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My book on craft for Feburary was The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction by Erik Bork. It's available on Kindle Unlimited, which is always a bonus.
When I finished the fifth chapter, which tackled how to make your writing believable and entertaining, I knew I wanted to write a post about it, as it touched on something I recently struggled with in one of my short stories, "Thorns Without Roses."
My speculative fiction story is about a teenager who wakes up to find she has grown a thorn in her tongue. The thorn pierces her so that whenever she speaks, droplets of blood fall.
Here's the first draft:
Early critiques found the story confusing and unbelievable. They immediately wanted to know two things: was June the first person to grow a thorn, and how did she feel about it?
Compare the first draft to the third revision:
This is largely similar to the original opening, with three major changes:
I mentioned June hearing about other people sprouting thorns and clarified that they can grow in other places.
I added sensory details (small drops of coppery-tasting blood).
I added June's reaction to the first appearance of blood.
Good enough? No. But it was time to hand the story over to my friend Ingrid, a freelance editor who lets me take advantage of her excellent services.
Ingrid pretty much instantly honed in on the story's central problem: I wasn't grounding my readers in the world, instead throwing them in the deep end and saying, "Figure it out."
Ingrid asked what June's life was like before the thorn. She asked how June had heard of other people growing thorns. She wanted to know how rare they were.
Basically, she wanted to know the rules of this world, and to know them, she had to know what normal looked like.
Here's what Bork has to say about this in The Idea:
Successful stories usually make it their first priority to answer any potential questions and define all the “rules” right out of the gate.
And, later:
Sometimes writers try to parcel out information over the course of a script, not realizing how important it is for the audience to fully grasp everything that’s different about the story’s world at the beginning in order to have any hope of emotionally connecting with it.
This does not mean that you should be info-dumping everything at the beginning. Do not do that. But you should show, not tell, what the world is like.
I'd love to share the final draft, but the story has been submitted to a podcast, and I'm hoping it will be accepted. If it is, I can share it that way!
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