, starting now.
Follow-up work: Prior to the climactic sequence of your novel, find six more points at which your protagonist can demonstrate, even in a small way, some heroic quality.
Conclusion: So many protagonists who I meet in manuscripts start out as ordinary Joe's or Jane's. Most stories build toward enormous heroic actions at the end, which is fine, but what about the beginning? What is there to make me care? Often, not enough. Demonstrate special qualities right away, and you will immediately turn your protagonist into a hero or heroine, a character whose outcome matters.
Multidimensional Characters
O ne-dimensional characters hold limited interest for us because they are limited as human beings. They lack the complexity that makes real-life people so fascinating. In well-constructed fiction, a multidimensional character will keep us guessing: What is this person going to do, say, or think next? Furthermore, we are more likely to identify with them—that is, to see ourselves in them. Why? Because there is more of them to see.
Eoin Colfer's young adult novel Artremis Fowl was billed as a "dark Harry Potter," a description that intrigued me. I grew even more interested when Artemis Fowl hit The New York Times best-seller list. The novel's twelve-year-old protagonist, I had read, was a criminal mastermind. How could a novel with such a dark protagonist be so popular?
Fatherless Artemis Fowl, the scion of a famous Irish criminal family, is indeed diabolically clever and bent on a wicked scheme: restoring the family fortunes by obtaining the gold that is set aside to ransom any fairy, should one ever fall into the hands of the Mud People; that is to say, humans.
If that was all there was to Artemis, he would indeed be difficult to like. But Colfer does not expect us to sympathize with a one-dimensional, amoral adolescent. Early in the novel Colfer begins dropping hints that there is more to Artemis than that; indeed, that he is a boy with a range of feelings like any other, as we are shown when Artemis visits his mentally frail and bedridden mother:
He knocked gently on the arched double doors.
"Mother? Are you awake?"
Something smashed against the other side of the door. It sounded expensive.
"Of course I'm awake! How can I sleep in this blinding glare?"
Artemis ventured
De Milja's intelligence, deliberate care, and ability to face a dawning reality set him apart. He has unusual strength. Even though Furst has not yet taken us inside his hero's head and heart, we already admire him for his actions.
How do you hint at the heroism of your protagonist in the opening pages of your current manuscript? How do you make us care? What about this character will we find admirable and attractive? More to the point, what is it that you find likable about this character at this precise moment? Figure that out, and you will be most of the way toward making us, your readers, care as much about your protagonist as you do.
__EXERCISE
Adding Heroic Qualities
Step 1: Who are your personal heroes? Write down the name of one.
Step 2: What makes this person a hero or heroine to you? What is his or her greatest heroic quality? Write that down.
Step 3: What was the moment in time in which you first became aware of this quality in your hero/heroine? Write that down.
Step 4: Assign that quality to your protagonist. Find a way for he or she actively to demonstrate that quality, even in a small way, in his or her first scene. Make notes, starting now.
Follow-up work: Prior to the climactic sequence of your novel, find six more points at which your protagonist can demonstrate, even in a small way, some heroic quality.
Conclusion: So many protagonists who I meet in manuscripts start out as ordinary Joe's or Jane's. Most stories build toward enormous heroic actions at the end, which is fine, but what about the beginning? What is there to make me care? Often, not enough. Demonstrate special qualities right away, and you will immediately turn your protagonist into a hero or heroine, a character whose outcome matters.
Multidimensional Characters
O ne-dimensional characters hold limited interest for us because they are limited as human beings. They lack the complexity that makes real-life people so fascinating. In well-constructed fiction, a multidimensional character will keep us guessing: What is this person going to do, say, or think next? Furthermore, we are more likely to identify with them—that is, to see ourselves in them. Why? Because there is more of them to see.
Eoin Colfer's young adult novel Artremis Fowl was billed as a "dark Harry Potter," a description that intrigued me. I grew even more interested when Artemis Fowl hit The New York Times best-seller list. The novel's twelve-year-old protagonist, I had read, was a criminal mastermind. How could a novel with such a dark protagonist be so popular?
Fatherless Artemis Fowl, the scion of a famous Irish criminal family, is indeed diabolically clever and bent on a wicked scheme: restoring the family fortunes by obtaining the gold that is set aside to ransom any fairy, should one ever fall into the hands of the Mud People; that is to say, humans.
If that was all there was to Artemis, he would indeed be difficult to like. But Colfer does not expect us to sympathize with a one-dimensional, amoral adolescent. Early in the novel Colfer begins dropping hints that there is more to Artemis than that; indeed, that he is a boy with a range of feelings like any other, as we are shown when Artemis visits his mentally frail and bedridden mother:
He knocked gently on the arched double doors.
"Mother? Are you awake?"
Something smashed against the other side of the door. It sounded expensive.
"Of course I'm awake! How can I sleep in this blinding glare?"
Artemis ventured
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