Best Seller Success: Finding the Magic Fiction Formula

Looking for a formula for writing successful fiction? I’ve been distilling the info from a lot of the classes and articles so I'll share a bit. One element: how to structure your story lines into a simple formula for fiction success. 
 
Yeah, it all boiled down into a formula of sorts – you organize in three acts. The first act you introduce your characters. The second act has the main character achieving some form of their goal before everything starts to fall apart. The third acts the nadir where every thing seems lost, but the MC keeps struggling until s/he triumphs. 

So, how does this fiction formula work? Having done a lot of reading and rereading over the few weeks, I think it does. The stories I enjoyed most followed the formula. Each “act” in the books began at approximately the first, second, and third parts of the story – given some wiggle room. 

I tested the idea recently on one of Christine Feehan’s Carpathian novels – Dark Predator. Feehan’s a best selling author of three series. I’ve read many of her Carpathian and Game series … until I got tired of the repetitive character dynamics [the hyper macho man bit]. I've sort of ignored some of her recent novels even though they were on best seller lists. Yet, I still reread some of the first novels in each series.

Dark Predator starts with a wounded Carpathian ready to give up and face the dawn rather than turn vampire by killing one of his meals. He retreats to a family farm where he is saved by the love interest/life mate before he burns up. Result? He tries to surround the love interest in cotton wool. Of course, she’s the spunky sort who doesn’t obey rules and dictates very well. Second act opens with the two reaching an accommodation and recognize they are in lust with one another. The life mate bit happens and the story line shifts gears with many complications piling on top of their relationship until they all don't walk off into the sunset.

Simple, huh? Don’t you believe it. The fiction formula is just the framework. Ya gotta fill in the picture's details without falling into the cliche pit like Feehan. So there. Have i given you a key to becoming a best-selling author? It all depends on how you develop your other craft skills.

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I’ve been on an enforced break from blogging when Blogger locked me out of my blogs. Just as mysteriously, they are now letting me in. Here I am again. Be sure to read an excerpt of Troublesome Neighbors at my author page on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or iBookstore. 

I wouldn't mind if you bought the fantasy novella and gave me a review either.

What Happened?????

Well, I'll be darned.

Somehow, I got back into my blog.

I won't ask questions.

Now I must decided whether I will post my blog at my author website [in process].

How did I return? I think it has something to do with scrounging around for book reviews for Troublesome Neighbors, a story of how a young Renna, now a veteran of the Half-Elven Rebellion, turns the tables on Lord Gorsfeld for his annoying harassments of her people. You can read an except at the Far Isles Half-Elven Website. Anyway, some form wanted me to check in and my old login info worked.

Oh. Troublesome Neighbors even has a four-star review which you can read here.

If my login info works again tomorrow,

I'll post my review of Dark Predator which has been languishing in a Word doc.

Mining Faery Lore for Plot Lines: "Bones of Faerie"

Writers and story-tellers mine Faery Lore for stories, probably since the idea of the magical little people was invented. The first written faery story that I know of is Apuleius's Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, aka Beauty and the Beast by any other name. I've been known to steal ideas myself in a draft lost somewhere in  my computer.

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner is a dark, lyrical telling of the aftermath of a war between humans and Fey. As in all true apocalyptic novels, the atmosphere is foreboding with the MC struggling for survival in a hostile world. Fun note: after a truce of sorts, the St Louis arch marks the border between the two planes. Ya gotta love it when an author knows her stuff [or his] well enough to throw factoids like that ... and make them real.

The well-drawn characters did disappoint a bit. Though three-dimensional, they seldom drifted from their pre-ordained role in the plot line. One notable element, I thought: the use of MC's newborn sister's infanticide since the babe becomes an on-going character who is important to the denouement. -- Hey it's fantasy, and not all dead characters are zombies.

Simner makes the settings real with economy which allows her to tells us a complex tale within a 250-word YA book. After the Apocalypse humans struggle in a world were the vegetation is mobile, maybe not as fast as animals ... but faster than the regular wheat field. The trees are so menacing that it's almost impossible to raise enough food to survive the winters. 

Physical survival isn't the only problem the MC faces. Her village has prospered because her father has systematically killed anyone who shows signs of magic, even newborns.  

The opening of Chapter 3: "Words froze in my throat as I stared at my father. Had he seen the light in the sink, the paleness in my hair? Cast out the magic born among you. Yet I was no babe to set out in the night. Father had told me often enough how he'd have dealt with Cam had the boy lived: "With a single stroke across the throat, swift and deep."

This is the first book in a trilogy.

[Janni Lee Simner. Bones of Faerie. New York: Random House Children's Books, 2009]

This is a new author to me, who entered my home with a bunch of books my kids sent me, but she's a acclaimed writer if you want to visit her website. I'm still debating whether to keep it, but I'm afraid the hardback pile will topple if I add another book.

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Plot isn't all. You need people to live in your world ... aka characters. Have been thinking a lot about characters the past week. Got an editor request for a rewrite ... one of the points was the "main" character wasn't fleshed out enough ... in a flash piece. I'm working on it, but can't see where I have much wiggle room.

Margo Berendson has also been thinking about characters. You might take a look at her blog on making and breaking character "rules". You might learn something ... if only a new take on dragons. 

Margo much more disciplined than I am and worth reading regularly. Maybe because she writes at a higher altitude than I do.

Golden Oldies: Books that Do and Don't Stand the Test of Time: Review of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" & More

Nothing like showing up late for the party. I always feel like that when I pick up a Lois Duncan book at a used book store. Yeah, reading one of her books is usually one, full of dread party. Recently read I Know What You Did Last Summer, a chilling, suspenseful book without any gore. -- Guess the 1997 "blockbuster" movie wasn't a slasher movie ... even though I didn't see it.

The plot centers around four clueless teens who think they can bury a bad decision if they don't talk about it. Unfortunately, such decisions rise like zombies and develop a life of their own. -- No, Last Summer isn't a zombie story. In this case, someone has figured out their secret and stalks them, as he seeks retribution for a hit and run death.

Duncan has a lean style, but manages to tie up all the loose ends in a relatively short book. What didn't work for me: The characters didn't seem to grow. They remained much the same at the end of the book as at the beginning ... though they did give up their pact to remain silent  and face the music.  

What really worked for me was the way Duncan mixed flash backs to show the difference a year can make in someone's life. The opening scenes of panic hook the reader and attach them to the story ... as Jill, probably the most important character, must confront actions she'd rather bury in the deep recesses of her mind as well as a love she can't give up.

Duncan winds up the tension in the book by using different viewpoints to create a feeling of dread. Each chapter gives judicious pieces of information about the secret in flashbacks with the story unfolding in standard mystery fashion. The flashbacks also delineate the character of the teens.  

[Lois Duncan. I Know What You Did Last Summer. 

New York: Laurel Leaf, Random House, 1973.]

Trade ... though I should probably keep and study it

Read an Ellis Peters [Brother Cadfael] mystery set in modern times: The Will and the Deed.  The book was copyrighted in 1960 and had a nice plot/villain twist. But, today it felt unbelievable. Not only did the technology feel off to this Luddite ... but inflation made the amount of money involved silly as a motive for murder.

Trade ... though it'll probably end up with Friends of the Library

Inflation has influenced publishing. I've always wondered if larger/ longer books were a result of the higher prices books now cost. Like, the writer's cost is the least important part of a publisher's expenses.

This comment comes up because I again revisited Tamora Pierce's Tortall. This time: Mastiff, A Tortall Legend, the third book in the Beka Cooper trilogy. The hardback's so heavy it made my thumbs hurt, but still kept reading until after two AM to finish it ... even though I've read it at least three times.

The fact that I own the book in hardback tells you how good I think the book is.

Last but not least, I read Dorothy Gilman's Caravan about getting lost in the Sahara before WWI. The books a fascinating exercise in breaking the "rule" of telling a story. The revenge of the narrator is as downplayed as it's brilliant

I'll probably trade it since I'm trying to clear some room on my bookshelves.  

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Just what I need is an interruption in my writing schedule ... especially since critiques are starting to come in on "Troublesome Neighbors". But ... an editor asked me for a revision. Yeah, I'm going to do it ... even though only a token payment is involved.