It’s summer! I know everyone is busy, so here’s a short and sweet STEM Tuesday Writing Tips & Resources post in place of my normal rambling dissertation on the beauty and significance of STEM in a literary world.
I am the son of an engineer, a civil engineer. My dad was an engineer to his very core. He thought like an engineer. He fixed things, like our bikes, broken baseball bats, toys, etc., with an engineer’s approach. He packed the trash and the garbage cans every week with an engineer’s efficiency. He wrote everything in that classic engineer’s script—an engineer to the core.
Me? I am not an engineer. I am a microbiologist. My approach to life is messier than my father’s, and my handwriting is nowhere near the neat and precise handwriting of an engineer. However, that is not to say I did not learn a thing or two from him. In fact, I gleaned many things about how he worked and went about his business that still stick with me in my creative life. One of those is his particular area of civil engineering expertise, bridge construction.
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 2011 (Almonroth, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
The main function of a bridge is to connect. A functional bridge is built through solid design and execution of its structural parts. The pilings and the caps support the deck and create the stability necessary to establish the desired connections.
For example, an island in the middle of a large lake or sea is not easily accessible until a bridge is built that connects one place to the next. As writers and creators, we can bring this concept of bridge building into building stories,
Outlining or developing the plot points of the story provides the structural plan to assist in the execution of the story. The plot points are the islands sitting isolated in the open water. Once we get our plot points envisioned, the next step is to work to build the structural parts through design and execution.
The storytelling magic happens with the type and style of the bridges we build to connect the plot points. The stories that grab readers contain bridges with interesting features, bridges that are fun to traverse. The successful story bridges make the journey a more enjoyable experience beyond simply getting from one plot point island to another.
One tool I use to create the plot islands for outlining my stories is the Brooks Model from Larry Brooks’ excellent book, Story Engineering.
- Opening Scene/First Page
- 3 Essentials
- Whose story is it? Protagonist
- What’s happening here? There’s a world & there’s something off in it.
- What’s at stake? The specific conflict for the protagonist.
- 3 Essentials
- Hooking Moment (In first 20 pages)
- Exposition/A setup of inciting incident(optional)
- First Plot Point (@ 20-25%)
- First Pinch Point
- Context Shifting Midpoint (reactionary to action @~50%)
- Second Pinch Point (~60%)
- Second Plot Point (75%)
- Ending/Resolution – New Normal
These nine points give me destinations to target. Once these are loosely set in stone, the drafting begins, and my creative brain switches from planning mode to bridge-building mode. The job becomes creating and building effective bridges to transport the reader to the next destination in an entertaining and engaging manner. The goal is to engage the reader in such a way to keep them traveling along the bridge instead of wanting to stop halfway across, racing for the railing, and jumping off the bridge deck into the water below.
As you ponder your stories, don’t forget the power of building bridges to get your story to its target destination. Adopt a bit of a civil engineer’s mindset into your creative work, but feel free to leave the perfectly formed engineer’s writing script behind if you so choose.
Tower Bridge, London (© User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons)
Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/life/training-related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101, are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming Bluesky under the guise of @mikehays64.bsky.social and @MikeHays64 on Instagram.
The O.O.L.F Files
This month on the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files, we cross the bridge and explore bridges!
The Randolph Bridge on Tuttle Creek Lake in Riley County, Kansas
This was the first big bridge project my civil engineer dad worked on in the early 1960s for the Kansas Department of Transportation. After it was completed, he transferred back to Kansas City in 1964. I now live and work within 30 minutes of the bridge and still get a great deal of joy visiting and driving across the mile-long bridge.
Here’s a YouTube drone video that uses the Randolph Bridge as a backdrop to show the drone’s features.
Story Engineering by Larry Brooks
I highly recommend Story Engineering and its companion Story Physics. It’s one of those craft books I reread every few years to not only refresh my creative skills, but to revitalize them. It’s a reminder that discipline and structure actually help me be creative rather than stifle my creativity.
The Mike Hays Best Bridge in Fiction Award goes to…
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
Robert Enrico’s 1961 short film adaptation of the story is a must-watch.. I remember watching this in school and being completely mesmerized. Of course, we’d already read, or supposed to have read, the story, so the infamous Ambrose Bierce “Gotcha” moment was already played out. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic short film. Below is the Vimeo link to the movie.
Alcántara Bridge, Spain (Dantla from de.wikipedia)
Share this:
Leave a Reply