Faculty Voices with Marsha Qualey: The Big One - Conflict and Antagonists

We focused on plot this past residency. I welcomed this topic immersion because for the last several months I have been writing short stories after years of novel writing, and I have been hugely challenged by the need to pare down the scope of my storytelling. How much plot can a 5000 word story handle? How do I know what is essential? What should I spend time on?

The residency session I concocted and led (with gracious participation from very game students; thank you, all) was, frankly, quite self-serving as it was an exploration that’s relevant to my own writing questions.

In the session we first discussed the types of conflict in fiction as outlined by Victoria Lynn Schmidt in her book Story Structure Architect:

Relational Conflict 

This is the main character in conflict with another human

Social Conflict

The Main Character faces the group and the cultural/social/legal limits of that group--a religious organization and its laws, a secular institution and its laws, or maybe a book club and its expectations.

Situational Conflict

The main character is challenged by something that occurs or arises in the natural or human-made world, maybe tornadoes or fire or being lost in the woods or swimming among sharks.

Inner Conflict

The main character is challenged by the self—by habits or uncertainty or memories or any of the many physical or emotional elements of that person.

Paranormal Conflict 

The main character is challenged by technology, science, or the limits of what is possible: unleashing a new strain of bacteria, dealing with superpowers, ghosts.  

Cosmic Conflict 

The main character deals with fate, destiny, or God

Then we did a close reading of a few scenes from The Goose Girl, one of the residency’s common books and discussed what types of conflict were present in the scenes. Were the scenes loaded with too many types? How much is too much? What types of conflict might be best for what types of scene?

Types of conflict are nearly interchangeable with types of antagonists. I concluded the session by encouraging the writers to make their own conflict/antagonist list for each of their own stories. What are the specific conflicts or antagonists a protagonist might encounter? This is crucial world building. 

In her lecture “Bad Luck and Trouble: Antagonists in Fiction”, Laura Ruby told us that the most important antagonist “is the self.” Similar, one could say, to Schmidt’s “Inner Conflict.” I agree with Laura (who wouldn’t!) but my final caution to the residency students in my session was about this very important antagonist: Use this conflict sparingly in scenes. This is especially and most obviously true of action scenes, of course, but all scenes can bog down when they focus on inner turmoil. Once established, the inner conflict is part of the reader’s base knowledge and the writer need only—at most—quickly signal that inner struggle. Unless there is a change about to occur that will alter the plot trajectory, it might be a good idea to bury the self.


Marsha Qualey has been a faculty member in Hamline's MFAC program since it began. She is the author of several YA novels, one novel for adults, and several work-for-hire books for younger readers. For more information please visit her website.

Scene It

This week author and MFAC faculty member Marsha Qualey* examines the importance that scene can play in her own upcoming projects.  Read on as she reflects on a few poignant excerpts from Sandra Scofield’s The Scene Book and how they have have informed her process.

I’ve got two writing projects going right now and for the first time that I can remember neither one is a new (conventional) novel. One of the projects involves revisiting a novel as I adapt it into a screenplay. The other is a possible graphic novel for young readers.

I am thinking a lot about scenes. Not that I didn’t before, but when writing my traditional novels it was always the connective tissue between scenes that consumed most of my attention and energy.

Sandra Scofield’s The Scene Book is rich in pithy reminders that help me keep to the task at hand. Here are a few that are bulletin-board worthy:

From “The Focal Point”
“[the focal point] is not the epiphany, that old standby moment when the sky opens and meaning shines down on the protagonist” (54).

(Huh. I once ended a scene exactly that way—with literal sunshine breaking through and the protagonist thinking, “Illumination.” Should I go back and see if there’s an actual focal point prior to the epiphany?)

From “Tension”
“Tension doesn’t have to be negative” (86).

(Scofield is writing about sex scenes here, but still, a good reminder)

From “Scene Openings”

“…the scene may be entirely fresh action, requiring a more fundamental orientation” (142). One way to provide this orientation, she later explains, is to “comment on character, setting, or event” (145).

(An editor once told me she hated scenes that opened with dialogue, and ever since I have been hesitant to do just that. Such is the power of our editors.)

From “Scene Activity and Character Response”

“A good scene lets us know the spatial relationship of people and things” (126).

(Hmm. Maybe that’s why my editor hated the dialogue-opened scenes—she’d seen too many that delayed grounding the reader in the physical setting.)

From my bulletin board to yours.

Marsha Qualey has been a faculty member in Hamline's MFAC program since it began. She is the author of several YA novels, one novel for adults, and several work-for-hire books for younger readers. For more information please visit her website.

Alumni Voices with Jodell Sadler–“We Get What We Need:” Can A MFA Thesis Become Your Platform?

Jodell

I can remember being smitten by the interplay of art and words in the picture book form. I entered my third semester at Hamline on the wings of adventure, ready to jump in. I brought picture book faves, armed myself with printouts of research, completed dummies of my own book ideas, and was charged to move forward. Then, my faculty advisor, Jacqueline Briggs Martin, reminded me our focus would be on the text and I should look into something else. Ha! Puzzled, my world spun 360 degrees, and I flat lined before I realized what Marsha Qualey said often during our residency was true: “We get what we need.”

Fast-forward 24-hours, and, together, Jackie and I talked about an idea that fascinated me: Pacing. The many movements within the picture book form and its impact on the reading experience was a thrill to explore: the back and forth, the ebb and flow, art and words, and this got me thinking about all pacing does to connect the many elements in a picture book together into a tapestry, which weaves its way into a child’s heart for a lifetime. A lifetime. So my MFA Critical Thesis was born, but resources? There were only a few. A handful of articles on pacing existed at the time, a page here or there. I was really carving new ground and innovating my ideas on this subject. 

What happened next? I really challenged what I believed to be true of pacing: action drives story, we move ourselves to move our readers and story, we enhance the emotional journey, and support theme. I reviewed hundreds of picture books (now thousands), devoured them, and kept seeing key tools surface. Once I started jotting down the nuances of how each tool interacted and connected art to words, I became ever more amazed and ended up researching my original idea, the interplay of art and words, through a new lens, the lens of PACE.

I’ve shared my pacing material in articles in Writer’s Digest’s Children’s Writers & Illustrator’s Market and Webinars and Tutorials and in my online pacing courses, and more recently jumped into agenting.

I landed in my shiny new agenting shoes daring myself to toss my small pebble into a very big pond to see what kind of ripples I could create. I prayed I could make a difference for writers and illustrators. Since then, I have placed many projects for authors and illustrators—it doesn’t get much better than that.

So, long story short? After earning my MFA from Hamline University, I’ve grown ever more obsessed with how much pacing can do to enhance a book project. Though this journey, Pacing Writing to Wow has become my platform, and it’s helped hundreds of writers edit manuscripts stronger, and when I think back to that day Jackie urged me look further into what I was exploring, I had no idea it would become such a huge part of my success as a writer, editor, and agent—and would ultimately lead me into a career I love in children’s publishing. I can only say, Thank you! I really can’t thank Marsha Wilson Chall, Ron Koertge, and the whole Hamline Faculty enough for allowing us (me) the opportunity to “...get what we need.”

Happy writing day!

***

Jodell Sadler is a 2009 graduate of the MFAC program. She lives, writes, teaches and agents in Rockton, Illinois. To learn more about her, please visit her website, Sadler Creative Literary.

Faculty Voices with Marsha Qualey: A Do-Over

MarshaQ

I don’t believe I’ve ever finished a presentation or lecture without immediately wanting a do-over, a chance to add something or approach things from a slightly different angle.

Things were no different this past residency when I presented on “Conflict.” As it happened, I did get one chance for a do-over because my presentation and another were scheduled concurrently and we repeated them so students could attend both. I was grateful for the chance to revise and reorganize between the first session and the rerun.

But not even ten minutes after the second presentation had concluded I wanted to corral all the students back into the lecture hall. "More, there’s one thing more! I forgot something!"

And I have Phyllis Root to thank for that.

In the final moments of my allotted time that second time around she asked the question that I should have anticipated and the answer to which should be part of any lecturer’s talk: “Can you give an example from your own work?”

I was gobsmacked. I hadn’t included an example, and in the rush of adrenaline that accompanies fifty minutes of jabbering in front of an audience, I couldn’t think of one on the spot.

Ten minutes later when everyone was gone from the room and the rush was subsiding, I of course came up with an answer, but it was one that made me realize, “Oh, wow, I forgot to talk about that.”

So now I am indulging in a do-over on the Inkpot. First, a recap of the topic and lecture.

I was speaking on “Conflict.” Early into the talk I reminded those present of one of the many gems from Laura Ruby’s first-day lecture on world-building: Within the rules of the fictional world are the seeds of conflict.

I then suggested to those present in the lecture hall to consider that there are also worlds within worlds, and each has its own set of rules.

Identify all of the worlds your character lives in and navigates between, I advised. In a realistic novel, for example, these worlds might be labeled, “Family” or “School” or “Job.” There might even be—should be—smaller worlds within those worlds. “Cousins” or “high school band” or “night shift.” Each will have its own rules. Identify the rules. (Never talk about the uncle who drinks; never flirt with anyone in the clarinet section; never give free ice cream cones to people you know.)

Then I once again brought up a favorite craft theory of mine: Power + Belonging = Identity. Our stories are essentially about identity, the realization of an individual on the page. If conflict is what makes a story soar (and heaven knows the writing experts tell us just that) than one should look to create conflict in the worlds where a character’s power and sense of belonging are the most vulnerable or the most secure. Those places are the sweet spot of conflict. Use them.

What I didn’t say and will now is …Those spots are also the places where the conflict you create MUST resonate. Get that? I used all caps, so I hope so.

Even if the important action happened elsewhere in the main character’s life and not in the places where he/she/zhe feels most or least powerful or at home, the impact must be felt in all those places. If not, your conflict is cheap stuff.

And Phyllis Root, my dear friend and esteemed colleague, I have an example from my own work.

As Just Like That begins, Hanna Martin, the main character, dumps a boyfriend and (now in a churlish mood) takes a late night walk to a nearby lake. The mood is made worse by the high spirits of a couple that is riding around—illegally—on a four wheeler, so she doesn’t tell them that the ice is thin on the lake. The next morning she learns they went out on the ice and broke through; both have died. She, not surprisingly, feels enormous guilt.

Hanna is a talented artist and she also has a very loving relationship with her mother and two best friends (power and belonging, yes?) While her art and the relationships have nothing to do with the inciting incident, you can bet I turned to those parts of her life to demonstrate the impact of the accident and the devastating power of her guilt.   

So this is my lecture addendum in a nutshell: Yes, the worlds where a character’s power(s) and sense of belonging are the weakest or strongest will indeed provide the sweet spots for detonating conflict, but they are equally important as barometers of that conflict.

My do-over is done.

Meet the Grad: Kristi Romo

On January 18, 2015, on the final day of the upcoming residency, the MFAC program will have a Graduate Recognition ceremony, honoring the men and women who have just completed their studies and will receive an MFA from Hamline University. Between now and residency we'll be posting interviews with many of the grads. Kristi Romo is today's grad; she lives in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.

Kristi

What do you do when you’re not working on packets?

I work full time at a high school in the Twin Cities, where I teach English and Reading courses. This is awesome because I get to see the magic of good writing change the tide of a student’s relationship with reading and impact his relationship with the world. I bake Viking helmet cupcakes, clash foam swords and tickle torture my sons, who are five and two years old. I also enjoy cooking meals for my husband, traveling to visit family, singing on the worship team at church, and bowling (very poorly) with my English teacher colleagues.

And I read.

A lot.

And grade—

Many papers.

How did you hear about the Hamline MFAC Program?

When I was a few months pregnant with my second child I decided to take a year sabbatical from teaching and started looking for some graduate level classes to take while home. After a little Internet research I learned that Hamline offered a Mini-Immersion Residency & Semester. Anika* and I talked a few times and it sounded fantastic. My plan was to learn something that would make me a better teacher and it was remaining 12 credits I needed.

After I arrived I met a community that I loved, though I wasn’t sure I belonged. I was a teacher, not a writer. As the semester drew to an end, my husband said, “You have to continue the program. There’s a spark in you I haven’t seen before.” Prior to this experience I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer, but as a teacher I have witnessed the power of stories many times over. There are stories in me and I feel compelled to tell them. Plus my cohort—the Hamsters—begged me to continue and that’s when I realized I belonged.

What was your writing experience prior to entering the program?

I would say my creative writing experience was quite limited. While I was earning my bachelors degree I took one creative writing poetry class, which I loved. Mostly, I taught academic writing: literary analysis and research writing. (Marsha Qualey and Anne Ursu had to teach me to use contractions and informal language.) Other than that I sat down once a year and wrote a Christmas play for the children at my church.

What do especially remember about your first residency?

My first residency was so invigorating. I had no idea what I was doing when writing the piece I submitted for workshop, but students, who had submitted really great pieces, said they liked many elements. There was even a brief philosophical discussion about education inspired by the education system in my story. There was so much to work on and great suggestions for how to improve it, but I walked away thinking, they liked what I wrote. I also met Cheryl Bardoe and Molly Burnham, the grad assistants, who took me under their wings, listened to all my small concerns, invited me to eat with them and got me excited for the work of writing.

Have you focused on any one form (PB, novel, nonfiction; graphic novel) or age group in your writing? Tried a form you never thought you’d try?

I focused on picture book writing because I have two pre-readers at my house and I love to read and tell them stories. My other focus was on YA novel writing because I teach high school and those are my people. Their concerns are my concerns. So often we talk about preparing teenagers for “real life,” but they are living real life today and stories equip them for those problems and challenges. Mostly they reassure them they aren’t alone and there is hope.

Tell us about your Creative Thesis.

My Creative Thesis is part of a dystopian YA novel titled Fortress. It’s set in the future country of The Federated Gladius, founded on choice and freedom. People are free to choose what tier they want to live in. They only pay for that which they use. Bastion has lived on the bottom part of the tier since his father was taken for not paying his contribution. The food sucks and the green uniforms are hideous and socially it’s rough. On the verge of legal adulthood, Bastion has a dream and a clear plan for his life. He will move up a tier and help contribute for his mother and sister. Most importantly he won’t fail them like his dad did.

Then a mysterious package shows up.

Suddenly, the truth is a lie.

Freedom does feel free.

People aren’t who they seem.

Friends are enemies.

Choices aren’t easy.

And Bastion might need forgiveness for what he chooses next.

What changes have you seen in your writing during your studies?

The biggest change is I believe I can write. For real. I came with so little creative writing experience, I was sure I was light-years behind everyone else. I returned to my thirteen-year-old self, in a desk peeking at the tests next to me, not for the answers, but to see how far behind I was compared to everyone around me. I’ve learned writing is a funny business. There isn’t one clear path that will turn me into a Kate DiCamillo or JK Rowling. Their biographies underscore that point as well. I learned I have something to write and I’m willing to work. My path is my own. If we all arrived on the same path, we’d all write the same story. The variety of experiences is what makes for a range of rich stories.

I’ve learned to trust myself as I write and when I revise. I found it mystical when various writers talked about “writing behind their back,” but I get it now. What I believe makes me who I am and when I write, it comes out. Sometimes my concerns come out in kitten eyes not opening, whispering to eggs “Hatch, please hatch,” or The Federated Gladius taking my little sister far from me. This is who I am.

With packet deadlines removed as an incentive, do you anticipate it will be harder to keep writing? Any plans for your post-Hamline writing life?
My life seems to ebb and flow, so I will put it into the spaces where my life ebbs rather than flows: summers, spring breaks, long weekends. I tend to write in large bursts. My supportive husband initiated conversations about how I will still need weekends away to write. I’m blessed. By the end of the summer I plan to have written the journey for Bastion as he seeks the truth.

On the picture book front I have one manuscript in a place that I would like to pursue publishing. I also long to rewrite the book of my heart, Hatch, Please Hatch; a story about a pair of ducks trying to name their baby duck that is taking extra long to hatch. It’s for my first son.

Any thoughts for entering students or for people considering the program?

At Hamline University the MFAC program will equip you in ways you don’t anticipate. Attend as many sessions at residencies as you can. This program will meet needs you didn’t know you had, and it will prepare you to continue to grow as a writer once you graduate. The community goes with you, wherever you go.

Work hard.

Take risks.

Be you.

*

The public is welcome to attend the graduate recognition ceremony on Sunday, January 18, 3:30pm, (Anne Simley Theatre, Drew Fine Arts Building). Linda Sue Park is the speaker.

* Anika Eide, Programs Coordinator for Hamline's Creative Writing Programs.

Faculty Voices with Marsha Qualey: Sunday Drive

Marsha Qualey

This has been the most spectacular autumn in recent years in the upper Midwest. The colors fabulous, the temperatures perfect.  This morning, just a few minutes after I’d dropped my husband at the airport shuttle for the start of his week-long business trip to the hot southwest, I glanced at a still-brightly colored hillside and thought, “Carbon footprint be damned; I’ll take a Sunday drive.”

Sunday drives were a cultural custom in the region where I grew up. Families loaded up and headed out. The drives I remember weren’t full-family drives, however. There were five kids in the family, and I suspect my parents didn’t relish spending Sundays with all of us on board. Perhaps we started taking the drives when my older brothers were all old enough to be left home, because I remember being alone with my parents in the car, though that can’t be right either as I have a younger brother, younger by five years; this would have been the early 1960s. I suspect that he was no doubt riding unbuckled in the front seat between our parents, leaving the back all for me.

My father was a small-town lawyer and quite a few of his clients were farmers. As I recall, many of our drives had the vague goal of checking out property at the center of some legal work, and that meant we traveled country roads at slow speeds.

Though not outdoor people by any stretch, my parents loved looking at the outdoors, and my father especially was pretty knowledgeable about fauna and flora, cultivated and wild. I learned to distinguish varieties of oak trees, cows, farm crops, and road kill.

In other words, Sunday drives were a time to look and listen. My parents and I didn’t say much other than to point out a tree or barn sign or pheasant or vacated homestead or ditch flowers.

I haven’t yet written a book that hasn’t required I get in the car and drive to and around some location. Sure, getting acquainted with the human and natural landscape that will be a story setting is important, but I’d wager that my writing benefits even more from the exercise of looking and being interested in the details that fly by at 30, 40, 60 miles an hour. And that’s why when I road trip I don’t usually turn on the radio or—god forbid—listen to books on tape. I might miss something—an historical marker that needs reading, the road to a scenic overlook, some hardy ditch flowers.

Today’s Sunday Drive had a vague goal: visit an “environmental art installation” a couple hours away from Eau Claire and maybe, if time allowed, see some big water.

The Wisconsin Concrete Park was as wonderful as I’d hoped. It’s on Wisconsin Hwy 13 at the south edge of Phillips. It’s the former farmstead of Fred and Alfa Phillips. Fred Smith was born in 1886, never schooled, couldn’t read or write, but he had opinions and passion and at the age of 62 started expressing them with concrete and bottles. It was a beautiful day to browse the park and think about the artist and his compulsion to make art. 

Owls. Perhaps my favorite. (Click to enlarge.)

All the female figures (they wore long concrete skirts)
 had interesting jackets.

Fred Smith's Iwo Jima tribute. Especially interesting
because of what's painted on the back: 

A farmer's self-portrait? What a dapper guy.

As the park's home page says, it's all best seen in daylight.

Back in the car, northbound over the Great Divide, and I reached the turn-around point for the drive--  Saxon Harbor, Wisconsin: Lake Superior County Park. Big water. 

Nine hours after hitting the highway I returned home to a dark house and two indignant cats. I let them out for their own Sunday prowl, spent a few minutes stretching the miles out of my limbs and back, then settled down with a little something in a glass and a state road map. What sites did I miss? What other roads could I have taken? Who owns that bar? What did the fishermen catch? What if...what if...what if...

Alumni Voices with Quinette Cook: Growing Your Circle of Friends

To paraphrase Marsha Qualey, “the good thing about the Hamline MFAC program is the variety of places called home by the students and faculty and the resulting mix of people. The crummy thing is the post-residency (and after graduation) far-flungedness of friends.”

The last time I sat down to work on my novel, writing was still (for the most part) a solitary act. The good news is that your circle of friends and supportive community may be a lot larger than you know.

You’re probably already doing all the right things right. Right? You’re taking classes, writing with consistency (butt in chair) and you’re a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). You’re NOT a member! Why not?

Did you know SCBWI is the only professional organization specifically for writers and illustrators of children’s books? SCBWI can connect you to editors, publishers, agents, librarians, educators, booksellers and others involved with literature for young people, from Board Books to Young Adult novels.

From my very first conference (where I was greeted by Marsha Qualey!) to my current role as Minnesota’s Regional Advisor, I have grown personally and professionally. Thanks to the Hamline faculty, and in particular Ron Koertge, I was prepared to submit my verse novel, GILT, which subsequently won the 2012 Work of Outstanding Promise Honor Award and the attention of my agent. (I won’t lie; I’m still on cloud nine.) Of course it’s great to find an agent or an editor, but there’s so much more!

Your membership to SCBWI gives you access to great events scheduled around the world or in your backyard. In addition, you have access to all kinds of information on the website including a resource library, an illustrator gallery, a member bookstore and a section for awards and grants. But the best thing you will find is other like-minded people. SCBWI is a great way to continue to learn, network and have fun!

Take it from me. Even when you’re sitting in front of your computer working on the final revision to your final-final-final draft, you can bet someone else is too–someone you met in your growing circle of friends.

For more information go to, www.scbwi.org

*

Quinette Cook is a January 2012 graduate of the MFAC program. She lives and writes near Minneapolis, Minnesota.