Ruv Draba's Trainer-Wheel Recipe for Short Writing

RUV'S TRAINER-WHEEL RECIPE FOR SHORT WRITING




Ingredients:

A theme. This is an observation or idea, and will be the ‘point’ of your story. Your theme should be of the form ‘If X then Y’, or ‘When X, Y too’. Your theme can be anything. It doesn't have to be true -- just interesting, but you should have some reason to think it true. E.g. 'When cats stare at us, they're reading our minds.'

Notes:

1) If you're used to starting without a theme (with a character or situation instead say), please bear with me. Put your character or situation aside and start with a theme instead. It pays off later.

2) This is a strange form for a theme, I know. But it helps you slide your plot between X and Y.

3) If you want to write a genre story with this method, you need the right choice of theme. I have some suggestions for different genres below.

·

· A situation and a setting in which the antecedent of your theme (X) could be true.

· A Main Character (MC) who lives in that setting, and experiences the situation where X is true. Make this character interesting – a person, not just a role.

· An objective that the main character wants because of this situation. Make this objective somehow link to the antecedent X -- seeking something or avoiding something related to X.

· Some opposition to this objective, which makes getting the objective difficult or dangerous. This should emerge from the setting and situation, but it needn't relate directly to 'X'.

· The risk of disaster – something that may befall the main character, or people the MC loves if the objective is not met. Link the disaster to the consequent Y in your theme, and to the character and situation. The disaster might arise from Y happening, or from Y not happening.

You don't strictly need them before you write, but the following two ingredients help a lot (like Bread Improver if you're baking bread):

· An idea for a Climax scene – where the disaster must be fought or avoided

· An idea for an Ending and how the MC will feel. Does the MC succeed or fail? How will we know? Will the audience feel good or bad about this?

Method:

This method is meant to keep your short short and focused.

Write eight scenes at one line per scene. Each scene must feature your MC either attempting something difficult (action scene) or reacting to something new and significant (reaction scene). In listing the scene I often list the location too. (Note: the location doesn't have to change in each scene. The object of the scene is to crank the tension up a notch each time.)

To keep it short you have a scene budget as follows:

· Scenes 1-2 (Introduction): Introduce the character, setting and situation. Introduce the objective and opposition.

· Scenes 3-6 (Complication): Make the character’s objective difficult, dangerous or complicated

· Scene 7 (Climax): Here have the MC struggle mightily to prevent disaster from happening

· Scene 8 (Ending): Here, describe the aftermath.

If you want to meet a word count then divide the words by the number of scenes. That’s your average word budget per scene. (Note: these scenes don't have to change location. They each just move the tension on one notch.)

IMPORTANT GENRE COMMENTS

If you want to write genre using this method, you must start with the right sort of theme. If you pick the wrong sort of theme you may get something that looks like fantasy or horror or romance say, but doesn't feel like it. Try the following kinds of themes for these genres.



Fantasy: Write a theme about morality, psychology and society. Pick one that you can explore using interesting symbols. E.g. My theme might be: 'If we forgive too soon, we make things worse'. Forgiveness might be represented by a princess. Badness might be represented by an ogre.



Science Fiction: Write a theme about the 'people' face of technology or frontiers. 'Technology' could be machines or just methods and sciences. 'Frontiers' could be any place or state in which we're uncomfortable and out of our depth. Think about your theme from the perspective of a consumer, a victim or a pioneer, and make it something you could explore theoretically. E.g. 'If we could all read minds, we'd go mad from the amount of evil hidden inside us'. (This is a 'frontier' theme - breaking down the barriers between people)



Horror: Write a theme that focuses on exaggerating, inverting or perversifying something we want to believe. Make it personal and emotional. E.g. 'When your mother is at her kindest, she hates you most', or 'If you tick off a policeman, he can become the worst enemy you've ever had', or 'Cats are not pets in pitch dark'.



Mystery/Suspense: Write a theme that focuses on challenges to community expectations, social order or justice. Make it something that could be investigated factually. E.g. 'When parents give their children everything, then nothing has value', 'Sometimes the best revenge is to fail', 'If you can't find a motive, maybe there isn't a crime'.



Romance: Write a theme that focuses on morality, relationships and personal growth. Make it something you can explore from personal, emotional and sensory perspectives. E.g. 'When he always knows exactly what you want, it's because he's making you want it.' 'If you can't stop thinking about her then you're in love -- even if you hate her.'



WORKED EXAMPLE



For this example, I've chosen a SF story using my sample SF theme above: 'If we could all read minds, we would go mad from seeing the evil hidden inside us.’ (As I said, it doesn't have to be true - just interesting). Here is my choice of ingredients



Situation and Setting: It’s modern day in our world, and scientists make a breakthrough on a retrovirus that helps people read minds. The retrovirus works by increasing the production and connection of mirror neurons in the brain. (These neurons are thought to be responsible for empathy and learning - so maybe some autistic kids have problems with them?) Intended to help autistic children; the mind-reading is an unexpected side-effect.



Character: Mary Lee supports her young autistic brother Simon. (Note: she needs more character detail than just that, but this is just a sketch!)



Objective: She’s heard of Glass – the experimental retrovirus that’s supposed to help autistic children learn, and wants to get her brother put onto a course.



Opposition: While the treatment has near-miraculous results, the scientists insist on giving it to only the worst cases of autism, and only to the young. Simon is a teenager and not profoundly autistic.



Disaster: In cases where users already have near-functional mirror neurons, Glass gives them such high empathy that they can actually read minds. But this sends them mad and often suicidal – because human minds are actually far more nasty than we realise.



Climax: After getting Glass for Simon, Mary’s shocked that his rapid improvement is followed by terrible deterioration. In desperation she takes Glass herself to try to gain understanding of what’s happening to him.



Ending: Mary begins to see into peoples’ minds and she realises just how horrifically evil and selfish we are underneath. Horrifically, she realises that she is going mad -- as her brother already has.



Scene Outline (Action, reaction scenes are marked (A) and (R) respectively)

1. (Intro) At home, Mary struggles with the difficult task of helping her autistic brother Simon through dinner (A)

2. (Intro) At Simon’s special school, Mary hears about Glass – how one of the school children has improved, but how difficult it is to get on the program (R)

3. At the offices of the manufacturer (invent a name), and despite Mary’s strenuous arguments, Simon is refused entry to the Program on grounds of age and condition (A)

4. At work, Mary seethes over the injustice and fakes Simon’s application (Note: it might help if Mary’s job would assist this – eg a medical clerk) (A)

5. At home, Mary sees the marked improvement in Simon (R)

6. At home, as Simon starts to deteriorate, Mary tries helplessly to save him from self-harm (A)

7. (Climax) Desperate to save her brother’s life, Mary takes Glass herself to try to understand what he needs (A)

8. (Ending) Looking out with her brother’s eyes, Mary realises just how much evil is hidden in peoples’ minds – and prepares her own death and her brother’s (R)







COMMENTS



This method isn’t for utter beginners. You need a reasonable understanding of character, setting, narration, plot, dialogue and tension for it to work. It’s meant for writers who understand the basics, but are still having some trouble producing solid short story designs.



This is a learning method. The whole point of this method is to put some discipline and focus around the design process so you can think about other writery things (like themes and characters and settings and narrative and dialogue) instead. If you hate discipline and focus -- or if you already have enough discipline and focus through some other good method -- then don't even think of using this!



Using this method, key to getting a good story is to start with an interesting theme. If you're writing genre, you should realise that what makes genre feel like genre is common concerns and common treatments. Pick a theme that reflects a genre concern, and that makes it easy to treat using genre conventions. Regardless of whether it's genre or not, the theme should be easy to 'prove' when you set up the story.



Another key to a good short is to have the MC either change drastically or make a strong, definitive character statement just at the climax.



This eight scene structure is based on a conventional Three Act structure (Beginning, Middle, End), and adapted for shorts. You can make it shorter by dropping some middle scenes or even scene 2. You can also add some more middle scenes if the story requires it – but I find that 4 middle scenes makes a fairly happy medium.



Scene length may vary depending on story and style. It might be as few as 100 words, or as many as 1,000. It’s often good practice to try and make your scenes as short as possible, and pack the most punch into the fewest words.



Cut down, this method adapts okay for some flash fiction, but I wouldn’t try and beef it up for novella or novel design. I feel that it’s too inflexible and predictable to deal with the way that novels need to unfold. Use another method.



Using this method, you can produce some very capable, workmanlike shorts. But there are some shorts you can’t tell well in this structure, and there are many shorts that just tell better in other structures. However, once you have shorts popping out reliably, you can think about other ways to design and tell your story ideas.



I hope this is useful. If you try it, let me know how it goes!


I've reprinted this with Ruv's permission and hope you all find this useful.