First Draft, Third and Finally, to Begin
Writing for Life, Change and Heart: Onto the Thumb Rules
Welcome to the third of three in my opening installment of First Draft, a pit stop where I share what I’ve know about writing great stories. You can find more about fiction and fiction writing at First Draft - From the Start.
Here we go:
Plot 101: Hold Onto Your Arches!
In this final installment we will continue laying down the framework for all our future adventures together. If you aren’t taking some form of SMART notes, then you aren’t really planning to discipline yourself enough to finish a novel length work. But don’t expect to understand it all. Just join me on the journey. Notice what you notice, and watch the stories you tell fill up with real meaning.
The “Character Progression Arc,” “Hero Quest” or “Arc of Change” are three ways of describing you story as a stream, or current, that runs flows the Hook to the 1st Act, through the Dark Middle, around, under, over and beyond the Big Twist, and then unto the Climactic End.
All your scenes and setbacks ramble and scrum throughout these five seasons of the story. Sequenced by laser-like focus on your character’s hard choices, the meat grows on the bones of your sketch natively. Over the course of the run, the Arc raises him from the dust of protagony to the high realms of Hero.
In these moments and mixtures, the fights, the flights and the resolution, it is the complexity and natural contradictions of your own personality, your real life, your daily stresses and fears, your old traumas and new battles, working themselves out in your characters’ battles as a transformation that presses your spirit forward in your world today, and further into your readers world tomorrow.
That’s what keeps us coming back for more.
Good plot is simple.
There is only one thing, and there is a reason that it is unusual.
This is really about your hero’s heart, but it is symbolized, or archetyped, by an element or combination of elements in your story. This meaning is enhanced by exposure to your villain and his anti-symbols.
So, no matter what else, it is always true that:
1. There is a hero. He is someone. He came from somewhere. There are reasons for that.
2. But now there is a new time. Something happened. It’s what makes our hero our hero. It’s what makes you who you are. But it’s not good. Not yet.
3. There is a place. We are going there. Together. It will be better then. In the tale, like on a river. Come, and taste.
What do you see? How do you feel? How do you know that? Plot is the test of your character, both on the page and in the discipline of the writers’ task. There will be a conflict. There will be a final battle. On a backdrop of trouble (the Times), one holy, central figure (the Protagonist), will set his sight on solutions (the Objective) that will be opposed by an opponent (the Objection) leading to the final trial and test of all (the Climax).
If the story is true enough, this will achieve a most natural and final Resolution.
Good character is complex.
Trying to pin down the various types and refractions of types possible in storytelling is a bit like studying Hebrew taxonomy. If that is a metaphor that doesn’t work for you, the unleavened version is that we can build pantheons of character types, but there are really only three:
1. You, the Hero
2. You, the Villain
3. You, the Everyone Else
You, the Hero, in writing this story, clearly have the most at stake. What if you don’t finish? You have the most to lose. What if people think you’re stupid? You will always be at the center of the action. What if you fail? That’s why we love you. That’s why we read about you. We know that you are going to be that person who also has the most to learn, the most to discover. That’s why we bear with you. That’s why we go on this ride and put up with your flaws. That’s why we love to hate your enemy and love to cheer for your sidekicks and mentors, hope for your romances interest and gander at your wallpaper.
That’s why all that we really need to know to get the story going is your Name. That is who you are. That is what you will be. Every description, every environs painted, each snap of dialogue, every last action is your character, making himself know as a singular and momentarily greater version oy you.
What won’t you tolerate? Where will you finally draw the line?
When you dream your greatest, most precious dreams, who do you dream that you really are?
The next installment of First Draft, Writers’ Workshop Step 3 will be out tomorrow.
Don’t forget that on the Dark Shore Universe, the #chapel-of-superiority is, among other things, a functioning writers’ combine waiting for your use. Share your work there, tag me. I’ll give you personal feedback, and others will too. Link to this article, share your notes and get bonus points!