Posts Tagged ‘the process’

[It should be noted that most of this is derived from work done by Michael Hauge's Screenwriting for Hollywood]. The character types and goals are his, the patterns are something I derived. The patterns are flexible and shouldn’t be considered an exhaustive resource.

The following are the most common external goals:

EG.A) Hero’s goal is to win a competition.
EG.B) Hero’s goal is to win a love.
EG.C) Hero’s goal is stop a disaster.
EG.D) Hero’s goal is to retrieve an item.
EG.E) Hero’s goal is to escape a place.
EG.F) Hero’s goal is to escape a person.

The following are the most common internal goal endpoints:

IG.A) Hero stands up for her authentic self.
IG.B) Hero risks connection with another person.
IG.C) Hero stands up for a principle.

The following are the primary characters

Hero
Antagonist
Lover
Support

EG.A) In the story where the hero’s goal is to win a competition, the antagonist is often the hero’s competition. The lover often has a relation with both the hero and the antagonist, but is in support of the hero. The support character is often a mentor who is a veteran of the competition.

EG.B) In the story where the hero’s goal is to win the love of a person, the antagonist is often a rival for that love and is typically better suited to be the object of affection’s counterpart. The lover is promised to the antagonist in some way, but desire’s the hero’s true essence. The support is typically a friend or equal who encourages the hero to pursue the love interest.

EG.C) In the story where the hero’s goal is to stop a disaster, the antagonist is often behind the disaster or wants it to occur for her own goals. The lover’s interests’ are deeply rooted in the outcome of the disaster and she faces the greatest jeopardy. The support character could easily be a secondary hero in this structure or a mentor.

EG.D) In the story where the hero’s goal is to retrieve an item, the antagonist has the item or also wants to retrieve the item. The lover is deeply connected to the item. The support character often knows the ways to retrieve the item.

EG.E) In the story where the hero’s goal is to escape a place, the antagonist is the captor. The lover is the destination and person most longed for by the hero. The support character often knows means of escape.

EG.F) In the story where the hero’s goal is to escape a person, the antagonist is the captor. The love interest is the healer and often plays the duel role of support. The support is often a reflection to the hero, showing how life away from the captor should be.

IG.A) In the story where the ending theme is ‘standing up for your authentic self’, the hero typically feels inadequate for some reason. The antagonist typically sees this inadequacy and flaunts it. The lover loves the authentic self of the hero. The support pushes for the hero to be her authentic self.

IG.B) In the story where the ending theme is ‘Hero risks connection with another person’, the hero has often suffered some great loss. The antagonist will threaten greater loss and remind the character of his past. The lover will work to uncover the wound and heal the hero. The support represents the good that comes from connecting.

IG.C) In the story where the ending theme is ‘Hero stands up for principle’, the hero often has a strong belief they are unwilling to compromise. The antagonist tries to break that principle down. The lover tests that principle and likely discovers a change in herself. The support could likely be a betrayer and show the failed principle.

This is the start of a mind map I’m working on. Its purpose is to help me make sure I’ve covered all the things I feel are important to get a complete story covered. This is a little too verbose for something like a short story, but would be ideal for a shorter novel or screenplay.

It’s not finished yet. One of my goals is to build in the various relationships between one node and another. For example, how does the character’s force of antagonism interact with the character’s fatal flaw? Eventually, I should have a long list of questions to help get the ball rolling. The end goal would be to have some sort of report that resembles a story.

Here’s a quick list of pre-writing story questions I’ve come up with based on a lecture given by Tony Daniel at Conestoga.

Story consists of character, plot, and setting. In a general way, describe the character, plot, and setting of this story:

Story problems are a ripple in the status quo. Describe generally the status quo and then describe who or what comes along and causes the ripple and its possible effects.

What will need to be done to reset the status quo?

What is the hero’s problem [How is what caused the ripple personal to the hero]?

What are some ways the hero can act on the problem to make the problem worse and increase her suffering [list at least 20]?

How can the hero deal with the worsened problem in a way that allows her to reset the status quo or what ways can the change in status quo change the character [list at least 20]?

Does the character suffer? Is the suffering both external[jeopardy] and internal[sacrifice]? Explain in a general way how this is so.

Story’s purpose is reader feeling. What feeling are you hoping to convey with this story? What do you hope the reader feels when he or she finishes reading this story?

I’m working on a critiquing workshop. This is just an hour long presentation meant to help writers learn the fine art of the critique. I wanted something easy to remember, easy to sort of break down to use as a template. I tried to think of the various questions you could ask of a work, but it got cumbersome and there were so many things that depended on other things, and the whole thing became such a mess that I found it might be too difficult for anyone to remember.

I remember when I first started critiquing I ran across someone’s critique guide. It was twenty five pages of questions asking specifics about the story’s start, the ending, the characters, the setting, theme, mood, grammar, and the magic systems. I mean any question you could think to ask was in this guide.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do think something like that can be helpful. When you want a real detailed analysis of what’s working and what’s not a guide like that is perfect. If you just need to know where to start, it can be daunting.

More than once, as a newbie writer, I sat down with one of my first drafts and that document and couldn’t really figure out what I was supposed to do. What if I start by fixing the beginning, but then figure out my main character is shallow and I need to start over? What if I fix up the setting, just to learn that I need to cut that scene? I lacked clarity and direction, so more often than not I wasn’t analyzing my own stories.

While at Clarion West I received a great piece of advice from Maureen McHugh. Pick out one thing you think is working and one thing you think needs repaired. Expand on these a little, and that’s about all you need to convey to the story’s author. This has worked well for me, but it’s awfully subjective to my story taste. My taste tends to be Baroque. When the Story Schema hasn’t quite imprinted on your mind, this might not be the most helpful critique to give or get, because you might love Robert Ludlum and I might love Elizabeth George, and even though we are writing in a similar genre our prose and structure are going to look very different.

So I needed something more. At first, I thought I needed a shorter list of questions. Maybe it’s asking the right questions in the right order? But that would be totally based on where the story’s weakness resides (Ideally, you shouldn’t have to initially know this). Then I got to thinking about the Story Schema. There are lots of them. Some people call these plot skeletons. So I considered the plot skeleton as a basis for all my questions, but quickly realized that there are many, many short stories that do not actually contain all the parts of the typical plot skeleton—yet they work marvelously.

Then I realized I needed the simplest model I could come up with. A story in its most basic form. This is the foundation from which to judge just about any story. There are probably some exceptions to this, but I do believe this should cover things generally.

A person struggling for something they want.

If you can remember that statement, you know just about everything you need to ask of a story. Any story, I believe. Even the literary. It’s simple, I know, but the idea is to make sure the basics are covered.

I wanted something that was self-documenting. Self-documenting is a concept that programmers use when writing code. I have the option of writing comments in my code. This allows me to tell other programmers what I might be doing with a particular function or variable. However, I could also just write the code in a way that tells another programmer exactly what it’s doing.

This statement should do that. As a writer you should be able to tell me the following: who the story is about, what they are struggling against, what they are struggling for, and what they want. Generally, I think if you have these things, you have a story. Now there are some ways you can expand on this. For instance, I find the best stories are those where the main character wants something quite badly, but actually needs something that is in conflict with what he wants.

Finding Nemo. A father fish (A Person) faces dangerous obstacles while searching the ocean’s floor with his absent minded companion (struggling for) for his lost son who he wishes to protect from harm (something they want).

This covers the basics for the story, but there is so much more to it. What he really wants is to keep his son safe. What he needs is to let loose and enjoy his son’s life. These two things are in conflict and make for a fantastic story.

However, the idea isn’t to make the perfect system, just give people a good place to start. Your story should at least have a character who wants something and the character should have to struggle for this thing. If these things are missing, you might have a story problem.

Is the character shown and adequately illustrated?

Are his or her struggles shown and adequately illustrated?

Is what he or she wants shown and adequately illustrated?

I think if you can start here with your critique or with your story analysis, you’ll find what needs to be strengthened, what needs to be cut, what needs to be improved.

Hopefully, with fewer headaches and a lot less confusion.