By Larry Brooks

(If you’re a skimmer, you should know up front that there’s a payoff waiting for you at the end of this post… in the form of a handful of really enlightening movie trailers that can teach you two of the most important things there is to know about storytelling.)

The best way to really learn something from a lecture or a blog or a craft book – to really cement your understanding of it – is to go out and see it in play (within a novel, or in a movie) in the real world of storytelling.

Of course, some writers hear or read something they are told will serve them and dive right into executing it within a draft. Which is a bit like doing surgery the evening after sitting in on a med school lecture, without having witnessed that surgery firsthand.

But this point of craft is too important to not approach with the precision of a surgeon. In fact, your writing road will be long, steep and bumpy – your patient just might die on your table – until you get this one critical point of storytelling firmly implanted within your story sensibilities.

(A reminder… four movie trailers await at the end of this post that will show you this principle in play.)

One of the most important aspects of storytelling, from a structural perspective, is the execution of what many of us call The First Plot (sometimes known as the “call to action”), which is the turning point following the setup of a story (consuming the first 60 to 80 pages in a novel, or about 20 to 28 minutes in a movie) and the actual dramatic spine of the narrative. The First Plot Point launches that dramatic spine by inserting something into the story that changes everything.

Think of these narrative blocks as quartiles. The first quartile is the setup. The second quartile is the hero’s response.

Response to what, you might ask? To the critical narrative moment that divides those two quartiles: the First Plot Point.

The moment where the real drama and quest – the narrative core of the story – actually and fully begins in earnest. How the hero reacts to, attacks and ultimately resolves the problem or quest launched by that FPP moment will become the story from that point forward.

Remember: It isn’t a story until something goes wrong.

And when it does, the hero must respond (because bad things will happen if she/he doesn’t)… with some combination of fleeing, fighting, navigating the unknown, finding help, seeking information or simply surviving what at first seems like unbeatable odds and imminent danger.

The First Plot Point delivers that moment. And when properly handled, does so at the optimal point (within a prescribed range) in the narrative.

So how do we go out there and find this?

How do you see it for yourself? Study it? Prove it to be valid? Or if you’re a non-believer, try to prove it to be a false creed?

Watch a movie trailer, that’s how. Because…

Every movie preview is built around the FPP moment.

Don’t go to the movies much, you say? Good news for you: Youtube is stocked with tens of thousands of movie previews. If you own a smart TV (or Apple TV or Roku), the main menu will have an entire channel devoted to nothing but previews, with literally thousands available. Thousands of opportunities – little two-minute storytelling clinics – that will show you this principle in action.

Two of the four movie trailers shown below are adapted from bestselling novels, which means the very same plot point you are looking for exists within the novel that created it.

It’s important to note, though, that the placement of the first plot point moment within a trailer (where something goes very wrong) doesn’t align with where it belongs within a novel or script. While it may, in fact, appear virtually anywhere within the two minutes of a movie trailer, the optimal placement within a novel or a script remains in a range between the 20th and 25th percentile.

In fact, if the concept itself is the draw (rather than the premise/plot), then up to two-thirds of the trailer might focus there, before it cracks wide open with a First Plot Point that shatters the calm

One other thing to notice.  

In addition to the First Plot Point, you will also sense the nature of the setup narrative (the first quartile of the actual story… novel or script) that precedes it. Remember, no matter how much or how little of it you notice in the trailer, the setup is everything that happens before everything goes wrong (thus comprising the entire first quartile of a novel), even when some of it contributes to that pivot.

The first quartile setup is where the concept of your story, as a narrative framework, is shown to the audience.

Okay, let’s watch some movie trailers and find those FPPs.

Jack Reacher, from a novel by Lee Child

Who doesn’t like the Reacher series, right? Well, more than a few didn’t approve of Tom Cruise being cast as Reacher in the first film… but he’s back, and this preview doesn’t disappoint.

The First Plot Point is shown at the 28-second mark (out of a total running time of 1:56). Everything prior to that moment is setup narrative, in this case (because this is a character-centric story) introducing the hero and the conceptual essence of him that invests us in him before he is thrust into harm’s way.  (You may have to put up with a few seconds of promotion first…  hang in there, hit the Skip button when presented.)

That initial scene with the handcuffs? Total prologue. Other than showing us Reacher himself (thus rendering it a setup strategy), it has nothing at all do to with the plot – the premise – of the story to follow.

The Help, from the novel by Kathryn Stockett

You’ve probably seen the movie and/or read the novel. But notice how the trailer sets up the strong themes before it reveals the First Plot Point (always the mission of the first quartile of a story), which is where Skeeter (one of three hero/protagonists) is launched on her dramatic quest, which is to write her book.

Once she heads down that path, serious drama awaits everyone.

Everything prior to the 1:28 mark is part of the setup of the story (borrowing, in this case, from several places within the story’s structure), before showing us the FPP that launches them all into a quest that is as emotionally resonant as it is dramatic. That moment, by the way, happens at the 24th percentile in both the novel and the film itself… right where it should be according to the principles of story structure.

Two Versions of Tomorrowland – a movie starring George Clooney

All Hollywood movies, and their trailers, are trying to sell you an idea. Sometimes that idea is almost entirely rooted in the concept, rather than the dramatic proposition (premise) of the story. In the first of these two trailers for Tomorrowland (based on an original sci-fi script inspired by an actual Disney place, rather than a novel), the only thing there is the concept. The story itself – the drama, and the FPP that launches it, is completely missing from this version.

Check it out, then watch the full trailer (that does include the drama and the FPP) that follows… and notice the difference. That’s where the learning awaits you.

Now, in this next version, notice the something does go wrong (which wasn’t included in the previous version), shown at the 1:30 mark (the First Plot Point) of the movie).  The trailer is 2:23 in total length, so even here, it is the concept – not the drama – that is the main draw.

Too many new authors, who are enthralled with their own concepts, write a novel that resembles the first of these two versions. Which, as a fully-rendered story, doesn’t/won’t-ever work… because there is no dramatic spine/proposition (a plot) to it.

But the second version… that could have been a novel. And in that novel the FPP would not have appeared at the 60th percentile mark, as it does in the preview… it would appear in the 20th to 25th percentile mark, where the principles of structure tell us it works best.

Writers who mess with these principles do so at their own peril.

Just as writers who deny them, but nonetheless nail it in a story (and there are many) do so by virtue of their own story sensibilities, which tells them the exact same thing as does the principle they claim to deny.

Literally thousands of these little two-to-three minute writing clinics are at your fingertips. And nearly every one has something to teach you – by showing you – about two of the most critical elements of a story that works: an appealing, conceptually-driven setup quartile, leading to a story-changing First Plot Point that fully launches the dramatic spine of the story itself.

Get this right – get this principle firmly implanted in your writing head – and you will have achieved a sort of First Plot Point in your career. Only this one – your writing dream suddenly accelerated – will be wondrous, however dramatic it might feel.

By John Gilstrap

It’s launch day!

Okay, technically, it’s day-after-launch day.  Yesterday saw the arrival in stores of Nick of Time, my first stand-alone thriller in over a decade.  Here’s the publisher’s blurb on book:

SHE’S RUNNING OUT OF TIME
Nicki Janssen’s days are numbered, but she refuses to accept her fate lying down. Defying her father and doctors, she hits the road with a pocketful of cash, a bus ticket—and a romantic fantasy of riding off with her childhood crush . . .
 
HE’S RUNNING FROM THE LAW
Handsome, dangerous Brad Ward is facing a different kind of sentence. Sent to prison for felony murder, he has escaped and rekindled his relationship with Nicki. But when Nicki’s father joins forces with a deputy sheriff, the search for the runaways ignites a manhunt—a blistering chase that accelerates with every stolen car, every act of violence . . .

As much as I love writing the Jonathan Grave series, it was nice to return to my writing roots in Nick of Time to tell a story where the stakes are personal rather than global.  I hope the world likes the story as much as I do.  (Note: The e-book version of the novel was released in five parts, beginning last April, as a run-up to the release of Friendly Fire in July.)  There’s an interesting story behind the story, as well . . .

My writing career can be best tracked on a severe sine curve.  I started off with runaway “success” with my first novel, Nathan’s Run.  Big advances (in 23 countries!), movie deal, the whole nine yards.  Warner Books bought my second book, At All Costs, before Nathan’s Run was published, for even more money and Arnold Kopelson was going to make an even bigger movie.  I was set for the big time.

Then reality arrived.  Both books sold reasonably well—especially for a freshman writer—but I didn’t come close to earning out my advances.  When it came time to sell Even Steven, my third stand-alone thriller, my agent had to break fingers to get a two-book deal from Pocket Books for a tiny fraction of what the first two books sold for.  Then the real nightmare began.  Pocket became Atria, my editor left, and then the editor that replaced him left.  Even Steven tanked, and then Scott Free was essentially remaindered in place.

My next book was at the time called Living Wil, in which a terminally ill teenager named Wilhemina Janssen runs away with her childhood crush.  Sound familiar?  I couldn’t give it away.  The book wasn’t big enough, they said.  Since my other books didn’t meet sales expectations, everyone told me that my career as a writer was over.  That was 2003.

I thought they were wrong.

I believed that I needed to write something completely different.  That’s when I stumbled by happenstance onto a guy named Kurt Muse, whose real life story became the subject of my nonfiction book, Six Minutes to Freedom.  My agent at the time refused to represent it for political reasons, so I turned to my good friend and current agent, Anne Hawkins, who had all kinds of difficulty selling SixMin because I am not a journalist.  But then the folks at Kensington Publishing decided to roll the dice, and the book did pretty well.  In fact, it continues to do pretty well.  (Wait till the movie comes out!  But that’s a topic for a later post.)

The research I did for SixMin opened doors and provided me with the access I needed to write the Jonathan Grave series, which I’m happy to say seems to have found some traction among readers.  I just finished the 9^th book in the series, and am under contract for two more.

Meanwhile Living Wil sat in the drawer, where it had resided for a dozen years.  On a whim, I took it out one day and read it.  Much to my surprise, I loved it.  It was a little dated, and my writing style has evolved, but the bones were all there.  I sent it to my editor and she loved it, too.  So, after a significant rewrite that changed Wilhemena to Nicki and tightened the action, it was ready to go.  Parts of Nick of Time still make me cry every time I read them.

I hope you give it a shot, and if you do, I hope you like it as much as I do.

More than that, since TKZ is primarily a writers’ blog, I hope you embrace the big take-away from this peek beneath the book’s kimono: Setbacks are only as important as you allow them to be.  What “everybody” says is irrelevant because failure cannot be inflicted on anyone.  Failure can only be declared by the individual who decides to give up.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late. — William Shakespeare

By PJ Parrish

I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.

But today — for the first time in months — I feel good enough about the new book to leave it alone for a few minutes.

See, I’ve been working on the same book for too many months now. Nay, I have been working on the same CHAPTER for too many weeks now, and I am beginning to think I will never finish. Part of the problem is that both my co-author sister Kelly and I have had too many personal life intrusions this past year that have affected our ability to maintain momentum. And like Woody Allen’s shark, if your WIP doesn’t move constantly forward, it dies.

But the larger part of our problem is that this book, unlike all our others, is being written on spec. We don’t have a contract for this one yet so we don’t have the tyranny of a contractual deadline.  Being a former newspaper person, I have always done my best work under a strict deadline. But with this book, time had been stretched and now the ticking clock sounds as loud as Poe’s tell-tale heart in my ears.

Here’s the thing: The worst thing you can do to screw up your career is to turn in your book late.

Being on time is very important. And it gets increasingly important the further into your career you go. Why? Because you can’t get a foothold in today’s crowded marketplace — or keep one — if you can’t turn out a book a year on time.

Time management is the hardest thing a new writer has to grasp, I think. Before you get published, you have the luxury of limitless time. Time for the virgin writer is a lovely, expandable, ever-accommodating thing. Kind of like a big purse. The bigger your purse, the most junk you carry around, right? Same with deadline. The bigger and looser it is, the more you will abuse it. Trust me. I know.

First-time authors spend YEARS making their books as good as they can. You have to, in order to get an agent to take you on. Ah, but then what? Then you enter the publishing machine and you have to produce another. And another. And yet another. And here’s the worst part of it: Each book has to be better than the last because publishers’ attention spans (dictated by the computers at B&N and rankings at Amazon) are increasingly short.

Here is another thing working against us. Unlike in the good old days, few writers entering the game today will be given the time to find their legs, their voices, their audiences. The reason is awful but pretty simple: It’s all bottom line these days and there are too many young turks waiting to take your place on the publishers list. You have to produce well…and often.

As Jim Bell put it in his Sunday post on industry updates: “My drumbeat has always been: First, write the best book you can every time out! That’s why we emphasize craft here at TKZ. There is no substitute for quality. And if you can up your production, so much the better.”

So, what happens if you are late?

You lose your place in line. I learned this in great detail at a Killer Nashville conference I went to a few years back. There was a very instructive panel with an agent, a Barnes & Noble manager, and the main buyer for Ingram distributors. It was all great advice, but the best insight came when someone asked what happens if you are late delivering your manuscript. All the experts agreed: You don’t want to do this. Ever.

Here’s the simple explanation: In traditional publishing, a publisher creates its schedule at least a year in advance. And when an editor buys your book, the process begins whereby a bunch of folks decide where that book will be positioned to get maximum attention. Publishers jockey around each others schedules, trying not to have their books competing with similar books — or with big star authors. Or Harry Potter for that matter.

So you sign your contract. You get your slot. Say you have a July 2017 release with manuscript delivery Nov. 1, 2016. Now things get more complicated. To over-simplify things:

The cover design is based on your delivery date. Ditto advance reading copies (which are important in getting bookseller buzz). Sales people start gearing up material for in-house and outside catalog placement. Marketing and publicity set a schedule of their own. And in the end, bookstores buy your book based on YOUR firm delivery date. And remember, this is happening for many other books at the same time — from your own publisher and everyone else’s. Every domino is in place.

Then you miss your delivery deadline. You’re two, three, four months late. Life intruded, the kid got sick, you wrote yourself into a corner and had to backtrack, you had writers block, there was that three-week hiking trip in the Cinque Terre you really wanted to go on…blah, blah, blah.

What’s the big deal, right?

That silence you hear is dominos NOT falling. You’ve lost your place in line, Bunky. And guess what? The world — and the process — will keep right on turning without you and your masterpiece. You’ve also been…unprofessional and made yourself a pain in the ass. Not something you want to have a reputation as being. Because publishing? — it’s a small world, after all. Once you’ve been labeled difficult, a prima donna, or unable to produce, that rep will follow you no matter how many times you switch houses.

This pattern is the same for eBook-centric publishers like Thomas & Mercer. For our most recent book, SHE’S NOT THERE, our T&M editor gave us a choice of two different manuscript-delivery dates.  They bought our book when it was about half finished. One deadline they offered was farther away but the editor was honest and said that meant a less aggressive marketing campaign.  The other deadline was pretty tight, but it meant they had more time before pub date and could do more to flog it.

Guess which one we chose? Guess which one we almost blew?

We finished the book by the hardest deadline (we missed by two days) but it about killed us. And to be honest, we weren’t happy with the ending. A week after we turned it in, I worked up the courage to email our editor and told her we thought the ending was rushed and we asked if we could add two or three more chapters.  She gave us one week. We made the extended deadline. The book came out on time.  But it was really close.

Okay, I’m self-publishing, you say. What does this have to do with me?

Everything.

Having the discipline to adhere to a set publishing schedule is just as important if you are self-publishing. Maybe even more so, because you won’t have anyone nagging you about a deadline. No one will be sending you emails asking, “How’s that book coming?” You won’t have a contract mandating that if you don’t produce, you’ll be facing some legal consequences. If you are self-publishing, having the self-discipline to make deadlines is probably even more crucial to your chances for success because you will be struggling to establish a foothold and claim enough real estate on the vast virtual bookshelf.  One book isn’t going to get you anywhere.  A whole shelf of good books that come out at nice predictable intervals? Well, readers will notice that. Again, as Jim said: Write a really good book, get it out there, write another really good book. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat…

I am not telling you this to scare you. Well, maybe I am. Because I got scared myself listening to the experts at Killer Nashville and by my experience of almost blowing it with SHE’S NOT THERE. See, I am not a fast writer. Writing is hard, even at times painful, for me. I try to worry each word into place, torture each paragraph into perfection. And that, my friends, leads me to paralysis.

Sometimes, you just have to sit down and let flow out. As the King says in Alice In Wonderland, “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Because, as the Queen tells us,

“In this country, it takes all the running you can do to keep you in the same place.”