Read Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure Online
Authors: James Scott Bell
Tags: #writing, #plot, #structure
The last part of the novel gives us the resolution of the big story.
He won.
The best endings (
and we'll look at some examples in chapter six
) also:
Ever since
Star Wars
writer-director George Lucas credited Joseph Campbell for the mythic structure of the film, we've had a plethora of books and articles about the value of this template. And it is valuable because it is all about elements lining up â which is what structure means.
Mythic structure, sometimes called “The Hero's Journey” after the title of a book by Campbell, is an order of events. It comes in various forms, but usually follows a pattern similar to this:
Why does this work? Because it perfectly corresponds to the three-act structure:
[1]
Readers are introduced to the hero's world.
[2]
A “call to adventure” or a disturbance interrupts the hero's world.
[3]
The hero may ignore the call or the disturbance.
[4]
The hero “crosses the threshold” into a dark world.
[5]
A mentor may appear to teach the hero.
[6]
Various encounters occur with forces of darkness.
[7]
The hero has a dark moment within himself that he must overcome.
[8]
A talisman aids in battle.
[9]
The final battle is fought.
[10]
The hero returns to his own world.
I find more than a bit of confusion among writers over terms like
plot point
,
inciting incident
, and others commonly used by writing instructors, sometimes in contradictory ways.
I want to stay away from these terms in this book, and instead try to describe what actually should happen at crucial points in the plot. It's all really simple if you don't get hung up on the technical jargon.
I'll refer here to a disturbance and two doorways. If you understand what happens with each, structuring your novel will be a breeze.
In the beginning of your novel, you start out by introducing a character who lives a certain life. That is his starting point or, in mythic terms, the hero's
ordinary world
. And it's the place he'll stay unless something forces him to change. Unless he does change, we're going to have a pretty boring story because only a threat or a challenge is of interest to readers.
So very early in Act I something has to disturb the status quo. Just think about it from the reader's standpoint â something's got to happen to make us feel there's some threat or challenge happening to the characters. Remember Hitchcock's axiom. If something doesn't happen soon, you've got a
dull part
.
This disturbance does not have to be a major threat, however. It can be anything that disturbs the placid nature of the Lead's ordinary life. Dean Koontz usually begins his novels with such a disturbance. Here's the first line of
The Door to December
(written as Richard Paige):
As soon as she finished dressing, Laura went to the front door, just in time to see the L.A. Police Department squad car pull to the curb in front of the house.
Now that's a disturbance, something small to begin with, but a disturbance nonetheless. We don't usually feel complacent about a police car pulling up to our home.
The number of possible disturbances is endless. Here are some examples:
From a structural standpoint, the initial disturbance creates reader interest. It is an implicit promise of an interesting story yet to come. But it is not yet the main plot because there is no confrontation. The opponent and Lead are not yet locked in an unavoidable battle.
In Mario Puzo's
The Godfather
, young Michael Corleone is determined to go straight, avoiding his father's way of life. But when the Don is shot and nearly killed, Michael's world is rocked.
Yet Michael is not yet thrust into any confrontation. He can leave New York and start a new life elsewhere. The confrontation doesn't happen, the story doesn't take off, until the Lead passes through the first doorway.
In the George Lucas film
Star Wars
, there is an action prologue. Darth Vader and his troops chase and capture Princess Leia, but not before she dispatches a pod with R2-D2 and C-3PO in it. The droids land on the planet Tatooine and get captured by the Jawas, the junk merchants.
We meet our Lead character, Luke Skywalker, at work in his normal world on Tatooine, where he lives with his aunt and uncle. His uncle buys the two droids. Within five minutes of this, we have a disturbance to Luke's world â the distress hologram from Princess Leia asking for Obi-Wan Kenobi's help.
Eventually, Luke connects with Obi-Wan, who views the hologram and asks Luke to help him answer the call for help. Luke “refuses the call” (in mythic terms) by telling Obi-Wan he can't leave his aunt and uncle.
This is still not the doorway into Act II because Luke can go on with his normal life. But when the Empire forces destroy Luke's home and kill his aunt and uncle, Luke is thrust into the Rebellion. He leaves his planet with Obi-Wan, and his adventure begins.
How you get from beginning to middle (Act I to Act II), and from middle to end (Act II to Act III), is a matter of
transitioning
. Rather than calling these
plot points
, I find it helpful to think of these two transitions as “doorways of no return.”
That explains the feeling you want to create. A thrusting of the character forward. A sense of inevitability. We are creatures of habit; we search for security. Our characters are the same. So unless there is something to push the Lead into Act II, he will be quite content to stay in Act I! He desires to remain in his ordinary world.
You need to find a way to get him out of the ordinary and into the confrontation. You need something that kicks him through the doorway; otherwise, he'll just keep sitting around the house.
Once through the doorway, the confrontation can take place. The fight goes on throughout Act II, the middle. But you're going to have to end the story sometime. Thus, the second doorway of no return must send the Lead hurtling toward the knockout ending.
These two doorways hold your three acts together, like pins in adjoining railroad cars. If they are weak or nonexistent, your train won't run.
In order to get from beginning to middle â the first doorway â you must create a scene where your Lead is thrust into the main conflict
in a way that keeps him there.
In a suspense novel, the first doorway might be that point where the Lead happens upon a secret that the opposition wants to keep hidden at all costs. Now there is no way out until one or the other dies. There can be no return to normalcy. Grisham's
The Firm
is an example.
Professional duty can be the doorway. A lawyer taking a case has the duty to see it through. So does a cop with an assignment. Similarly,
moral
duty works for transition. A son lost to a kidnapper obviously leads to a parent's moral duty to find him.
The key question to ask yourself is this: Can my Lead walk away from the plot right now and go on as he has before? If the answer is yes, you haven't gone through the first doorway yet.
Book I of
The Godfather
ends with that transition. Michael shoots the Don's enemy, Sollozzo, and the crooked cop, McCluskey. Now Michael can never go straight again. He's in the conflict up to his eyeballs. He cannot walk away from his choices.
For Nicholas Darrow, the charismatic minister in Susan Howatch's
The Wonder Worker
, the inner stakes are raised when he receives a shock to his upwardly spiraling ministry â his wife and the mother of his two sons leaves him. It's a blow that sends him reeling and forces him to confront his own humanity. He definitely cannot walk away.
The First Doorway
Lead's normal world, a place of safety and rest, is on one side of the doorway. Problems may happen here, but they don't threaten great change. Lead is content to stay here. Something has to happen to push him through the door.
On the other side of the door is the outside world, the great unknown, the dark forest. A place where the Lead is going to have to dig deep inside and show courage, learn new things, make new allies, etc.
It's crucial to understand the difference between an initial disturbance (sometimes called an “inciting incident”) and the first doorway of no return (sometimes called a “plot point” or “crossing the threshold” in mythic terms).
In the movie
Die Hard
, for example, New York cop John McClane has come to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his estranged wife, Holly, and their children. He meets up with her at high rise building where she works for a large company. While McClane is washing up in a bathroom, a team of terrorists takes over the building and all the people there. Except McClane, of course. He escapes to an upper floor.
We are now about twenty minutes into the film. This is definitely a disturbance. But it is not yet the transition into Act II.
Why not? Because McClane and the terrorists are not locked in battle yet. They don't know McClane is in the building. He might open a window, climb out, and scurry away for help. Or figure out a way to get a phone call out. While McClane is trying to figure out just what to do, he secretly witnesses the murder of the CEO of the big company.
So McClane gets to an upper floor again and pulls a fire alarm. This is the incident that sets up the conflict of Act II. Now the terrorists know someone is loose in the building. There is no way for McClane to resign from the action. He's through the first doorway, and there's going to be plenty of confrontation to come. This all happens at the one-quarter mark.
To move from the middle to the end â the second doorway of no return â something has to happen that sets up the final confrontation. Usually it is some major clue or piece of information, or a huge setback or crisis, that hurtles the action toward a conclusion â usually with one quarter or less of the novel to go.
In
The Godfather
, the Don's death is a setback to peace among the mafia families. It emboldens the enemies of the Corleone family, forcing Michael to unleash a torrent of death to establish his power once and for all.
These doorways work equally well in literary fiction. Leif Enger's
Peace Like a River
has two perfectly placed transitions. The first occurs when Reuben's older brother, Davy, shoots and kills two people and must flee. This thrusts Reuben into the middle â the quest to find Davy. The second doorway opens when Davy reappears, setting up the final battle within Reuben â should he reveal where Davy is?
Is it possible to write a novel that defies these conventions of structure? Certainly. Just understand that the more structure is ignored, the less chance the novel has to connect with readers.
The Second Doorway
Lead is facing a series of confrontations and challenges on one side of the door. It will go on indefinitely unless some crisis, setback, discovery opens the door to a path that leads to the climax.
On the other side of the door the Lead can gather his forces, inner and outer, for the final battle or final choice that will end the story. There's no going back through the door. The story must end.
Here is how the structural elements line up in the classic movie
The Wizard of Oz
:
In the opening scene, we meet Dorothy, a girl who lives on a farm in Kansas with her aunt and uncle, a dog named Toto, and some goofy farmhands. She dreams of someday going to a place far away, somewhere “over the rainbow.”
Next comes the disturbance. Miss Gulch arrives by bicycle, demanding that Toto be turned over to her so she can have him destroyed. Her demand is backed up by the law, so Uncle Henry reluctantly gives Toto to Miss Gulch. Dorothy is devastated.
But Toto escapes from Miss Gulch's basket and runs back to the farm. Dorothy, knowing it could happen again, decides to run away. She meets the Professor, who engineers a little “magic” to induce Dorothy to return home.