Revisiting Plot & Character

Creative Writing

October 13

Homework & Reminders

Homework• Reading log #3 due Thursday

Reminders• None

Objective

• Students will review character, plot and structure in order to demonstrate these skill by writing fan fiction.

Stronger Characters

Step 1: What is the name of your protagonist?

Step 2: What is the overall problem he/she must solve?

Step 3: What additional problems can she face? Not complications to the main problem, but altogether different problems.

Stronger Plots

Note: A plot is layered when more than one thing happens simultaneously to the hero. There are levels of problems to utilize...public problems, personal problems, and secondary problems. Small mysteries, nagging questions, dangling threads....these can be woven into the plot.

Follow-up: For each plot layer that you add, work out at least four steps or scenes that you will need to bring this narrative line to its climax and resolution. Make notes for these additional steps or scenes.

Stronger Plots

Don’t be boring! Try to build in surprises. Bored readers won’t finish your story.Scene cuts. With each new scene or chapter, stop and think about what is expected next. Don’t do it. Instead, jump ahead a bit more than expected.Leap-frog story lines. Or leave a character in the middle of a crisis and leap frog to another character where you get us involved emotionally, before leap-frogging back to the first story line.

Strong Writing

Ground your novel in physical, sensory details. In the scene’s opening, set the scene, especially the emotional tone. Do this by careful selection of sensory details and the specific words you use to describe what is happening.Focus on emotions. Always remember to make us care about a character before springing danger.Don’t be cliched! Brainstorm like crazy. Before you start a scene/chapter, list ten possible events and sequence of events. Yes. Ten. Not nine. Not eight. Ten. Force yourself to go beyond the cliche that you thought of first and go on to something different, more striking and more original.

Weaving Plot Layers Together

On a single sheet of paper, make three columns. In the first one list major and secondary characters. In the middle, list the principle narrative lines, main problems, extra plot layers, subplots, minor narrative threads, questions to be answered in the course of the story, etc, In the third column list the novel's principle places and major settings.

Weaving Plot Layers Together

With circles and lines, connect a character, a narrative line, and a place. Keep drawing lines and circles at random, making connections. See what develops. When a random connection suddenly makes sense...make notes.

Too Many Characters?

In two columns, list in two columns...the names of all major, secondary, and minor characters...and the purpose or function of each in the story...be brief in the description, like...supports protagonist, supports antagonist, provides special knowledge.

Too Many Characters?

If you have ten or fewer characters, cross out the name of one. Delete him/her from the story....yea...go on...do it...LOL! If you have ten or more characters, cross out two.

Follow-up: Are there other characters in your novel who can take on multiple roles? Go down the list and note the possibilities, then put them in practice. Find at least two more roles to combine into one.

Too Many Characters?

Your cast list is now shorter by one or two, but there remains one or two functions that need to be filled. Assign those functions to one or more of the remaining characters.

Too Many Characters?

Note: Try this and you will find connections you never saw before, characters that cross from one storyline to another, settings that host more than one storyline. these nodes of conjunction give a novel texture, a feeling of being woven together.

Identify the Heart of Your Story

Explore your motivations, determine what you want your story to do, then stick to your core message. Considering that the most marketable short stories tend to be 3,500 words or less, you’ll need to make every sentence count. If you over-stuff your plot by including too many distractions, your story will feel overloaded and underdeveloped.

See Things Differently

Experiment with your short story’s POV. A unique, unexpected voice can provide the most compelling, focused experience of the central story. Just be careful that you don’t inadvertently give the story to a nonessential character. Narrating the story line through a character who’s not central to the action is a common mistake many new authors make, often with confusing or convoluted results.

Opposites Attract

Elements that work against your character’s central desire will keep the reader intrigued and prevent your story from getting stuck. You can also try approaching your core idea from an unusual direction. Dialogue, setting, and characterization are all areas that will benefit from an unexpected twist.

Craft A Strong Title

This can be one of the most difficult—but one of the most important—parts of writing your story. How do you find inspiration for a great title? Have friends read your story and note which words or phrases strike them or stand out. These excerpts from your text just might hold the perfect title. Try to stay away from one- or two-word titles, which can seem to editors as taking the easy way out.

Shorter is Sweeter

Resist the urge to go on and on. Capped at 7500 words, you need to make each one count and leave an impression on your reader.

A strong antagonist is trying to accomplish something.

The antagonist has a plan, an evil plan in most cases. She’s acting because something is driving her to act and she wants to accomplish something in particular. In plot-driven novels, this is often the event that triggers the protagonist to act. The big bad thing that will occur if someone doesn’t step up and do something. In character-driven novels, this might be represented by the person who is trying to stop the protagonist from hurting herself in some way. Or be the one encouraging her to do so.

A strong antagonist is acting on personal desires

Even if the villain is a mercenary hired to kill the hero, she’s still motivated by something. Greed, an enjoyment of violence, a personal demon. The antagonist doesn’t just wake up one morning and decides to be evil for the heck of it. She wants something and has determined her plan is the best course of action to get it.

A strong antagonist is highly motivated to act

Strong and understandable motivations will make your antagonist feel like a real person and make the story that much better. The more plausible you make these motivation, the richer your villain, and the easier it will be to plot later. For character-driven novels, this motivation might be similar to the one that’s driving the protagonist to personal destruction.

A strong antagonist is trying to avoid something

The antagonist has things at stake at well, just like the protagonist. Failure should mean more than just not succeeding in the plan. There will be consequences if she doesn’t succeed, nasty ones. She might be the cautionary tale if the protagonist took a darker path or gave in to temptation.

A strong antagonist is trying to gain something

No one goes to as much trouble as a good antagonist does without a prize in the end. If she wants to take over the world, why? What about that action makes her happy? Being evil for the sake of evil risks having a cardboard villain that isn’t scary or interesting.

A strong antagonist is willing to adapt

Don’t make your antagonist dumb, trying the same things and falling for the same old traps over and over. A strong villain adapts her plan and learns from what the protagonist is doing. She forces the protagonist to grow and change by always being one step ahead. For a character-driven novel, this might be represented by how the protagonist rationalizes with herself and others to continue on her destructive path.

A strong antagonist is compelling in some way

To keep him from being a two-dimensional cliché, give your antagonist good traits as well as bad. Things that make him interesting and even give her a little redemption. This will help make her unpredictable if once in a while she acts not like a villain, but as a complex and understandable person. He doesn’t always do the bad thing.

A strong antagonist is flawed in relatable ways

Human weakness is something every reader can relate to. If your antagonist has flaws that tap into the human side of her (even if she’s not human) then she becomes more real and readers can see her side of the story.

A strong antagonist is hiding things

The antagonist has secrets. He fears people finding out certain things, usually because she’s up to no good. Sometimes those secrets expose weaknesses or flaws he doesn’t want anyone else to see, but sometimes they’re the vulnerable parts of him.

A strong antagonist is in the path of the protagonist’s goal

An antagonist who never crosses path with the protagonist isn’t much of an obstacle. She needs to cause the protagonist hardship and trouble over the course of the novel, even if she’s not doing it deliberately. Her plan and actions can cause trouble even if she’s not yet aware the protagonist is fighting her. But at some point, these two will come face to face and only one will win.

Make the antagonist similar to the protagonist

For instance, in the BBC's take on Sherlock Holmes both Holmes and Moriarty are brilliant anti-social types but the key difference is that Sherlock is on the side of the angels.

The antagonist is the foil of the protagonist in the very fabric of his character, too. At the simplest level, this is heroism versus villainy, but can (and should) go deeper than that.

What Makes These so Memorable?

Speaking of outlining steps, do so emotionally for your antagonist as well. Give your antagonist a character arc. If your antagonist changes throughout the story, he’ll have readers in the palm of his hand. Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series is a terrific example of this. We see him grow throughout the series, sometimes in bad ways, sometimes in good. Readers want to experience your story world through your protagonist, but give them an emotional experience from your antagonist’s side as well, and they will engage and care about your story.

What if your antagonist doesn’t actually know they’re the antagonist?

• Okay, so this is slightly tricky when you have created the story from a certain perspective, with a particular character in the position of The Hero. But pretend for a moment you, a neutral observer, are reporting on an epic battle between opposing sides.

• In doing this, you will notice something interesting—the hero doesn’t know he is the hero and the bad guy doesn’t know he is the bad guy. More intriguing still, your antagonist actually thinks he’s the protagonist.

• Both sides believe their cause is the just one and both act with conviction, so write both sides with conviction.

• Present the antagonist’s story from his point of view and don’t distort or weaken it in favor of the hero. If the antagonist’s story and his defense of it are strong, then the protagonist’s success in defeating him is all the more glorious.

Add emotional danger

• Make your reader feel what the repercussions will be for your protagonist.

• Bertrand from Sarah’s Key is a husband who is at a point in life where he doesn’t want a child. There are skeletons in his family’s closet, and he wants them to stay put. He and his wife Julia tread carefully through their marriage, and her digging into the events at the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup will tip the balance. Is Bertrand self-centered? Sure. Evil? Not at all. We absolutely understand Julia’s dilemma and it draws us right in.