Tag: plot

The Point of No Return

Quan

In every story, there will be a time where the Protagonist has gone too deep into the progression of the narrative to opt out or turn back. This is a moment where things have developed so far that all other options of dealing with the problem outlined at the outset of the story are no longer viable, and the only way the protagonist can get through the ordeal is to continue down the path he or she is travelling on. I call this moment The Point of No Return. Every story has it. This moment has to happen early in the story, but it doesn’t necessarily have to happen right at the beginning or even in the first chapter.

Wizards of the Coast head of R&D Mark Rosewater has a prefect description of the three-act story structure: Act 1: get your protagonist stuck up a tree. Act 2: throw rocks at them. Act 3: get your protagonist down from the tree. In the 3 act structure, the Point of No Return happens somewhere in Act 1. That is when your character is firmly stuck up the proverbial tree. Or, at least, has climbed so far up the tree that it is pointless to go back down.

The benefit of knowing where your point of no return lies is that you can fully focusing on enhancing hat singular moment, and making it truly stand out dramatically. The Point of No Return for your protagonist should also be the point of no return for your reader, as well. This is the moment where the reader should be fully invested in seeing the protagonist through to the outcome of the story. So you really want to make that moment grip the reader and stick in their minds, leaving them wondering what is going to happen next.

When determining when your point of no return is for your protagonist, take a look at your narrative overall. It would help if you already have a story outline or a chapter-by-chapter synopsis, but those are optional. Look at how the story progresses and ask yourself at what point does the proverbial “sh*t get real”? This should be at an early point in the story. Ask yourself at what point do your central characters lose the option of turning back or changing course? There should be a moment where the protagonist becomes kind of locked in to the path they are heading down. It could be a crucial decision they make early on, or a particular situation they find themselves in, or a moment where they take responsibility for something or someone, or when they cross a line that they wouldn’t have otherwise crossed. A story I am seeking representation for as of this writing literally has my protagonist at the edge of the “wrong side of town.” realizing that his idyllic way of life has forever been altered and the only way to get back to some semblance or normalcy is to see his predicament through to its conclusion. This moment happens at the end of act one, and is his Point of No Return.

In my stories, I tried to keep my point of no return towards the end of Act One, and I made it pretty obvious. In Godmode, it was when Elijah learned that his family was being held by Claudius Webster. That upped the ante and made it so that he could no longer afford the option of letting those monsters kill him. In Double Entry, that moment was when Melvin asked Dana if he could meet his estranged son. That took their interactions from purely business into something personal, and there was no way things could go back to the way they were now that he had made that intention known. For The Hand You’re Dealt, three were two points because there were two narratives being told concurrently. In the past, it was obviously when Tika and Jay shared their first kiss. But in the present, it was when Tika met her absentee father for the first time. I tried to make sure all of these moments had extra emotional impact, so that the reader will understand how that moment has changed everything.

I strongly recommend finding this singular moment in your story and emphasizing it. It will add to the drama of your story and help with keeping the reader engaged.

When Characters Hijack the Plot

Quan

If you are a writer that prefers to know exactly what is going to happen in your story before you start writing, then I assume you spend a lot of time outlining and hammering out your plot. You know exactly where your characters are going to go, what they are going to do, and how they are going to do it. You know all of the major plot twists beforehand, as well as how your characters should react to them. You have everything set up neatly and ready to go.

But then you start actually writing.

What happens when you write your characters and develop them within the story, and their development takes you in an entirely different direction? Or what happens when you introduce a new supporting character, and whatever that character wants to do totally derails your carefully planned and outlined plot?

Instances like these are what I consider “hijacking” the plot of your story. The characters’ personalities, histories, goals and makeup dictate a different reaction than what you had originally planned, and it almost mandates you taking the story in an entirely different direction. It’s like in many episodes of The Simpsons, where the episode starts off seeming to be about one story element, but then something gets introduced which changes the plot of the episode drastically and makes the rest of the show about resolving the new development.

How you resolve this really depends on how flexible you are as a writer. For some writers, the plot outline is just a bare framework or suggestion of how things probably should go maybe, and if any element comes around to change things, they are perfectly okay with going with the flow. There are inherent issues that can come from that, but they are willing to deal with that. At the other extreme, there are writers that are determined, or obligated (in the case of ghostwriters or people under contract for franchises), to stick to their original plot outline no matter what. These writers now have to face the possibility of forcing their characters to act against their true nature for the sake of following the plot. There are also dangers with this approach, too. Chances are if you’ve faced this issue, you fall somewhere in the middle. Here are a few options on how you can handle it.

Make the new arc a subplot

You can take this new direction your character wants to go in, and make it a side story that you visit as a break from your main plot. This can actually add more depth to your core story as it allows room fr character development and exploration you might not be able to get to within your main plot. And it will be even better if you can tie this new side story back into the central plot.

Make it into a spinoff, and finish the core plot with new characters

If what this character wants to do is totally out of the realm of your originally story, you could just make a separate book dealing with that story. And if that character simply is no longer a good fit for the plot you have in mind, then you’ll have to create new characters that are better suited to your original story. In that case, you will need to create your character with the needs of the plot built into their makeup and backstory.

Change details about your characters to make them compliant.

If you really don’t want to craft an entirely new story around your characters’ new developments, you could just modify and tweak your character’s personality and backstory to be more compliant with your plot. This is actually something I’d recommend against. Once your characters discover their voice and perspective, I believe it would be a disservice to try to neuter or change their voice for the sake of a plot. Interesting plots are great for one story, but memorable characters can be utilized for multiple stories on end.

extend the story.

My solution with my story was that my characters would go off on this wild side adventure, and after that was resolved, then they still had to deal with their original problem. But now they were armed with more experience, new allies, new skills and a better understanding of the world around them. Of course, this meant that the story would take more than one book to be completed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, by the way.

So these are different methods and approaches you can take when your characters start pushing you in directions you hadn’t intended, and start taking you away from the plot you had so carefully planned. It’s nothing of panic over, and happens often when you take time to truly develop characters. But there are ways for you to b true to both your characters and your plot, and if handled correctly, can add that much more depth to your overall narrative.

Plotting Your Plot with Reverse Outlining

Quan

When you’re trying to flesh out that kernel of a story idea in your mind, putting together a cohesive plot can be a daunting task. Sometimes figuring out what happens and how can seem intimidating. Many writers solve this issue by taking a lot of time crafting a complete plot outline of how everything flows from start to finish before they begin writing. Other writers start with their characters and their unique predicament and make up the plot elements as they go along. These two approaches do not have to be mutually exclusive.

For many of my stories I first create a list of cool moments I want to see happen in my story. Then I build a vague plot outline around those moments. I keep the outline vague to leave some flexibility for if the characters or situations dictate a change in direction. But basically these moments serve as destination points you can direct your story to. You can discover some cool stuff by pointing your characters in a direction and just following them around. This is a hybrid technique for early plotting, where you set a destination point and then make stuff up as you go along their journey to get there.

This is the early plotting stage, so you should not worry about any filters. Be as weird and outlandish as your mind will allow. Don’t try to filter the ideas, just let them flow directly from your mind to the paper (or computer). You can go back and tweak, finetune, rework your ideas, or even replace them with something better later. Just get the ball rolling and follow your muse without overthinking things. One you have your vague plot outline done, then you can go is and add details.

Asking Questions

To get this process rolling, ask yourself a few questions about your stories, and write down your answers. Start with this one: What are the 5 biggest moments that you want to see happen in your story? Now step back. What is the next moment you are working towards in the story? Write out, step by step, how your characters get to that moment. Write single sentences for each action and don’t overthink it. That’s how I map out the next sequence of actions in my story. I don’t have a rigid outline, but I have moments that I want to happen, and I lead my characters to those moments, step by step.

Say you want one of your villains to spring a trap on your group of plucky heroes. How do your heroes get into position for the trap to be sprung? How do they spring the trap? What do they do when the trap is sprung?  How do they get out of that mess? What does the bad guy do when they get out? Sometimes you need to micromanage your plot to get the story moving.

But that just gives you a skeleton to build on. Now you need to add the meat. Pick a character, any one, and follow him or her through that sequence of events. What does he or she see, smell and touch? What are they thinking as they go through this? What memories does it bring up? What are they thinking about the rest of the characters right now? How is he or she reacting to what is happening? And what does he or she do about it?

here’s an example. In Leopard Man, my key scene was Ashlynn being chased through Forest Park by the bad guy. With that in mind. I had to ask myself how the heck she ended up in Forest Park to begin with. She was there with her best friend because they had to walk to her friend’s house in that area. So now why is she running for her life? She saw something in that forest she wasn’t supposed to see. Okay, so now that she is running, where exactly does she run to? Well, there is a small neighborhood at the end of the park, with a church at the end. So what happens if she makes it to the church? Will she be safe there? What if she isn’t? Who is chasing her, and why is she so afraid of him? And where is her friend in the midst of all of this?

Every answer leads to more questions, and each question and answer is a block to help you build your scene, chapter or story. I hope that helps.

Now Leaving: Your Comfort Zone

Quan

If you’ve looked at the body of my writing work, I think it would be hard to pigeonhole me into any particular genre of fiction. I’ve written comic books, Young Adult novels, Business Melodrama, Science Fiction and Survival Horror. I just published a literary love story, and I wrote a crime novel that will never see print. And right now I’m seeking an agent for both a high fantasy epic and a thriller with some elements of high fantasy. I never gave much thought into what motivates me to switch genres and styles of storytelling. I could say I just go where the story takes me, but that would be too simple.

Truth be told, every story I’ve written has been a challenge to myself in some way, shape or form. I get inspired by books I read, TV shows I watch and movies and video games I enjoy. And these stories inspire me to tell my own. I often ask myself “wouldn’t it be cool if I could write XXX kind of story?” and being the impulsive guy I am, it doesn’t take me long to hash out some ideas for that genre and style.

For the Thriller I just wrote, it started off as a prequel to an epic urban high fantasy series I’m planning. But as I was writing it, I didn’t really know how the story was going to get from its beginning to the point where my saga started. I’m usually a big “plot” guy, and I’ll spend a lot of time outlining the plot points and twists, creating a roadmap for where I want the story to go. But this time, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time pre-planning my story, and I really just wanted to start writing. So that’s exactly what I did. I only had a handful of vague plot points in mind when I started writing this story. I had two or three events I wanted to build up to, and I had a general idea of how I wanted it to end, but I left myself completely open with this story. I just created some characters, created a world for those characters to inhabit, and put the central character in a dire predicament. I then just followed that character around in this setting, observing his actions, getting inside his head to find out what he’s thinking and feeling as he does what he does, and writing everything down. This style of storytelling is counter-intuitive to every other book I’ve written, and it was uncharted territory for me. It was kind of scary. But it was also thrilling to be “winging it” and basically making the story up as I go along. And I turned out great; “Needle of the Southside” may be my strongest story yet, and I already have a ton of material in motion to take a similar journey in its follow-up book.

I believe the only way to truly improve as a storyteller it to challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone. Even successful writers (actually, ESPECIALLY successful writers) can get complacent and fall into a rut, telling the same types of stories in the same style over and over again. This is why Steven King will take a break from writing horror to write stories like The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Dark Tower and The Stand. It gives one a chance to freshen up, and learn new things about ones self as a writer and storyteller.

So my challenge to you is simple. Try something different. If you’re used to writing modern fantasy (especially if your Vampires glitter and your Werewolves are emo), take a stab at writing a crime story. If rustic heartland romances are your thing, take a shot at writing a political thriller. If you write historical fiction, then maybe you can shift from the past to the future and write some hard Science Fiction. And you can even stretch your muscles stylistically, like switching from the female protagonists you always write to a male one, or switching from Third person to First person (or the even bigger challenge of Second person), or switching from writing in past tense to present tense. In doing so you might broaden your horizons and discover some new things about your voice that you never knew you had before.

You don’t even have to commit to a whole book of it if you don’t want to. Maybe just a short story, or a simple scene just to see what it would feel like and read like in your new style or genre. And whatever you don’t finish you could just put in your writer’s vault for future idea mining. This would be a great way to improve your storytelling acumen.

Judy Blume is one of my favorite children’s authors. The Fudge series of books is legendary. But did you know she writes books for adults, too? Give this one a try.