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Ever have trouble with plots and subplots? Characterization keeping you up at night? Having issues with suspense and tension?

You can read a ton of books, take writing courses, get critiques like you always have, or you can spend a couple of hours a day for a few days or even a week watching the work of writers who have mastered all these skills.  Infamous for their ability to suck in a new viewer, sneered upon even more than romance writers, you gotta hand it to them.  Soap opera script writers know what they're doing.

Their plots and subplots are written very well and are extremely well-balanced.  They have to be.  Remember, they have to keep an audience interested enough that they'll wait through some of the most obnoxious commercials aired on tv, second only to late night infomercials, to continue watching.  During the dread commercial break a viewer can easily switch to a different soap or plug in a non-commercial-laden DVD. 

 

Their characterization is strong.  The viewers may know who the bad guys are, but not all the characters do know who the bad guys are and that makes for a lot of fun.  (Take a lesson from that right there.)  They write bitches like no one else and put honey in their mouths when those bitches are a wooing.  If you have trouble writing good guys that aren't boring, look no farther.  Each character has a distinct voice, goals, agenda--they're well-rounded and unique.

Suspense and tension?  They've taken it to extremes that have become laughable in the tv screenwriting industry, turning the cliff-hanger into a cliche' and drama into new heights (or lows, if you prefer) of melodrama.  What's beautiful about it as far as learning how to do it from a writing perspective is that the snippets of plot are broken down into very short frames and you can examine the tension arch in bold relief.  

The writing has to be good or there would be no audience.  In matter of fact they have a huge audience, one any writer would envy.  They have to be able to pull in a new viewer in just a few seconds in the middle of the story, with no recap because they never know when a new viewer will come in.  That alone I find fascinating, that the writing can bring in a viewer into the story even though that viewer has no idea (initially) what's going on.

I bet you think I'm joking but I'm not.  Give it a try.  Just remember, they are addicting.  Whole magazines and forums are devoted to them.  There was even a paranormal one I came very close to becoming addicted to when I last had the flu.  It's worth the risk for a quick, dirty and efficient lesson in effective writing techniques.  

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I've hit another landmark in Masks.

I'm now in totally new territory, and that feels fabulous and freeing. Well, I'm not going to deviate too terribly from the original plot, but the devil, and apparently temptation and satisfaction, are in the glorious details.

Sometimes a flash of reasoning or experience comes along, or something outside that gives a moment of inspiration. Facing the inevitability of death last night (this happens from time to time) and on this particular night, the fact that I would have to go onward alone, brought in huge waves of inspiration and insight into Mark's needs and pain. He is, more than any other character I've written, desperately alone and when he leaves his emotionally bereft shelter he is even more alone.

So when he's bonded as a jester, he's no longer alone, and that moment became huge. It also became more spiritual, thanks to some ideas that ambled into my brain at a convenient time about the spiritual world and what one possibility might be like, then tweaking that into the Masks universe.

I also managed, for once, to end the chapter on a cliffhanger. I don't have many habits from short story writing, especially since I'm not much good at short story writing, but one habit that clings is the one where you end on a resolution rather than an unresolution. Scenes don't have as much a problem as chapter endings, my chapters being roughly short story length. My mind takes me to the end of the chapter where something has resolved, and I don't continue past the point of resolution because that seems unnatural. I want to end it there and continue onward in the next chapter to the following related idea, sometimes with a transitionary idea that keeps the book unified. I think this habit may also come from essay writing (I think I may be better at essays than short stories but who can ever figure out what they're good at anyway?) where each paragraph is a complete idea that gently leads to the next idea with transitionary sentences. There is a minor resolution in each paragraph, and then the whole essay ends in a complete resolution with maybe a few unresolved questions--they'd better be unresolved for a reason and in there in the first place for a reason if you want a good essay--hanging about for intrigue.

One of my tasks when I go to polish this beastie is to check out, in a mechanical way, beginnings and endings of chapters and look at the structure and length of the chapters. I'm not really looking forward to that. The idea that I might have one less chapter end to fuss with is a relief and a pleasure, and now I can go outside and garden with a sense of a job somewhat done.