STORY JUICE
Has your story got juice?
Does every sentence make us want to keep reading? If not, is there a
vitamin you can take to cure the problem?
According to Stephen King, there is a vitamin that will cure the story blahs—it’s Vitamin V. King’s advice about using vigorous verbs is top-shelf stuff, and
when applied, it can quickly up the muscle factor of any story.
Happily, there are even more ways to tap the V in vigorous. Incorporating any of the following
suggestions will increase readers’ desire to pay attention to each word on the
page. Combine these, and the energy of
your story will take off like a rocket, without changing the story
itself. Readers may even stay up all
night to finish the book. Here’s how to
JUICE up your story in a hurry:
Jump in the deep end of POV – The deeper the
point-of-view, the more entwined the readers get with our characters. Do POV
right, and the story starts to feel like it's happening to them--our readers
hearts are pounding, blood zooming, hair raising, bumps chilling. Think of POV
as a fishing hook—the deeper you drop it, the more readers are hooked. The
example below is from my fourth novel, Chasing Free. I wrote it the
first way then challenged myself to deepen the POV. Not only did it improve the
paragraph, it put a smile on my face and inspired the last short sentence in
the second example.
‘Regular’
POV: The fragrant curtain lifted and
he jerked against the ropes that bound him to the bed. Did she just carve a letter on him? He could feel the blood running on both sides
of his neck and fought down the panic.
Deep POV: The fragrant curtain lifted and he jerked
against the ropes tied to the bed posts.
Did she just carve a letter on me?
Blood ran on both sides of his neck and a surge of panic followed. How
deep had she cut?
Unleash the
unexpected – Readers love to be surprised, even in small ways. You don’t have to put surprises in every
sentence, but try to work one into each chapter. It could be something as simple as your MC
ordering a really weird drink or ice cream flavor; an unusual observation of
something ordinary; an unforeseen plot twist, like the villain tripping just when he's lunging at the MC; perhaps a spot of magic or ESP in a book that otherwise
doesn’t feature those things; a snappy unexpected comeback in dialogue.
Have some fun with
this stuff. Make yourself giggle at
knowing you’re giving readers a little jolt, a sip of the juice—go ahead, I dare you.
Most of us aren’t getting paid nearly as much as we should be for the
hundreds of hours spent writing, so we might as well find ways to make this
toil fun. Authors who are rolling in the
writing dough, well, it’s probably because their stories have juice and they’re having fun...all the way to
the bank.
Include a purpose and
B/M/E for physical movements – We use physical beats to break up narrative
and dialogue, to ground the readers in the story, convey emotions and show
action. But some physical beats get plugged in just because it seems like we
should tell the reader things like, ‘He hurried to the door’.
Physical beats can add a lot to a story—but don’t miss out
on the potential to double-dip. Are you
showing your character hurrying to the door for a reason, other than someone's knocking
on it? It’s a great opportunity to slip
in a few words of internal thoughts in a natural way:
Okay, so you’ve got your double-dip reason for making the MC hurry to the door, but is that enough? Does your MC greet his visitor and off they go— straight into dialogue and the ‘moment’, or are you going to finish what you started and take us through this ‘mini scene’ like a camera would? Giving physical beats a complete beginning/middle/end draws the reader into the scene in a way that the ‘beginning’ movement can’t accomplish on its own:
He hurried to the door, nerves
bunching. Would she like the surprise or
would it piss her off? The door
swung open faster than he’d intended, catching his bare toes. Sophia’s wince of sympathy only increased the
pain in his foot.
“Thanks for coming over.” He stepped back to let her in then
closed the door. Her shy smile made him forget the sting in his toes.
Cut the ‘ly’ words – Using vigorous verbs to describe action will alleviate the urge to use ‘ly’ words. Does this mean you should never use an ‘ly’ word? No. It means use them sparingly and wisely—and only when you’re sure no other word works better.
Weak: She closed the
door loudly.
Vigorous: She slammed
the door.
Eliminate – We’ve all read the pundits’ advice: Eliminate unnecessary words and passive voice. No matter how many books we’ve written, we have to stay on the lookout for these juice-depleters. It’s like eating healthy – it requires constant vigilance and a firm resolve. These pests are like body weight – so dang easy to put on and a lot of work to take off.
I
Googled the words ‘Story Juice’. Up
popped links to a book with the same title.
Of course I had to check it out.
The book’s authors, Julie Fuoti and Lisa Johnson, write about ‘how ideas
spread and brands grow’. It’s
interesting that their underlying principal of what makes this happen is storytelling on a corporate level. How cool is that? The first section of their
book starts with the following statement and points. You can access their free book at: http://www.storyjuicing.com/
Storytellers
know how to accelerate brand growth and spread ideas because of their ability
to:
1. Motivate people to pay attention
2. Inspire people to action
3. Bring data to life and make it relevant to
people’s daily lives
4. Make information memorable, repeatable, and easy
to spread.
5. Shape new beliefs and change minds
6. Raise money
7. Gather and unite an authentic
community
Fuoti and Johnson are
referencing the impact of having ‘stories’ behind company products, resulting
in these points above. It’s interesting
to see how these same points relate to our novels. I especially like number six. Number seven makes me think of Stephenie
Meyer and her Twihards, Lee Child and his Reacher Creatures.
So how do we, the way-smart fun-loving storytellers of the
world, manage to pull off the above? We
write vigorously.
