aroslav: Blog

This is number seventy-six in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.

I PROMISED MORE about plotting and story arc in last week’s post, and here I am to deliver. Sort of. With seventy-odd books in the market and two different author names--four if you count the avatars on SOL--you would think I should know what I’m talking about. It ain’t always so.

In fact, I get comments from readers who challenge me on nearly every topic that comes up in my books, including my use or avoidance of plots. An excellent and highly respected author sent me a message after reading one of my stories and said, “I struggled to understand what the underlying message of it was, or if there was one at all.”

I was called out! Indeed, any concept of an underlying message was vague if present at all. But I was personally awakened to revitalizing my plotting of stories and doing less of a diary approach to the development of a story.

Even as a double major in college in English and Theatre, I was not taught how to become a famous author. I was taught to analyze and discuss the works of famous authors, but missed the day the professors discussed how to apply that thinking to my own writing.

So, the things I explore in this blog are often things that, at the ripe old age of @%$^&, I’m still struggling with, whether in erotica or mainstream fiction.

I also mentioned I would discuss the creation of a beat sheet in the context of today’s official release of my newest Devon Layne (aroslav) book, The Strongman. I'm happy to see readers on SOL reading the first chapter and sales starting on Bookapy this morning.

The first step in creating the beat sheet is to create the logline. A logline is supposed to be a one-sentence description of what the story is all about. In a sentence(!!!) it is supposed to answer the question asked me by the author referred to above. What is the underlying message? In other words, “Why should I read it?”

I’ve found that one-sentence descriptions often end up so convoluted that I’m willing to break them into smaller bites. The idea, though, is to give the message of the book in as few words as possible. Here it is:

Tired of being a 68-pound weakling, Paul vows to get big and strong so guys will stop picking on him and girls will finally notice him; but when Paul’s gymnastics world begins to fall apart, his girlfriend leaves him, his new partner becomes abusive, and his dream of becoming an Olympic champion begins to fade, he must dig deep inside to discover the true meaning of strength and find a purpose for his life.

Okay. That’s what I mean by a single convoluted sentence. Let’s break it down. First, we have the hero’s starting situation. We have his proposed solution. We have the results of getting there. And finally, we have revealed the underlying message. Being strong doesn’t necessarily mean what he thought it did as a child.

The Strongman by Devon Layne has been released this morning (August 25, 2024) in both eBook and paperback at Bookapy and most online bookstores around the world. The 27-chapter serial starts today on SOL and will post a chapter every three days.

This statement guided the writing of The Strongman from the first words on the page to the end of the book. But, of course, it wasn’t quite enough to write the whole story. And so, we get into the beat sheet. Remember the three acts and fifteen beats I alluded to last week? To start, let’s define a beat as a segment of the story that has a clear goal. Beats may overlap or even be re-ordered, but they have a clear goal for moving the story forward. This is where they become the strength of the plot.

Act I
1. Opening Image (0% to 1%) – A “before” snapshot of the hero and his or her world.
2. Theme Stated (5%) – A statement made by a character that hints at what the hero must learn/discover before the end of the book.
3. Setup (1% - 10%) – An exploration of the hero’s status quo life and all its flaws, where we learn what the hero’s life looks like before its epic transformation. Here we also introduce other supporting characters and the hero’s primary goal.
4. Catalyst (10%) – An inciting incident (or life-changing event) that happens to the hero, which will catapult them into a new world or new way of thinking.
5. Debate (10% to 20%) – A reaction sequence in which the hero debates what they will do next.

Act II
6. Break Into 2 (20%) – The moment the hero decides to accept the call to action, leave their comfort zone, try something new, or venture into a new world or new way of thinking.
7. B Story (22%) – The introduction of a new character or characters who will ultimately serve to help the hero learn the theme.
8. Fun and Games (20% to 50%) – This is where we see the hero in their new world. They’re either loving it or hating it. Succeeding or floundering. Also called the promise of the premise.
9. Midpoint (50%) – Literally the middle of the novel, where the Fun and Games culminates in either a false victory or a false defeat. Something should happen here to raise the stakes and push the hero toward real change.
10. Bad Guys Close In (50% to 75%) – If the Midpoint was a false victory, this section will be a downward path where things get progressively worse for the hero. The hero’s deep-rooted flaws (or internal bad guys) are closing in.
11. All Is Lost (75%) – The lowest point of the novel. An action beat where something happens to the hero that, combined with the internal bad guys, pushes the hero to rock bottom.
12. Dark Night of the Soul (75% to 80%) – A reaction beat where the hero takes time to process everything that’s happened thus far. The hero should be worse off than at the start of the novel.

Act III
13. Break Into 3 (80%) – The “aha!” moment. The hero realizes what they must to do to not only fix the problems created in Act 2, but more important, fix themself.
14. Finale (80% to 99%) – The hero proves they have truly learned the theme and enacts the plan they came up with in the Break Into 3. Not only is the hero’s world saved, but it’s a better place than it was before.
15. Final Image (99% to 100%) – A mirror to the Opening Image, this is the “after” snapshot of who the hero is after going through this epic and satisfying transformation.

I credit all the information on the beat sheet to Jessica Brody’s book Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, which was in turn based on Blake Snyder’s screenwriting book, Save the Cat!

Is this information—the story arc created by the beat sheet—sufficient? It’s a great place to start, and I believe The Strongman is a fair representation of a book based on a carefully constructed beat sheet. However, the beat sheet is not a formula for writing, nor is it the only way to approach the problem. After I completed the beat sheet, for example, I went on to create a detailed outline, chapter-by-chapter, that described what was unique about this book. The outline, of course, is where a dedicated author will fill in the details. It’s also where we find differences between the exact structure of the beat sheet and the story arc as it develops. That’s different for every book.

I think I’ll write at least one more blog on the general subject of plotting. Next week, I’d like to compare another famous description of the story arc: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.

I'm happy to announce that my newest work, The Strongman, will release and start serialization next Sunday. Today, the eBook went on pre-sale at Bookapy and most other vendors. There will be a paperback edition of this one and it should be available online next Sunday as well. Here's the skinny:

Fed up with being a 98-pound weakling, Paul sets out on a course to become ‘big and strong’ as a gymnast, so guys will stop picking on him and girls will sit up and take notice. But even when he becomes strong, he finds popularity and social acceptance elusive. Then partially paralyzed acrobatic gymnast Tara tracks him down as a potential mixed pairs partner.

Tara believes her intimacy with her former partner was what caused her accident and agrees to date Paul, but she has rules about their relationship. Their closeness as partners, his partnership in her physical rehabilitation, and pressure from friends, family, and other performers drive the two closer and closer as they approach the grand performance that will re-establish Tara as a gymnast.

But when Paul’s gymnastics world begins to fall apart, his girlfriend leaves him, his new partner becomes abusive, and his dream of becoming an Olympic gymnast begins to fade, he must dig deep inside to discover the true meaning of strength and find a purpose for his life.

If you followed any of the Olympic gymnastics, either men's or women's, this year, you know how tiny errors can cost a medal. Sometimes the errors aren't even on the gymnast's part! Paul will experience many of the thrills of victory and agonies of defeat that were once a theme of ABC's Wide World of Sports. You won't want to miss a step in his journey in The Strongman.

Enjoy!

This is number seventy-five in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.

IT HAS BECOME increasingly important to me to have a solid story arc in mind before I start writing. That might sound like an obvious statement. How can you start writing a novel before you have a story arc? Surprisingly, it’s not uncommon.

I first encountered National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2004 and have participated for twenty years, ‘winning’ every year. A NaNoWriMo ‘win’ is completing 50,000 words of a new story in 30 days. If you have followed me for any length of time, you know that it is pretty common for me to complete the 50,000-word goal in as little as eight days. But it wasn’t always so.

My first NaNoWriMo ‘novel’ was Willow Mills. I’d conceived the idea of creating a small Indiana town, not unlike Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon. It wasn’t really a single story, but was a series of short pieces describing the town and citizens of Willow Mills, Indiana. Each ‘chapter’ started with the front page of the weekly newspaper of the town that said what had happened this week in 1999. This was followed by short stories that expanded on the background of the people and places mentioned in the articles. It was loosely set around references to Albert Bailey’s Prize Bull, the story of which was saved until the end.

It was approaching midnight on November 30, 2004 when I uploaded my story and discovered I was a thousand words short of the 50,000-word goal. I quickly had to come up with additional stories and statements that would extend the word-count past the goal. I did it with quotes from all the citizens of the town on what it meant to enter a new millennium.

The whole concept was fueled by Chris Baty’s (founder and then president of NaNoWriMo) book No Plot? No Problem! He emphasized that you didn’t need a plot to write a book, but just to create some characters and let them take you where they wanted to go. Sadly, many people (myself included) assumed that writing a draft of a story like that was all that was necessary. But a lot of times the characters were clueless!

It would be hard to count the number of books that have been published (or serials on SOL) that never did get to the story. I think I mentioned that last week.

Fortunately, not all my stories are such stream of consciousness works as that first NaNo effort. Usually, I have a pretty good idea what the plot of the book will be and how I’m going to get there. Sometimes it’s more vague than others, but I have good editors who tend to help pull my vision into focus.

There were advantages to working with the storyboard. I could see at a glance whether the action in each episode contributed to the storyline for that chapter. I could rearrange the cards and move pieces to different episodes—or, indeed, from one book to the other. But carrying a cork board, pins, and nearly a thousand index cards from place to place as I worked on the story was cumbersome. I was constantly riffling through all the cards looking for the right piece. When was it right to talk about Jitterz Coffee Shop? How were various people interrelated?

This is not the only technique I have used to organize the plot of my stories. And most recently, I have worked with the Save the Cat! Writes a Novel beat sheets. This book by Jessica Brody is based on the phenomenally successful guide to screen writing by Blake Snyder called Save the Cat! She divides the structure of a novel into fifteen logical beats that describe what successful novels generally look like.

I began exploring the technique seriously with my recently published Nathan Everett novel, The Staircase of Dragon Jerico. I also used several other techniques in that book and overall, I consider it quite successful as a contemporary romance.

More seriously, I structured my new Devon Layne (aroslav) novel, The Strongman, entirely in the three acts and fifteen beats of the Save the Cat! method. I had the theme and message of the story worked out, and even the overall plot of the book, but the beat sheets forced me to describe the progress in terms that would drive the story forward.

The Strongman is available for pre-sale on Bookapy today and will begin posting with its release next Sunday!

Now I have begun my next Devon Layne novel, working title Head Talkers, only after completing a structural beat sheet. It includes the following:

A logline or brief pitch for the story.
A one-page synopsis.
Fifteen beats in three acts as described in the method. (% indicates how far into the book the beat takes place.)
Act One
1. Opening Image (0%-1%)
2. Theme Stated (5%)
3. Setup (1%-10%)
4. Catalyst (10%)
5. Debate (10%-20%)
Act Two
6. Break into 2 (20%)
7. B Story (22%)
8. Fun and Games (20%-50%)
9. Mid-point (50%)
10. The bad guys close in (50%-75%)
11. All is Lost (75%)
12. The Dark Night of the Soul (75%-80%)
Act Three
13. Break into 3 (80%)
14. Finale (80%-99%)
15. Final Image (99%-100%)

You might be able to tell just from that how the book is structured, but next week, when I announce the release of The Strongman, I’ll expand on what goes into the fifteen beats that helps drive the plot forward—even when the book includes erotica.

This is number seventy-four in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.

LOTS OF PEOPLE (more than thirty) have asked for another volume in the Photo Finish series that shows what happens to the family of Nate Hart in the future. Maybe of his success and business fifteen years down the line. Maybe of Toni, Alex, and his future children, and the two children of Jane and Peter. When I think about this, I think of all the things that are on the horizon for them all—some light and some dark.
1. Nate’s father has been battling cancer for the past five years now. When will he succumb?
2. How will the conference deal with Rev. Mother Superior when she is a widow and all the other preachers are staying away from her at the urging of their wives?
3. Uncle Nate Mayer is fifteen years older than his sister, Rev. Mother Superior. He suffers still from PTSD. Will he last much longer?
4. Will Nate ever have any more patrons?
5. Adrienne and Nate’s ‘sponsor’ has been ill and deteriorating for a long time. What will happen to Adrienne when the sponsor dies?
6. Chris is in an unhappy marriage to a man who fools around and might be carrying diseases. How will she end up, and can she ever be part of the family again?
7. We are about to enter the era of the AIDS epidemic. How will that affect Devon/Dora, Peter, and Derek?
8. Will Nate and family choose to continue in Stratford, or try to find a more profitable place in the US?
9. Will Nate manage to teach at Columbia without getting in trouble with a student?
10. What does Nate’s business look like in the growing conservativism of the late 20th century and early 21st? (He’s a prime ‘Me Too’ candidate.)
11. How much do I need to learn about color photography and processing?
12. When do things start turning digital? (My magazine photographer was battling whether or not he should even investigate doing digital photography as early as 1987.)
13. How does the computer start affecting Nate’s business?
14. Does Sandra finish her degrees and publish her book on female sexuality and development with the pictures Nate took?
15. What was the big change happening in Nate’s photo style that he was struggling to understand or even describe?
16. Can Kat and Julie stay together and really make a life of it?
17. What will happen when Kat brings Julie to Nate to make a baby?
18. How many children will Nate have before he says “No more!”?
19. How will his wives continue to hold together? Will any leave or be left?
20. How does Xian blend into the family, especially with Patricia?
21. Does Xian meet up with her father? How does that go?
22. What happens to Elizabeth and does she ever re-enter the picture?
23. Can Nate and family maintain a relationship with Jordan and Nadia?
24. What good things are going to happen down the road? Births. Weddings. Celebrations. New Movies. Awards. New photo style.
25. Does Ronda continue working for the State Department? Does Nate return for “special missions?”

Overall, I think one of the most important things that is overlooked in planning any story, not just a sequel, is to answer, “What’s the point?” In other words, what is the story?

When I wrote Devon Layne’s Photo Finish series, I had a very specific story in mind for the books to tell. It would span approximately nine years, from 1966-1975. I knew what the beginning and the ending of the story would be and decided to fill in much of the minutia from my own life growing up in the Midwest. The story wouldn’t be my life, but would have the background of my life.

It was the story of a young man growing into adulthood in the Midwest. It would include the latter part of his high school years, his college years, and his first job out of college. There would be an ongoing conflict between Nate and a racist cop who becomes a member of his draft board. In the end, Nate would be sent to the exact place he was trying to avoid, and without firing a shot, would become a kind of hero.

Thinking about going beyond the point I planned is a daunting task, for all the reasons above. But beyond that, I continually ask myself, what would the story be?

Starting with Full Frame, all the books of the Photo Finish series are available as individual books or as a collection on Bookapy.

I find I am having the same problem with the potential book I’ve been exploring regarding the singularity. I have some effective world-building. I have a state of humanity and an evolution of humanity. But I don’t really have a storyline. I look at what I’ve captured so far and have to say, “What’s the point?”

I edited a manuscript for a hopeful author a few years ago. I knew we were worlds apart politically, but I determined not to let that interfere with my objective evaluation of the story. When I received the manuscript, he warned me that it was a very dark story. I braced myself.

It was a dark future history statement. It wasn’t a story. There was exactly one line of dialog near the end of the 60,000-word manuscript. The lead character was really only there to advance the world-view of what a catastrophe the nation was headed toward in the next twenty years. I called it futurism, not fiction.

Author Lance Winslow wrote a 2009 article titled “What is the difference between science fiction and futurism?” The brief answer is in this quote.

Futurism is predicting the future without the use of characters and a storyline. Science Fiction is a literary art, where a story is told and characters are involved. You see, some things you cannot say in real life, as it is not politically correct, but you can tell of it in a storyline.
(ezine link no longer available.)

While there was a character in my client’s manuscript, the whole thing was ‘merely’ a recitation of the events that would lead to a specific future. It was really all world-building.

I’m sorry to say that I have not heard one word from that author in the three years since I returned his manuscript and my notes. It’s too bad. If he’d had a story to go with his world-building I think it could have been a very good book. I wish him luck.

I’m striving to not let that happen in my own new writings. As I think back on some of my abandoned manuscripts, I believe that was the problem. I painted a world and maybe even a good character, but I didn’t have a story. My novel about the singularity is likely going to wait a while before I get the story in my mind.

I’m about to head south tomorrow. If all goes to plan, I’ll follow the Pacific Coast and have a leisurely drive enjoying nature’s beauty. Ah yes: a journey without a point, other than getting me back to Las Vegas eventually. We’ll see what next week’s post reveals about my state of mind. Something’s brewing.

This is number seventy-three in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.