Christine started this round, and she cranked up the drama factor:
How do you create a wonderfully dramatic story? Are there any questions you ask yourself, or specific things you keep in mind to ensure that you have the level of tension necessary to propell the story forward?
How do you create a wonderfully dramatic story? Are there any questions you ask yourself, or specific things you keep in mind to ensure that you have the level of tension necessary to propell the story forward?
I think that I have a tendency to go beyond a dramatic story and hop the border into melodramatic. As I've said many times, I consider myself a bit of a drama queen, so it isn't very hard for me to dream up some pretty hard-core drama. In fact, I find myself deleting entire scenes for that exact reason. Nobody needs THAT much excitement. ;)
In an earlier blog chain post, I wrote about my characters' journeys and their transformations. I love to use external and physical change, and for me, drama equals action. Aside from being a drama queen, I am an action queen. (is that a real term?) I LOVE anything with gun fights, sword play, the use of magic (with arms and hands flung for emphasis). Fist fights are okay too as long as my female protagonist is the one getting all the action. Emotional drama is great too, I love the occasional sob-fest. But I love the drama that comes from fighting for your life.
I think the best part about using hard-core action for drama is that the emotional stuff inevitably follows. With every near-death scrape our heroine (or hero) has someone waiting in the background, terrified that the person he cares about could leave him forever. In addition to the danger factor, there's obviously something propelling that character into these dangerous situations. I mean, no one pulls a knife on you for no reason in my imaginary worlds.
For me, the most important factor in maintaining good drama, is keeping my scenes realistic. I spend more time writing action sequences than I do anything else. I close my eyes, put myself in my character's place and draw on every good action movie, battle scene and author I've ever read. And I've been so into it lately, that I'm thinking about taking the next step: learning to fence, target shooting, taking a martial arts class. Yeah, that would be COOL.
Because I'm a strictly "from the hip" writer, I have a hard time pinpointing my dramatic moments until they actually happen. I let my characters walk me through the story, and when I know they've stuck their nose a little too far in the wrong business, I throw in some first-class danger. An ambush in a dark alley can keep me reading (or typing) into the wee hours of the morning, and I hope that by letting the action and its resulting conflict pull me along, I have succeeded in creating many exciting moments that weave themselves into a fun, entertaining, and DRAMATIC tale.
