Margie's How-to Author Series Features:

Randy Ingermanson!

FYI:  If you don't know why this page sports a dare devil dachshund going over Niagara Falls while completing a manuscript, please check out my Dare Devil Dachshund Contest!

Randy Ingermanson!

-- Co-author of WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES

-- Award-winning novelist

-- The Snowflake Guy

-- Popular Writing Instructor

-- Active ACFW enthusiast

-- Guru who publishes the Advanced Fiction Writine E-zine with 18,000+ subscribers

Website: www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/blog

THE INTERVIEW:

1.  ML:  In the writing world you are known as an award-winning novelist, a writing instructor, the Snowflake Guy, and the super brain behind the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine. The E-zine that deserves a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records for the writing e-aine with the most subscribers.  A whopping 18,000+ subscribers. That's 18,000+ happy subscribers.

Now you get to glue another feather to your writing cap, author of a How-to book for writers.  Congratulations on WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, to be released November 16th!

My interview questions speak to some of the topics you cover in WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES.  Let's start with building characters.  What tips do you share in WFFD for creating three-dimensional characters?

RI: Characters always do something for a reason.  Writers usually call that reason the "motivation."  I like to break that out into three main parts, and let me go backward from the most visible parts to the least visible parts:

1)  A STORY GOAL -- Each character should have only one of these and it should be a clear and objective goal.  Your reader should know what it would look like for the character to reach her goal.  Scarlett O'Hara wants Ashley Wilkes.  Either  she gets him to marry her, or she doesn't. Either way, you can have no doubt.  This part of a character's motivation should be one-dimensional.

2)  AN AMBITION -- Each character has something abstract that they want out of life.  Miss America wants "world peace."  But what does that look like?  Ambitions are always fuzzy.  They have to be; they're abstract.  Each character translates their ambition differently into a concrete story goal--which we talked about above.  Scarlett wants to be "the belle of the ball forever."  And she believes that marrying Asley will give her that.  She's mistaken, but that's OK.  She believes it.  That's what drives her.  This part of a character's motivation should also be one-dimensional.

3)  VALUES -- Each character believes certain core truths to be self-evident.  No proof is needed that these core truths are really true, because it's "obvious"--at least to the character.  The ambition we talked about above always springs from your character's values. This is where you want your character to be multi-dimensional.  You want your character to have several values--core truths--and these should be in conflict.  Scarlett thinks it's obvious that "nothing is more important than being the center of attention."  This drives her ambition to be the belle of the ball.  But Scarlett also believes that "nothing is more important than surviving."  This leads her to do all sorts of things that some of her friends are just too genteel to do. Scarlett is willing to get her hands dirty doing things that no belle of the ball should ever do. Scarlett's values are in deep, deep conflict, and that's what makes her a three-dimensinoal character. 

2.  ML:  In WFFD you explore creating a multi-layered plot.  Could you share some points on plotting to build those multiple layers?

RI: I've identified six different layers of plot in my book, and they cover three chapters.  Here, I'll focus on one critical layer that is rarely explained anywhere.  The only teacher whom I've seen mention this is Robert McKee in his book STORY, but he doesn't explain how it's useful to the novelist, because he's interested in teaching screenwriters.

This critical layer is the "sequence of scenes."  McKee explains in his book that the tension builds in intensity through a sequence of scenes--usually 3 to 5 of them. Then something important happens and the tension goes down.  It begins building again in the next sequence of scenes.

When I read McKee, I realized that this is the golden key for writing the synopsis.  The synopsis is easily the most hated piece of writing that any novelist ever does.  But you have to write a synopsis.

Here's the secret:  When you write a synopsis, each paragraph should summarize a sequence of scenes.  If you try to summarize each scene, that's too much detail. Summarize several scenes together as a single unit.  If you do that, your synposis will come out to about 2 single-spaced pages which is just about right.  If you don't do that, you're going to hate your synopsis.  (Okay, you're going to hate your synopsis no matter what you do, but if you do it this way, you'll get a good result, which is all that matters.)

3. ML:  You also address high concept storylines.  Fill us in!  I'm guessing that our blog guest have questions on this power-topic.

RI:  The storyline is a single sentence that summarizes your story.  If you write a great storyline, your editor will instantly get what you story's about.  She'll be able to explain that storyline to the publishing committee and they'll get it too. Ditto with the sales team, the buyers for the bookstore chains, the staff in bookstores, and ultimately the readers.

I devote a lot of space in my book to teaching exactly how to write a strong storyline that instantly communcates the gist of the story.  You want it less than 25 words and you want to focus on one or two characters.  And you want to elimiate absolutely every ounce of excess weight.

The storyline for my first novel TRANSGRESSION is only 11 words.

"A physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul."  You either like that concept or you don't. It doesn't matter.  All that matters is that I can communicate my storyline to you in 5 seconds whether you like it or not.  A great storyline separates the sheep from the goats--the potential buyers from the nay-sayers.

WFFD includes my own one-sentence summaries of the storylines for 20 best-selling novels, with an analysis of each storyline and what makes it work.  One of the techniques I consistetly use in storylines is the idea of "backloading" which I learned from you, Margie, in your course on Empowering Characters' Emotions.  I often backload a storyline with a strong emotive hit point.

ML:  Yay!  You believe in BACKLOADING.  :-))   And -- you remembered EMOTIONAL HITS from ECE too.  Very cool!

4.  ML:  I read this piece on the front cover of WFFD:

Learn to -- choose your creative paradigm.

What suggestions do you have for writers regarding creative paradigms?

RI: The key thing is to use what works for you and don't use what doesn't work for you.  One of the reasons my Snowflake method is so popular is that it empowers writers who were trying to use the seat-of-the-pants creative paradigm and who were failing.

By the way, the SOTP method is a creative paradigm which works great for some people. For those people, the Snowflake method is absolutely the wrong way to write, and they won't be able to write a novel by Snowflaking it.  Different people are different.  You have to figure out how your brain works, and then go with your strengths.

In WFFD, I identify four different creative paradigms that writers often use.  There are probably many others.  It's a specturm.  Robert Ludlum used to write 100+ page outlines. That would kill me.  It would drive a SOTP writer stark raving rabid.  But it worked wonderfully for Ludlum. Dean Koontz uses a creative paradigm that I call Edit-As-You-Go, which works for him.

ML:  Love your Cliche Twist:  stark raving rabid.  ;-)

5.  ML:  WFFD also dives into the publishing world.  What do you share with readers about finding an agent?

RI:  Having the wrong agent is worse than having none.  So I caution writers to do their homework first and find out which agents are most likely to be interested in working with them. There isn't any one right answer.  You have to analyze what kind of book you're writing and who your target readers are.  )I walk my readers through this process very early in WFFD, because it saves a LOT of grief when it's time to hind an agent.)  Then you look for agents who love your kind of book and who understand the way your target reader thinks.

In WFFD I show an sample query letter which I took mostly from a letter that John Olson and I wrote in 1999 that sold our novel OXYGEN in less than 7 weeks--without an agent.

The query letter you write to an editor is very similar to what you write to an agent.  The idea is the same--get them hungry, tell the essence of the story, and then get them to ask for more.  This is one reason I put so much emphasis on teachng how to write a storyline.  Once you learn how to bait a hook, you can catch all kinds of fish.

6.  ML:  I don't know if you go into this in WFFD, but I'm curious.  When a writer gets THE CALL from an agent who is interested in representing them, what are five questions the writer should ask the agent?

RI:  Hmmmm, in my opinion, every writer should know the answers to most of the questions before they even query an agent.  You should never query an agent just because they're listed in some market guide.  You should find the several best agents who are likely to be interested in your work.  Then look at ther web sites and get a handle on their personalities and how they work.  Most agents will have some sort of online endorsements from their writers.  They'll explain how they work, what they charge and when, what they read, what they sell, and all that.

Do your homework!  An agent knows when you've researched him and you actually have taken the trouble to find out what he likes.  If you're querying an agent who does mostly SF & F and you're writing an Amish erotica novel, then you deserve a spanking with a buggy whip.

7.  ML:  What chapter of WFFD was the most fun to write, and why?

RI: I sweat blood on every chapter, so I'm not sure "fun" is the right word here.  I thought this would be an easy book to write, but it turned out that I rethought just about everything I knew and tried to take it a little deeper.

In some cases, I had to come up with new terminology because the language I've been using for the last ten years (coming from all the best sources I could find) was sometimes ambiguous. Different people sometimes use the same word in different ways. What is a "motivation" for example? What's a "reaction?"  That depends on who's using the word and what the context is.

So I rethought everything I thought I knew, especially the things that I'm most famous for, such as the Snowflake method, those pesky "motivation-reaction units," and analysis of "scenes and sequels."

It was painful, and there were times I thought I was going to die, but in the end, I learned some new things.  The target reader for the book is "beginning novelists" but I'm going to bet that all my multi-published novelist friends are going to learn a fistful of new tricks too.  I learned something new in almost every chapter of the book.

8.  ML: Last question!  Is there anything you wish you had added to WFFD?  Another chapter?  Another tip?

RI: Because of space limitations, we had to cut the chapter on writing conferences.  I am a huge fan of writing conferences, because that's where I broke in to publishing, and that's where the majority of my published friends did also.  But the central focus of WFFD is the craft of writing fiction.  The editors asked for more details in several of the chapters on craft and editing.  I put those in, but that meant something had to give.

I should note that there's a terrific 60-page e-book on writing conferences that I sell on my web site.  The author of this e-book is Meredith Efken, the freelance editor who works with me on all my books these days.  Meredith is a multipublished author and has been going to conferences for a long time, and her e-book is the best I've ever seen anywhere on the subject.  So when I had to cut the chapter on conferences from WFFD, I had the consolation that Meredith's e-book covered it in more detail than that chapter possibly could have.

ML:  Anything Meredith Efken does is quality.  Here's a photo of me, Randy, and Meredith Efken at the ACFW Awards Banquet.

ML:  RANDY -- Thank you for sharing your time and your brain cells.  WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES sounds like a stronger-than-basic how-to book-- one loaded with tips that would help writers of all levels, from newbies to bestsellers.  And -- one lucky person who posts a comment or question to the blog today WINS a copy of WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES!

Another lucky person who posts today WINS one of my six LECTURE PACKETS.

We may have additional winners.  I will donate one Lecture Packet for every 25 people who post today.

Randy will drop by the blog several times today.  He will respond to people who post by 7PM Mountain Time.

TO BE ENTERED IN THE DRAWINGS -- POST TO THE BLOG BY 8PM MOUNTAIN TIME.

Check back at 8:30PM Mountain Time to see if you are one of our winners.

Ready?  Set?   Fire your questions and comments at Randy.