Arc is the storyline from beginning to middle to end.

In my novel “Dropping Colors,” I’m a third of the way into the story – I know that my two main characters, an artist and a musician, are going to meet, engage in some kind of romance and change each other’s realities. How my story will end is up to my subconscious and the process of letting the story unfold.

The arc is a very loose description of story structure, similar to how the architecture of a home can be reduced to the walls, windows and doors.

The structure of a story contains the elements of the arc line but with more detail. Stories need to have an origination, or some kind of incident that sets up the conflict. This is the beginning.

The middle is the escalation of that conflict and a complication of the situation the characters have to face. The ending resolves the conflict and situation, offering a resolution, unless the story is part of a series.

The storyline, in that case, is resolved but something brought up in the telling sets up a new conflict that can be continued in the next installment. Or, in the case of mysteries, one case is closed but there will be another as part of the character’s job or hobby.

Alongside the story arc, there is character arc.

The character arc is the line of the character’s transformation from the beginning to the middle and to the end. The line shows how the character faces her flaws, fears and limitations and overcomes what hinders her from getting what she wants.

The arc, in other words, is the personal growth and development that she undergoes in a story.

See Zoey the dachshund’s take on arc at http://zoeyspaw.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/a-dogs-story-journey/#comments

But if I achieve one or both, the two literary devices can add complexity to how I tell that story.

Subtext, or the undertone, is the content the characters or narrator do not announce explicitly. It is implicit, the unspoken thoughts and motives of the characters and the content underneath their spoken dialogue. This implicitness can point to conflict, anger, conceit and other emotions.

When I write, I want my characters to say one thing but mean another, to not express how they really feel when they are in situations that make such expression difficult. I want them to have an inner life that they do not completely understand, so that their actions are not self-evident.

As for symbols, I typically write from a brief outline, not planning to use a person, object, event or situation to represent something else in addition to its literal meaning.

In my latest novel project, “Dropping Colors,” my writer’s group pointed out that my mention of a skeleton key that Kate kept that her father had lost is intriguing. The key, mentioned in chapter 1, is something I will include in the end of the book, but its meaning is not yet clear to me.

I like that I will be discovering that meaning as I dig into Kate’s character, adding another layer to the text that may surprise me.

Metaphors and similes are two of my favorite literary devices. I love comparing things, coming up with my own slant on how to describe my dog, for example.

A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things, using the qualities of one object or idea to illustrate the qualities in the other. “My dog is a teddy bear” is a metaphor.

A simile is a type of metaphor that compares two things using the word “like” or “as,” such as, “My dog barks like a Great Dane.”

Another type of comparison is a literary analogy, which compares a subject point by point to something else that is familiar. The key to an analogy is to find some characteristics of both that have similar qualities.

The key to adding complexity to text is to consciously use some of the literary devices but also to let the devices arise out of the process of discovering what your characters want to say and do and be.

Learning about the elements of writing – storytelling, story structure and word usage – is similar to using an instruction manual to fix a car.

Diagnosing the problem, looking at a chart pointing out the parts of the car and reading about the necessary steps doesn’t mean the problem will be solved. The missing element could be the desire to do the work, or the confidence and skill to complete it so the car runs.

Writing requires work, and to do that work, there needs to be motivation, discipline and, I believe, a love for some or several aspects of creating or the final creation. Do you love words, individually or how they sound in sentences? Do you love telling stories? Do you love solving story problems? Do you want to make readers feel? Do you want to feel?

Or maybe you like to see your name in print? Or to have finished something?

Writers need spark, just like cars need spark plugs to fire the ignition. For me that spark is a passion for words and getting lost in the story or poem I’m writing, so that what comes out feels like dancing and breathing and living, while I lose awareness of my physical self.

Like cars that need gas in the tank, writers need the space and time to be present for writing. If the tank drops toward the E, writers need to ride out their writer’s block or frustration with the knowledge that these emotions are not permanent.

I find that I get frustrated having so little time for writing.

The result is I save up words, emotions and ideas like money in the bank for when I do get to hang out with my laptop. I let go of my editor and inner critic, plus any negative emotions I have, because now it’s time for my date with QWERTY.

I schedule my writing time, not to specific days but to two to three times a week. I log in the hours I write, so I can see that, like an odometer marking the miles, I am making progress toward a goal. I get excited about every 5,000 words I finish in a novel’s rough draft.

All of this is my fuel for not giving up when I am unpublished with a burning, driving, raging yawp to get my words out into the world. I want my words to be heard, read and even sung.

I don’t necessarily have a map with every step plotted out, but what I do have is a giant imagination, a spark of creativity without which I would fade and a passion for this art I cannot stop loving.

See Zoey the dachshund’s interpretation of toolboxes at http://zoeyspaw.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/a-dachshunds-toolbox/

I’ve just finished month four of my yearlong blog of 52: A Year of Writing Basics, Beliefs and Beauty.

A little late, my review is three months, plus one.

Each week, I am tackling a writing topic, starting with the basics of Plot, Setting, Character, Dialogue and Pacing to fire up the big guns in my writer’s toolbox.
The BIG guns, you ask.

Before opening the toolbox, I want to key in on the essentials of writing a story or novel.

There has to be a hook in the beginning that contains a strong inciting incident. This incident triggers the main character’s problem or submerges him or her into trouble. She wants something but has to face obstacles that block the path to obtaining her goals and desires.

The telling of her story begins in the middle of the action to achieve a level of pacing that draws in the reader. The exciting moment is what gets readers turning the page, which likely won’t happen if the telling is bogged down with back story or has to start at the beginning without anything interesting happening.

Wherever they appear in a story, flashbacks should retell what happened before the story’s action begins and are triggered by something specific, such as a character seeing an object and remembering something because of it.

The story unfolds as a series of scenes strung together with a beginning, middle and end, or the arc of the entire telling. The outcome of each scene is what moves the plot forward.

What the story is about and why it matters is the theme, which offers insights or comments about the human experience.

The setting grounds the character in his or her reality without drawing too much attention to the words.

Voice comes through word choice and how words are put together to describe things.

Unlike that of the author, a character’s voice is revealed in her behaviors and attitudes to those around her. Her dialogue is reduced to the essentials, leaving out the normal repetitions, tangents and diversions that occur in regular conversation.

The elements of fiction are just one aspect of my toolbox, as are my hammer, nails, screwdriver and pliers that represent my paper, pen, laptop, journals and the other things I need to do the writing.

The specifics of what is in a writer’s toolbox will be continued to next week, because my quarterly review has two parts. Like some CEOs, I need lots of paper to make a point.

* See Zoey the dachshund’s blog on her four-month review at http://zoeyspaw.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/a-dogs-quarterly-review/

There is a purpose to a walk, while the memories are part of the head chatter that keeps our minds busy. Flashbacks – a sudden, brief relocation to the past before returning to the present – should not fall into this role.

I just finished a book that had flashbacks within flashbacks and whipped me around time and place that I almost put the book down, except I wanted to find out the end of the story. I had to flip back pages to reclaim where I was, interrupting the flow of my wanting to inhale the story.

Writers don’t want readers to go backwards, unless it’s to reread a beautiful passage or to review after putting the book down for a long (a very long) time.

Flashbacks should be used sparingly and serve a clear purpose, so that they don’t slow down the story. Their purpose can be to influence later events, reveal character and motivation, explain an event or add depth to the story.

A flashback interjects an incident from the character’s past. It can be presented as a reflection, a snatch of memory, a dream or dialogue. It can tell back story, or what occurred before the actual event, kept on a need-to-know basis.

Flashbacks should be avoided in the opening scene or in a major action scene, nor used if they do not relate to the current unfolding of events. Cues such as color, scent or sound can indicate the end of the flashback.

Just like with a walk.

But this time the cue returns you to reality after getting lost in thought, a nice place to be but not if it is in a novel or story.

See Zoey the dachshund’s blog on the same topic at http://zoeyspaw.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/dog-gone-memories/.

Subplots are the stories within a story that support or drive the main plot. They serve as secondary plots that connect to the main plot in time, place or thematic significance.

In my novel “Dropping Colors,” Will Banks and his band, the Slingers, serve as a secondary plot that moves concurrently with the unfolding of the main plot of Kate Letts losing her art supplies in a fire.

The two plot strands will intersect at the point of Kate and Will meeting at a coffee shop where the Slingers are playing. The plot strands will diverge again as the two characters continue operating in their individual lives until they form a relationship based on their mutual passion for the arts.

The characters within the subplot – called supporting or minor characters – have to interact with the characters in the main plot at some point in the telling of the story. Otherwise, the different stories remain separate as if part of a short story collection.

What occurs in the subplots serves to complicate the life of the main character. Subplots can be about almost anything in a main character’s private, personal, or professional life, such as a budding romantic relationship or a complication in the workplace from a jealous co-worker.

Subplots (whether a single strand or several) take up less space, involve less of the action and have less significant events that occur.

Subplots connect with the main plot to add an idea, impact the novel’s resolution, introduce secondary characters or depict characteristics of the main character that readers otherwise wouldn’t see.

If there are too many subplots, they distract the reader from the main plot.

The subplots have to contrast with the plot but not repeat or compete with it.

And they are complete stories with a beginning, middle and end.

But it’s not so cut and dry.

A scene can carry over to the next chapter to keep the reader turning the pages unable to resist – as with a potato chip or an M&M – just one more.

Each scene tells a mini story complete with dialogue, action and descriptions. The scenes taken as a whole advance the story or move the plot forward.

A member of my writer’s group pointed out that every scene needs to work as a stand-alone story and bridge to the next scene, or chapter. That way, the scene could be pulled out and stand on its own.

I simply had thought a story or novel was no more than a series of scenes strung together to create the beginning, middle and end.

Taking the advice seriously meant I had to work harder at my writing.

To do this, I try to think of each scene as a take for the stage. I ask what the purpose is for the scene and why I care about what’s happening.

There should be some kind of tension or conflict among my characters. How they act is motivated by their wants and desires, as well as their feelings and reactions to one another.

The main character of the scene should have an objective, face opposition to that objective and endure rising stakes that make his or her choices harder and harder to make.

Scenes can end in various points in the storytelling process. They can end in the middle of the action, at the point of a major decision or when there is new information.

Scene can end:

• At a strong display of emotion.
• When raising a question with no immediate answer.
• When there are changes for a shift in time or place.

Avoid scenes where characters just talk without conflict, that switch between points of view and that introduce a new character’s viewpoint too far into the telling of the story.

If successful, the scenes won’t be noticed, as well as the chapter breaks, if the reader is immersed in the story, almost as if watching a movie.

The characters you see a lot of are called the major or main characters because they play the primary role in the story’s action. The top dog among these characters is the protagonist, also called the main or the major character. If there are two or a few protagonists, they are the co-protagonists who copilot the action and progression of the story.

The protagonist should have a minor flaw; she should want something; and she has to change as a result of the experiences she undergoes.*

If there is an antagonist who acts against the protagonist, trying to prevent her from getting what she wants, this character has to have a major flaw and at least one redeeming quality.

In screenplays, the protagonist is called the hero or heroine. This protagonist has a fatal flaw tied to a need that messes up her world until she can figure things out to make them right again.

The antagonist is the villain who has many flaws and dislikable features but at least one redeeming quality.

The anti-hero is similar to a hero, but at the beginning of a movie does not act out of good and is self-serving, but ends up on the path of redemption.

In both screenplays and novels, the minor characters are not the main point of the story. They are not the major players to whom the story is happening, but they interact with or grab the attention of those main characters.

There are three types of minor characters, including:

• Walk-ons: they serve as the background or scenery of the story and shouldn’t distract from the storyline. Examples include the waiter serving a meal, the cabdriver giving a ride or the bartender pouring a drink.
• Supporting: the sidekick in a mystery who helps the protagonist solve clues.
• General minor: they are momentarily involved in the action and play a minor role in the story. Examples include the protagonist’s best friend, mother or a sibling.

The minor characters, unless they are the walk-ons, should be given a name and a few quirky details. They can be made memorable by being eccentric, if they have exaggerated qualities or are obsessive about something.

Minor characters need to appear as independent people with personalities, motivations and desires of their own.

If the minor characters do not have a purpose in the story’s telling, then get rid of them.

* Note  1: I use the feminine gender to refer to the protagonist because that’s the gender I tend to use for my main characters.

* Note 2: See Zoey’s blog on her take on major versus minor characters at http://zoeyspaw.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/a-dogs-best-friend-plus-the-other-friends/

To give readers those essential qualities involves telling the story and identifying the features and traits of the characters as individuals and in how they relate to one another.

The protagonist, or the main character of the story, is more fully developed than the antagonist and other minor characters. The antagonist can be a character, group of characters or an institution that serves as the principal opponent or foil of the protagonist. The protagonist has to contend or deal with this opposition to achieve his or her goal.

Before writing, I ask a few questions about my protagonist, which is Kate Letts in the novel I’m currently writing. I’m exploring how Kate deals with the after-effects of losing her home and belongings to a fire. I need to know why Kate is telling her story, what she wants and what she will learn.

I ask general questions, such as:

• What does she want above all else, or what is her major goal?
• What is she afraid of?
• What doesn’t like about her situation?
• What are her secrets?
• Does she have a lovable quirk or a nervous gesture?
• What is her main unlikable quality?
• What is likable about her?

More specifically, what does this character look like and act like and how does she behave around others:

• What is her hairstyle? What are her facial features? How tall is she? How does she dress? What kind of jewelry does she wear?
• What are her speech patterns? What is her cultural and religious (if any) background?
• What are her mannerisms? Her gestures? Her tastes? Her hobbies?
• What is her job? What is her education? What does she drive? Does she bike or walk to get around? Where does she get her groceries and clothes?  

Another trick I learned is to envision a character and then try to find him or her in a magazine photo, store ad or online and cut out the image. I found magazine ads for Kate, as well as two of my minor characters, Samantha and Emma.

It’s a thrill to have turned imagination into a real image that I can refer to for inspiration as I continue on my path in the telling of Kate’s story.

As a writer, I have to be hyper alert to making the mistake that can slip in if I get lazy as I pen and edit my stories.

Point of view is the narrator’s position in relation to the story he or she is telling.

The narrator can be a character in the story or an outside observer.

The point of view can be subjective, describing one or more character’s thoughts and emotions. Or it can be objective by being entirely omniscient and all knowing or omniscient limited, narrowed to the perspective of a single character.

In first person, the narrator is the main or a secondary character telling the story. The “I” (or “we”) observes and reflects on the main events of the story from the beginning through the end.

Using first person is a way to reveal the narrator’s unspoken thoughts or internal musings, adding depth to the external events that occur. These thoughts can be directly expressed or coupled with action, letting the reader interpret that deeper level of the story.

Writing in second person involves the narrator referring to one of the characters as “you,” giving readers the impression they are the “you.”

Second person is the least common voice, while third person is the most common.

Third person has an unspecified or uninvolved narrator who is not a character in the story. The narrator refers to the primary and secondary characters as “he,” “she,” “it” and “they.”

Point of view can become annoying when a writer switches among characters in the same chapter or, in some cases, the same paragraph. I have encountered this with genre writers who are on their third or fourth book and obviously are under contract to crank out another book. You know what I mean?

The writer making this mistake is moving too quickly through the scene, bouncing from character to character without developing a particular character and how he or she is acting and reacting in a moment of the story.

To give an example, the writer should not say something like:

Samantha sniffed, offended at what Sarah had said in the break room, trying to think of what to say in response. Sarah turned her back to microwave her lunch, rolling her eyes at the cupboards. The dishwasher, though the sign said “dirty dishes,” rattled as it cleaned.

Here, the viewpoint shifted from Samantha to Sarah to the dishwasher, which was acting independently. It wasn’t being observed by Samantha or Sarah.

Point of view is something that should go unnoticed by the reader but becomes part of how they feel the story as they read through the plot.