Geeky Writer Stuff: Beats and Values
Okay, so the new MP3 player combined with the great spring weather has me walking up a storm. Four miles this morning.
While I walk, I am listening to McKee's "Story" for the second time. I finally have a bit of insight into how he analyzes a scene. The abridged audio is clearer than the book, by the way. Hmmm. Book needs more editing perhaps?
Here's what I got:
A scene = a unit of conflict. All scenes contain some small or large turning point in which the value charge of the scene changes. A value is the feeling of a scene, not the emotion a character displays, what the reader feels when identifying with the character.
Trust/mistrust, love/no love, confidence/self-doubt
Many value charge changes occur in the subtext of a scene. In other words, what happens below the surface of what your characters are doing.
How to analyze a scene:
Step One-- define the conflict: Main Character wants something (to do this or to get that- phrase it as an infinitive, to apologize, for instance.) Someone, or in some cases, some force, blocks that goal-- the scene antagonist (phrase this as an infinitive, too: to stay mad.)
Step Two: Look for your opening value. This value must change in some way, however subtle, for the story scene to be a valid scene, otherwise it's exposition or summary or some other thing (or shouldn't be there at all).
When a value changes in a big way it is a turning point in your story.
For instance-- hope to despair, love to hate. If a scene is not a turning point, the value change need not be extreme, it can be as simple as expecting to get a clue from a suspect and not getting it. Value change from confidence to frustration, perhaps?
Step Three: Break out your beats: actions/reactions. Beats are tiny units of conflict-- action/reaction. If you can't break it into "ing" words-- it ain't a beat.
For instance: main character apologizING/antagonist ignorING the plea,
main character threatenING/antagonist turnING his back,
main character explainING himself/antagonist softenING,
main character offerING a doughnut/antagonist acceptING.
Look at what the characters are actually doing and then what they are really doing. What it really means would be the subtext-- offering a doughnut--accepting it.
(The action beat is obvious: offering doughnut/accepting-- so is subtext here: apologizing and accepting apology.)
As long as the actions remain the same, it's one beat. The beat changes when the action and reaction change.
Step Four: Note Closing Value and how it has changed from opening value: In the above-- the scene is perhaps set up so that the value charge changes from mistrust to trust.
In most cases you would have a value change to complicate the plot, from a positive to a negative value--this particular value is from a negative to a positive.
Step Five: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point: When the gap opens between expectation and result--- the value changes, and we have a turning point-- A real scene might have 20 beats, but at some point the value changes. If a value hasn't changed-
it isn't a scene. In our simple example, our turning point is at the offer of the doughnut and acceptance.
Very geeky. Enough of that!
While I walk, I am listening to McKee's "Story" for the second time. I finally have a bit of insight into how he analyzes a scene. The abridged audio is clearer than the book, by the way. Hmmm. Book needs more editing perhaps?
Here's what I got:
A scene = a unit of conflict. All scenes contain some small or large turning point in which the value charge of the scene changes. A value is the feeling of a scene, not the emotion a character displays, what the reader feels when identifying with the character.
Trust/mistrust, love/no love, confidence/self-doubt
Many value charge changes occur in the subtext of a scene. In other words, what happens below the surface of what your characters are doing.
How to analyze a scene:
Step One-- define the conflict: Main Character wants something (to do this or to get that- phrase it as an infinitive, to apologize, for instance.) Someone, or in some cases, some force, blocks that goal-- the scene antagonist (phrase this as an infinitive, too: to stay mad.)
Step Two: Look for your opening value. This value must change in some way, however subtle, for the story scene to be a valid scene, otherwise it's exposition or summary or some other thing (or shouldn't be there at all).
When a value changes in a big way it is a turning point in your story.
For instance-- hope to despair, love to hate. If a scene is not a turning point, the value change need not be extreme, it can be as simple as expecting to get a clue from a suspect and not getting it. Value change from confidence to frustration, perhaps?
Step Three: Break out your beats: actions/reactions. Beats are tiny units of conflict-- action/reaction. If you can't break it into "ing" words-- it ain't a beat.
For instance: main character apologizING/antagonist ignorING the plea,
main character threatenING/antagonist turnING his back,
main character explainING himself/antagonist softenING,
main character offerING a doughnut/antagonist acceptING.
Look at what the characters are actually doing and then what they are really doing. What it really means would be the subtext-- offering a doughnut--accepting it.
(The action beat is obvious: offering doughnut/accepting-- so is subtext here: apologizing and accepting apology.)
As long as the actions remain the same, it's one beat. The beat changes when the action and reaction change.
Step Four: Note Closing Value and how it has changed from opening value: In the above-- the scene is perhaps set up so that the value charge changes from mistrust to trust.
In most cases you would have a value change to complicate the plot, from a positive to a negative value--this particular value is from a negative to a positive.
Step Five: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point: When the gap opens between expectation and result--- the value changes, and we have a turning point-- A real scene might have 20 beats, but at some point the value changes. If a value hasn't changed-
it isn't a scene. In our simple example, our turning point is at the offer of the doughnut and acceptance.
Very geeky. Enough of that!
posted by Susan Goodwill at 8:46 AM
8 Comments:
Writers out there-- feel free to comment. Does this sound right to you???
Susan
McGee, Provost, Bickham...Throw them into a blender and mix. Throw in a dash of Dixon, King, Lamott, and spinkle a bit of E. B. White on top. Drink. Get heartburn at what it takes to write a great novel from a front-loading perspective. Much easier to sit back and analyze what has worked whether or not it was intentional.
I B trying all this, but it makes my head hurt. At some point in time, it will sink in and make sense on an unconscious level.
Then, I'll write some great stuff. Until then, I'll continue to get bitch-slapped by everyone reading my "not-ready-for-prime-time" prose.
"Owwwwwwwwuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!"
"Werewolf?"
"There wolf!"
Rick Bylina
The only rule: writers write! Everything else is a guideline.
McGee, Provost, Bickham...Throw them into a blender and mix. Throw in a dash of Dixon, King, Lamott, and spinkle a bit of E. B. White on top. Drink. Get heartburn at what it takes to write a great novel from a front-loading perspective. Much easier to sit back and analyze what has worked whether or not it was intentional.
I B trying all this, but it makes my head hurt. At some point in time, it will sink in and make sense on an unconscious level.
Then, I'll write some great stuff. Until then, I'll continue to get bitch-slapped by everyone reading my "not-ready-for-prime-time" prose.
"Owwwwwwwwuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!"
"Werewolf?"
"There wolf!"
Rick Bylina
The only rule: writers write! Everything else is a guideline.
I hear ya. And McKee is sometimes so tough to grasp for me. The only thing I really need to get out of this is NO CONFLICT--NO SCENE. No Scene- No Pages.
And no pages-- no book.
No conflict-no book.
Conflict on every page. Thank you Don Maas.
Owwwwww.
My theory is: Write the damned story first. But I've learned a bit since writing Geberesh. Many times we get in our own way. Sometimes those books help us do that. Imagine it's like a Bombshell Babe in Funny Gnome Clothes. They don't fit, besides being all the wrong colors. To write well, you got to strip and let the babe write naked. Then you edit her into clothes that fit.
Oh yeah. That's my new Funny Gnome editing theory. My editing gnome, Gerry, has been supplanted by Betty Boop. I'm going to make my writer group t-shirts, along with the stamps of gnome footprints when something is wrong on the page, and we're not sure why.
Oh and this is so why I'm "Mab."
I'm gonna blow these theories right out of the water by channeling Faulkner. When you get a chance, re-read esp. "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying." Of course these are not funny and not mysteries, but nevertheless I - - never to be presumptuous - - doubt the author strategized scenes as outlined, considering the philosophical weight of these works; seeking out the nature of man and yadda yadda...never having been published myself (save for a poime or two in creative writing contests)I really don't know how it 'should' work, but it seems to me one writes first & thinks later!
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"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window." -- William Faulkner
I found that Faulkner quote on the Chicago Public Library's site. Seems apropo.
It's been a while since I read Faulkner and I've not read all of his stuff or studied it enough, but I bet he used his tools in revision just like the next guy.
But the point is, you gotta have something to fix-- which means write first, then fix.
Nora Roberts, I think it was, that said I can fix anything but a blank page. Like Rick says--writers write.
I guess, for me, all the geeky craft stuff is just a big toolbox you use in revision. Sometimes you need it, sometimes you don't.
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