Karen Bouchard here.

You know, there’s nothing more frustrating than spending weeks (even months!) massaging the words and grammar of your story when the real problem is that the bones are in the wrong places.

I know, because I’ve done it. You probably have, too.

It happens like this. You’re working on the next Great American Novel or future Pulitzer Prize winning article, and you can tell something isn’t working. You’re not sure why, but you have a gut sense that your story or message isn’t all that it could be.

So you run through a list of “rules” of good writing and try to fix your manuscript by:

• Using more action verbs
• Rewriting to “show” instead of “tell”
• Hunting down dangling modifiers and putting them out of their misery (and your reader’s)
• Finishing incomplete sentences
• Shortening run-on sentences

You reread your work. There’s nothing technically wrong with it as far as you can see, but something about your story or message still just sits there stagnant. It still falls short of the mark, and now you have NO idea what to do next.

There’s a good chance your story’s hip bone is connected to the elbow bone. No wonder your story is immobile.

On the other hand, when you get the bones of your story in the right place, you've got a functional story. It can move. It can walk. It can fly.

When I help writers fix technically well-written manuscripts that don’t work, here are two of the most common problems that I look for:

 

Problem #1: Complication/Resolution Misses

When telling a story (fiction or nonfiction, short story, article, or book-length work), you’d be surprised how many writers tell a story like this:

1. Identify the problem faced by the main characters 
2. Describe everything that happens next
3. Stop when they get to the end

Big mistake.

When you do this, you can inadvertently miss creating the perfect complication/resolution match.

If you want to tell a riveting story, you MUST start by creating a perfect match between your resolution and complication. But it’s surprising how many ways your complication and resolution can be slightly “off” and how profoundly it diminishes the impact of your story—even if your story is technically well-written.

My go-to book on this topic is Jon Franklin’s Writing for Story (buy it on Amazon here). Franklin gives this example: If your character finds out in the beginning of your story that he has cancer, then finds God at the end of the story, that’s not a match. Embracing God doesn’t solve the cancer diagnosis (unless, I might add, your story involves a miraculous healing. But you get Franklin’s point). He goes on to add that if, however, the complication is that your character with cancer is terrified of dying, now that’s a complication that is indeed resolved by knowing God.

You can see how easy it is to miss and also—once you understand the principle—how easy this problem is to fix. A slight tweak at the beginning that sets up the story to be about your character’s fears suddenly makes the ending make sense.

I consider the structure of a well-planned complication and resolution (and what happens in-between) to be the “bones” of your story. As I’ve said, you have to get this part right or all the “grammar fixing” in the world won’t make a great story.

 

Problem #2: Backtracking in Information Stepping Stones

In a nonfiction book or article your goal is to move your reader step by step from Point A to Point Z. Let’s say you’re writing to someone who feels overwhelmed with life. Or maybe you're writing to someone who is apathetic to a cause you’re passionate about. Or perhaps your target reader wants to build a birdhouse but doesn’t know how.

These are all examples of Point As.

Your mission is to move your reader from Point A to Point Z, like this:

• From overwhelmed . . . to feeling hopeful and inspired
• From apathy . . . to caring about an important issue
• From clueless . . . to knowing exactly what steps to take to build the birdhouse of their dreams

When you are writing to inspire, persuade, or inform, I don’t think of structure as much as bones, but rather as stepping stones. All the stones are lettered A to Z, and each represents the next step in taking your reader emotionally or cognitively from where they are when they start reading, to where you want them to be when they finish the last paragraph.

When an otherwise well-written article or manuscript isn’t working, I go through the manuscript and start grouping like-information. Very often I find that the writer is taking the reader from point A, to B, to C, back to A, to D, to E, back to C, and so on.

No wonder the reader is feeling confused--and like he’s not making any progress by reading your book.

After I group like-information, I put the groups in the right A-B-C stepping stone order. Then I go through each group, editing all that similar content until it reflects the best-of-the-best, and I delete the rest. 

Now I'm ready to take my reader on a clear and meaningful journey from Point A to Point Z.

 

Illumify Authors: The topic for your January Video Coaching Conference Call is "The 3-Step Secret to Making Your True Story or Novel More Riveting Than Ever"

Last month we began a monthly video coaching conference call for Illumify authors. For January's call, we'll be learning how to apply the Jon Franklin technique to develop the perfect complication/resolution outline for your story.

I’m going to be teaching this material on Tuesday, January 22, at 7:00pm MST. 

If you are contracted to publish a book with Illumify, email me at kbouchard@illumifymedia.com, let me know you want to attend, and I’ll email you a link to join the video conference call on January 22^nd.

 

2019: Your Best Year Ever!

As Michael Klassen mentioned in a recent newsletter, we’ve got all sorts of exciting developments underway to help make 2019 your best year ever as a writer and/or published author.

Monthly video coaching conference calls for Illumify authors are just the beginning. We’re also in the process of developing powerful new tools and resources to help folks build their platforms, market their messages, and ultimately sell more books.

If you have questions about any of the writing tips I shared in this newsletter, feel free to email me at kbouchard@illumifymedia.com 

And if you want to schedule a free, no obligation consultation to learn more about book publishing or one-on-one coaching with me, click here.

Here’s to your writing and publishing dreams coming true in 2019!

 

Karen

Karen Bouchard

Acquisitions Editor, Illumify Media Global

Click here to schedule a free consultation 

kbouchard@illumifymedia.com