Prologue as Prelude to Shooting Writing Teachers!

Recently, I finished "guest teaching" at a well-known writer extension program here in Los Angeles. The class was an advanced novel writing workshop. The teacher, who lets me come and teach from time to time, is a master writer with an amazing skill set, and I always enjoy the experience. This time, however, something happened that truly threw me for a loop.

One of the students said something to me that nearly knocked me out of my chair. I had just answered a question about whether or not another student should use a prologue in her novel. And the writer came back with the statement, "Oh, I was told not to bother using a prologue. People aren't using them anymore because nobody reads them."

I asked, "Who gave you this piece of advice?"
"Oh," came the response, "One of the people at [writing program name redacted]."
"People" meaning someone teaching through the writers program.

(I'm not mentioning the program because my beef here isn't against them; they are fine people. My beef is against the bonehead who gave this advice.)

I was speechless, or more correctly, I was keyboardless. I literally couldn't type I was so astonished at the utter badness of this advice. If it had come from some writing hack over the Internet I'd have just sloughed it off and corrected the error. But no, this came from a writing teacher at a prestigious writing program. DON'T USE A PROLOGUE; NOBODY'S READING THEM ANYMORE! Really?

I know exactly from where this sentiment evolved. The teacher, up on all the hipster authors and new YA superstars and hipster trends from hipster agents at all the hip new publishing companies saw that all these hip people were not using prologues—thus the new flavor of the month writing rule: no more prologues; the hipsters don't write them anymore.

I want to just go running, screaming down the hall when I hear this s@#t. I read almost 300 manuscripts a year. Most of them are genre (suspense, thriller, horror, mystery). Almost all of them try to use prologues, but fail only because they don't know what a prologue is or what it's supposed to do. Those who don't use them do so only because they don't know that they could, or should.

Let me be clear: this is no trend. This is no form of advice worth listening to; this is crap! A prologue is not a trend, it is a literary device used to enhance the opening of a story. The writer chooses to use one (or should do so) based on whether it will work with the story and genre, not based on some mythical statistic that readers aren't reading them anymore (and who tracked that little factoid anyway?).

Here is my prologue speech that I give writers who don't know a prologue from a steak sandwich:

" The prologue in a novel is the opener, the bang, the teaser that sets the tone and context for the introduction of the hero-heroine. If you look at any well-known genre author, most of them use prologues in their stories to set up the action. In mysteries the prologue is where the first murder occurs and the reader “watches” this happen, in a suspense story the prologue is where the opponent is first introduced, sometimes along with the first crime or physical threat; in a thriller the prologue is where the first death/danger/jeopardy is introduced that sets the tone for the adventure, also often the agent of the central opponent is introduced. The prologue is where the story hits the ground running and then stops on a dime with a big question: who got killed and why, who’s responsible, what’s going on here? Then the first chapter is where the hero-heroine is introduced in a benign way, usually showing daily life, some basic exposition about their lives, work, etc. The first chapter usually gives the basic context for the hero-heroine so the reader understands why he/she is the main character and where they fit into the adventure, and then the first chapter ends with them being sucked into the story through some raising of the stakes or some incident that pulls them into a mystery that grows more dangerous and more personally threatening as things progress—okay, maybe in the second chapter."

End lecture.

If a prologue is there, readers will read it. Especially if the book is a genre book. Television shows and feature films use prologues all the time as openers for the show. Viewers don't skip the opening of a movie because it is a prologue! They watch the darn thing. It sets up the adventure. It works the same way in a book.

So, once again I make the grand plea for you to use discernment and common sense when listening to people like me, i.e., writers who teach other writers. Just as in used cars, aluminum siding sales, and stock swaps there are those who sell trends when they should be selling substance.

Stay vigilant, listen to everyone, read everything, follow no one! Repeat the mantra after me ...

Now, go be brilliant.

Writing and the Archetypes: Are They the Best for Developing Characters?—Part 2

So, in part 1 of this 3-part series I introduced the concept of the archetypes and why writers use them. And, like I said there, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why archetypes might be useful tools for developing characters in fictional settings.

But, here’s the problem: they’re not characters, they’re archetypes!

This is the essence of the problem. Archetypes are by definition not people. They are aspects of people, aspects of being human, aspects of … you get the point (actually, it's the other way around ... we're aspects of the archetypes!). Archetypes make for great traits, characteristics, qualities, but they do not make for whole characters. They make pieces of characters.

Stories are about us. Stories are about human beings and the human condition. Every story, any story, all stories MUST be about a person on a journey. If the story is not about a person on a journey it is not a story, it is something else: a situation, a problem, a predicament to be solved, whatever; but it’s not a story (I’m sure I’ll get some mail on this one).

A human being is a character. A character has traits-characteristics. The human is an aggregate of behaviors and these traits-characteristics. Taken separately (i.e., an archetype) these traits-characteristics-behaviors cannot standalone. They do not have choice, they do not have will, they cannot act in pursuit of a goal, they cannot be flawed by some moral conflict that speaks to some inner lesson to be learned (or not). Only a fully formed human being, a multidimensional person, a protagonist can stand alone to drive a narrative forward. Archetypes help, but they do not drive. Motivation drives a story and a protagonist. Motivation is the crankshaft of every story (or at least the best kinds of stories). Archetypes reflect motivation (i.e., a trickster is motivated to trick), but they are shadows in this regard. Without human desire and choice the motivation is shallow and thin. Only a human gives meaning, significance, and purpose to motivation—not archetypes.

So, herein lies the problem. All those great writers out there who have written books on this, who have built careers on pushing the archetypes as the foundation of all storytelling, who have banked their entire story-development theory on the primacy of archetypal development are not bad and wrong, but they are gilding the lily in my opinion. You can write a great trickster character, but that will take you just so far. You can write a great villain, but that will take you just so far. You can write a great ally, but—

Maybe this metaphor will help clarify the relationship between a pattern (archetype) and the thing is generates (human being):

Say you are a knitter and you want to make a quilt. So, you buy a knitting pattern that comes in the mail and when it arrives you open it and hold it in your hand. You are not holding a quilt, you are holding a patten for a quilt. The pattern is a piece of paper with instructions, knitting code, and directions: i.e, it is an abstraction of something it will help to create. It is the raw material for making a "real" quilt, which is something you can use to warm yourself or lay on a couch to look pretty for the neighbors when they come over to spill coffee all over it.

Let's take this one step further. You are a writer (okay, a stretch, but go with me) who wants to write a story about a quilt. Which is going to be the most useful to you as a storyteller: the abstract pattern, or the physical quilt? Obviously the latter and not the former. Having a big, warm, wooly quilt gives you a fully dimensional object that you can describe and interact with as a writer. A pattern for this object cannot do those things; it's just a pattern.

And so the difference between the Enneagram and the archetypes. The Enneagram is the fully dimensional and realized object that functions in the world with form. The pattern (archetype) is the function without form. The pattern is essential, the pattern will inform, the pattern will guide, but the pattern is not as rich or useful as the thing it helps to create. Patterns can exist without the things they represent. The things they represent can not exist without the patterns. We can't exist as human beings without the archetypes, but they can exist (and do) without us.

And this is how using archetypes as the foundation of story development can derail and undermine your process, rather than support it. Using patterns of human behavior to cobble together a whole character is not unlike a Victor Frankenstein approach to storytelling. You can't piece together a great character or a great story like a quilt. You must find the crankshaft for motivation and you must find it in the full dimensionality of a protagonist, if he-she is going to drive a story from beginning, through the middle, to the end. Archetypes give wonderful, recognizable, and universal conceits all humans can recognize despite culture or upbringing. But they can’t carry the narrative. For that you have to find what I call the “narrative crankshaft."

In the world of character development (and in story structure, in my opinion) the best tool for discovering, developing, and implementing motivation in a narrative is the Enneagram System. The Enneagram is, in fact, the best tool available for describing human motivation and its related behaviors—period. This is why it has become one of the most popular tools today used by therapists, organizational development consultants, coaches, and a host of other personal-growth and business-development gurus.

I can already hear the objections. “Oh, really? So, all the other personality-typing systems out there (MBTI, DIsC, BPP, etc.) are all chopped liver?” No, of course not. But, they are personality-typing systems. They do not cover motivation; they describe behaviors and traits, not unlike the archetypes. The Enneagram System is not a typing system (despite what many Enneagram practitioners think). It is a holistic paradigm for modeling what motivates human behavior, thought, and feeling in all realms of life. That's what makes it such a gold mine for writers and storytellers. And this is the essential difference between the Enneagram and all other "personality systems," including the archetypes.

When it comes time to write a story and develop characters, a writer needs to be able to see the whole picture, not just the pieces of what is under the hood. Archetypal models won’t do the job, nor will running characters through some personality-typing test. What will do the job, however, is the Enneagram because only the Enneagram shows you the crankshaft for human personality; it is not personality, but it is the driver of personality. The Enneagram, not the archetypes, drives human action and thus creates the narrative crankshaft responsible for driving a story from beginning to end.

In part 3 of this series we’ll look at the Enneagram more specifically and why it is not only a fantastic tool for character development, but also for discovering a story’s natural, right, and true structure. This is something I call the Enneagram-Story Bridge™ and it can be the springboard for liberating any constrained writing process.

Big words, I know. But, it’s a pretty big bridge.

Writing and the Archetypes: Are They the Best for Developing Characters?—Part 1

A friend recently asked me to refer her to a “good” book on how to use the archetypes to write stories. I referred her to the book that has cornered the market on this area of writing: Christopher Vogler’s The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Chris’s book is great and it presents a seamless examination of how some archetypes work with the classical myth structure, specifically the hero’s journey. Based on the seminal work by mythologist and teacher Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Vogler’s book has been a staple around Hollywierd for years (in fact, that’s where it was born—long story).

I’m not trying to give a sales pitch for The Writer’s Journey, though you should buy it—it’s wonderful stuff. No, my point is to explore a broader issue, an issue raised by my friend’s innocent request. The issue is: are the archetypes really the best source for developing characters and developing stories? My response to this question is a resounding, no.

But first, a digression: what the hell are the archetypes and what the blazes do they have to do with writing? This is a topic worthy of several books in and of itself, but to give you the Cliffnotes version, read on:

What is an archetype?

The word can be broken down into two parts: arche and type. Arche, from the Greek means origin, beginning, primal, and tupos means pattern, stamp, or model. So, an archetype is a primal stamp, the first or original pattern of “something,” usually describing a human behavior or characteristic (i.e., trickster, magician, villain, etc.). The great psychologist Carl Jung made the term famous. Jung’s Analytic Psychology broke away from the rigorous mechanics of Freud’s Psychoanalytic approach around 1912; indeed, Freud was Jung’s mentor for many years, before the two had an intellectual falling. Nonetheless, Jung went on to found his own “school” and is responsible more than any other person for popularizing the idea of the archetypes in everyday life (i.e., father complex, anime-animus, etc.) His version of the archetypes is the basis of the popular, and often used by writers, personality typing system call the Meyers-Briggs Typing Inventory (MBTI).

What do the archetypes have to do with writing?

A lot. There are many fine books written about the archetypes and their relationship to writing, especially in developing characters. The archetypes represent the essential patterns of human behavior and personality (according to many). The archetypes are a part of every human being, and we find them in every culture in every human anywhere on the planet. They represent part of the “monomyth,” i.e., the common myth that can be found weaving its way thorugh every human culture throughout time. For Joseph Campbell (and by osmosis Chris Vogler), that monomyth is the hero’s journey. What better tool to use to create characters, right (wrong)?

For example, according to Vogler, every story is populated by archetypes. They are the recurring patterns of human behavior symbolized by standard types of characters in any story (Source: Wikipedia):

1. Heroes: Central figures in stories. Everyone is the hero of his or her own myth.

2. Shadows: Villains, antagonists or enemies, perhaps the enemy within. The dark side of the Force, the repressed possibilities of the hero, his or her potential for evil. Can be other kinds of repression, such as repressed grief, anger, frustration or creativity that is dangerous if it doesn’t have an outlet.

3. Mentors: The hero’s guide or guiding principles, for example Yoda, Merlin, Gandalf, a great coach or teacher.

4. Herald: One who brings the Call to Adventure. Could be a person or an event.

5. Threshold Guardians: The forces that stand in the way at important turning points, including jealous enemies, professional gatekeepers, or your own fears and doubts.

6. Shapeshifters: In stories, creatures like vampires or werewolves who change shape. In life, the shapeshifter represents change or ambiguity. The way other people (or our perceptions of them) keep changing. The opposite sex, the way people can be two-faced.

7. Tricksters: Clowns and mischief-makers, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. Our own mischievous subconscious, urging us to change.

8. Allies: Characters who help the hero through the change. Sidekicks, buddies, girlfriends who advise the hero through the transitions of life.

(List Source: Wikipedia)

It does not take a rocket scientist to see the potential benefits from relying on these “primal patterns” to shape and build fictional characters. Indeed, for many the archetypes help shape the very structure of a story itself, as in this case with The Writer’s Journey.

But, the bolded-italicized text above (which introduces the list) flags the central flaw in this approach. Any approach relying on archetypes must be reductionist, not additive. Characters are based not on their complexity, but rather on "standard types" and "recurring patterns of characteristics." This is a house of cards waiting to fall, in my opinion. Where is desire? Where is motivation? Where is choice? Nowhere is where. There's nothing wrong with using patterns and recurring characteristics, but they can't be the starting point for real characters, let alone structuring a story.

As we will shall see in part 2 of this 3-part series, while there are great benefits from using the archetypes in writing, there are also huge dangers that can derail your story and cripple your characters before they even get started. Stay tuned for part 2 and learn why the archetypes should not be a writer’s first choice for story or character development. That all-important choice should instead be something called the Enneagram System.

LitReactor Launches Site for Writing, Learning, and Community: Is it Worth It?

Tomorrow, Oct 1, a new website is being launched to create a working community and learning environment for writers. Huffington Post was granted exclusive access to the site early and wrote a little post on it, singing its virtues (for the most part). In fact, it lead off the mag's book section (under "Media") with the post.

I find it fascinating that another website geared toward charging writers for the privilege of getting peer feedback is being given so much attention. There are tons of similar websites out there (including mine!) geared to this end, all set up by writers like me who are trying to make ends meet by doing what they love—sharing their knowledge and giving advice. I guess we could all get a day job, oh wait ... THERE ARE NO DAY JOBS! Not in California anyway (at 12+% unemployment).

So, we do what we all do best: write, teach, try to make it in the writing life.

I love that LitReactor is launching. I love that "name" authors are participating like Chuck Palahniuk (who I think walks on water as a writer). I love that some innovation and creative thought is going into this new site. But (yeah, isn't there always a "but"), is it really worth it to pay for peer feedback? Here is what the Huffpo post said:

"... peer critique has become quite common in sites such as these; in return, users can usually expect a more moderated, and considerate feedback space. A community is only as good as its members ..."

I've made no secret of my hatred of writing groups. I think they are a complete waste of a writer's time. Mr. Palahniuk has a quickie video on the new LitReactor site that gives his reasons for why writing groups are important: to paraphrase—they help keep you on track with goals and force you to be accountable for results. Okay, but you can hire someone to call you every day to do that. We all have to be accountable. But what about the critique part? Do you really want to pay to have other writers who don't know any more than you do tell you:

"Loved the story"
"Sorry, didn't work for me."
"Great characters .. .but maybe you should turn everyone into a robot?"

I'm sorry, but this kind of "feedback" is utterly useless to me as a writer (and I suspect to you to). Read my post on writing groups for a fuller version of my rant : writing groups post.

I think it is disingenuous to taught this site as more than it is: a nicely thought out, but run-of-the-mill money generator. I'm all for making money and doing so doing what I love to do. But, I would never charge anyone for the "privilege" of crowdsourcing feedback. If the source of the feedback was the likes of Stephen King, or Caroline Leavitt, or Masha Hamilton—fine. I'll gladly pay.

But, in this context, sorry. I don't need any more writer friends, I don't need to hear how "bitchin'" my story idea is, I don't need to get validated by anyone who's bailing out their writing boat at the same speed I'm bailing out mine, and I just bloody don't have the time to maintain another bloody social website that requires me to accumulate badges and "rewards" for participating so I can see my name in "lights," like I've just scored the highest hit-count in World of Warcraft. I'm all for incentivizing writers—but you can keep your badges and pats on the back.

What do you think?

Now go be brilliant.

Show, Don't Tell: Another Writing Conundrum

How many times have you heard wise drama sages and story gurus proclaim, “Show, don’t tell!” There are many transgressions one may commit as a novelist or screenwriter, but none will bring down the hammer of criticism as hard and fast as telling and not showing. So, don’t do that, we are told. This is bad writing, and who wants to be a bad writer? BAAAAAAAD WRITER!

On the surface this sounds like excellent advice. In a visual writing medium (I contend all writing is visual), like screenwriting, it makes good sense to show as much as you can. Good sense, like “eat your peas,” or “after eating your peas, wait a half an hour before going into the water.” And, everyone understands what showing vs. telling means, right? It means character through action; your plot is what your characters do, not what they think inside their heads. You “see” the story unfold directly in real time, story time; not hear about it second hand or have it handed to you through some literary/cinematic device. You, as the audience, experience the story through your perceptions directly, as the characters do the “showing” through their actions, thus demonstrating actively what they are about.

Simple. Basic. Everybody knows this. End of the discussion. Well no, not exactly. Here’s the problem with “show don’t tell”: it’s not either-or; it’s both. In film, TV, and book writing the point is not to avoid telling, it’s about knowing when to do one vs. the other. There are times when it is correct to tell and times it is incorrect. What do I mean?

Consider the story of the lowly kung fu student who is taken under the wing of the crusty, yet compassionate priest for training. He comes to the master a young boy and leaves a teenage killing machine. His transformation from child to killer takes years. If you showed this in a literal way your script would take you fifteen years to write. You can’t show this, you have to tell it. The main tool used in film for telling is the montage. In half a page you can tell what happens to this kid, through exclusion, and then pick the story up when he’s at the right age. The fact is, screenwriters tell all the time by making story choices to edit out, or not, specific scene material. Whenever you as a writer edit down a scene, exclude exposition, or expand a scene with exposition you are telling your story. Anything that breaks the dramatic time line of the story immediately shifts the mode of storytelling (and writing) from the dramatic to the narrative.

What is the difference between dramatic vs. narrative storytelling (this is part of understanding the "show, don't tell" conundrum)? Narrative storytelling has a narrator; someone telling or describing to the audience what is/has/or will be happening. Certainly, the most blatant form of narrative storytelling in film is the literal narrator. Beyond the montage, a more subtle form of this can be found in scene transitions: cut to, dissolve, smash cut, etc. These are all forms of narration. When a scene transitions from one location to another in a non-linear way, some anonymous narrator is choosing for the audience where they leave the story and where they will reenter. This edit suddenly leaves things open to the imagination (what happened during that dissolve?) and while the viewer is not seeing anything dramatic unfold, they are, nonetheless, fully engaged in the telling of the story. Essentially, film editing is narration.

In contrast, dramatic storytelling is scene level action that happens in real-time, while an audience watches. The audience sees events directly unfold with no breaks in space or time. In addition, these events are filtered by the audience through their perceptions, not through those of a narrator. Using our teenage killer example, each scene where the audience watches him breaking boards, fighting opponents, etc. are all real-time events observable and interpretable by the viewers themselves.

Appreciating the distinctions between these two modes of storytelling, perhaps you can see how declaring “show, don’t tell” has little or no value. As a writer you could not effectively narrate the kung fu story without dramatically showing action, anymore than you could only show action without narrating some information to the audience. The story needs both these methods to properly tell the story. Knowing how much of one vs. how little of another to use is the craft and art of screenwriting.

My personal feeling is all of the above applies to novel writing and narrative nonfiction as well. You have more leeway and fewer constraints in these forms, because screenwriting is inherently claustrophobic and burdened with limits (page length, screenplay language, IQ of the producers, etc.), but the same principles should apply. Good commercial pop-fiction like Caroline Leavitt, Masha Hamilton, Steven King, Orson Scott Card, J.D. Robb, and others all show and tell their work and it comes off visually for the reader. They write very cinematically, and literately as well, because they “get” that it isn’t about following some stupid rule or mantra dictated to them by the writing gurus, they write visually because they understand the issue is about balance and they walk the tightrope of showing and telling like a flying Wallenda (famous high wire circus family—look them up!).

So, I’m telling you, the next time somebody lectures you to “show, don’t tell,” show them to the door and tell them to get lost.