The Lingo of Storytelling - reprise edition

 

Good morning, Seekerville!

Last month I brought you a post about writing in "Baby Bits." (You can read that post HERE.) When I wrote that post, I thought I had been through the proverbial wringer...but God wasn't done with me yet. The week after that post appeared, my father passed away suddenly while I was still in the middle of serving on the jury of that criminal case. Meanwhile some health symptoms related to my hyperparathyroidism were increasing.

So, what is a writer to do? After much prayer, I decided to step down from many responsibilities in my life and take a sabbatical until after my surgery and my father's memorial service at the end of March.

I'm planning to step back into my normal (?) life by April 1st, hopefully energized, thinking clearly, and able to write again.

I have a feeling I'm going to have to refresh my memory on many things about writing - so I'm starting here with a reprise edition of a post I wrote a couple years ago.

I hope the reminder is as valuable to you as it is to me!

The Lingo of Storytelling

A few weeks ago, Mary Conealy brought us a post about the Lingo of Designed Pages – a brief vocabulary of the series of edits we authors enjoy as our stories travel from our computers to published books. You can read that post here: Designed Pages--the Lingo

Today, I’m bringing you a brief introduction to the vocabulary of writing stories. I’ve gleaned these often-used but seldom-defined words from questions posed by newbie writers. Some of these might be familiar to you, but some might not be.

Just for fun, see if you can come up with a definition before reading mine. Keep track of the times we agree, and then share your score in the comments!

1. Protagonist: As the main character in the story, the protagonist is the person that the story is about. Also called the Hero or the Heroine. A romance will have both.

2. Antagonist: The antagonist in the story is the character who is working against the protagonist. The bad guy. Of course, the antagonist doesn’t have to be a guy (think of Cruella D’Ville in 101 Dalmatians) or even a person. It can be a setting, the weather, or even the fallout from a bad decision the protagonist made in the past. The antagonist doesn’t even have to be “bad,” as long as he or she is working against the protagonist’s goals.

3. Secondary Character: This is any character who adds to the characters’ stories without insisting on telling their own. These are the parents, the neighbors, the sidekicks, the grandmotherly woman at church. Secondary characters round out your cast of characters and give your protagonist someone to talk to or to react to. They can also provide a much needed moment of comic relief in a tense scene.

4. Active Voice: This is a grammar term that means that the subject of the sentence is the one doing the action of the verb. Like this: “Sam ate the grasshopper.” The active voice is preferable for modern popular fiction since it tends to keep the reader involved in the action of the story.

5. Passive Voice: Another grammar term. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is the one having the action done to him. Like this: “The grasshopper was eaten by Sam.” Quite often, a passive voice sentence will have an understood agent, as in: “The grasshopper was eaten.” The passive voice is out of favor in popular fiction right now, so learn to identify the passive voice and to turn those sentences into active ones.

By the way, does it help to know that Sam is a dog? He'll eat anything that stays still long enough to go into his mouth!

 
6. In media res: This is a Latin term that used to be taught in composition and writing classes. It means “in the middle of things.” We quite often refer to the concept without using the Latin phrase – we all know to start our stories in the middle of the action, right?

7. Three-Act Structure: This is one way to structure a plot. There are others, but this is the one you see most often. It’s intuitive to both the author and the reader and easy to use. What are the three acts? 

The basics: 1, 2, 3. Beginning, Middle, End. 

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy. 

Until someone adds in a “2A” and a “2B.” Then, if you’re like me, you start thinking in four acts instead of three… 

But the main point is that there is a structure to your writing that readers can follow.

8. Plot Points: This subject is big enough for its own book – and many authors have written books about Plot Points! But we’re only talking about vocabulary today.

Plot points are the more-or-less evenly spaced turning points within the structure of your story. Depending on the writer, you might have three plot points, or as many as sixteen. I work with five major plot points and two or three minor ones. Every author develops their own method and names for plot points, and some of the names you might hear are “inciting incident,” “call to adventure,” “moment of grace,” “black moment,” “final battle,” etc.

9. Synopsis: This is a summary of the completed story that tells potential agents, editors, and publishers what your story is about. The length varies depending on the guidelines of the entity you’re sending it to, but one thing never varies: always tell the complete story, including the surprise ending.

10. Back Cover Copy: This is a different kind of summary of your story. This is what you write to entice readers to open the book and start reading the story. It should have a great hook and never, ever give away the ending of the story. 

This was just a beginning of the vocabulary we need to acquire during our steep learning curve of becoming an author. If you think of any that I missed, be sure to mention them in the comments!