Mystery and Fantasy Story Arcs: A Big Difference

Before I get into today’s topic, please note that my books are now listed on the popular BookBub site. I’ve belonged to BookBub a while, and whenever an author I’m following releases a new title, I receive notification. If you’d like to follow me, you can do so HERE.

I first learned about story arcs at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference years ago, and also from an agent I was working with at that time. For new writers, or readers of books, a story arc is an overview of the beginning, middle, and end of a story.

While writing mysteries, I’ve learned that dividing my story arc into three acts works well for me. The first act sets up the murder, suspects, protagonist, and sidekicks. The second act presents, obstacles, danger, clues, setbacks and twists. The final act supplies the final pieces of the puzzle and leads to resolution.

Some authors prefer a story arc in four acts, and others even uses a more detailed seven step approach that includes defining a big event, raising the stakes and action, creating an exceptional event, a big dark moment, and finally the conclusion.

While working on my first urban fantasy, it’s become obvious that my story arc is far more intricate than the straightforward three-act narrative I’ve been using. The book is divided into five sections right now, and each section requires its own story arc.

Chapters also require their own story arc—a point and a purpose that move the plot along, even if it’s all told through backstory. The trick will be not to become overly repetitive, as each of the main characters’ sections might overlap with the others. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m still in the early stages of the second rewrite, but am finding that it’ll soon be necessary to plot each chapter and section on an Excel sheet. This will help remind me of the purpose of each chapter while staying focused on the story arc in each section, and the overall big picture. It’s a daunting task, but one that I’m really enjoying.

Debra

The Importance and Benefits of Research

As fiction readers and writers know, it’s important to keep things as accurate as possible in a book. Nothing throws a mystery fan off more when an author clearly knows little about firearms. The same is true for readers of historical fiction. They despise it when the author don’t know enough about the time period they’re writing in to get things right.

Of course, when you’re writing fantasy and creating different worlds, you set up your own rules and timelines, although even these still require a certain amount of logic and consistency. While writing my first urban fantasy, I’m learning that blending magical elements and religion into real settings and lifestyles are still important.

I’ve read a lot of fiction involving witches, werewolves, vampires, and so forth. Many of these stories incorporate a different twist on commonly held beliefs about rites, habits, needs, etc, which I imagine drives the purists nuts. As my Wicca instructor says, so many TV, movies, and books get it wrong about Wicca and witches, that it makes her cringe.

In my attempt to get things right, I signed up for a Wicca 101 course, which is being taught by a high priestess of the Wicca religion. I want to better understand what I’ll be writing about. The course won’t make me an expert, but it is a good foundation for further readings, meetings, and interviews down the road.

At this point in my first draft, I have no idea how much of what I learn will be incorporated into the book. Some writers write their story and then research what they need to know. But for me, to move this story along, I need to understand the basics so I can incorporate beliefs and practices from the get-go.

Research is not only important for credibility but there can be big benefits for authors personally. The most obvious is that your knowledge increases—never a bad thing, right? If you research thoroughly enough you could become an expert in a certain area and begin writing and speaking on that topic. This could lead to more networking, more publication credits, and more income.

The benefits of networking, interviewing experts, and volunteering in order to learn—not to mention helping others—could also garner interest in your book, adding names to your mailing list, and possibly gain new and unique outlets to sell your work.

Embrace the research and see where it takes you. The rewards could be more than you ever imagined.

Debra

Interview with Meredith Holmes, author of Unseelie

One of my first independent reviewers, Christina Whitcher, is now the PR coordinator for a small speculative fiction publishing company called Drollerie Press, and she recently contacted me about one of her authors. Meredith Holmes lives and writes mostly in Southeast Texas. Unseelie is her first published novel and she hopes there's many more to come.

Today I'm interviewing Meredith about her debut novel, an urban fantasy/romance titled Unseelie.

1. Meredith, welcome to The Write Type. First, how did Unseelie get started?

Unseelie began as an exercise for NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org). A local shop had a display of greeting cards including one with this absolutely beautiful faerie prince on the front and the image just stuck with me so when it came time for NaNoWriMo, I began by writing about this prince, whom I decided was named Cadfael (from an old word meaning "battle prince"). Alfhild came soon after, and the story just grew around the characters.

2. Did you research mythology and legends before writing Unseelie or did you make a lot of it up as you went?

Most of Unseelie was researched in terms of mythological origins of names (I have a "thing" for names!) and stories about ancient heroes and the like but some of it was made from whole cloth or "inspired" by old legends. Take Jenny Greenteeth, for example: in the legends, she's nothing like the character of the same name in Unseelie outside of a few key similarities. Characters like Alfhild and Cadfael aren't based on any historical or legendary characters pre se but I was definitely inspired by some ancient stories when creating them!

3. Is Unseelie a romance?

Yep, but that's not the sole focus--there's a war, conflict between humans and supernaturals, self-discovery... It's pretty complex!

4. Did your background prepare you for writing or is it something that just "happened"?

I never went to school for creative writing though I did consider it! I was always making up stories about imaginary friends as a kid and later writing them down, at the encouragement of my mother and grandmother. I remember making little books at my grandma's house, stapling them together to "bind" them and giving them to my grandparents for the bookshelf! Writing just grew out of that early fantasy life and the support of my mom and maternal grandmother.

5. What's your next project?

Other than finishing grad school? I have several stories in the works right now but the one in the home-stretch is the first of a trilogy about demons and some pretty ancient alliances that carry into the modern world. It's another supernatural-romance story but much different in tone and characters than Unseelie. It's more of a mystery than not but it's definitely supernatural romance.

6. You work on more than one story at once then?

Definitely. I get ideas and have to start writing them out before I lose them. Some authors keep notebooks of plot ideas or characters, I keep files on my hard drive (backed up to the moon and back--I'm super careful about that!). I have snippets of stories, some all the way up to their fifth and sixth chapter, waiting in the wings. I tend to work on the story whose characters are most insistent on getting written first.

7. How does writing impact your life outside of the process?

Oh, it's pretty much in every aspect of my life. If I'm not doing it, I'm thinking about it and it's become a very big part of my life. It's gone from me poking at a NaNoWriMo story to getting published by Drollerie Press. Unseelie is my first book (I've had short stories in ezines before, and they are now on Drollerie) so of course I was really excited during the entire process. Now that Unseelie is out and available since December on Drollerie's site, Mobipocket and Fictionwise, the excitement is still there but it's getting spread out to my WIPs as well because now I know what it's like!

Links:
http://www.meredithholmes.com/
http://drolleriepress.com/bookshop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=18_41
Email Meredith at: meri.holmes (at ) gmail (dot) com

Thank you again, Meredith, for sharing your inspiring journey with us. I wish you the best in success! ~Cheryl Kaye Tardif, bestselling author of Whale Song