A Distraction or Not?

by Rain Trueax

One of the bigger problems I wrestle with as a writer is-- what goes into the book? How much of what I know should be in the plot or revealed as part of the character's personality? It's not a simple question, as writers know. Most every book takes a lot of research. There is that which is done before the first word is written, but then new questions must be answered as the story unfolds. There is always much more than the average reader would probably find of interest.

Even writing blogs, I've noticed, can end up derailed by something I thought a minor point, but ends up the only thing that gets comments. I wonder how many readers have stopped at a point where a writer found it so interesting to describe the heroine gardening. What one person finds fascinating, another is ho-humming and wondering if it'll ever end.

My paranormal, work-in-progress has several of those potential pitfalls. For one thing, politics are a subplot. Considering our current political atmosphere, in terms of plot, not much would seem unrealistic-- even without ghosts, monsters, witches, and demons to complicate it.

Then I debated whether I should have my hero be in a political party that is not popular with my normal readers-- right away they won't like him. The thing is nothing else would work for the plot. The heroine and her family, of course, are in the opposing party. How much of that to put into the book? And that doesn't even get to my interest in reincarnation theories, an element of the plot. It's not like the average romance reader wants their book to turn into a treatise on spiritual theories.

With this, and assorted other distractions, my WIP will be lucky to get out by the end of May. This has frustrated me because I read that minimally you should have a book coming out every month. Some say every two weeks with the ultimate goal being 2 to 7 books a week. Seriously!!!???

Even one a month, is not happening for me, last year, I released 5 books-- a full length novel of 111,248 words; 2 contemporary paranormals 60,965 and 61,555, and 2 novellas (women starting over-- one contemporary and one historical-- 22,710 and 29,386. After looking up their word count for this piece, I added them together-- 295,864 words (good math practice). Even if they'd all been novellas, that only would have made for ten books-- assuming I had ten original plots in mind. This year with no released books is definitely not keeping up-- not smart if someone wants to sell. Neither, of course, is switching genres as I did in '16, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do! I think...

The photos are from April and a lovely trip, with long-time friends, to the Oregon Coast (of course, another distraction to writing). I want to set a contemporary romance along the Oregon Coast someday. When I was there, I came up with the possible plot and the two main characters. It would be contemporary, in the women starting over series, and novella length-- maybe, if I can ever get through this 55-60,000 word paranormal ;).

the MacGuffin or is that McGuffin?

A MacGuffin (McGuffin) is one of those things that appears in a story underlying the plot. It is a term to capture an element of fiction and talked about more where it comes to films. If I didn't describe as you've heard, it is also much disagreed about regarding what it means to the story.

Some claim Alfred Hitchcock coined the word. He defined it as the object around which the plot revolves but which the audience doesn't really care about. George Lucas disagreed and said, "the audience should care about it almost as much as the dueling heroes and villains on-screen." Another filmmaker, Yves Lavandier claimed it was what motivates the villain even more than the hero. So, in the Maltese Falcon, the MacGuffin is what drives the characters' actions and yet ends up insignificant.

Does every story need one, of which the writer consciously knows-- or will there be one whether the writer knows or not--

What is a McGuffin?

3 Mighty MacGuffin Generators

When I first heard about MacGuffins, I had already written quite a few books-- without thinking of whether I used one. As I looked back at each plot, I saw they had one-- or was that more than one? It happened in the writing-- because I needed something that would make the actions of the characters be logical.

MacGuffins became of renewed interest to me in the series I am currently working on since it is romance, suspense, and paranormal. Ordinary people are thrust into adventures, but the reason for what they do has to be believable to the reader. The stories, with no cliffhangers and each romance complete, must hang together. A carefully considered MacGuffin is what I saw as the answer, and it led me, as I laid out their basic plots, to find the MacGuffin in each. 

Romances didn't show up in any of the articles I read on  MacGuffins, but I see them as prime examples of how it works to add depth to a story. The MacGuffin for a romance won't be finding a one true love-- because it's at the heart of that genre. So the MacGuffin has to be the 'other' thing that drives the hero and heroine, but in the end, didn't matter as much as they thought. It keeps the action going long enough for them to realize what they truly want.

What I am considering now if there might be one MacGuffin for all five books...