Original subtitles

Beginning writers often don't know and

can't tell if they have a story.

They know that they've got an idea, but

even once you've got an idea, what do

you do with it? How do you build it up?

How do you know if your idea has legs?

if it's going to go anywhere.

We're going to talk about that. We're

going to talk about how you build a

short story, how you build a novel, how

you build a plot, how you find out if

you have an idea or a notion or a

concept

or something that actually might be able

to stand up there on its own two legs as

a novel.

I especially during the Sandman years

would worry and think and obsessively

ask myself questions about what is the

story? What is the story? I'm making

these things. They're how I feed myself.

They're how I feed my family. They're

how I pay the rent. What is the story?

And eventually what I decided was the

story is anything fictional that keeps

you turning the pages

and doesn't leave you feeling cheated at

the end.

That was my definition.

My son Ash is three years old, just

turned three, and his favorite game is

to stand next to me on a bed or on a

large sofa and go, "What's going to

happen?" And then I have to go, I don't

know what's going to happen. And then he

jumps in the air and falls down on the

sofa. This can go on for weeks if you

let him. He just thinks the what's going

to happen game is the best game in the

world.

The what's going to happen game

is the game that you play

as a writer

with your readers.

What's going to happen?

And that is what keeps them turning the

pages. Things they don't know, things

they need to find out, things they care

about.

And coming into a story, it can just be

things like, "Who are these people?

What are they doing?

Why should I care? That's a bit odd."

After a while, it can get a lot deeper.

It can be, "Is she going to kiss her?

Is she going to poison her?

Uh, does she know about the missing

will?

Do they know that grandmother's body is

still in the room upstairs? Um, what's

going to happen? I wrote an essay

once, a very small essay in a book

called Stories,

and

it was called Just Four Words.

It began when somebody wrote into my

blog,

"Dear Neil, if you could choose a quote

either by you or another author to be

inscribed on the wall of a public

library children's area, what would it

be? Thanks, Lynn."

I pondered for a bit. I'd said a lot

about books and kids reading over the

years, and other people had said things

pathier and wiser than I ever could. And

then it hit me. And this is what I

wrote.

I'm not sure I'd put a quote up if it

was me and I had a library wall to

deface. I think I'd just remind people

of the power of stories, of why they

exist in the first place. I'd put up the

four words that anyone telling a story

wants to hear, the ones that show that

it's working and that pages will be

turned.

And then what happened?

The four words that children ask when

you pause telling them a story. The four

words you hear at the end of a chapter.

The four words spoken or unspoken that

show you as a storyteller that people

care

and then what happened.

And those words I think

are the most important words there are

for a storyteller.

So, anything you can do to keep people

turning the pages is legitimate,

the main thing that you have to do

is to care.

Cuz if you don't care what happened,

nobody else will. If you don't care

about these people, nobody else will. If

it doesn't matter to you

what happened next,

nobody else is going to give the

smallest toss.

So you need to care

and you need to imbue that care into

your writing because then anytime you

stop, anytime you move from one

character to another character, anytime

you move from place to place, anytime

you hesitate,

the question is going to be and then

what happened.

So

you are starting a project.

You are starting from scratch. Whether

it's a comic, a graphic novel, whether

it's a novel, whether it's a short

story, whether it's television, whether

it's a movie script, you're starting

something completely new. One of the

best things that you can do is just sit

there. I like to do it by hand if I can.

I will take out a notebook and I will

write down everything I know. And it's a

giant brain dump. Um, sometimes there'll

be little doodles, words will get

circled. This is not an essay for people

to read. This is me telling myself

right up front

just everything I know. The process of

writing

is a really important one because even

in the process of writing anything

simple, your mind starts to notice

connections

and connections

are what fiction is made out of.

So stories begin with ideas

and the idea can be very very small. It

can be a feeling. It can be an image.

It can be something that you it can be

something your story begins with. It

could be something your story ends with.

It could be some moment from the middle.

It could be two characters interacting.

Mostly you don't know an entire story or

I don't know an entire story. I will

write it to find out what happens but I

have something going in.

The question then is

is that enough to start a story with? Um

sometimes if it's a beginning

I have to have a general idea of where

it's going to go. If it's an end, I need

to know how we got there.

Um, I've been writing long enough that I

have

a certain amount of faith in myself and

I simp and and I think faith in yourself

is something

that you need because the process of

writing

it's wy coyote running along a cliff and

then still running and he's fine until

he stops and looks down.

So, as a writer,

part of your job is not to stop and look

down and go, there is nothing underneath

me because then you will fall. It's it's

a process of just continuing to run

toward the place, but you have to know

where you're running to.

very often

something that I'm going to want to know

before I begin

is what it's about.

And I'm probably really not going to

find that out

until it's over, until I sit there and

reread it and I go, "What was this

about?" But I need to have some kind of

idea of what it's about going in. and

and that isn't plot.

If anything, I I guess you could call it

theme.

Um, for me, it's just what is this

about? I'm going to write Neverware.

I have an idea

of people living under London, a world

under London. I have this idea of

the idea of a hidden London. The idea of

giving London place names literal

meanings. So there really will be

shepherds in Shepherd's Bush.

That that's an idea.

Um what's it about?

What it has to be about? And this is

what I thought going into it. And it was

also wasn't entirely what I discovered

it had been about at the end, but it was

what I went in with was just going,

"Okay, I want this to be about

the people who fall through the cracks.

I want to write about homelessness.

I want to write about the mentally ill.

I want to write about the people who

have fallen through the cracks in big

cities and are living rough.

on the sidewalks

who are living as they can.

Um, and I want to do that

in a way that anybody reading it is

going to enjoy it and they will come to

it unconvinced and not necessarily know

that that's what it's about.

Because if I sat down and said, "Right,

I'm writing a big book about

homelessness." The only people who would

pick it up and read it would be people

interested in a book about homelessness.

What I want to do here is write a book

about living in a big city. I want to

write an adventure,

but I want to write an adventure which

when people finish reading that story,

they're going to look at the homeless.

They're going to look at the people

um sleeping in the shop doorways.

They're going to look at these people

and they aren't going to pretend they're

invisible

because and that for me suddenly

crystallized the metaphor. I mean in for

me so much fantasy is about making a

metaphor concrete.

What it's about for me is the way that

we treat the homeless as invisible and

treat them as non-persons. Good. then

they are going to essentially be

invisible. They're going to be

non-persons.

How do I build up from that? And I have

my hero Richard, Richard Mayhew, and he

encounters a girl from London below,

from this other London that that exists

beneath and all around uh London. He

helps her. He saves her. And in so

doing, he becomes part of London below

and discovers that people can no longer

see him. He goes into his office. They

don't know who he is. Um, ATMs no longer

give him money. Taxis won't stop for

him. He has become an invisible

unperson. And now he needs to go into

London below. Um, and the plot needs to

happen. So, a lot of what I'm doing is

going, okay, I have an idea. The idea is

this kind of London above, London below

thing. The what's it about?

Then carries me a lot further into it.

What am I trying to say? What am I

trying to tell here? Um

there is an old line that you know if

you want a message you use Western Union

and and that may be true but really if

you're writing something you have to

have something you want to say it has to

be about something and it has to be

about something for you. I'm not saying

everything needs a giant social message,

but I am saying you need to know what

your story is about.

young writers because young writers are

peaceable souls. Because young writers

want to live in a happy place. Because

young writers have had enough conflict

in their lives already tend to shy away

from conflict. And you will read short

stories by them. Um and you'll go but

but there that's the place where your

two characters are meant to bounce and

meant to collide. This is where the plot

is meant to get tough. This is where

things are meant to get difficult for

people, but they'll avoid it.

And

making young writers

face conflict, making them write

conflict, making them realize that there

are so many different ways

you can solve

problems of conflict, but you have to

have the conflict first. You can attack

something headon. You can go around it.

You can attack it surreptitiously. You

can deal it with it with with strength.

You can deal with it with intelligence.

You can go into it and you can fail. You

can go into it and you can succeed. You

can go into it neither succeed nor fail

but create an outcome that was

completely unexpected

um and sends everything off into a whole

new direction. You can succeed, but in

succeeding make things worse. There's

all of these things that you can do in

conflict, but you have to allow the

conflict to happen.

And that is so much of what a plot is.

If you're building a story, you have a

whole bunch of building blocks. You have

the words and the language. It's going

to be a huge part.

Just the voice of the story. What does

it sound like? What is your narrative

voice? What do your characters sound

like? That's huge. The next is the

characters.

Who are they? What do they do? What do

they want?

I'm going to harp on a lot about what

characters want. I'm going to harp on

about what characters want because over

and over again you'll find when you're

plotting, when you're putting something

together, it's the only question that

opens the door to what do you do next?

If you get stuck, you can ask yourself

what your characters want and that is

like a flashlight. It shines a light on

the road ahead and lets you move

forward. Somebody once asked me, they

said, "I I keep coming up with great

characters

and great characters and I know who they

are and I know what they're doing, but I

can't make a plot happen." And I said,

"Great. In which case, just have two of

your best characters

and have them figure out what they want

and have them want things that are

mutually exclusive

and then set them off on their quest and

you know that only one of them can have

the thing, whatever the thing that they

want is. If they succeed, the other one

fails and vice versa. Now, let's get

them going. That's got to give you

conflict. It's got to give you a plot.

And sometimes the what does a character

want will surprise you. You know, it's

not just they want the money, they want

the boy.

A lot of the time it's they want to

learn,

they want to grow up, they want to save

their friend,

um they need and and so it's what do you

want? What do you need? And that as a

driver is always one stage below the

mechanics of plotting. And it will save

your ass over and over as a writer if

you take that as an important thing. And

remember

that characters

always

for good or for evil

get what they need. They do not get what

they want.