Tag: How to write a novel

How to Balance Plot and Character Development in Your Novel

Writing compelling plots and characters

My good friend author M. Liz Boyle posed this question: how to balance plot and character development in your novel. I had to give this a lot of thought because, although I know how I do it, I wasn’t sure how to explain my approach in a way others will understand. I’m a very instinctive writer. So when my story is veering off the rails, I rely on my gut to warn me. Since other writers can’t rely on my gut–and that might get messy anyway–here are some guidelines for balancing plot and characters.

Story Is King

When you write genre fiction, the rules of the genre set the boundaries for your novel. I write traditional mysteries. If plot twist or a character arc doesn’t serve the point of the a detective solving a mystery, I should examine it and either change it into something more supportive or eliminate it.

How do you know if an aspect of your novel is serving the story? You should be able to sum up the main problem of your novel in one to three sentences.

For example, I can sum up my third Rae Riley novel, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, this way:

A hidden inheritance, a family feud, a riding accident, a fake medium and rumors of bigfoot all lead to murder as Rae Riley tries to solve the riddle that will allow her great aunt to inherit a fortune and uncover the secret of the deputy she’s fallen for. 

All those elements have to support solving the riddle because it’s the main engine of the story. All the plot twists and character development need to feed that engine.

But how do you strike a balance?

The best way to strike a balance between plot points and character development is to combine them. In my first novel, A Shadow on the Snow, Rae is getting to know her father and learning how he feels about her and how she feels about him. I can show those feelings through their interactions as they try to figure out who is stalking Rae threatening letters vandalism. If your fantasy novel features a quest, then your characters develop as they meet challenges on their adventure.

But you can still add small tangents.

What do I mean by “small tangents?” Short additions of dialogue or action that aren’t directly tied to the mission of your novel but deliver some flavor to the mix.

In Riddle, rumors of a rogue black bear circulate around the county. Rae’s ten-year-old half brother Aaron invents an alarm to blast music if anyone gets too close to the family’s farmhouse. Now the alarm provides a clue to the mystery, but just for fun, I added that every time the alarm catches a family member, Aaron interviews him or her to see how scared they were to judge the alarm’s effectiveness. As he tells them, he can’t interview a bear if it triggers the alarm.

It’s short, funny, and reveals something about Aaron. Keep your tangents brief and few to increase their impact. The more often you combine a plot point to reveal character, the more compelling your novel will be.

Here are all of this month’s writing tips on plotting a novel.

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3 Tips for Writing Internal Dialogue With Tension in Your Novel

How to write high-tension scene for your novel

Since tension is the key to keeping the plot moving in any story, how do you maintain that tension when you only have one character in a scene? This is a question I often wrestle with because I write mysteries. I often have several scenes where my amateur sleuth Rae Riley is thinking through what she’s learned so far about her case. So how can I write scenes like that without boring readers? Read on for the 3 tips for writing internal dialogue with tension in your novel.

Let’s examine a one-character scene for tension. Here’s the opening scene from my short story, “A Rose from the Ashes”. Rae is in this scene alone.

*****

“Glancing left and right, I crunched across the frozen weeds to the abandoned children’s home. I could not afford to be spotted now. If only I could take a few seconds and snap some pictures. The light from the early December sunset was perfect. Gashes of blood-red light seeped through the clotted clouds, creating an ominous background for the gray stone building that was rumored to be the scene of a murder.

“At the back wall of the home, I slung the strap for my camera across my chest and climbed through an opening that once held a window. I dropped to the bare ground, my long, dark gold braid catching on a loose nail in the sill. I disentangled myself and crossed the dirt floor. The fire had burned the wooden floor away. And the roof and the whole interior. The four stone walls loomed above me like a medieval fortress as the sunset’s rays spotlighted sections of the garbage-strewn floor.

“I knelt by a large fireplace, straining to detect any sound of psychics, ghost hunters, or thrill-seeking high school kids who had come to catch sight of the ghost of Bella Rydell.

“Nothing but a few caws from crows and sighs as the wind sailed through the empty window frames.
A lonely place. Very lonely, stuck on twenty acres of unused county land.

“Shaking off a shiver, I unzipped my down vest and removed the two roses. I laid them on the rusty iron grate of the fireplace.

“These would start everyone in the county talking again.”

*****

So how did I tension to this scene?

Description

I use description to show that my protagonist isn’t entirely comfortable in this setting, using words and phrases like “gashes of blood read light” “ominous,” “a few caws from crows”, and “the wind sailed through empty window frames”. Also Rae shakes “off a shiver.” Here is a post about how to use uncomfortable settings to add tension to your novel.

Foreshadow

Hinting at plot points that will become significant later in the story keeps readers turning the page. “The gray stone building that was rumored to be the scene of a murder” and “any sound of psychics, ghost hunters, or thrill-seeking high school kids who had come to catch sight of the ghost of Bella Rydell.”

Raise questions

Rae lays two roses in the grate of the fireplace and thinks that will get everyone in the county talking. Why? The key to raising questions is that while you can be mysterious, you can’t be confusing. Although readers wonder why the roses will provoke talk, they understand exactly what Rae is doing.

These aren’t the only ways to write internal dialogue with tension. Next week, I’ll discuss what I think is the most underused plotting technique for creating tension and one I rely on all the time.

Who is an author who writes tension-filled internal dialogue?

Here are my previous posts on plot this month.

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2 Essential Keys to Building a Captivating Plot in Any Genre

How to write effective plots for novels

Did I really mean that? There are only 2 essential keys to building a captivating plot in any genre? Yes. If you understand these 2 elements and can implement them, you can write any kind of plot effectively.

Key #1: Understand your genre thoroughly

Every genre has its own rules that authors have to meet in order to satisfy readers. I grew up on mysteries, starting with Saturday mornings in front of the tv enjoying Scooby Doo. (Actually, if you’d like to write a traditional mystery and want to understand the basic rules to it, watching a Scooby Doo episode from the original series, “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?”, or the updated series, “What’s New, Scooby Doo?” is a great introduction to mystery writing.)

The rules of an effective mystery are so much a part of my thought patterns that when I watch any crime show now, I immediately begin to analyze the story structure: okay, they’ve introduced three viable suspects so far. Was that conversation a red herring? The detective is using one of his quirks to deduce a clue.

You probably want to write a novel in the genre that’s your favorite. So you probably already have a good understanding of how that genre works. Keep reading novels in the genre you want to write in with a thoughtful eye so that you become steeped in the rules of what you can and can’t do in the genre.

One of the helpful things about writing genre fiction is that if you understand the rules, you’re on your way to achieving the second key to writing a captivating plot.

#2: Write with tension

Most genres have tension built in. How does the couple end up together in a romcom? How will the detective solve the mystery? How will the hero end his quest?

Why is this important? Because, like I said in my post on writing about uncomfortable settings, tension is the engine that keeps readers turning the page. Understanding how the rules of your particular genre deliver tension will provide the framework for you to add more tension in your specific story.

When I write a mystery, I know the detective has to solve it. But I get to choose the kind of detective, the crime, suspects, clues, and red herrings. So how do I add tension? Well, one of the major suspects could be the detective’s brother. He could believe a witness and then find out he swallowed a whole pack of lies. He could find a clue and then lose it. Anything that happens in a story which makes readers want to read further to find out what happens next is good tension.

What books have you read that use tension to create a memorable plot?

Here are more tips on writing plot.

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How to Create Memorable Settings that Bring Your Novel to Life

How to Create Settings for your novel

Your settings should work as hard as your characters and plot. Follow the steps below on how to create memorable settings that bring your novel to life.

Identity your major settings

By major settings, I mean the ones you will use in many scenes. My protagonist is Rae Riley, a nineteen-year-old young woman who has just discovered her father and his family and has moved in with them. They live in a rural county in southeastern Ohio. What kind of settings would a young woman move in?

  • Her home–this is a small farm where her grandmother, father, and three half-brothers live. Her grandmothers keeps alpacas. I discussed creating a home base for your protagonist here.
  • Her work or school–Rae isn’t doing college yet in the series, but she works over thirty hours a week as a check-out clerk at the local library, which is in the small town that’s the county seat.
  • Locations of any hobbies
  • Friends’ homes
  • Stores and restaurants
  • Church
  • The woods, fields, and hills that are part of the the southeastern Ohio landscape

This is Rae’s basic world. My genre is mystery, specifically cozy mystery. So I also need to choose settings that I can use in the mystery.

  • Scene of crime
  • Suspects’ homes or place of employments
  • Places to find clues and red herrings

Explore your settings like a tourist

Diving into your settings like you would a place where you chose to go on vacation will go a long way to making them memorable.

Rae needs to be in places where she can talk to suspects. A public library is a great place where that can happen. Anyone can walk through the front doors. In a rural location, more people might use a library because it has services, like the internet, which are more expensive or of poorer quality in people’s homes.

I’ll walk through my library setting and see what else it has to offer. Lots of bookshelves means Rae could overhear a conversation in an adjacent aisle, and it’s reasonable for the two people talking not to realize they aren’t alone. The maze-like pattern of tall shelves would be a great place for a chase. Most libraries have a room with historical documents for the local area–the perfect place for Rae to conduct research with resources that wouldn’t be online.

Rae works with a variety of employees at the library, from the director who is in charge to the janitor. How could these professional relationships affect a mystery?

What else does a library provide for a story? People return materials. What if patron left something incriminating in a book and must get it back? Libraries offer public internet terminals. What if Rae walks by a patron on a terminal and the site she’s visiting sets off warning bells for Rae?

When you dig deeply into your major settings, they will suggest characters and plot that will provide you with the raw material to make your settings memorable, breathing life into your novel in a way that only a carefully crafted settings can.

What memorable settings have you read?

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