Writer’s Tool Kit: Sarah Lovett Workshop #3

Sarah Lovett also offered, in her workshop, a tool kit of writing exercises from which I could choose whatever appealed to me to jump-start a character or situation or scene—or, later, to blast my imagination out of one particular viewpoint or plot track or scene to explore what was going on in the wider world of my story.

Here are some writing tools that have been really useful to me:

• Watch your protagonist interacting with someone who illuminates or challenges her character.
• Imagine your protagonist and antagonist in similar, key, parallel situations.
• Imagine your protagonist and antagonist at the beginning and end of your story.
• Write from your character’s POV on: “I am haunted by…;” My biggest failure/ accomplishment is…;” “I can’t live with myself if I don’t succeed at….”
• Write a “synopsis” that covers what you currently know of your story and keep adjusting it as you go; a living, breathing, malleable sketch of your story.

She posed many technical points as questions, for me to be lightly, peripherally, aware of, while holding the novel, loosely, in my mind. Structural factors like hook, premise, inciting incident, crucial scenes, turning points, acts (if it helps to think that way), confrontations with minor antagonists and main antagonist, the dark night when the hero confronts her failure to accomplish a goal of need, even if s/he has accomplished a goal of want, and therefore faces her dilemma.

She reminded me that, in a mystery, structure is also given by the Hero’s investigation—s/he will approach answers to questions which have bearing on her central wants and needs, only to hit a wall, then regroup and redirect, right up to the beginning of the end. She reminded me, too, of my partnership with the reader: engaging them in active discovery; riding the pacing with them through anticipation, suspense, tension, fear, and periods of rest and contemplation.

I hope one of these tools, or shifts in perspective, will be useful to you next time your writing engine stalls!

For the thrilling conclusion of my workshop adventure, check out my next blog.

Find out more about Sarah Lovett’s workshops at http://writingcoachsarah.com/, and about her bestselling novels—the recent Blowback and Burned with former CIA operative Valerie Plame, and her own “Dr. Sylvia Strange” series set in the NM Penitentiary—at http://sarahlovett.com/.