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Act 2: Adding in Unexpected Twists, Turns and Tests

By on May 10, 2011 in Managing the Muddle (keeping your story moving!), Plotting, Suspense

  Last week, we talked about the GUTS, or Act 2 of your novel, the first element being the Growing romance of the hero and heroine.    However, this romance only happens through the next element:   U- Unexpected Twists, Turns and Tests: During the GUTS portion of the story, the hero and heroine’s mettle will be tested – especially as it relates to their competence, that thing they do well.  The point of the middle to cause them to grow as human beings through lessons, revelations, challenges and epiphanies.  However, the middle is often where the tension sags – and that’s usually because we run out of the unexpected, and our motivation to keep going sags.  The key to a powerful middle is using the  peripheral plotting, and stakes […]

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Act 2: Getting to the Good Stuff

By on May 9, 2011 in How to write a Romance, Managing the Muddle (keeping your story moving!), Story Crafting

Getting to the good stuff: Act 2    Writing a suspense is all about the adventure, romance, suspense and disasters that happen in the middle of the novel.  A great suspense should pick up speed as the hero/heroine launches into the second act.   All the great stuff happens during the Guts phase – confronting fears, reaching out in the darkness for the girl’s hand, stealing a kiss, failing big, learning something new about yourself and summoning your courage.    The overall concept is Make it Worse.  At the start of every chapter, the character will have choices.  He’ll contemplate these choices, weigh them against possible outcomes, consider his motivations and then move forward into the danger, during which something bad will happen he didn’t expect, and will cause him […]

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Writing a Suspense: The basic elements

By on May 2, 2011 in Plotting, Story Crafting, Suspense

Over the past four months, we’ve been covering the basic elements of Act 1 of a Suspense.  Before we take a little romance rabbit trail (for all your romantic/suspense novelists!) let’s review the basic Act 1 elements:   The first act consists of the setup, or what I call: The Game:  Players, the Goals, the Rules, Board/Playing field.    G =  Let us meet the Guys and Gals.  Who are they?  What makes them common/sympathetic?  What makes them extraordinary?  We’ll be talking in coming weeks about developing the romance of a romantic/suspense novel, also, but for now, there are a number of elements a suspense hero/heroine should have.   If you took my plotting class, you’ll know I spend a lot of time on developing my characters, and making a […]

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The Big Event…examples.

By on April 26, 2011 in Plotting, Suspense

  Yesterday, I said I would use some Big Events from popular books and movies…   I changed my mind.  I think it might be easier to explain if I applied the Big Event to my own work.  That way we can see if I did it correctly.   So, just to summarize…the Big Event must be: Believable, Compelling, Immediate, Terrifying.   I’m going to use examples from my current suspense series…The Missions Of Mercy Series …       Point of No Return   An American boy and a warlord’s engaged daughter have disappeared-together-in an Eastern European border country. Only one man can find them in time to prevent an international meltdown-Chet Stryker. But Chet is taken aback when he realizes the boy is the nephew of Mae Lund, Chet’s former […]

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