I'm excited to welcome middle grade author Shelby Bach to GreenBeanTeenQueen! If the middle grade readers at my library are anything like yours, fairy tales are huge!
About Shelby: Shelby Bach was born in Houston, Texas and raised in
Charlotte, North Carolina, but while writing the ever afters, she moved almost as many times as her main character.
She came up with the idea for the series right before she left New York City,
and she finished the first book, of giants and ice, in Montana—the
second, of witches and wind, back
in Charlotte. Driving up the West Coast to research the settings for the third
book, of sorcery and snow, Shelby fell in love with Portland, Oregon and
settled there. She would love to set up a Door Trek system in her apartment to
visit her family and friends around the country, but she makes due with much
slower and less fictional transportation. These days, while finishing up the
fourth and final book, she also works part time for a real-life afterschool
program. It is strangely similar to the one where her stories are set—except
the students study math instead of fairy tales.
What Fairy Tales Taught Me About Plot
By Shelby Bach
I
love adding new characters, and I especially love giving a side character a
strong subplot of their own. Of course, this enthusiasm led to several unruly
early drafts of my first novel, Of Giants
and Ice, and as an inexperienced novelist, I spent weeks overwhelmed by the
number of plot threads I was failing to keep straight and develop effectively. Somewhere
around draft number five, I started to use the Rule of Threes to help me
structure each of the story arcs. It was a good decision—both for my book and
for my sanity.
The
Rule of Threes is usually explained as a pattern that occurs three times, which
happens a lot in fairy tales. In some, these repetitions occur in just one
section: for instance, at the end of “Cinderella,” three people try on the
glass slipper the prince is carrying: the two stepsisters and Cinderella. Sometimes,
these repetitions make up most of the fairy tale: for example, Jack climbs the
Beanstalk three times.
I
took a fairy tale course in college that analyzed the Rule of Threes in more
detail. (Believe it or not, this was one of the hardest classes I ever took at
Vassar. Professor Darlington was a stickler for structure and precision in
every paper. My grades suffered, but my writing improved.) First of all, plain
repetition gets pretty boring, so our class examined what the three instances
actually achieved within the fairy tale: the first one describes the process of
actually climbing a beanstalk and sneaking around a giant’s house. The second
instance establishes what part of that process is a pattern: Jack climbs the
beanstalk again but steals a golden goose from the giant instead those gold
coins. (It’s usually the shortest passage.) The third instance, however, breaks
with what was established with the first two occurrences and leads to some sort
of big change: the giant notices Jack stealing his harp and chases him down the
beanstalk. Describing just one trip up the beanstalk would have made a fun
story, because the first two instances establishes certain expectations, Jack’s
third trip has a bigger impact.
Limiting
myself to three occurrences helped me tame the plot threads in Of Giants and Ice. It also forced me to
make sure every scene in a certain arc served a purpose. An almost spoiler-free
example is the subplot around Rory’s dad. Her parents are divorced, so readers
don’t actually see her father in person in Of
Giants and Ice. Rory does, however, speak to him on the phone—exactly three
times. During the initial call, Rory’s father, a Hollywood director, invites
her to a shoot in England during the summer. Rory knows immediately that she
doesn’t want to go (he barely pays any attention to her while he’s filming a
movie), but afraid of disappointing him, Rory tells him she’ll think about it.
Her father doesn’t listen well—he starts telling her all about the actress he
wants her to meet when they’re in England. This leads to her mother stepping in
and Rory’s parents fighting. The second call takes place a few weeks later. Rory
tries to talk to her father about something completely different, but he asks
her when her school lets out—he wants to book her flight. She reminds him that
she hasn’t made up her mind up and quickly ends the call before her mom can
step in again. That’s a tiny step forward—she avoids a fight between her
parents, but she still isn’t honest. The third call takes place after Rory has come
back from her quest. She discovers from the tabloids that her father has
started dating the actress he wanted her to meet in England, and Rory calls him
up and tells him that she won’t go on the trip with him. Then she explains
exactly how much it upsets her that she had to find out about his new
girlfriend from an outside source. Because readers have seen Rory struggle to
be honest about her feelings in the previous scenes, her strong stance in the
final call has more oomph.
This
isn’t much different from most goals in fiction—to show how conflict has
changed our characters—but the Rule of Threes was a helpful way to think about
it, especially when working with an overwhelming amount of plot threads. As I
mentioned earlier, the Rule of Threes was most helpful during the revision
process—conscious repetition is easier to develop when you have a whole plot to
work with. It’s also easier to recognize where plot threads intersect. In my
second novel, Of Witches and Wind, I
challenged myself to take several story arcs and see how many third instances I
could pack into one scene. It tightened the book’s pacing and gave the ending a
way more epic grand finale.
Find Shelby online:
Website: http://shelbybach.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shelby_bach
Blog Tour – Shelby Bach
November 3 – Middle Grade Mafioso
November 4 – From the Mixed-Up Files
November 5 – Log Cabin Library
November 6 – Amanda K. Thompson Blog
November 7 – Novels, News, and Notes
November 8 – Green Bean Teen Queen
Comments
Post a Comment
I love hearing from other readers! Share your thoughts and chime in!