Director, producer, writer, Ronald B. Tobias is the author of six published non-fiction
books including 20 Master Plots. Two of his books on terrorism use the knowledge he
acquired while working in the Bureau of Research and Intelligence at the U.S. Department
of State. A book about Vietnam titled The Body Washers is in the works. His
books have been translated into several foreign languages. And he's published 100+
short stories and articles generating credits from The New York Times to Playboy.
He admits that being an "audience junky" lead to a career in network television. He realized the power of audience when thousands of people descended on a small town in Maine simply because of a travel article he'd written. Now that's power! As a television writer his work includes credits for The Lou Grant show and Tales From the Darkside. He's also written and directed more than twenty documentaries for PBS and the Discovery Channel and is currently working on a film about Lewis and Clark.
In From Author to Audience Mr. Tobias used Wylie E. Coyote and the Road Runner to show the relationship between the writer and the reader. The Coyote's whole reason for being is to catch the Road Runner. The Road Runner's whole reason for being is to not get caught. They are full partners, each with a role to play much like that of reader and writer. The reader is the Coyote and the writer is the Road Runner.
The reader wants to catch the writer, wants to feel superior..."I know where you're going and I know what you're going to do." And that's exactly what the author wants the reader to think. But the objective of the writer is to keep a perfect distance, an arms length away, but never out of sight so that the chase continues. If the reader catches the writer because the writer is predictable (translation boring) the game is over and both the reader and writer lose.
The reader wants to be surprised.
For the reader, to win is to lose.
For the writer, to get caught is to lose.
"Good writing always keeps the chase going."
Plots create expectations. The way you structure your plot is the way you play the chase. A writer can take one of three positions with the audience.
1. Give the audience the expected, and lose.
2. Give the audience the unexpected, and lose.
3. Give the audience what it expects, but not in the way it
expects to get it and keep the chase going.
Before you're a writer you're a reader. And you will always be a better reader than a writer. But the authors advantage is that the writer/creator is aware of everything within the landscape of the book. The audiences disadvantage is that they are reading based on patterns of recognition from everything they've ever seen in print and the 50,000 some odd hours of television they've watched--most of which is a straight forward, simple formula based on the three act structure.
So how does the writer keep the chase going?
Lay a crumb trail, not too close together and not too far apart. Crumbs are clues, clues of character and clues of where the story is going. You lay clues at irregular intervals to keep the story interesting. Every piece of fiction is a "mystery" the reader wants to solve. Not leaving crumbs is a violation between author and audience. And the best place to leave crumbs is in plain sight. Don't leave the reader to far behind. And don't lay down too many crumbs, making it too easy. Keep the reader off balance.
"The ultimate pleasure of reading is solving the mystery."
So how do you keep the reader off balance?
1. Don't give answers, ask questions and give
just enough information to keep the story moving forward.
2. Tell a story within a story. Writers generally know how
to write act I and act III, the beginning and the end, but too many writers run out of
steam in act II, the middle. Get around this by developing a subplot.
3. Don't underestimate the reader. We are all better
readers than we are writers. Use the rule of three--Plot Perfect--centuries of
retelling stories has refined the plot. Plot sticks to the three act structure with
three movements within each structure.
4. Learn to balance surprise. Not too much and not too
little. How much is determined by the body of the work.
5. Learn to lay down the trail of crumbs.
6. Know the rules. Rules are second nature, but learn them
until you know them first hand. Then bend them. Even break them. But
only after you know what you're doing.
7. Tap into your right brain. Getting dressed, sitting down
at the computer requires left brain thinking. But inspired writing comes from
within, from the dark/creative subconscious right brain.
The good stuff, the crumbs come from the subconscious. So give your plot questions to your subconscious. But don't think you can trick it into giving you the answers when you're worrying about life's little problems. Your right brain can only work on three-five things at one time. Relax and the answers will come. Einstein found the three B's the best places to think: bed, bath and bus.
So learn the rules, live with them, worry about them, then wait. But
not too long, sitting down every day keeps you on task. And ask yourself, are you
smart enough to stay ahead of the reader? You may surprise yourself with the answer.
Award winning author Rogenna Brewer is pleased to announce the sale of her third
Harlequin Superromance. Our Lips Are SEALed will be a spring/summer 2002 release and
is a sequel to her two previous books, SEAL It With A Kiss and Sign, SEAL, Deliver which
is available now!
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