by Kathi Macias
In the past few issues we have learned about “eating elephants” (finding and maintaining our focus/laying our track); “herding cattle” (snagging the readers’ attention through the use of “cowcatchers” or grabbers); and beginning our word journey with a “locomotive” that sets the pace and direction of our piece. Now it’s time to move on to the main body of our manuscript.
Though it is quickly becoming a lost art (and I use the term very loosely), do you remember sitting in the family automobile at a railroad crossing and counting the boxcars as they rolled by? I certainly do. My brothers and I would drive our parents crazy as we counted aloud from the backseat, beginning with the car immediately following the locomotive and continuing all the way to the final car just before the caboose: “One…two…three…” It wasn’t unusual to reach 100 cars and still be counting, though I don’t doubt that my parents prayed fervently for shorter trains.
And that is an extremely important point to keep in mind as we begin to construct the main body of our train: no unnecessary boxcars! Though we don’t want to make our train too short and leave out something important, neither do we want to commit the unpardonable sin of boring our readers with too much information. My goal is to have my readers come away from my books saying, “I hated for that story to come to an end. I can’t wait to read the next one.” The last thing I want one of my readers to say is, “I tried to get through it but it just kept dragging on….”
Proper construction and organization of boxcars is crucial to the efficiency and power of your train. Here are the instructions I give to the students in my classroom when we get to the boxcar section of my course on train-of-thought writing: Take a pen and as many blank pieces of paper as necessary, then find a comfortable place to sit where you have room to spread out in all directions. (Most opt for the floor, but I’ll leave that up to you.) Then begin to think through your manuscript from start to finish. What is the first logical point you want to make following your locomotive? If you’re writing the life story of Albert Einstein and have given an inviting overview of it in your cowcatcher/ locomotive section, you may want your first point after that to be a brief history of Einstein’s birth and family background. This would be your first boxcar. The second point may take your readers into his early years and the first signs of his unusual intelligence, while the third could cover his emergence as a genius while his peers struggled through plane geometry and elementary physics, etc. (I have chosen a simple example to explain this part of the process; most manuscripts won’t follow such an obvious progression, but this should help you get started with the logical progression of your own masterpiece.)
As you identify these progressive points you need to give each point a title and write it on a separate piece of paper, keeping in mind that each piece of paper represents a boxcar. Underneath that title you will need to come up with a one-sentence summary of that point, as well as some sub-points to reinforce your main point. For instance, using the simplistic example in the previous paragraph, if your first point following the locomotive that will carry the readers through Einstein’s life story is his birth, you might temporarily (for your own use) title that boxcar “Einstein’s Birth and Family Background.” Underneath that title you could write a simple explanation of the point, such as “the story of his birth family and the day he joined them.” You could then list some sub-points to include in that boxcar, such as “how his parents met”; “financial situation of family”; “how his birth immediately affected his family,” etc.
In a short story or a book of fiction, assuming you are clear on your overall plot or storyline, you may have a relatively simple time figuring out the most logical and effective order of your manuscript, whereas in a nonfiction article or book you may know only that you want to cover certain points pertaining to your chosen topic but not be particularly clear on the best order for those points. That’s where the separate pieces of paper, or boxcars, come in handy, and why you need room to spread them out. Once you have identified and written down your points on these separate pieces of paper you can begin to spread your boxcars out around you in what seems to be the most logical order. If you’ve been collaborating with another writer on this project, you will find that a pair of objective eyes can often spot an obvious omission that you, as a sole author, might be too close to see. Together you can attempt to track the smooth and logical progression of your manuscript from boxcar to boxcar, checking for omissions as well as possible changes of order. (I have seen students attempt this process and end up with their sheets of paper in a completely different order than what they had originally envisioned.)
All right, now that’s you’re ready to start construction of the main part of your own word train, remember that at this point your primary focus is to identify your boxcars and attempt to put them into a logical sequence. Working with a partner on this aspect of your boxcar construction is beneficial, and I encourage you to do so. However, once your boxcars are labeled and in order and you’re ready to start the actual writing, you’ll probably discover that it’s easier to work alone. You can always get back together afterward to critique your partner’s work.
One more note at this crucial juncture: Although each section of your train is equally important, this is the section that will consume the most of your time, so be patient with yourself—and with your partner, if you have one. Even a short article or story deserves all the time necessary to get it done right. So whether you are working on a short story or a book-length manuscript, take as long as you need in constructing and aligning your boxcars.
In the next issue we’ll talk about “couplers,” the crucial connectors that hold your boxcars together and make for a smooth and enjoyable ride.
*Adapted from THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT WRITING MENTOD: Practical, User-Friendly Help for Beginning Writers by Kathi Macias (AuthorHouse, 2005).
About the Author
Kathi Macias is an award-winning writer who has authored or co-authored 15 books, including the popular Matthews and Matthews detective series from Broadman & Holman (Obsession, The Price, and The Ransom), and the bestselling women’s devotional A Moment A Day from Regal Books. She has also edited, rewritten, or ghostwritten more than 100 other books; published numerous articles, short stories and poems in various periodicals and serves as a staff member for a major manuscript critique service. A former newspaper columnist and string reporter, Kathi has taught creative writing and business writing for nearly two decades in various venues across the country.
