Let Me Incite You

There's a lot of talk in the "writing world" [I'm not exactly sure what the "writing world" is, which is why it's the "writing world" and not the writing world. I think it must be like, to some extent, the "wizarding world" (which probably doesn't need the quotation marks (or maybe it does)) but, then, I wonder if there is a special school for people in the "writing world," a Penwarts or something, and, if there is, why wasn't I invited?] about starting in "the middle of the action" (this feels like it's going to be a quotation mark-heavy post) and how important it is to hooking your reader. However, I'm not quite sure that people understand what it means to "start in the middle of the action."

See, the problem there is the word "action." We all have this Idea of what Action is, and it involves car chases and shootouts and smashing and crashing and all of that just like at the beginning of the movie The Goonies, which is rather brilliant, actually, in putting all of that in there and making it mean something without actually skipping... oh, wait, I think I'm jumping ahead. At any rate, what people think when they read that about "starting in the middle of the action" is "starting in the middle of the Action," and that's not what that means.

For those of you that don't know, I've been teaching creative writing for a few years at my kids' (well, now, "kid's," since there's only one left at the school) middle school. One of the things that I have to talk about every year -- and not just every year but multiple times every year -- is where the kids should begin their stories, how it starts. About half of the short stories I get start with the protagonist (almost always a middle schooler) waking up, getting dressed, brushing her teeth (the teeth brushing is always included, which is good, you know, because I'd say that probably means the authors are brushing their teeth, too, but I do, also, find it curious), eating breakfast, and going off to school. I equate this with standing in line, a long one, for a roller coaster at an amusement park. Lines are boring and pretty much the same no matter where you're standing in it, at an amusement park or at the bank or in a grocery store. And most everyone does the same kinds of things when they get up in the morning, and we don't want to read about it.

The thing is, the line is not part of the roller coaster. It is not "the action."

The action starts somewhere around the curve going up. How much before is, yes, subjective and probably depends upon the kind of story it is, but I'd say it's the part of the line where you're actually on the ride itself or, maybe, when you're in the little herding areas being sent along to the meat processing... oh, wait! Roller coaster... right! ...being sent along to the specific part of the ride where you're going to sit or to the specific car (or boat or whatever) that you're going to be in.

That part of the story is called the "exposition," and you can see it circled in the above drawing.  "The action" of the story starts with the exposition, not somewhere up the line of rising action. If you have to skip the exposition because you think it's too boring to draw in readers, then you need to strengthen your exposition, not find some sequence of Action to start in the middle of and, then, flashback to the exposition so that it makes sense.

Those of you who pay a little more attention may have noticed a red line through the action in the middle of the exposition: That line is called the "inciting incident."

The inciting incident is the moment in the story where the protagonist's life is sent off in a different direction. We also call this the "point of change." The exposition should be centered around this event, thus you are starting in the middle of the action, not somewhere back in the boring, mundane stuff that makes up everyone's life. Like getting up every morning and getting ready for school or work.

I most frequently use Star Wars (specifically A New Hope) to illustrate this (because it is the most common denominator among the students. Always. Even more than Harry Potter). The action starts with Luke buying the droids, his inciting incident, the point where his life changed (and, yes, I know that's not where the movie starts. That stuff up in space with Leia and the droids is prologue). That moment, the purchase of the droids, is not Action. It is, however, in the middle of the action.

Another curious thing about my middle schoolers: The most common inciting incident is the protagonist receiving a mysterious note or book.

The point is that "starting in the middle of the action" does not mean, necessarily, starting with something exciting, starting with Action. It just means finding that point in which your protagonist's life changes, where it veers off course. That can be a very boring thing, in all actuality. Like buying a pair of droids or finding a mysterious note or a birthday party. Not everything has to be explosions and gun fights.

All of which leads me to what had me thinking about "inciting incidents" in the first place, other than that's what we're working on in class, right now. The thought was something like, "If someone was making a biopic of your life, what would your inciting incident be?" I mean, there's no need to cover anyone's whole life in one story, right, so, if you were looking for the most significant moment, the moment of change, what would it be? Sure, that can be a lot of different things depending on the story you want to tell, but, let's say, it's about, for me, being a writer. That inciting incident is not one of Action. It was just a quiet moment where I read something (I talked about it way back here if you want to read about it), but it changed me.

Anyway... That was just a stray thought that prompted all of this, but I do think it's important to not skip the exposition and to know what your inciting incident is. If you're a writer, that is. Or if you're not, depending upon how you want to take this. Maybe you've never had an inciting incident in your life and you need one? Sometimes, all it takes is a decision.

Abandoned Places: Loudoun Castle Theme Park

Once billed as "Scotland's Best Family Theme Park," Loudoun Theme Park has been silent for nearly half a decade, many of its attractions sold or removed. The theme park was built behind Loudoun Castle, the interior of which was destroyed by fire in 1941. The chair-o-plane ride, The Plough,

was one of the largest in the world. In 2007, one of the ride operators of The Rat, a roller coaster, went onto the tracks to give the cars a boost. When it started going, rather than let go, he held onto the rear car all the way up to the top of the hill where he finally let go, plunging 80 feet to his death. The park itself became a casualty of the economy in 2010.

All images used Creative Commons License Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 2.0 Generic. All images by Charles Graham [Clyde_REV / Flickr].

As an added bonus, here are some pictures of another jail: Lorton Reformatory.
Located in Lorton, VA, the prison was built due to an investigation into the horrible conditions of prisons in Washington D.C. It closed in 2001 and is now part of the D.C. Workhouse and Reformatory Historic District. [All photos used by permission from Opacity.

The Plot Line of Your Life (an IWSG post)

We talk a lot about plot and plot arc in the creative writing class I teach. If there's just one thing I want them to come away with it's what a plot is. Not just that the plot is the story but what a plot actually is and how it works and develops within a story. We look at this a lot:

Well, not this, because this is not actually how I draw it. I draw it more like a simple roller coaster -- gradually up and, then, steeply down, returning to the same level upon which it started (because that makes more sense in my mind, I guess) -- in its basic form and, then, add in extra hills to show plot complications, and, well, this is where a drawing would come in handy, but I don't know how to draw that stuff and post it here for you to see. [Well, without actually drawing it and... oh never mind. I'm not doing that right now, but, maybe, at some point, I will.]

Anyway, as a writer, I can see my plot from the outside. I know where and how the story starts; I know where the plot gets tangled; I know where and how things go bad for my characters and how those things get resolved. I know where the climax is. The climax being the most important part. Well, the most important part other than the exposition and the rising action and the stuff at the end, which, sometimes, is just the climax since authors frequently lump their falling action/denouement into a "they lived happily ever after" sort of ending.

The thing to note here is that the characters, of course, can't "see" the climax. For one thing, they're only characters, but, if they weren't, they're within the story, and they can't see what's going on beyond what's actually happening in the moment. Authors, then, have to make sure that the characters are as true to the moment as possible. That means when bad things are happening, the characters have to behave as if those bad moments are all the moments, because they can't see the happy ending that's coming. Assuming that there is a happy ending coming, but most stories do have happy endings, so we're just going to assume that that's what's happening.

It can be kind of like this:

As the author, though, we have to push the characters along and keep them from actually getting stuck. Even when it looks like there is no hope left, that they have descended to the very depths and there is no way out, we have to find the motivation for them that will send them on their way, keep the story going, take them to their climax. Remember, we know what's coming.

And here's where things get a little backwards from how I usually do them. Usually, I will give some life example and turn it into a writing analogy, but I'm going the other direction this time. This is a writing example leading to a life analogy.

So here's the thing:
In our lives, we are like the characters in a book: we can't see our own climax. We don't know what's coming. Sometimes, people decide they hit their climax during high school and everything after that is just denouement. They don't try to achieve anything else, because they make the assumption that there's nothing that will ever be better in their future. Or, maybe, it's a wedding. Or, like Orson Welles, your very first completed project.

After Welles finished Citizen Kane, he said he would never make another movie as good, and he didn't. He was only 26. I have to wonder, now, if it was because he had decided that Kane was his climax. Maybe not, but our attitudes play such a huge role in what we do and how do it that it's really hard to know. Maybe, if he'd believed Kane was just the beginning of the great things he would accomplish, he would have made even greater movies. But this isn't really about Welles.

Sometimes, we end up in  those same kinds of depths that authors drop their characters into. Like it is with those characters, we can't see what's coming. We don't know what lies ahead. All we can see is the moment. It's important to realize that our climax is still on the way. Even if it's not, it's important to act as if it is, because acting as if we're still in our rising action can propel us higher. It can make a Citizen Kane moment merely a part of the rising action rather than sending us on a slow descent of falling action for the rest of our lives.

We don't know where our own climaxes are in the stories of our lives. We can't see it from the outside, and, until we die, that story isn't over yet. There is always the chance to achieve something greater, go farther, rise higher. It's only when we decide that we've got nothing left on the horizon that that becomes true. So, no matter how bad things get or how bad they seem, remember that there's still more to come. More rising action. More complications. But, somewhere ahead, a climax. A great moment, the great moment, of your life. Don't give up before you get there.

This post has been brought to you in part by the IWSG.

I'd Rather Be Disney

I grew up on Six Flags. So to speak. The original one. The one that was built because Angus Wynne went to Disneyland and thought he would also build an amusement park, one that didn't require you to go all the way to the west coast, and, so, he built Six Flags near Dallas, kind of a halfway point in the U.S.

I only, actually, went to Six Flags a few times as a kid, but I went a lot as a teenager. A few times a year. It was only about two hours away, so, when we wanted a bigger trip, that's where we went. Not my family, my youth group. My family never went. See the "only a few times as a kid" (and that may be stretching it, as I can actually only remember going twice prior to being 15).

At any rate, I loved it. I thought Six Flags was great and the epitome of amusement parks. At this point in my life, I've been to several of the Six Flags parks, and, until last summer, I didn't think it could get better than that. Seriously. See, I'd never been to a Disney park, and, really, the only reason I even wanted to go to one was because of Star Tours. I mean, seriously, Disneyland couldn't really be that much better than Six Flags, right? Right? Well... how wrong I was, and you can read all about the trip to Disneyland starting here, if you're so inclined.

Still, at the point I went to Disneyland, it had been a good 10 years since I'd been to a Six Flags, so, although I knew Disney was better, it was kind of an abstract thing, because it had been so long since I'd been to a Six Flags, the memory wasn't really fresh enough to know why Disney was better.

My younger son received for his birthday, this year, a season pass to Six Flags: Discovery Kingdom. Actually, for his birthday, the entire family received season passes. This is, of course, a mixed blessing, because, on the one hand: yea! season passes!, but, on the other hand: oh, season passes; now, we have to go enough to make them worthwhile. This past weekend was our first trip (because we had to go by the end of the first week of April to activate our parking pass, which would have become void if we didn't (and can I just say, "What the heck?" I mean, it's paid for. It's not quite fair to put a time limit on when it can be activated especially since the park only opened for the season two weeks ago).

So what did I learn about why Disney is better after our first trip of  the season to Six Flags?

1. Everything at Disneyland is designed to make the experience better for the user. For instance, when we went to Disneyland, everything we needed was mailed to us ahead of time, and we had it all when we got there, so getting into Disneyland was smooth and hassle free. However, when we got to Six Flags, we had to go get IDs made for our passes, and that was the longest line we had of the day, nearly two hours just to get IDs, not to mention that the parking pass is specific to me, so, if my wife wanted to take the kids to Six Flags on a day that I couldn't go (which won't happen, but still...), she would have to pay for parking.

2. Disneyland is SO clean. It's clean for two reasons: If you have some piece of trash in your hand (like, you just finished a beverage), and you want to throw it away, there is a trash can right there for you. They make disposing of trash so convenient, it's almost more trouble to drop it on the ground. But, if you do, there are people walking around with brooms constantly cleaning up. It's not only the "happiest place on Earth," I would bet it's the cleanest. On the other hand, Six Flags makes it extremely difficult to get rid of trash. There are no trash cans at all in the ride lines, so, if you get in a line with a beverage and want to throw your trash away before you get on the ride, you CAN'T, because there are NO trash cans. But, yet, they have signs up everywhere saying "Please Keep Our Park Clean." I just want to know how they expect that to happen when the trash cans are hidden. And they have no people walking around on clean up duty.

3. There are ads all over Six Flags for EVERYTHING, the most annoying of which are the ads to upgrade. Upgrade your daily ticket to a season pass, upgrade your season pass to a gold pass, upgrade to a Flash pass so that you can get on the rides more quickly. Upgrade to a season pass for meals. Buy a souvenir cup that you can refill for cheap. Everything aimed and designed to get the customer to spend more and more money. There's none of this stuff at Disneyland. Maybe, Disneyland is enough of an ad in and of itself, I don't know, but there are not banners and ads all over the place trying to get you to spend more and more money. Okay, so they have gift shops everywhere, but so does Six Flags, and those aren't as obtrusive as all the banner ads.

4. Water. We all know that staying hydrated is important. I mean, really important. To help you with this issue, Disneyland does two things: 1. Water is pretty cheap, not more than $2.00 a bottle, and some of the places you can eat let you have free cups of water, rather like a lot of restaurants do. 2. You can bring things in with you, so, if you choose, you can bring in water or snacks or whatever rather than being forced to buy it in the park. Six Flags, however, charges $4.00 for a bottle of water, which is beyond ridiculous. AND they don't allow you to bring in anything from outside the park. Not even water. This just seems wrong to me.

5. Six Flags (all of them) is mostly a park of roller coasters. That's cool. I mean, you know, roller coasters are cool. They are the biggest attractions at Six Flag parks. There's not a lot there beyond the roller coasters, though. Not overall. Discovery Kingdom does have some animal shows and stuff, because it was a Marine World before Six Flags bought it, so there is still a dolphin show (which we missed because an employee WORKING AT THE DOLPHIN SHOW told me the incorrect time for the next show) and a tiger show, and you can (pay more money to) ride elephants (I guess that's the "elephant upgrade"), and stuff like that, but the main things, the big attractions, are the roller coasters (and let me just add that 2/3 of my children do not like roller coasters). I compare this to an action movie where the focus is on the explosions with just enough story to tie them together. Disneyland, on the other hand, has a well developed plot with plenty of action to keep it exciting, but it also has character development and cool settings and all the things you'd expect from a really good book. Although there are roller coasters, it's not about the roller coasters.

6. The lines. Disney knows that waiting in line is a dreary experience, and they do everything they can to make the experience better. There are things to look, environments to experience, all sorts of things to ease the pain of waiting in line, including being able to get "fast passes" to get onto some rides more quickly, and that fast pass thing is just an extra they offer to you. For free. None of that Six Flags. Six Flags is like the Soviet Union of amusement parks. Just drudging through the lines for hours. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. Only ads. And no trash cans. Oh, and their version of the fast pass, the "Flash Pass" (after the The Flash comic book character), costs extra money (see point 3).

And that's why, as a writer, I'd rather be Disney. Sure, roller coasters may be exciting, eye catching and all of that, and they may be fun (they are), but, at the end of the day, I was ready to leave Six Flags. And, you know, we'll have a good time when we go back, but it's really light fair. Surface. I was never ready to leave Disneyland. It was only with reluctance that we left each night because we were too tired to go on, but we were never just ready to leave. And we couldn't wait to get back the next morning. Of course, my kids can't wait to go back to Six Flags, even the ones that don't like roller coasters, and that's okay. They're kids. They're not quite able to differentiate yet. Which is not to say that they don't think Disneyland is better, because they do, but they still approach both experiences with approximately the same level of enthusiasm. Right now, the roller coasters work for them (or the butterfly habitat), mostly because they're young, but there will come a day when just the roller coasters won't be enough.

And that's okay. There are books I read when I was young, books that I enjoyed, that I can't go back to now. They were good for me at the time. However, when you continue to expand and deepen your reading, you find you can't go back to those other books with the same kind of enjoyment, just like I will never again be able to enjoy Six Flags in the way I did before I went to Disneyland. Disneyland is just better. And that's the kind of books I want to write, too.