Episode 065 - X-raying Your Plot with Tiffany Yates Martin
February 9, 2021
Tiffany Yates Martin talks about X-RAYING YOUR PLOT, including the benefit of the x-ray—getting an overarching view of your story—how it differs from an outline, the importance of the “but / therefore” test, and some steps you can take if your x-ray reveals breaks in your story.
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller INTUITIVE EDITING: A CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL GUIDE TO REVISING YOUR WRITING. She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers' groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers' sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, A LITTLE BIT OF GRACE.
"This is a way of getting that aerial view that I think anyone objective to your work, like an editor or a beta reader or crit partner, brings to it that we don't have as authors. This is a way of divorcing yourself from all the decoration and the pros and the character motivations and the beautiful descriptions and just making you look at the bones of the story and figuring out whether it holds together." —Tiffany Yates Martin
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast, today my guest is Tiffany Yates Martin! Hey, Tiffany, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Tiffany: Good morning, Matty, how are you?
[00:00:08] Matty: I'm doing well, thank you. Tiffany is a repeat guest. I've been having a little spate of repeat guests of people that I especially enjoyed and wanted to have back. Tiffany was a guest on Episode 53, which was WHAT AUTHORS CAN LEARN FROM TV AND MOVIES. And we mainly geeked out about THE PRINCESS BRIDE in that episode, so that's a really fun one. And just as a little intro for anyone who might've missed Tiffany's intro, if you missed that episode …
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller INTUITIVE EDITING: A CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL GUIDE TO REVISING YOUR WRITING. She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers' groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers' sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, A LITTLE BIT OF GRACE.
[00:01:07] And today we're going to be talking about x-raying your plot, which is just a very intriguing title. And so Tiffany to get us started, I wanted to ask you to describe what issues were you seeing in your client's work or in your own work that led you to this concept of x-raying your plot?
[00:01:28] Tiffany: It stems from both, actually. I'm a pantser and I tend to work with a lot of authors who write very intuitively, so they're just finding the story as they go. And a lot of times, if you're not working from an outline, like a really rigid outline, which I think a lot of creatives don't because it's limiting for a lot of people. It's very left-brained. And a lot of us who are creative just want to create these characters, these situations, and see where it's going to go. But often you can wind up with something that you're not really clear about the structure, whether it's accomplishing all your goals, whether it has strong momentum, whether it's engaging the reader and leading your character along the arc.
[00:02:07] But even if you're more of an outliner or a plotter, even if you do that, it's really hard sometimes to get your mind around the entire big picture of the story. And if you're a heavy outliner, which a lot of people who like to work that way are, your outline can get pretty chunky and that's still pretty hard to get your mind around, I think. ...
[00:00:06] Tiffany: Good morning, Matty, how are you?
[00:00:08] Matty: I'm doing well, thank you. Tiffany is a repeat guest. I've been having a little spate of repeat guests of people that I especially enjoyed and wanted to have back. Tiffany was a guest on Episode 53, which was WHAT AUTHORS CAN LEARN FROM TV AND MOVIES. And we mainly geeked out about THE PRINCESS BRIDE in that episode, so that's a really fun one. And just as a little intro for anyone who might've missed Tiffany's intro, if you missed that episode …
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller INTUITIVE EDITING: A CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL GUIDE TO REVISING YOUR WRITING. She's led workshops and seminars for conferences and writers' groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers' sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she's the author of the Breakup Doctor series and her most recent release, A LITTLE BIT OF GRACE.
[00:01:07] And today we're going to be talking about x-raying your plot, which is just a very intriguing title. And so Tiffany to get us started, I wanted to ask you to describe what issues were you seeing in your client's work or in your own work that led you to this concept of x-raying your plot?
[00:01:28] Tiffany: It stems from both, actually. I'm a pantser and I tend to work with a lot of authors who write very intuitively, so they're just finding the story as they go. And a lot of times, if you're not working from an outline, like a really rigid outline, which I think a lot of creatives don't because it's limiting for a lot of people. It's very left-brained. And a lot of us who are creative just want to create these characters, these situations, and see where it's going to go. But often you can wind up with something that you're not really clear about the structure, whether it's accomplishing all your goals, whether it has strong momentum, whether it's engaging the reader and leading your character along the arc.
[00:02:07] But even if you're more of an outliner or a plotter, even if you do that, it's really hard sometimes to get your mind around the entire big picture of the story. And if you're a heavy outliner, which a lot of people who like to work that way are, your outline can get pretty chunky and that's still pretty hard to get your mind around, I think. ...
click here to read more
[00:02:27] So I wanted a way when I started doing it, when I was editing other people's work, where I just wanted a bird's eye view of it so that I could get it in my mind all at once. It's hard with 80,000, 85,000 words, it's hard to remember where does every single step fall? What is this exact structure? Where does the character hit at which point of their arc? And it's just a way to be able to reduce a story down to its bones within two or three pages -- honestly, that's all it should ever be -- so that you can just see what you have.
[00:02:58] And it gives you a starting point. When I created it, it gives you a starting point to assess what you have, but I've talked to a lot of authors who the first reaction to creating one is always resistance. Everybody goes, "No, I don't want to do that. It seems silly. I don't need to. I understand the story," or "I already have my outline. I don't need that." But it's astonishing how much it can reveal to you. Even if you have an outline, a lot of times your story doesn't always go exactly according to that plan. And so without fail, almost every author I've ever suggested it to as said, "Wow, that is an incredibly simple tool," but not as simplistic one, because it really does give you this scaffolding of what your story is.
[00:03:39] And then once you have that there's so much you can do with an x-ray to help analyze your story, to streamline it, to make sure you're hitting all of the right beats, that the momentum is strong, that your character arcs are strong.
[00:03:52] Matty: Describe a little bit more about what is involved in creating an x-ray and how it differs from an outline?
[00:03:59] Tiffany: It's kind of laughably simple. And I can't say necessarily how it differs from an outline because it depends on how you outline, but when I do an x-ray -- and it's funny, it's become this thing now where it's like "the x-ray that Tiffany Yates Martin suggests" -- and I'm a very organized person and it just came up as a bullet point list of the basic events of a story that move it forward. So it's not every little thing that happens in the story. It's everything that happens that propels the story toward its ending. It's really, I guess, a snapshot of the momentum of it, but it's just so much more, you can pin so much on it.
[00:04:36] Matty: So if somebody is intrigued so far and let's say they're in the midst of a story and they want to use the x-ray for a diagnostic tool -- appropriately enough -- seeing if there are any breaks in their story, one might say, what is the process they use to do that?
[00:04:52] Tiffany: Yeah, it's very simple. It takes probably an hour. Maybe not even that much. You asked how it differed from an outline. It's a sketch. An outline might be very detailed, and the x-ray is really literally it's one plot event that moves the story forward per bullet point. And it should be super brief, and you can shorthand it because you know your story.
[00:05:14] But let's say just by way of example, HUNGER GAMES, because that's a pretty universal reference and a lot of people have seen or read. It would be as simple as Kat wakes up beside Prim and thinks about taking care of her family, and that's one bullet point. And the next bullet point might be, she goes hunting with Gale. And the next bullet point might be, she comes home and it's time for the reaping. And the next bullet point might be Prim is chosen for the reaping.
[00:05:40] So I also did GONE GIRL. I don't know if that's as universal a one, but it would be like chapter one -- and then this could be one bullet point per chapter or it could be 10 bullet points per chapter, it depends how many story events inside that chapter. or scene or section are moving the story forward -- so with GONE GIRL, for example, with chapter one, I had three bullet points. Nick thinks of his history with Amy and they're moving from New York to Missouri to care for his parents. And that's one. He sees Amy in the kitchen making breakfast, feels a sense of dread -- that's two. Nick goes to the bar he runs with his sister, which he borrowed money from Amy from to open and they're troubled marriage takes more shape.
[00:06:20] So this is even more detailed than you would have to use in your own x-ray because you already know a lot of the details. So you can just shorthand. Let's say we use the GONE GIRL one. So on your first bullet point, it might just be, Nick thinks of backstory with Amy, because you know what that is. The more pertinent plot detail you can put in there, though, the better it will help you, which is why I used the specific detail about their moving and caring for the parents, because that does come into play later. And as you'll see shortly, when we talk about using this as a tool, it can help to know where exactly a certain event needs to fall.
[00:06:55] Matty: You had done a brief x-ray of at least the beginning of THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and we talked about that, and because we'd already done THE PRINCESS BRIDE a lot before, we had agreed to do something else. And then we talked about the HUNGER GAMES and I was refreshing my memory about HUNGER GAMES, and then we decided to do GONE GIRL and at first, I thought, Whoa, these are three really different stories, but they turned out to be similar in ways I didn't expect and different in ways I did not expect. And maybe this would illuminate the whole x-ray thing.
[00:07:25] The thing that struck me about GONE GIRL is the whole unreliable narrator thing. And the first question I had as I was reading GONE GIRL and thinking about the x-ray, is that what the author knows is happening is different than what the reader thinks is happening when they're reading that chapter. So when you're writing x-ray are you writing it from the author's point of view or from the reader's point of view?
[00:07:48] Tiffany: So the x-ray is a snapshot of exactly what is on the page. So all you are writing is what you see on the page. It's one reason it's really useful is because sometimes, often as authors, we're filling in all the blanks, because we know the whole story. You are literally just looking at the page and saying, what do you see here? So I guess the answer to that question would be it's what the reader sees. For example, with the GONE GIRL one, at that point we don't really know what's going on in Nick's mind, but as you said, it's a really good one because it really brilliantly uses that unreliable narrator, but in a first-person point of view, which can make it really hard because the character knows everything, but the author is keeping that secret from us. And to do that without coming across as coy or cryptic is really difficult. And that's one area, for example, where the plot x-ray might come in handy because you might want to put more of that detail in there, and this is one way you might use it.
[00:08:47] So let's say you have this bullet point list that I just went through really briefly of that first scene, and again, this is totally adaptable, so you can do it any way you want to, but let's say you insert a comment on one of the bullet points where you just say -- the thing about GONE GIRLs, we don't know if Nick actually did it for the first act of the story -- so you could put in a comment, this is where Nick is thinking about his relationship with Amy, but as the author, need to make sure that I'm ambiguous about what happened in the kitchen before he left the house.
[00:09:20] Because as the story progresses, we start to wonder, is that when he killed her or did something else happen? There's a gap in the story timeline that you as the author have to present in a certain way, that leaves ambiguity for the reader without feeling like you are messing with us. Because in first person, remember, there's no secrets, right? Like we are in that person's head. So it's a great way to find out whether you are presenting the story in a way that will come across a certain way to the reader, even though you know more about it as the author.
[00:09:54] But the x-ray itself is what exactly is only on the page. Nothing else. None of the detail you're filling in. What's on the page in that place. Like this wouldn't be the place to talk about later motivations for Nick or goals that we see develop or secrets that come out later because they are not on the page at this part of the story.
[00:10:15] Matty: It does seem like there could be two x-rays that could be useful. One is what the reader knows. And one is what the author knows, because it would be interesting to see side by side.
[00:10:26] Tiffany: Yeah. That makes my head hurt when you say it. I'm like, Ooh, that sounds complicated. And what I try to do with all of my editing tools is simplify things. But I also always say, find what works for you. So if that would be useful for you, then I would say try it. To me it might complicate things because at the point when I am suggesting the x-ray as an editor, I'm coming in when the story is written. So what I'm trying to do is only evaluate what made it to the page from the author's head.
[00:10:57] So if you're using it as a tool maybe when you're writing, it might be valuable to do it that way. But when you're assessing what you have, I think the temptation is always so strong anyway to get back into your own head and start filling in those blanks. I think one thing I like about the x-ray is it externalizes it really forces you to only evaluate what you have put on the page that the reader will be able to pick up on.
[00:11:24] I won't say don't do that. But to me it feels like it might carry the risk of pulling you back into a subjective point of view rather than the objectivity we're trying to achieve at this stage when I'm working on something.
[00:11:38] Matty: It is interesting to what extent you use it as a diagnostic tool and to what extent you use it as a just keeping track of things tool.
[00:11:46] Tiffany: It's both.
[00:11:47] Matty: Yeah. The interesting thing about those three stories, THE HUNGER GAMES, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and GONE GIRL, is that the HUNGER GAMES is pretty straightforward. There are a couple of surprises at the end about things that have been known in the past that the reader doesn't know that are reveals, but in general it's pretty straightforward. It's an adventure tale. And THE PRINCESS BRIDE is kind of an adventure tale, but there are definitely a couple of things that are going on that the author knows that the reader doesn't.
[00:12:16] Tiffany: And what GONE GIRL has is multiple points of view. Two storylines. So that's helpful too, because all of these are a little bit different stories.
[00:12:24] Matty: Yeah. Well, the thing about GONE GIRL, and I would love to see what mechanisms Gillian Flynn used to keep track of it, because that is a very, very complex story. And even something like Nick and Amy have their sort of argument in the kitchen and then Nick goes to work at the bar. And then later on it turns out that there were hours between those two events. Whereas when I was reading it, I was like, Oh, he left the house at nine and he got to the bar at 9:30. It's unusual that the bar's already opened, but okay. And then it's only later that you find out that he made the side trip between home and the bar. But did he really? And I think there's the making sure that the story is moving along for the reader, but then there's the detail of keeping track of these little bits that the author had to, but as you're saying, it's a different need and maybe a different tool in order to do that.
[00:13:26] Tiffany: I don't know what she would have used, but what I love about what she did there is another thing you can use the plot x-ray for: she keeps readers a little bit uncertain. We never really firmly have our footing, and she continues to create questions in our mind the entire way through that story, and questions are how you create suspense. Anytime a reader is wondering what's going to happen next or why someone did something or how something's going to turn out or will something be okay, or did Nick do it or where is Amy, then we're hooked, right? That's the whole point is to make us continually wonder what's going on and have to turn the pages to get there.
[00:14:06] And then an x-ray can help you. Just to be really clear and succinct about what it is, it is simply a bullet pointed list of every single thing that moves the story forward in a very brief one-line description per bullet point, no more than maybe two or three pages. So it's really succinct. But once you have this, you can go through, for example, and suspense, basically, you should have a suspense question going on throughout every scene of your story. If you want to make it one of those page turners and it doesn't have to be where is Amy, as big as that, it can be what time is it? Why is he already at the bar drinking? So we've got this sense of uncertainty. So you can go through each individual bullet point and evaluate what's the question I have inserted in this?
[00:14:53] So if each bullet point is an event that moves the story forward in this thing that's happening in the story, what's the question the reader is wondering? I use it for pretty much every element of craft. You can look at it for show and tell. You can say, this is the thing that happens -- have I shown it or told it? Is that the most effective way to do it? You can use it for point of view. I color code them when I use them sometimes for multiple point of view stories. So I can see not only whose point of view is what scene, but it shows me the spread. Oh, I have so much green here and not enough red and big gaps between meshing the points of view, then you can separate them out.
[00:15:31] And you can say, here's this one character's arc, here's this other character's arc. Using the bullet points, can I see how every single scene advances the character along her arc? It just simplifies it because it's so hard to get your mind around 85,000 words, 300 pages of a story.
[00:15:48] And this is a way of just getting that aerial view that I think anyone objective to your work, like an editor or a beta reader or crit partner, brings to it that we don't have as authors. This is a way of divorcing yourself from all the decoration and the pros and the character motivations and the beautiful descriptions and just making you look at the bones of the story and figuring out whether it holds together.
[00:16:18] Matty: So describe the but / therefore test. I love that part of the description of x-ray.
[00:16:26] Tiffany: So I stole this from you South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There was a great documentary years ago about how they make each episode of South Park and when they're writing it, they said that for every single scene, they've checked to see whether it is connected to the next one with either the word but or therefore, meaning the thing that happens after the scene we were just in is either a direct result of or an obstacle to what happened.
[00:16:55] Let's use PRINCESS BRIDE. Let's say you have Buttercup and Westley decide to be married, but he decides to leave to go make his fortune therefore he is killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. So everything is connected with one of those two words because it shows causality, and it gives you the obstacles that you need to give your story levels and make it strong.
[00:17:19] A lot of stories you will find are connected with the words and then, a lot of scenes, and that is when you get an episodic story, this happened and then this happened and then this happened, and you lose momentum, and the characters aren't progressing along their arc.
[00:17:33] The way I think of this is action is not plot and plot is not story. So action is just a whole bunch of stuff happening like that. An episodic "and then," you know, this cool thing and then this cool thing and then this cool thing. And it may be very exciting, but no matter how much it is exciting, it's still not a plot, and so it's not going to really draw your reader in. What makes it a plot is that we have a character who has a goal and every single step along the way is something that is moving him toward or away from that goal. But it's always oriented around that journey. And what makes it story is how that journey changes the character. And all of that becomes really apparent when you break it down to its bones.
[00:18:19] Matty: Again, I think that GONE GIRL is such an interesting example because if I were doing an x-ray of GONE GIRL and read it as a reader would read it, then a lot of those chapters would be connected with "and inexplicably." You know, "Nick does this and inexplicably Amy does this."
[00:18:38] Tiffany: And that's the little x-ray right here. Let's take a look. This is a good place to talk about one of my favorite things to say which is that every time I use the word rules, I put it in air quotes because for every rule anybody will give you about writing, somebody breaks it brilliantly.
[00:18:55] Right now I'm working on a presentation about point of view and I'm talking about head hopping and how you should never do head hopping because it's disorienting to the reader. And the example I'm using is Kevin Kwan's CRAZY RICH ASIANS, which head hops rampantly, and it was a major bestseller. And you can say that about a million books, a million different craft topics. So yeah, the but / therefore test is really good to see if your story has that continuity and flow, but not every story aligns with it. Let's look at GONE GIRL and see if it does.
[00:19:25] Matty: Before we go through the sort of reader view is that if you order it chronologically then it completely follows the but / therefore and the suspense is being created because she's taking this completely logical but / therefore sequence of events and then she's rearranged them by using diary entries and flashbacks and things like that in a way that makes you go "well, that was inexplicable." But you trust the story enough or you're sucked in enough that you're willing to keep going. And then at the end, you'll look back and go "Oh, okay. Now I see.”
[00:19:59] Tiffany: That's a great point. That's a great point. Sometimes I will suggest that the x-ray should always be exactly as the story proceeds along the page, the first x-ray. But then I was just talking about pulling out the multiple points of view for separate ones, just to look at those cohesively, and I think this is an example of what you're talking about. So if you actually do that and pull out the chronologically concurrent storyline that's happening in each one -- yes, I think you're right. And there is that immediate but / therefore. But you're right, as the story is told it doesn't propel us that way. What propels us, I think, is that mystery, that suspense, the not knowing, the uncertainty, looking for the answer to every little bread crumb that she's laying for us.
[00:20:46] Because I was looking at it as you were saying that -- that's an and then, and then, and then -- but you're right. As soon as you put them both together as they actually happen, they're entirely connected with the but / therefore. She's such a great storyteller, she manages to weave it in this way that is, you know, if you told it straightforwardly, I don't think it would be as effective a story because it's that uncertainty that I think is one of the really addictive things about it, that we are so off-kilter not knowing what's really going on for such a long time. And then even when we get the answer about, Oh, Amy is alive, now she creates all these new story questions, these new conflicts. So she keeps that hook baited all the way through, even with that but / therefore broken up.
[00:21:31] Matty: Yeah. And I think that as somebody who's starting to move into more mysteries -- so with Ann Kinnear, they started out as suspense, so the reader knows things that the protagonist does not, and sees the protagonist getting ready to head into dangerous waters that the protagonist is unaware of -- but the last couple have been still some suspense elements, but also with a mystery background. And I found that I couldn't write that without writing it first chronologically -- this is what the murderer does right at the beginning and then progressing through and then rearranging it so that some of those things are conveyed in flashbacks or in reveals that the protagonist finds out. I'm sure other people write mysteries in different ways, but I can't imagine it. And I'm curious as to how you would use the x-ray when you're writing a book like a mystery that is completely dependent on the reveal of the end. How would you use it self-editing after you thought through the basic plot?
[00:22:33] Tiffany: That's where I think this is a great illustration of what you were asking about the difference between an outline and an x-ray. And as you're saying that, I thought, I bet you that's what Gillian Flynn had to do too, because it's just too complex a story. Yeah.
[00:22:45] So your outline, it sounds like was much more chronological and straightforward, and you wrote it out in the way that the story actually happened in -- and I'm putting this in air quotes -- "real life." And then that's not how it's told on the page. So the x-ray would be what I would use after you have created the story to evaluate how that story -- and it would actually be good in this situation that you had the outline -- to evaluate how you put that on the page and what questions are answered when, and when you salted in which detail that's needed. Does the reader have it when they need it? Do we have it in a way that continues to lead us along the journey? Do you tell us too much too soon? Did you leave out a crucial plot event? Is all the connective tissue in place?
[00:23:37] The thing that I like that you're stressing about it is the x-ray is a tool for evaluating what makes it onto the page, the way it makes it onto the page. So you would only note -- I guess your question that you asked at the beginning was really insightful -- it's for the reader's impression. How does it come across?
[00:23:57] Matty: You had mentioned that you often meet resistance when you propose the idea of an x-ray to your clients. What is causing the resistance and what enables you to work with them to get past that resistance?
[00:24:08] Tiffany: Well, for some of them it's that they are just diehard pantsers, and I get that because I am too, and an outline feels like death to me. As soon as I know exactly how the story is going to go, I am no longer interested in writing it. So people who like to work that way, I think it's just anathema to think about the tedious chore of why do I need an outline?
[00:24:28] And the other thing that I think is a resistance point is if they do have an outline, I think they think, well, I've already got that. I don't need it. And a lot of authors just think, no, I don't need that. I know how the story goes. And it feels like a tedious thing to have to do. When I'm saying it to you, I don't know what your impression is, but a lot of authors think, Oh my God, to go through the entire story and make a bullet point for every single scene that moves it forward -- that's going to take forever.
[00:24:52] No, it doesn't, because you're just skimming. You know the story really well and you're not going to have to reread the whole thing. You just skim through it and you go, Oh yeah, this is the scene where such and such happens. What's the element in that that propels the story along the story arc? What moves the story forward? And you write that thing down and you're shorthanding it. So when I say it can be done in an hour, even with some of the more complex stories, I am not exaggerating. It goes so quickly.
[00:25:20] As to how we overcome that, generally, if they were really opposed to it. we don't overcome it until I call it being deep in the mouse maze, where you're just like you're Pacman and you're at the end of a maze and hitting your tiny little round head against the wall and you just realize you're lost in the forest -- I'm mixing metaphors horribly -- and you cannot see your way forward. And I think for some authors, it's an act of desperation.
[00:25:44] But seriously, and I'm not overstating this because there's no benefit to me in whether an author does an x-ray or not, so it's not like I'm trying to exhort everyone to do it -- but without exception, every author who has ever actually gone ahead and done it has said to me, Holy cow, this is such a great tool because it really does, it just clears away -- imagine you're writing your story and you're lost in this forest and all the underbrush and you can't see the path and everything's overgrown -- it suddenly just takes all that away and it gives you that overhead drone view and you can see exactly how to get out and you can see everything you have. It gives you the editorial overview. That's the hardest thing about editing our own work, I think, is getting that objective perspective. And this literally forces you into it. It forces you to evaluate only what is on the page.
[00:26:35] This is interesting, Matty. I love having this conversation because I've used this tool for years and I don't think I've ever articulated the fact until right this minute that it really is forcing you into an editorial mindset.
[00:26:48] Matty: Yeah. Anything like that that can help you step away from it is great stuff.
[00:26:53] I was looking at the article that you have online about this, which I will link to in the show notes, and one of the questions I thought was very interesting, which was how does applying the x-ray to the story arc of a series differ or is similar to applying it to an individual novel.
[00:27:13] Tiffany: I've never actually x-rayed a whole series, but the thing I always say about series versus standalones is that I think the question you're referencing was from a reader of the blog who asked whether they needed to have a complete plot structure for their first novel in the series, because it was setting up this larger arc for the entire series. Which to me was a little bit of a red flag, because then you have one whole book, it sounded like, in which nothing really happened except set-up, which is the equivalent of starting your manuscript with half of it being back-story and set up. It may be interesting, we may need to understand all of that to move forward in the story, but if you are not giving us a cohesive self-contained story in each book that starts us in one place and moves us inexorably forward along a clear journey with the characters' arc and the story arc toward a resolution in every single book, then we don't care about the overall series. Right? I think every book in a series should be able to stand alone technically. And so then you get hooked on it. You love this world. You love these characters. You want to know more.
[00:28:32] So let's say you've come in in the middle and you want to go back and reread. Or if you get hooked at that first one, you want to keep reading. If you look at something like the HUNGER GAMES, there is this overall arc of basically taking back society from this despotic ruler who has created so much suffering among all the different districts, but it starts off in the first book as a much smaller story about Katniss trying to keep her family together and keep them safe, which means she has to prevent her sister from going to the HUNGER GAMES and she has to go in her place. And if she is to get back and take care of her family, she has to survive them. And that's all that story is about.
[00:29:16] Then we start to see the bigger unfolding of it toward the end where we realize there is more to come from that. And I think in the second book, it expands to the other districts and she finds out about the rebels and she gets reluctantly drawn into that. And then in the third book it expands even beyond that, and they go to the Capitol and she confronts Snow directly. So the story grows, the scope of it is growing. And if you mapped out that series arc, you can see how each book in the series is kind of a bullet point in the x-ray of the entire series. But I don't know that you would ever need to make an x-ray of the whole series.
[00:29:58] Matty: Yeah. It's also interesting to think about the scenario where the author writes something they think is a standalone and then realizes it's not done. That's what happened to me with the Lizzy Ballard Thriller trilogy. I wrote the first book and, like you're saying, there was a contained story arc within it. But I realized that there were these other layers that I could peel back in two more books. Or if you go into it saying it's going to be a trilogy and it's going to be first the individual, then the family unit, and then the whole community or whatever that progression is. But it would be interesting if it was that second thing to do the x-ray and then see if the x-ray for each part what's that term, when the small thing looks like the big thing, like broccoli florets.
[00:30:42] Tiffany: Right. Oh my gosh. I can't think of the word. I know exactly what you mean though. Like a little microcosm of the big picture.
[00:30:50] Matty: Exactly. Is the x-ray for the series a that thing of the x-ray of the individual parts? If you overdo it, then of course that's boring, but if you do it right, then I think it provides a nice structure for the reader to be working in and a kind of desirable repetition of a pattern, not the repetition of the detail, but a repetition of the pattern
[00:31:17] Tiffany: Well, in each story your character does hopefully go on a journey that she completes to get to that particular point. But just like in life, this is one of the things I always joke about: romance novels, happily ever after leaves a whole bunch to the imagination because a lot happens after the wedding. A lot happened. That's just the beginning of the journey. But it is one of those big peak moments in a character's life. Your character should always have highs. They should always have lows. The highs being triumphs, the lows being setbacks, but all in service to the pursuit of the ultimate goal.
[00:31:53] So each of those things is like they're progressing toward the goal to the high point or they're losing ground toward the low point. And in the first story, your character has the steps on the path: boy meets girl, boy loses, girl, boy gets girl -- all the steps to the path of yay, they're together, they're going to get married!
[00:32:09] But then in the next story, that just becomes one of the high or low points on her path of life. They were married -- yay! -- but now maybe things start to go downhill because there's misunderstandings and they're having trouble or one of them cheated or whatever. That's not very romance novel, but each journey from each story becomes one of the high or low plotted points of the character's overall arc across the series, if that makes sense.
[00:32:37] Matty: Yep. And I think you also have to factor in reader expectations because if the first book in the series has ended with "and then they got married and they lived happily ever after," now we're going to explore that in book two, I would think eventually you have to get to a point where the point they reach is better than the point they reached at the end of the first book, because otherwise you have the happy ending and then they get divorced. That's not really appropriate for the reader expectations.
[00:33:06] Tiffany: Well, not necessarily better, but it should move the character further along her development. You know, things don't get better in the HUNGER GAMES by any means. They get much, much worse and darker, but we see how Katniss is changed by it and how she is growing by it.
[00:33:23] Let's say THE AVENGERS, which is a giant series. And I won't do any spoilers here, but in the next to the last AVENGERS movie it does not end better at all. It ends on a black moment. But things are developing and progressing and we're seeing how the story arc overall is being pushed forward. And they're expanding, the stakes get higher with each time. I guess that's the answer. As long as the stakes are getting higher every time then I think that is more compelling. You can only do that to a point. If you look at something like the Stephanie Plum novels or who's the author who writes the one of the letters of the alphabet -- Sue Grafton.
[00:34:07] And so if you look at every one of those, it's kind of hard if you're going, 25, 26 books, like the Lee Child Jack Reacher books, by the time you reach that point, can you continue to raise the stakes every time? Maybe not, but you can raise them in the sense of character development, like the character has more at stake. So you can only save the world so many times and you can only raise those stakes so high. But James Bond is a good example of this. As the later James Bond movies progress, we're seeing more of what skin he has in the game. He's not quite that just the devil may care womanizer he once was. We find out about his history. We find out there's a love interests who is much more important to him and we find out what he has at stake with that. And so in that sense, the story stakes rise every time, I think that's a good recipe for a compelling series.
[00:35:00] Matty: So once the person has done the x-ray -- and I'm trying to think of a way to answer this question so it doesn't spin up into an entire other one-hour conversation -- what should they be looking for and what should they do initially when they see a break in the x-ray?
[00:35:17] Tiffany: What a delightful question. I pulled up a list. I have so many specific questions that I suggest you could ask. So you want to use any x-ray, you want to customize it for what you need. So it depends how you want to use it. You can use it as a complete diagnostic tool, and I'll talk about that in just a second. Or you can go, okay, I know my character development is really strong. I really like where the plot is. I've tied up all the loose ends. But for some reason I've got this lag in the middle of the book. This middle has sagged out and I don't know why. It might help you just analyze that particular problem.
[00:35:56] So once you finish, there are some general assessment questions you can use it to ask. The first one I always say is what's the story question? What is the reader reading to find out? If we're going to use GONE GIRL, it starts with the story question, did Nick do it and what happened to Amy? But then as it evolves, it becomes this cat and mouse game. Who's going to win -- Nick or Amy? And that's the thing that keeps us turning pages. With PRINCESS BRIDE it's will Westley and Buttercup be together? With HUNGER GAMES it's will Katniss survive to keep her family safe and together? With THE AVENGERS it's will the Avengers save the world? So what's that big picture question? And then you can assess whether everything along the plot is in service of answering that question.
[00:36:42] You can also use it to assess whether you have hit all the major points of story structure. Can we clearly see the setup? Do we know where the inciting event is or what the inciting event is? Where does it fall in the bullet points? If your inciting event is 20 bullet points down, that's probably not early enough. We need to see the story kick into motion sooner than that. So you've got this really visual indication of just move it right on up.
[00:37:08] I'm super visual and I sometimes combine this with literally plotting out the story. You take the bullet points, and you plot them out on some kind of visual structure that tells you the levels of your story. We talked a minute ago about the major triumphs and the major setbacks. So those are your characters' highs and your characters' lows. And I like to see that visually, because again, it's really helpful for me to get that bird's eye view. So I often use some format of a W depending on how many highs and lows there are. But you can use a roller coaster or whatever. Flat line, narrative, dead space, bunch of disconnected lines -- that's an episodic story that isn't connected. So the visual of this connected up and down shape is what's helpful.
[00:37:51] And then you can actually plot out here is exactly where my inciting event falls. Based on this bullet point, here's the first major setback. And that occurs in the first, I don't know, 20% of the story, 30% of the story. So you can look at, does it fall at the right place so that the reader stays invested? And then here's the next major triumph -- does every single bullet point between this point of the major setback and this point of the first major triumph, does every single bullet point, every single event that moves the story forward, lead us to that place, that turning, that next major high or low.
[00:38:28] And then is there a turning point moment? I've very clearly defined one so that we can see why the fortunes change for your character. That should be on your x-ray. If you want, and then plot it out visually on your little W or rollercoaster, you can actually visually see where those things fall. Where's the climax? Does it happen in the appropriate place? Which is, I would say, no farther than like 10% or so from the end or your story feels like it sort of trickles to a halt. Do we see the resolution after that?
[00:38:58] Does the resolution show how your character has changed from this setup point that you had at the beginning of your x-ray down here at the end of the x-ray. Do we see how your character is changed? And if we go back through each x-ray bullet point, can we see how every single bullet point on that path moved your character along the journey to that point B?
[00:39:20] That's just a fraction of the questions. I have so many lists of them that you can use for this, but it's really whatever works for you, whatever questions you're trying to answer, whatever uncertainties you have about your story. Maybe if you've heard the same thing from agents or beta readers about "I lost interest around here. I didn't find the characters motivation career here. The plot felt confusing to me here." Then you can use it for that and go through and ask those questions. Does every storyline get resolved? Are there loose ends?
[00:39:50] Matty: I was very grateful for the opportunity to relook at GONE GIRL, because it had been a while since I had read it and I just read that and every page I'm shaking my head and saying, that's just brilliant.
[00:40:03] Tiffany: Yeah. And those sort of like SIXTH SENSE or THE CRYING GAME or FIGHT CLUB where once you know what the secret is, it's really instructive to go back -- you and I talked about this in our last episode -- it is so instructive to go back and see how an author does something both well and badly, honestly. So in her case, she does it incredibly well and to go back and pull apart the strings of how she wove it all together. I think that's one of the best ways to learn your own craft because you're bringing to somebody else's work this objectivity, this objective analytical mindset that I have as an editor on your work, for example, but you can't have on your own work that I can't have on my own work, because even though I'm an editor, I don't have that objectivity. It forces you into it and lets you really break apart how the sausage is made.
[00:40:57] We're told Stephen King has that famous quote that writers read. And of course we know that we love reading, we all read, but you have to read in a certain way for it to be helpful to your writing. You can't just take it in like a reader. I mean, you can on your first read, but then to go through and break it down is some of the most instructive and useful work you can do for yourself as a writer.
[00:41:22] Matty: That's just the perfect line to wrap up on. Tiffany, please let the people who are listening know where they can go to find out more about you and your books and your work online.
[00:41:31] Tiffany: Oh, the easiest place is probably my website, FoxPrintEditorial.com. And on there, I've got a blog that's full of craft specifics, like this topic. This is where the plot x-ray blog came from that you and I have been talking about. I've got online courses. My book is available. I do have services that I offer myself as an editor, but I'm booked up for the year already. So really there's just a lot of resources on there for authors -- I have a whole page of just free resources that are hopefully helpful.
[00:42:00] The plot x-ray stuff is on the blog, but I'm going to create a PDF that people can download so that you can look at an example and have some of the questions that you can ask yourself, just really good diagnostic tools. The more you can simplify, especially in the editing process, I think the easier it is to work on your own work. And I try to do that on the website.
[00:42:19] Matty: And to do intuitive editing then, which is the great name of your book.
[00:42:23] Tiffany: Yeah, my style is to do it intuitively, which doesn't mean it's not really, left-brain analytical. It just isn't. You have to find the story that you are trying to tell.
[00:42:33] Matty: Great, Tiffany, thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
[00:42:36] Tiffany: Thanks, Matty I appreciate coming back
[00:02:58] And it gives you a starting point. When I created it, it gives you a starting point to assess what you have, but I've talked to a lot of authors who the first reaction to creating one is always resistance. Everybody goes, "No, I don't want to do that. It seems silly. I don't need to. I understand the story," or "I already have my outline. I don't need that." But it's astonishing how much it can reveal to you. Even if you have an outline, a lot of times your story doesn't always go exactly according to that plan. And so without fail, almost every author I've ever suggested it to as said, "Wow, that is an incredibly simple tool," but not as simplistic one, because it really does give you this scaffolding of what your story is.
[00:03:39] And then once you have that there's so much you can do with an x-ray to help analyze your story, to streamline it, to make sure you're hitting all of the right beats, that the momentum is strong, that your character arcs are strong.
[00:03:52] Matty: Describe a little bit more about what is involved in creating an x-ray and how it differs from an outline?
[00:03:59] Tiffany: It's kind of laughably simple. And I can't say necessarily how it differs from an outline because it depends on how you outline, but when I do an x-ray -- and it's funny, it's become this thing now where it's like "the x-ray that Tiffany Yates Martin suggests" -- and I'm a very organized person and it just came up as a bullet point list of the basic events of a story that move it forward. So it's not every little thing that happens in the story. It's everything that happens that propels the story toward its ending. It's really, I guess, a snapshot of the momentum of it, but it's just so much more, you can pin so much on it.
[00:04:36] Matty: So if somebody is intrigued so far and let's say they're in the midst of a story and they want to use the x-ray for a diagnostic tool -- appropriately enough -- seeing if there are any breaks in their story, one might say, what is the process they use to do that?
[00:04:52] Tiffany: Yeah, it's very simple. It takes probably an hour. Maybe not even that much. You asked how it differed from an outline. It's a sketch. An outline might be very detailed, and the x-ray is really literally it's one plot event that moves the story forward per bullet point. And it should be super brief, and you can shorthand it because you know your story.
[00:05:14] But let's say just by way of example, HUNGER GAMES, because that's a pretty universal reference and a lot of people have seen or read. It would be as simple as Kat wakes up beside Prim and thinks about taking care of her family, and that's one bullet point. And the next bullet point might be, she goes hunting with Gale. And the next bullet point might be, she comes home and it's time for the reaping. And the next bullet point might be Prim is chosen for the reaping.
[00:05:40] So I also did GONE GIRL. I don't know if that's as universal a one, but it would be like chapter one -- and then this could be one bullet point per chapter or it could be 10 bullet points per chapter, it depends how many story events inside that chapter. or scene or section are moving the story forward -- so with GONE GIRL, for example, with chapter one, I had three bullet points. Nick thinks of his history with Amy and they're moving from New York to Missouri to care for his parents. And that's one. He sees Amy in the kitchen making breakfast, feels a sense of dread -- that's two. Nick goes to the bar he runs with his sister, which he borrowed money from Amy from to open and they're troubled marriage takes more shape.
[00:06:20] So this is even more detailed than you would have to use in your own x-ray because you already know a lot of the details. So you can just shorthand. Let's say we use the GONE GIRL one. So on your first bullet point, it might just be, Nick thinks of backstory with Amy, because you know what that is. The more pertinent plot detail you can put in there, though, the better it will help you, which is why I used the specific detail about their moving and caring for the parents, because that does come into play later. And as you'll see shortly, when we talk about using this as a tool, it can help to know where exactly a certain event needs to fall.
[00:06:55] Matty: You had done a brief x-ray of at least the beginning of THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and we talked about that, and because we'd already done THE PRINCESS BRIDE a lot before, we had agreed to do something else. And then we talked about the HUNGER GAMES and I was refreshing my memory about HUNGER GAMES, and then we decided to do GONE GIRL and at first, I thought, Whoa, these are three really different stories, but they turned out to be similar in ways I didn't expect and different in ways I did not expect. And maybe this would illuminate the whole x-ray thing.
[00:07:25] The thing that struck me about GONE GIRL is the whole unreliable narrator thing. And the first question I had as I was reading GONE GIRL and thinking about the x-ray, is that what the author knows is happening is different than what the reader thinks is happening when they're reading that chapter. So when you're writing x-ray are you writing it from the author's point of view or from the reader's point of view?
[00:07:48] Tiffany: So the x-ray is a snapshot of exactly what is on the page. So all you are writing is what you see on the page. It's one reason it's really useful is because sometimes, often as authors, we're filling in all the blanks, because we know the whole story. You are literally just looking at the page and saying, what do you see here? So I guess the answer to that question would be it's what the reader sees. For example, with the GONE GIRL one, at that point we don't really know what's going on in Nick's mind, but as you said, it's a really good one because it really brilliantly uses that unreliable narrator, but in a first-person point of view, which can make it really hard because the character knows everything, but the author is keeping that secret from us. And to do that without coming across as coy or cryptic is really difficult. And that's one area, for example, where the plot x-ray might come in handy because you might want to put more of that detail in there, and this is one way you might use it.
[00:08:47] So let's say you have this bullet point list that I just went through really briefly of that first scene, and again, this is totally adaptable, so you can do it any way you want to, but let's say you insert a comment on one of the bullet points where you just say -- the thing about GONE GIRLs, we don't know if Nick actually did it for the first act of the story -- so you could put in a comment, this is where Nick is thinking about his relationship with Amy, but as the author, need to make sure that I'm ambiguous about what happened in the kitchen before he left the house.
[00:09:20] Because as the story progresses, we start to wonder, is that when he killed her or did something else happen? There's a gap in the story timeline that you as the author have to present in a certain way, that leaves ambiguity for the reader without feeling like you are messing with us. Because in first person, remember, there's no secrets, right? Like we are in that person's head. So it's a great way to find out whether you are presenting the story in a way that will come across a certain way to the reader, even though you know more about it as the author.
[00:09:54] But the x-ray itself is what exactly is only on the page. Nothing else. None of the detail you're filling in. What's on the page in that place. Like this wouldn't be the place to talk about later motivations for Nick or goals that we see develop or secrets that come out later because they are not on the page at this part of the story.
[00:10:15] Matty: It does seem like there could be two x-rays that could be useful. One is what the reader knows. And one is what the author knows, because it would be interesting to see side by side.
[00:10:26] Tiffany: Yeah. That makes my head hurt when you say it. I'm like, Ooh, that sounds complicated. And what I try to do with all of my editing tools is simplify things. But I also always say, find what works for you. So if that would be useful for you, then I would say try it. To me it might complicate things because at the point when I am suggesting the x-ray as an editor, I'm coming in when the story is written. So what I'm trying to do is only evaluate what made it to the page from the author's head.
[00:10:57] So if you're using it as a tool maybe when you're writing, it might be valuable to do it that way. But when you're assessing what you have, I think the temptation is always so strong anyway to get back into your own head and start filling in those blanks. I think one thing I like about the x-ray is it externalizes it really forces you to only evaluate what you have put on the page that the reader will be able to pick up on.
[00:11:24] I won't say don't do that. But to me it feels like it might carry the risk of pulling you back into a subjective point of view rather than the objectivity we're trying to achieve at this stage when I'm working on something.
[00:11:38] Matty: It is interesting to what extent you use it as a diagnostic tool and to what extent you use it as a just keeping track of things tool.
[00:11:46] Tiffany: It's both.
[00:11:47] Matty: Yeah. The interesting thing about those three stories, THE HUNGER GAMES, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and GONE GIRL, is that the HUNGER GAMES is pretty straightforward. There are a couple of surprises at the end about things that have been known in the past that the reader doesn't know that are reveals, but in general it's pretty straightforward. It's an adventure tale. And THE PRINCESS BRIDE is kind of an adventure tale, but there are definitely a couple of things that are going on that the author knows that the reader doesn't.
[00:12:16] Tiffany: And what GONE GIRL has is multiple points of view. Two storylines. So that's helpful too, because all of these are a little bit different stories.
[00:12:24] Matty: Yeah. Well, the thing about GONE GIRL, and I would love to see what mechanisms Gillian Flynn used to keep track of it, because that is a very, very complex story. And even something like Nick and Amy have their sort of argument in the kitchen and then Nick goes to work at the bar. And then later on it turns out that there were hours between those two events. Whereas when I was reading it, I was like, Oh, he left the house at nine and he got to the bar at 9:30. It's unusual that the bar's already opened, but okay. And then it's only later that you find out that he made the side trip between home and the bar. But did he really? And I think there's the making sure that the story is moving along for the reader, but then there's the detail of keeping track of these little bits that the author had to, but as you're saying, it's a different need and maybe a different tool in order to do that.
[00:13:26] Tiffany: I don't know what she would have used, but what I love about what she did there is another thing you can use the plot x-ray for: she keeps readers a little bit uncertain. We never really firmly have our footing, and she continues to create questions in our mind the entire way through that story, and questions are how you create suspense. Anytime a reader is wondering what's going to happen next or why someone did something or how something's going to turn out or will something be okay, or did Nick do it or where is Amy, then we're hooked, right? That's the whole point is to make us continually wonder what's going on and have to turn the pages to get there.
[00:14:06] And then an x-ray can help you. Just to be really clear and succinct about what it is, it is simply a bullet pointed list of every single thing that moves the story forward in a very brief one-line description per bullet point, no more than maybe two or three pages. So it's really succinct. But once you have this, you can go through, for example, and suspense, basically, you should have a suspense question going on throughout every scene of your story. If you want to make it one of those page turners and it doesn't have to be where is Amy, as big as that, it can be what time is it? Why is he already at the bar drinking? So we've got this sense of uncertainty. So you can go through each individual bullet point and evaluate what's the question I have inserted in this?
[00:14:53] So if each bullet point is an event that moves the story forward in this thing that's happening in the story, what's the question the reader is wondering? I use it for pretty much every element of craft. You can look at it for show and tell. You can say, this is the thing that happens -- have I shown it or told it? Is that the most effective way to do it? You can use it for point of view. I color code them when I use them sometimes for multiple point of view stories. So I can see not only whose point of view is what scene, but it shows me the spread. Oh, I have so much green here and not enough red and big gaps between meshing the points of view, then you can separate them out.
[00:15:31] And you can say, here's this one character's arc, here's this other character's arc. Using the bullet points, can I see how every single scene advances the character along her arc? It just simplifies it because it's so hard to get your mind around 85,000 words, 300 pages of a story.
[00:15:48] And this is a way of just getting that aerial view that I think anyone objective to your work, like an editor or a beta reader or crit partner, brings to it that we don't have as authors. This is a way of divorcing yourself from all the decoration and the pros and the character motivations and the beautiful descriptions and just making you look at the bones of the story and figuring out whether it holds together.
[00:16:18] Matty: So describe the but / therefore test. I love that part of the description of x-ray.
[00:16:26] Tiffany: So I stole this from you South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There was a great documentary years ago about how they make each episode of South Park and when they're writing it, they said that for every single scene, they've checked to see whether it is connected to the next one with either the word but or therefore, meaning the thing that happens after the scene we were just in is either a direct result of or an obstacle to what happened.
[00:16:55] Let's use PRINCESS BRIDE. Let's say you have Buttercup and Westley decide to be married, but he decides to leave to go make his fortune therefore he is killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. So everything is connected with one of those two words because it shows causality, and it gives you the obstacles that you need to give your story levels and make it strong.
[00:17:19] A lot of stories you will find are connected with the words and then, a lot of scenes, and that is when you get an episodic story, this happened and then this happened and then this happened, and you lose momentum, and the characters aren't progressing along their arc.
[00:17:33] The way I think of this is action is not plot and plot is not story. So action is just a whole bunch of stuff happening like that. An episodic "and then," you know, this cool thing and then this cool thing and then this cool thing. And it may be very exciting, but no matter how much it is exciting, it's still not a plot, and so it's not going to really draw your reader in. What makes it a plot is that we have a character who has a goal and every single step along the way is something that is moving him toward or away from that goal. But it's always oriented around that journey. And what makes it story is how that journey changes the character. And all of that becomes really apparent when you break it down to its bones.
[00:18:19] Matty: Again, I think that GONE GIRL is such an interesting example because if I were doing an x-ray of GONE GIRL and read it as a reader would read it, then a lot of those chapters would be connected with "and inexplicably." You know, "Nick does this and inexplicably Amy does this."
[00:18:38] Tiffany: And that's the little x-ray right here. Let's take a look. This is a good place to talk about one of my favorite things to say which is that every time I use the word rules, I put it in air quotes because for every rule anybody will give you about writing, somebody breaks it brilliantly.
[00:18:55] Right now I'm working on a presentation about point of view and I'm talking about head hopping and how you should never do head hopping because it's disorienting to the reader. And the example I'm using is Kevin Kwan's CRAZY RICH ASIANS, which head hops rampantly, and it was a major bestseller. And you can say that about a million books, a million different craft topics. So yeah, the but / therefore test is really good to see if your story has that continuity and flow, but not every story aligns with it. Let's look at GONE GIRL and see if it does.
[00:19:25] Matty: Before we go through the sort of reader view is that if you order it chronologically then it completely follows the but / therefore and the suspense is being created because she's taking this completely logical but / therefore sequence of events and then she's rearranged them by using diary entries and flashbacks and things like that in a way that makes you go "well, that was inexplicable." But you trust the story enough or you're sucked in enough that you're willing to keep going. And then at the end, you'll look back and go "Oh, okay. Now I see.”
[00:19:59] Tiffany: That's a great point. That's a great point. Sometimes I will suggest that the x-ray should always be exactly as the story proceeds along the page, the first x-ray. But then I was just talking about pulling out the multiple points of view for separate ones, just to look at those cohesively, and I think this is an example of what you're talking about. So if you actually do that and pull out the chronologically concurrent storyline that's happening in each one -- yes, I think you're right. And there is that immediate but / therefore. But you're right, as the story is told it doesn't propel us that way. What propels us, I think, is that mystery, that suspense, the not knowing, the uncertainty, looking for the answer to every little bread crumb that she's laying for us.
[00:20:46] Because I was looking at it as you were saying that -- that's an and then, and then, and then -- but you're right. As soon as you put them both together as they actually happen, they're entirely connected with the but / therefore. She's such a great storyteller, she manages to weave it in this way that is, you know, if you told it straightforwardly, I don't think it would be as effective a story because it's that uncertainty that I think is one of the really addictive things about it, that we are so off-kilter not knowing what's really going on for such a long time. And then even when we get the answer about, Oh, Amy is alive, now she creates all these new story questions, these new conflicts. So she keeps that hook baited all the way through, even with that but / therefore broken up.
[00:21:31] Matty: Yeah. And I think that as somebody who's starting to move into more mysteries -- so with Ann Kinnear, they started out as suspense, so the reader knows things that the protagonist does not, and sees the protagonist getting ready to head into dangerous waters that the protagonist is unaware of -- but the last couple have been still some suspense elements, but also with a mystery background. And I found that I couldn't write that without writing it first chronologically -- this is what the murderer does right at the beginning and then progressing through and then rearranging it so that some of those things are conveyed in flashbacks or in reveals that the protagonist finds out. I'm sure other people write mysteries in different ways, but I can't imagine it. And I'm curious as to how you would use the x-ray when you're writing a book like a mystery that is completely dependent on the reveal of the end. How would you use it self-editing after you thought through the basic plot?
[00:22:33] Tiffany: That's where I think this is a great illustration of what you were asking about the difference between an outline and an x-ray. And as you're saying that, I thought, I bet you that's what Gillian Flynn had to do too, because it's just too complex a story. Yeah.
[00:22:45] So your outline, it sounds like was much more chronological and straightforward, and you wrote it out in the way that the story actually happened in -- and I'm putting this in air quotes -- "real life." And then that's not how it's told on the page. So the x-ray would be what I would use after you have created the story to evaluate how that story -- and it would actually be good in this situation that you had the outline -- to evaluate how you put that on the page and what questions are answered when, and when you salted in which detail that's needed. Does the reader have it when they need it? Do we have it in a way that continues to lead us along the journey? Do you tell us too much too soon? Did you leave out a crucial plot event? Is all the connective tissue in place?
[00:23:37] The thing that I like that you're stressing about it is the x-ray is a tool for evaluating what makes it onto the page, the way it makes it onto the page. So you would only note -- I guess your question that you asked at the beginning was really insightful -- it's for the reader's impression. How does it come across?
[00:23:57] Matty: You had mentioned that you often meet resistance when you propose the idea of an x-ray to your clients. What is causing the resistance and what enables you to work with them to get past that resistance?
[00:24:08] Tiffany: Well, for some of them it's that they are just diehard pantsers, and I get that because I am too, and an outline feels like death to me. As soon as I know exactly how the story is going to go, I am no longer interested in writing it. So people who like to work that way, I think it's just anathema to think about the tedious chore of why do I need an outline?
[00:24:28] And the other thing that I think is a resistance point is if they do have an outline, I think they think, well, I've already got that. I don't need it. And a lot of authors just think, no, I don't need that. I know how the story goes. And it feels like a tedious thing to have to do. When I'm saying it to you, I don't know what your impression is, but a lot of authors think, Oh my God, to go through the entire story and make a bullet point for every single scene that moves it forward -- that's going to take forever.
[00:24:52] No, it doesn't, because you're just skimming. You know the story really well and you're not going to have to reread the whole thing. You just skim through it and you go, Oh yeah, this is the scene where such and such happens. What's the element in that that propels the story along the story arc? What moves the story forward? And you write that thing down and you're shorthanding it. So when I say it can be done in an hour, even with some of the more complex stories, I am not exaggerating. It goes so quickly.
[00:25:20] As to how we overcome that, generally, if they were really opposed to it. we don't overcome it until I call it being deep in the mouse maze, where you're just like you're Pacman and you're at the end of a maze and hitting your tiny little round head against the wall and you just realize you're lost in the forest -- I'm mixing metaphors horribly -- and you cannot see your way forward. And I think for some authors, it's an act of desperation.
[00:25:44] But seriously, and I'm not overstating this because there's no benefit to me in whether an author does an x-ray or not, so it's not like I'm trying to exhort everyone to do it -- but without exception, every author who has ever actually gone ahead and done it has said to me, Holy cow, this is such a great tool because it really does, it just clears away -- imagine you're writing your story and you're lost in this forest and all the underbrush and you can't see the path and everything's overgrown -- it suddenly just takes all that away and it gives you that overhead drone view and you can see exactly how to get out and you can see everything you have. It gives you the editorial overview. That's the hardest thing about editing our own work, I think, is getting that objective perspective. And this literally forces you into it. It forces you to evaluate only what is on the page.
[00:26:35] This is interesting, Matty. I love having this conversation because I've used this tool for years and I don't think I've ever articulated the fact until right this minute that it really is forcing you into an editorial mindset.
[00:26:48] Matty: Yeah. Anything like that that can help you step away from it is great stuff.
[00:26:53] I was looking at the article that you have online about this, which I will link to in the show notes, and one of the questions I thought was very interesting, which was how does applying the x-ray to the story arc of a series differ or is similar to applying it to an individual novel.
[00:27:13] Tiffany: I've never actually x-rayed a whole series, but the thing I always say about series versus standalones is that I think the question you're referencing was from a reader of the blog who asked whether they needed to have a complete plot structure for their first novel in the series, because it was setting up this larger arc for the entire series. Which to me was a little bit of a red flag, because then you have one whole book, it sounded like, in which nothing really happened except set-up, which is the equivalent of starting your manuscript with half of it being back-story and set up. It may be interesting, we may need to understand all of that to move forward in the story, but if you are not giving us a cohesive self-contained story in each book that starts us in one place and moves us inexorably forward along a clear journey with the characters' arc and the story arc toward a resolution in every single book, then we don't care about the overall series. Right? I think every book in a series should be able to stand alone technically. And so then you get hooked on it. You love this world. You love these characters. You want to know more.
[00:28:32] So let's say you've come in in the middle and you want to go back and reread. Or if you get hooked at that first one, you want to keep reading. If you look at something like the HUNGER GAMES, there is this overall arc of basically taking back society from this despotic ruler who has created so much suffering among all the different districts, but it starts off in the first book as a much smaller story about Katniss trying to keep her family together and keep them safe, which means she has to prevent her sister from going to the HUNGER GAMES and she has to go in her place. And if she is to get back and take care of her family, she has to survive them. And that's all that story is about.
[00:29:16] Then we start to see the bigger unfolding of it toward the end where we realize there is more to come from that. And I think in the second book, it expands to the other districts and she finds out about the rebels and she gets reluctantly drawn into that. And then in the third book it expands even beyond that, and they go to the Capitol and she confronts Snow directly. So the story grows, the scope of it is growing. And if you mapped out that series arc, you can see how each book in the series is kind of a bullet point in the x-ray of the entire series. But I don't know that you would ever need to make an x-ray of the whole series.
[00:29:58] Matty: Yeah. It's also interesting to think about the scenario where the author writes something they think is a standalone and then realizes it's not done. That's what happened to me with the Lizzy Ballard Thriller trilogy. I wrote the first book and, like you're saying, there was a contained story arc within it. But I realized that there were these other layers that I could peel back in two more books. Or if you go into it saying it's going to be a trilogy and it's going to be first the individual, then the family unit, and then the whole community or whatever that progression is. But it would be interesting if it was that second thing to do the x-ray and then see if the x-ray for each part what's that term, when the small thing looks like the big thing, like broccoli florets.
[00:30:42] Tiffany: Right. Oh my gosh. I can't think of the word. I know exactly what you mean though. Like a little microcosm of the big picture.
[00:30:50] Matty: Exactly. Is the x-ray for the series a that thing of the x-ray of the individual parts? If you overdo it, then of course that's boring, but if you do it right, then I think it provides a nice structure for the reader to be working in and a kind of desirable repetition of a pattern, not the repetition of the detail, but a repetition of the pattern
[00:31:17] Tiffany: Well, in each story your character does hopefully go on a journey that she completes to get to that particular point. But just like in life, this is one of the things I always joke about: romance novels, happily ever after leaves a whole bunch to the imagination because a lot happens after the wedding. A lot happened. That's just the beginning of the journey. But it is one of those big peak moments in a character's life. Your character should always have highs. They should always have lows. The highs being triumphs, the lows being setbacks, but all in service to the pursuit of the ultimate goal.
[00:31:53] So each of those things is like they're progressing toward the goal to the high point or they're losing ground toward the low point. And in the first story, your character has the steps on the path: boy meets girl, boy loses, girl, boy gets girl -- all the steps to the path of yay, they're together, they're going to get married!
[00:32:09] But then in the next story, that just becomes one of the high or low points on her path of life. They were married -- yay! -- but now maybe things start to go downhill because there's misunderstandings and they're having trouble or one of them cheated or whatever. That's not very romance novel, but each journey from each story becomes one of the high or low plotted points of the character's overall arc across the series, if that makes sense.
[00:32:37] Matty: Yep. And I think you also have to factor in reader expectations because if the first book in the series has ended with "and then they got married and they lived happily ever after," now we're going to explore that in book two, I would think eventually you have to get to a point where the point they reach is better than the point they reached at the end of the first book, because otherwise you have the happy ending and then they get divorced. That's not really appropriate for the reader expectations.
[00:33:06] Tiffany: Well, not necessarily better, but it should move the character further along her development. You know, things don't get better in the HUNGER GAMES by any means. They get much, much worse and darker, but we see how Katniss is changed by it and how she is growing by it.
[00:33:23] Let's say THE AVENGERS, which is a giant series. And I won't do any spoilers here, but in the next to the last AVENGERS movie it does not end better at all. It ends on a black moment. But things are developing and progressing and we're seeing how the story arc overall is being pushed forward. And they're expanding, the stakes get higher with each time. I guess that's the answer. As long as the stakes are getting higher every time then I think that is more compelling. You can only do that to a point. If you look at something like the Stephanie Plum novels or who's the author who writes the one of the letters of the alphabet -- Sue Grafton.
[00:34:07] And so if you look at every one of those, it's kind of hard if you're going, 25, 26 books, like the Lee Child Jack Reacher books, by the time you reach that point, can you continue to raise the stakes every time? Maybe not, but you can raise them in the sense of character development, like the character has more at stake. So you can only save the world so many times and you can only raise those stakes so high. But James Bond is a good example of this. As the later James Bond movies progress, we're seeing more of what skin he has in the game. He's not quite that just the devil may care womanizer he once was. We find out about his history. We find out there's a love interests who is much more important to him and we find out what he has at stake with that. And so in that sense, the story stakes rise every time, I think that's a good recipe for a compelling series.
[00:35:00] Matty: So once the person has done the x-ray -- and I'm trying to think of a way to answer this question so it doesn't spin up into an entire other one-hour conversation -- what should they be looking for and what should they do initially when they see a break in the x-ray?
[00:35:17] Tiffany: What a delightful question. I pulled up a list. I have so many specific questions that I suggest you could ask. So you want to use any x-ray, you want to customize it for what you need. So it depends how you want to use it. You can use it as a complete diagnostic tool, and I'll talk about that in just a second. Or you can go, okay, I know my character development is really strong. I really like where the plot is. I've tied up all the loose ends. But for some reason I've got this lag in the middle of the book. This middle has sagged out and I don't know why. It might help you just analyze that particular problem.
[00:35:56] So once you finish, there are some general assessment questions you can use it to ask. The first one I always say is what's the story question? What is the reader reading to find out? If we're going to use GONE GIRL, it starts with the story question, did Nick do it and what happened to Amy? But then as it evolves, it becomes this cat and mouse game. Who's going to win -- Nick or Amy? And that's the thing that keeps us turning pages. With PRINCESS BRIDE it's will Westley and Buttercup be together? With HUNGER GAMES it's will Katniss survive to keep her family safe and together? With THE AVENGERS it's will the Avengers save the world? So what's that big picture question? And then you can assess whether everything along the plot is in service of answering that question.
[00:36:42] You can also use it to assess whether you have hit all the major points of story structure. Can we clearly see the setup? Do we know where the inciting event is or what the inciting event is? Where does it fall in the bullet points? If your inciting event is 20 bullet points down, that's probably not early enough. We need to see the story kick into motion sooner than that. So you've got this really visual indication of just move it right on up.
[00:37:08] I'm super visual and I sometimes combine this with literally plotting out the story. You take the bullet points, and you plot them out on some kind of visual structure that tells you the levels of your story. We talked a minute ago about the major triumphs and the major setbacks. So those are your characters' highs and your characters' lows. And I like to see that visually, because again, it's really helpful for me to get that bird's eye view. So I often use some format of a W depending on how many highs and lows there are. But you can use a roller coaster or whatever. Flat line, narrative, dead space, bunch of disconnected lines -- that's an episodic story that isn't connected. So the visual of this connected up and down shape is what's helpful.
[00:37:51] And then you can actually plot out here is exactly where my inciting event falls. Based on this bullet point, here's the first major setback. And that occurs in the first, I don't know, 20% of the story, 30% of the story. So you can look at, does it fall at the right place so that the reader stays invested? And then here's the next major triumph -- does every single bullet point between this point of the major setback and this point of the first major triumph, does every single bullet point, every single event that moves the story forward, lead us to that place, that turning, that next major high or low.
[00:38:28] And then is there a turning point moment? I've very clearly defined one so that we can see why the fortunes change for your character. That should be on your x-ray. If you want, and then plot it out visually on your little W or rollercoaster, you can actually visually see where those things fall. Where's the climax? Does it happen in the appropriate place? Which is, I would say, no farther than like 10% or so from the end or your story feels like it sort of trickles to a halt. Do we see the resolution after that?
[00:38:58] Does the resolution show how your character has changed from this setup point that you had at the beginning of your x-ray down here at the end of the x-ray. Do we see how your character is changed? And if we go back through each x-ray bullet point, can we see how every single bullet point on that path moved your character along the journey to that point B?
[00:39:20] That's just a fraction of the questions. I have so many lists of them that you can use for this, but it's really whatever works for you, whatever questions you're trying to answer, whatever uncertainties you have about your story. Maybe if you've heard the same thing from agents or beta readers about "I lost interest around here. I didn't find the characters motivation career here. The plot felt confusing to me here." Then you can use it for that and go through and ask those questions. Does every storyline get resolved? Are there loose ends?
[00:39:50] Matty: I was very grateful for the opportunity to relook at GONE GIRL, because it had been a while since I had read it and I just read that and every page I'm shaking my head and saying, that's just brilliant.
[00:40:03] Tiffany: Yeah. And those sort of like SIXTH SENSE or THE CRYING GAME or FIGHT CLUB where once you know what the secret is, it's really instructive to go back -- you and I talked about this in our last episode -- it is so instructive to go back and see how an author does something both well and badly, honestly. So in her case, she does it incredibly well and to go back and pull apart the strings of how she wove it all together. I think that's one of the best ways to learn your own craft because you're bringing to somebody else's work this objectivity, this objective analytical mindset that I have as an editor on your work, for example, but you can't have on your own work that I can't have on my own work, because even though I'm an editor, I don't have that objectivity. It forces you into it and lets you really break apart how the sausage is made.
[00:40:57] We're told Stephen King has that famous quote that writers read. And of course we know that we love reading, we all read, but you have to read in a certain way for it to be helpful to your writing. You can't just take it in like a reader. I mean, you can on your first read, but then to go through and break it down is some of the most instructive and useful work you can do for yourself as a writer.
[00:41:22] Matty: That's just the perfect line to wrap up on. Tiffany, please let the people who are listening know where they can go to find out more about you and your books and your work online.
[00:41:31] Tiffany: Oh, the easiest place is probably my website, FoxPrintEditorial.com. And on there, I've got a blog that's full of craft specifics, like this topic. This is where the plot x-ray blog came from that you and I have been talking about. I've got online courses. My book is available. I do have services that I offer myself as an editor, but I'm booked up for the year already. So really there's just a lot of resources on there for authors -- I have a whole page of just free resources that are hopefully helpful.
[00:42:00] The plot x-ray stuff is on the blog, but I'm going to create a PDF that people can download so that you can look at an example and have some of the questions that you can ask yourself, just really good diagnostic tools. The more you can simplify, especially in the editing process, I think the easier it is to work on your own work. And I try to do that on the website.
[00:42:19] Matty: And to do intuitive editing then, which is the great name of your book.
[00:42:23] Tiffany: Yeah, my style is to do it intuitively, which doesn't mean it's not really, left-brain analytical. It just isn't. You have to find the story that you are trying to tell.
[00:42:33] Matty: Great, Tiffany, thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
[00:42:36] Tiffany: Thanks, Matty I appreciate coming back
Links
Tiffany's plot course: https://bit.ly/airtight-plot
What did you think of this episode? Leave a comment and let us know!
