Part 1: Getting Started
This section discusses how to use the book, how to
structure writing on weekends, and such mechanics as your work
space, writing time, tools, and books to have on a nearby shelf
as you work through the program. He closes the section with a
discussion of how to think like a writer.
Warming Up: Ray offers five techniques to help you
write when you "have trouble starting...your brain feels
frozen. Ice water runs in your veins. You peer out at the world
through eyes crusted with rim ice. There is no sign of a
thaw."
Writing Tips: Ray discusses the dangers of doing
intensive rewrites too soon, the value of preparation before
investing too much time in writing, and how to "load your
unconscious" to that it can "dance its way to the end
of your story." There are suggestions for how to escape the
internal editor and how to produce vivid word pictures.
Part 2: Character Work
Weekends 1 - 4 Character Work Overview - Shows how
characters and what drives them provides the thread that moves a
novel from beginning to end. He shows how to give characters body
and depth by exploiting character traits, and digging down to
find a core motive for the conflict that drives the story. Ray
talks about building characters through the discovery method
discussed in Writing Fiction
by Janet Burroway. The method includes writing quickly (no
control) making lists, sketches, diagrams--in other words writing
hot and then allowing the creative process to cool and gel into
something you can edit later. "To energize your discovery
process," Ray writes, "give yourself permission to
discover, work with what comes up on the page" by asking
questions that help to flesh out the character.
Where to Start: Gives an overview of what will be
covered in each of the next four weekends.
Weekend 1: Character Sketch - Discusses the mechanics
of a quick but important exercise to jot down a preliminary study
of a person. After providing an example, Ray gives guidelines to
doing the sketch. The Working the Novel
section, which appears in every chapter, offers three exercises
to help build character sketches. Learning
from Other Writers is also a regular feature
directing attention to how other writers have accomplished what
is discusses for the weekend, in this case character building. During
the Week gives you something to think about
during the rest of the week until your next weekend session. In
this chapter, Ray encourages looking ahead to developing back
story for your lead characters.
Weekend 2: Back Story - The purpose of back story is
to "unearth character motives....Secrets lurk in the past
and influence how people behave in the present." Ray
provides an example from his own writing and then gives
guidelines for writing the back story as well as how to find
cultural detail and historical references that affect the history
of your character. Working the Novel
includes four exercises. Learning from Other
Writers introduces Anne Tyler's use of back
story in The Accidental Tourist. During
the Week introduces the idea of drama and
the fictional dream.
Weekend 3: Dream - "Writing a dream, because it
empowers you to begin digging deep into your character's mind, is
a nice balance for the character sketch, which gives you the
exterior and interior surfaces (the possessions and behavior that
define your character's life-style). Again Ray provides an
example of a character dream from his own writing, the provides
guidelines for writing the dream. Working the
Novel contains three exercises; Learning
from Other Writers returns to The
Accidental Tourist and Anne Tyler's use of
dreams; During the Week
provides a glimpse into dressing your character.
Weekend 4: Wardrobe: Dressing Your Character -
"Dressing your character brings her back from the recesses
of dream and back story to the universe of exteriors." Ray
provides an example and guidelines, showing why wardrobe is an
important feature. Working the Novel
contains five exercises. Learning from Other
Writers focuses on the book Bones
by Joyce Thompson, and The Accidental
Tourist and how wardrobe sets rituals
and thereby helps to form characters.
Closing Thoughts: Ray discusses who the character in
his examples became and then encourages you to cast one
protagonist, one main antagonist, one helper/guide/catalyst so
that you can begin scene building.
Part 3:
Overview of Weekends 5 - 10
Weekend 5: Scene Analysis/Scene Sketch - Ray
encourages reading to learn, studying the techniques, and
developing an eye for fiction. Particularly when it comes to
scenes, pull them apart and find out how they are built. The
writing of one scene will teach you about the writing of the
next. "They [scenes] talk to you," says Ray. He
discusses scenes by example using The
Accidental Tourist. He also introduces using
a story board to sketch out a scene and how to deepen the
storyboard. In Working the Novel
there are two exercises to practice what you've covered,
suggestions for practicing storyboarding, and hints for learning
from other writers. During the Week
has you looking ahead to stage setup through excerpts from The
Accidental Tourist.
Weekend 6: Stage Setup - "Stage
setup" is the term we use to cover the
description of the setting of scenes in your novel. This term
covers time, place, temperature, lighting, seasons, and
props." Ray shows how Anne Tyler uses stage setup to
introduce symbols in The Accidental Tourist.
He offers guidelines for writing your stage setup. Working
the Novel offers four exercises to help
build stage setups, and Learning from Other
Writers shows examples of settings from
other novelists. During the Week
encourages the contemplation of dialogue.
Weekend 7: Dialogue - Ray writes, "You use it
[dialogue] because it's efficient. With a few lines of
well-written dialogue you can build character, advance the plot,
convey information and create tension lurking beneath the
surface...which we call subtext. Dialogue is the shortcut to
conflict. Conflict makes drama." He discusses how to step
back from actual dialogue lines to summarize what the characters
are really talking about and then offers five techniques to
create effective dialogue. Guidelines for writing dialog offers a
closer look at the structure of the dialogue in The
Accidental Tourist. Working
the Novel offers three exercises and an
opportunity to learn from other writers. During
the Week discusses the topic of actions.
Weekend 8: Action - Ray discusses how actions reveal
character and offers guidelines for writing action. He shows how
action creates a rhythm in the story. Working
the Novel offers four exercises that help
you discover action, using strong verbs, and making lists of
actions and then helps you learn from the action scenes of other
writers. During the Week
focuses on point of view.
Weekend 9: Point of View - Ray describes point of view
in depth and offers guidelines for choosing point of view.
"The best way to handle point of view," he says,
"is to let it grow from the writing as the characters react
to the story." He offers three suggestions for handling
point of view, and then presents four exercises in Working
the Novel as well as a close look at how
other writers handled POV. During the Week
discusses the idea of creating chapters.
Weekend 10: Building Chapters - Ray cautions that the
chapter is not a basic building block for your novel, but is a
unit of division, providing a way for the novelist to collect
scenes and group them together for a purpose. He discusses how to
create what your story needs through building chapters. He uses
chapter seven in The Accidental Tourist
to demonstrate how Anne Tyler manipulated her story through this
particular chapter. He offers guidelines for building chapters in
your book and demonstrates how to cut to new scenes. Working
the Novel presents five exercises and the
opportunity to learn from other writers. During
the Week allows you to look ahead by
sketching with diagrams.
Closing Thoughts: Ray reviews the importance of scenes
and how to write them in stages, working from the sketch through
the parts to create the whole. Then you combine scenes and
chapters into a structure, "an organization of dramatic
parts that delivers a moment of release and/or satisfaction
and/or completion to the reader." This organization
structure is the plot, which is covered in the next part of the
book.
Part 4: Plotting
Overview Weekends 11-14 Plotting: "Plotting a
novel means thinking specifically about the best way to arrange
the parts. Some writers plot before they begin writing. Others
plot after they have some words down on paper." Ray
discusses the value of a plot sketch and provides an overview of
how The Accidental Tourist
will be used to identify key scenes that illustrate plot
structure.
Weekend 11: Key Scenes - Ray introduces the three-act
structure and how key scenes serve as transitions as your books
moves from act to act. He details the key scenes in Accidental
Tourist and explains how they function. In
the guidelines section for Weekend 11, Ray shows you how to frame
your novel by creating an opening scene, wrap-up scene, and
catharsis scene. He then moves on to discuss and show examples of
sketching key scenes for the midpoint, plot point one, plot point
two. Weekend 11 closes with three exercises for working your
novel, and suggestions to help you learn about key scenes from
other works. He suggests some research on plotting and encourages
looking at Aristotle's Incline through the week.
Weekend 12: Aristotle's Incline - Ray encourages you
to do a diagram of your structure because it "plants the
design of the book in your conscious, and gives you a
comprehensive overview of your work." There is a model of
the diagram in the book that you can use for your own novel. He
also diagrams The Accidental Tourist.
He emphasizes that the diagram is not set in stone and can be
altered if/when necessary. "Sometimes," he writes,
"it's easier to replace a wrong word with a right word than
it is to write the exact right word in the first place.
Replacement is easy. You've got something to work against.
Filling a vacuum--or a blank page--is tough. The Working
the Novel section includes two exercises and
a look at Aristotle at the movies. During the
Week introduces the rhythm of story line:
problem-solution, and looks at a story line from a famous fairy
tale simply by listing the problems and solutions as the story
proceeds.
Weekend 13: Story Line - "A story line is a
written description of the obstacles that your characters must
tangle with in the plot and the tactics they devise to combat
them." Ray relates the story line in The
Accidental Tourist and then offers
guidelines for plotting with a story line. The Working
the Novel section includes three exercises
and a story line for The Maltese Falcon.
During the Week
introduces building a scenario that gives you a blueprint to
follow as you write, and a selling tool for when your novel is
finished.
Weekend 14: Scenario - "The scenario, a narrative
treatment of your story, gathers up the threads of your
book--character, motivation, agenda, setting, conflict, large
action, key scenes, story line--and combines them into a short
treatment that gives you the first hint of the impact of the
final book." Ray shows how to work the scenario in three
parts, again using The Accidental Tourist
to provide an example. Working the Novel
includes three exercises and a scenario for Cinderella.
Closing Thoughts: Covers the beauty of plot and a
short essay on how different novelists work.
Part 5: Writing Your Key Scenes
Overview of Weekends 15 - 20 Writing Your Key Scenes:
Aristotle's Incline provides your novel's map. Key scenes will
give landmarks along the way so that you explore territory that
matters--territory that will get you to the end of your book.
Some of the frustration that writers feel during writing comes
from spending too much time on wrong turns and fruitless work.
Ray identifies the key scenes and the order in which they'll be
handled over the next several weekends.
Weekend 15: Writing Your Opening Scene - "The
opening scene establishes tone, mood, situation, problem and
genre. You build the stage of your novel and bring on your
characters, who enter with conflicting agendas...With your
opening scene, you make a promise to the reader, as sort of
contract that guarantees you will fulfill in the rest of the book
what you set up in the opening scene." Ray then offers
guidelines for writing the opening scene and offers examples from
The Accidental Tourist. Working
the Novel gives five exercises that help
develop the opening scene. During the Week
offers an opportunity to learn from other writers and look ahead
to the wrap-up scene.
Weekend 16: Writing Your Wrap-Up Scene - "The
wrap-up scene caps off your novel. To make the wrap-up memorable,
you create an unforgettable final image that sticks in the
reader's mind." Guidelines coach you through writing your
wrap-up scene by showing a close-up view of how Anne Tyler works
the wrap-up scene in The Accidental Tourist.
Working the Novel offers
three exercises and some closing thoughts, while During
the Week allows a glimpse into writing the
catharsis scene.
Weekend 17: Writing Your Catharsis Scene - The
catharsis scene is the highest point of the novel. Writing the
climax now helps to anchor the novel and help the unconscious to
track the book. Ray discusses how the chain of events in The
Accidental Tourist and The
Great Gatsby lead to the catharsis scene. He
offers guidelines for writing the climax, four exercises for
working the novel, and provides an opportunity to learn from
other writers and a glimpse at writing the midpoint scene in During
the Week.
Weekend 18: Writing Your Scene at Midpoint - In his Screenwriter's
Workbook, Syd Field calls midpoint "a
pit stop, a destination, a beacon that guides you and keeps you
on course during the execution of your story line."
Something happens at midpoint. Guidelines for
Writing Your Midpoint discusses the midpoint
in The Accidental Tourist
and offers suggestions for developing the midpoint in your story.
Working the Novel offers
four exercises and the chance to learn from other writers. During
the Week looks ahead to plot point one.
Weekend 19: Writing the Scene at Plot Point One -
"Plot point one is the key scene (or a hot action spot
contained by the scene) that ends Act One. It wraps up the action
of your setup...and shoves the rest of the story into Act
Two." Ray guides you through using a chain of events to
develop momentum for writing the scene that contains plot point
one. Four exercises are covered in Working
the Novel. During the
Week looks at Plot Point Two.
Weekend 20: Writing the Scene at Plot Point Two -
"Plot Point Two...stands like a beacon at the close of Act
Two. It is a
Closing Thoughts: Ray discusses how you can practice
your craft all day long by learning to think in scenes. He then
looks forward to writing the first draft.
Part 6: Writing the Discovery Draft
Overview of Weekends 21 - 31 Writing the Discovery
Draft: This is it--you stop planning and start writing!
"Your main goal in the next eleven weekends is to write your
discovery draft all the way through to the end. In the discovery
draft, write fast, speedballing along, skipping, leaping deep
chasms, laughing at the words in your wake. In the discovery
draft you are a child at play in the vast field of your fiction,
using technique as
discovery." He suggests spending three weekends drafting Act
One, five drafting Act Two and the last three on Act Three. Write
now, fix later.
Weekends 21 - 23: Act One - Ray reiterates that the
goal for the discovery draft is to keep writing. He suggests
simply jotting notes for places where there are unexpected
characters that come onstage that need back story or fleshing
out. "Give yourself room to grow while you produce a lot of
manuscript. make a list of scenes, keeping it fluid, to give
yourself a track....Stay open to symbols and images popping up,
stuff you never thought of, so you can develop some...into
central images. Guidelines
gives a list of scenes for The Accidental
Tourist to show how this can remind you of
what you want to cover in Act One. "You might take the time
to create a list of scenes," writes Ray. "Reading the
list calms the editorial self down so that the creative self can
keep working." Working the Novel
gives four exercises to help write Act One. During
the Week gives you time to prepare back
stories for new characters that emerge in Act One, and helps you
look ahead to writing Act Two.
Weekends 24 - 28: Act Two - "Act Two is where
things get complicated....Act Two is fun to write because you
keep gaining momentum as you push deeper into your story. Ideas
pop in Act Two the way they never popped before and you realize
that this is why you prepared, giving yourself a base so that you
could arrive at the writing desk ready to write." Guidelines
focus again on The Accidental Tourist
and Anne Tyler's treatment of Act Two in the story. It again
urges a list of scenes and twists to those scenes to keep things
interesting. Working the Novel
contains five exercises. During the Week
lets you learn from other art forms and encourages a peek at Act
Three.
Weekends 29 - 31: Act Three - "Act Three, which
contains the catharsis of the novel, is framed by plot point two
and the wrap-up scene....You can speed through Act Three, with a
confidence bordering on abandon because more of the book lies
behind you than lies ahead." Ray takes a brief look at
Closing Thoughts - Looks ahead to the meditation draft
where "you mature into an artist, brooding upon your
creation" as compared with the discovery draft in what you
were "a wild child flying free...open to all things."
Part 7: Writing the Meditation Draft
Overview: Weekends 32 - 45 Writing the Meditation
Draft - The meditation draft offers the opportunity to think
about the story you have completed in the first draft. It
involves reshaping and reworking what you have down. You can use
your imagination to transform everyday objects into significant
details. Since key scenes control the pace Ray says it's smart to
reshape the key scenes first, letting them grow larger and
deeper. Once the key scenes are re-written, it's time to tackle
each act as a unit.
Weekends 32 - 24: Deepening Key Scenes - Ray gives
five step-by-step guidelines for deepening key scenes, and
follows these with seven exercises to apply to your own work. During
the Week offers the opportunity to learn
from other writers.
Weekend 35 - 45: Acts One, Two and Three
Weekends 35 - 37: Act One - This is the setup that
introduces character, establishes time and place, develops
symbols and displays character. Characters speak, subplots
unfold. The meditation draft offers the chance to make sure
everything works as it should in the opening act. Guidelines for
reworking act one include five steps, Working
the Novel offers seven exercises to apply to
your book, and During the Week
gives advice from other writers on how to keep going and a
glimpse at reworking Act Two.
Weekends 38 - 42: Act Two - In Act Two there is room
to expand your work with myth and symbol. While you escalate
tension you can explore character rituals that move plot. Four
guidelines are offered for reworking Act Two, and seven exercises
are given for Working the Novel.
Again, During the Week
covers advice from other writers and a look at rewriting Act
Three.
Weekends 43 - 45: Act Three - "In the meditation
draft of Act Three you're going for torque, a slow and powerful
gathering together of all the elements of your story," Ray
says. Subplot is capped off before the culmination of the main
plot. Minor characters are removed from the scene. All that's
left is for the main characters to bring the story to its finish.
"In the meditation draft for Act Three, you'll focus on echoes
that resound--echoing images, echoing lines,
echoing incidents--repetitions that replay themselves in your
novel." Ray goes on to explain what these echoes are, offers
three guidelines for reworking Act Three. Seven exercises are
listed under Working the Novel,
and During the Week
gives the opportunity to learn from other writers.
Closing Thoughts: Ray offers an extensive quote from Writing
Down the Bones where Natalie Goldberg writes
about what it's like to do this type of rewriting and then looks
ahead to the final draft.
Part 8: Writing the Final Draft
Overview Weekends 46 - 52 Writing the Final Draft -
"In the final draft you...cut and prune and edge and shape
the best parts of the manuscript into a product for the
marketplace." Ray suggests you spend the first weekend
reading the manuscript and taking notes, the next cutting excess,
four weekends re-writing what you didn't cut, and the last
weekend editing your work. "The hard work is behind
you," Ray writes. "Compared to the road you've come
down, this is easy."
Weekend 46:
Weekend 47: Cutting - Ray offers a step-by-step method
to trim the fat out of your novel, leaving you with lean, dynamic
prose. Working the Novel
offers five exercises to help. During the
Week again offers lessons from other writers
Weekend 48 - 51: Rewriting - "Since the language
of fiction is word pictures, most of your rewriting will be
making your word pictures sharper for the reader. The chapter
discusses three simple rules for rewriting and the Guidelines
for Rewriting section offers step-by-step
instructions. Working the Novel
provides six exercises. During the Week
looks at the rewriting process of other writers.
Weekend 52: Editing - "On this last weekend,
you'll roam the book, tightening the manuscript...." One
exercise under Working the Novel
finishes the editing section of Weekend 52.
Closing Thoughts: Discusses how to learn when to stop
rewriting and then looks ahead to finding a publisher.
Appendix: Finding a Publisher
Glossary
Bibliography