writing the heart of your story Read Online Free Page B

writing workshops taught by the big-name writing teachers and they are in agreement (and I know that doesn’t mean they are totally right). You can ignore this if you want, but I’m hoping you won’t (because I think you’ll be sorry). Why is this so important? Because too many novels start off and go on for chapters without the reader having a clue as to what the book is about, what the protagonist is doing or what he/she actually wants, or what the protagonist’s goal for the book is. Without any of that, the reader is going to ask “Why should I keep reading?” And rightly so.
    When I pick up a novel, if I can’t figure out what the heck the protagonist is up to by the end of the first scene (barring the exception of a prologue that doesn’t feature said protagonist), I start getting antsy. I might push myself through the next chapter ever hopeful, but if I still don’t “get” what the book is about, see some visible goal, care for the poor protagonist who has obstacles the size of the Empire State Building in her way to reach her visible goal, then I usually give up. I can’t tell you how many “great” novels I have started (often recommended by friends) that I have done this with.
    I admit I’m a tough critic (you can guess why), but if I find even a few redeeming things in the first chapter, I will give a weak-starting book the benefit of the doubt. But not for long. You’ve got to really reel me in with something—beautiful language, intriguing premise or world, or a hooking mystery—for me to set aside my need to know what the protagonist’s visible goal is. And I don’t think I’m really the exception to the rule. Most readers want to know this too.
    Let me mention something that I’ll cover shortly, just in case the “goal” issue seems daunting. The actual goal your protagonist goes after won’t be firmly in place until about one-fourth through the novel. In fact, most well-structured novels and screenplays, don’t introduce a goal at all until that mark. So I am not saying that from scene one the character must know exactly what they want or where they are going—which is the end point of the book. It’s the character’s outer motivation that must be established right away. By revealing his passion, core need, heart’s desire from the opening scene, we get a hint at that goal, what he will go after when the right set of circumstances pushes him through that “door of no return.” A hint is all you need, but it’s needed.
     
    Five Basic Goals—That’s All, Folks
     
    In a workshop I took with screenwriter/consultant Michael Hague, I noted the point he made that there are really only five general visible goals characters go after (and he’s speaking about movies—his arena—but this does apply to novels as well). Here they are:
     
    * The need to win—competition, the love of another, etc.
    * The need to stop—someone, something bad from happening, etc.
    * The need to escape
* The need to deliver—a message, one’s self, an item, get to a destination (think Cold Mountain with Inman’s need to get home. I picture Nicole Kidman speaking in the movie trailer: “Come back. Come back to Cold Mountain.” A perfect example of a visible goal set at the start and followed through to the end.)
* The need to retrieve (think Indiana Jones and just about every action-adventure movie. There’s always a magic ring, a hidden or lost treasure, or a lost love.)
     
    Make It Visible or We Can’t See It
     
    If you write spiritual character-driven novels like I do, it may be hard to figure out the visible goal. I always seem to start with the spiritual and emotional goals like “she finds peace inside knowing she can’t change certain things.” Okay, well that’s a start. And I know as I plot my novels it’s only a start—because I have to then translate that into plot. Visible plot.
    In my relational drama/mystery Someone to Blame I wanted the reader, at the end, to care for the