Plot & Structure

After the Showdown and Resolution , a pro writer wraps up the story.

The Wrap Up takes care of any loose ends, resolves any remaining unresolved subplots, and eases the reader out of the story world with (hopefully) a sense of satisfaction at a story well told. “Denouement” is the more poetic way to describe the Wrap Up. Either term will do–as long as the writer remembers to put this last structural element into place.

However, a writer can choose to leave out the Wrap Up. Sometimes, for dramatic effect, a writer may want to end a story at the moment of the protagonist’s Final Victory or Ultimate Defeat. But most novelists take the time to write the few sentences, paragraphs, or pages that fully resolve the story in a way that is satisfying to the reader.

With the Wrap Up concluded, you have brought the story to an end.

This post concludes the discussion of plot and structure in novel writing, but it doesn’t end our discussion of how to write a pageturner novel. The next series of posts will address the how to’s of creating another element vitally important in writing a novel readers can’t put down: compelling characters.

Happy writing!

Watch Jessica Hatchigan’s video tutorial – “How Bestselling Authors Create Pageturner Novels: Plot & Structure ” instantly on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or device via Amazon.com’s instant video.

When you get to writing the Showdown segment of Act 3, you–the author–finally get to write the scene to which all of the action in the novel has been building: the hero now confronts his nemesis face to face for the decisive battle.

Structurally, this should happen midway through Act 3.

In our last blog post on the need for urgency in Act 3, we had the hero racing against time to face off against the antagonist. The hero is armed with hope and determination and with some slim chance of success. The antagonist appears to be a near-invincible Goliath.

Up to now, the hero may have confronted any number of challenges. He may have succeeded in overcoming the challenges on his journey to this point in the story. But none of his victories, so far, have enabled him to achieve his Key Goal. Now the hero’s ongoing struggle to achieve his elusive Key Goal boils down to this one Final Battle.

The Showdown should be “writ large.” It should be a big, exciting sceme. It’s not just a minor skirmish; it’s the climactic battle. The stakes are enormous. This is the hero’s last chance.

The Showdown leads to the Resolution (or climax) of the story.  In the Resolution of the Showdown, he will emerge victorious or go down in defeat. If the writer has done his job properly, the Showdown should hold readers glued to the page, rooting for the hero, their hearts beating a little faster, their palms sweaty.

Some examples of Showdown/Resolution:

– In Jaws, Chief Brody, Quint and Hooper battle the shark. The shark kills Quint. Hooper and Chief Brody survive when Brody blows up the shark by shooting at compressed air tank lodged momentarily in its jaws.

– In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget’s Mr. Right (Mark Darcy) announces his engagement to Bridget’s rival and his decision to leave England with his fiancee to accept a job in New York. Bridget gives a speech at the engagement party revealing her true feelings for Mark. In the next scene, Mark calls off his engagement to Natasha and his decision to leave England. Bridget appears to have found her Mr. Right!

– In The Fugitive Kimble confronts both Sykes, the hired killer, and the real killer, Nichols, while fending off an implacable FBI agent who believes him (Kimble) to be the guilty man. Following a knock-down-drag-em-out fight, Kimble proves his innocence.

Happy writing!

Watch Jessica Hatchigan’s video tutorial – “How Bestselling Authors Create Pageturner Novels: Plot & Structure ” instantly on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or device via Amazon.com’s instant video.

Your story’s “clockworks” & the need for speed.

Once the hero has experienced the Epiphany (in which he finally realizes how he has a chance to defeat a seemingly undefeatable adversary), the novelist must make speed of the essence.

An author cannot allow her hero the luxury of time to resolve his issue and/or defeat the antagonist. The time allowed the hero to complete his critical task must be limited.

A clock should now be ticking.

Think about movies scenes in which the hero needs to defuse an explosive device. A clock literally ticks away the seconds to detonation. The hero (and the audience) is sweating bullets. That is the kind of tension a well-paced showdown and resolution ignites.

Some examples:

• In the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta have grown to love each other, but the sadistic rules of the gladiatorial style combat to which they were recruited now force them to fight each other to the death.
• In The Graduate, Benjamin must rush to the church to interrupt Elaine’s wedding to the wrong guy. Will he get there in time?
• In Star Wars, Luke only has a limited time to hit the Death Star at its vulnerable point. 
• In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget’s Mr. Right (Mark) is leaving Britain with his fiancee (not Bridget) to accept a job in New York. Bridget must find a way to get Mark back – and soon.
• In The Fugitive Kimble confronts both Sykes, the hired killer, and the real killer, Nichols, who can exonerate him of the false accusation that he murdered his wife – but just ss Kimble does so, the law closes in him.

Once the author sets up the reason Speed Is Now of the Essence, the hero rushes to his Showdown with the antagonistic force – and the Resolution of the story. We’ll look at the Showdown and Resolution in the next blog post.

Happy writing!

Watch Jessica Hatchigan’s video tutorial – “How Bestselling Authors Create Pageturner Novels: Plot & Structure ” instantly on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or device via Amazon.com’s instant video

In previous posts, we’ve discussed key structural guideposts for writing your novel. Our last post on structure discussed the second turning point.

Following the second turning point – a place in the story that sees the hero beaten down and discouraged – we arrive at Act 3.

In the concluding scenes of Act 2b, it doesn’t seem things can get any worse. But – in a well-constructed story – of course, they do.

In fact, as Act 3 unfolds, the hero experiences his lowest moment. He hits rock bottom. For the antagonistic force, victory seems assured – and the hero sees it that way too. The hero is at the point of despair.

Then,  a beam of light shines into the hero’s dark pit of despair.

The hero sees a way out of his dead end. Often, it’s a long shot, last chance, last ditch effort that carries only a slim possibility of success.

This moment of “seeing the light” is called the Epiphany. It’s a moment of illumination in which a new possibility (and usually new information or a new realization) brings with it a surge of hope and a renewal of energy.

Some examples:

• In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry tricks Hagrid into blurting out that the way to tame Fluffy – the monster guarding the solution to his troubles – is to play music.
• In Star Wars, it’s when Luke hears the general explain the weak point in the Death Star.
• In Bridget Jones’s Diary, it’s when Bridget learns that the man she thinks is Mr. Right is Mr. Wrong, and vice-versa, ensuring that she has a chance – although now a slim one – to set her sights on the right Mr. Right.
• In The Fugitive, it’s when the hero who is trying to clear his name finds that a new suspect is the murderer and that the murderer is employed by Nichols  a corrupt executive (enabling the hero to potentially serve up to the justice system, not only the actual murderer, but also a motive for the murder).

The Epiphany provides the story with a renewed burst of energy. The reader is now rooting for the hero to prevail, no matter how slim the chances. If the writer has done his job well, the reader is in a state of suspense that keeps him/her turning pages.

Happy writing!

Watch Jessica Hatchigan’s video tutorial – “How Bestselling Authors Create Pageturner Novels: Plot & Structure ” instantly on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or device via Amazon.com’s instant video

Image: YFCAD TEch

As we progress through the step-by-step construction of a novel, I’d like to pause here and revisit the basic building blocks of a pageturner novel: action scenes and reaction scenes. In a previous post, we explored the basic structure of action/reaction scenes:

Action Scene:

• Hero strives to attain a goal
• Hero meets with conflict in his effort to achieve the goal
• Disaster: hero’s attempt to achieve his goal is frustrated

Reaction Scene:

• Hero reacts to the previous disaster (his emotions/feelings briefly explored/shown)
• Hero puzzles out how to again try for his goal
• Hero decides on an action course

Action scenes, always more interesting, are longer; reaction scenes, shorter.

But one thing to keep in mind is that the Action/Reaction scenes are not always drawn in what an artist would call “hard edges.”

Example:

In The King Must Die, Mary Renault’s 1958 bestseller about the mythical hero Theseus, Renault establishes that as a young boy, Theseus believes what his mother (who bore him out of wedlock) has told him – namely, that his father is the god Poseidon. She opens Chapter 2 with eight-year-old Theseus on one of his annual monthly visits to Poseidon’s temple, where he strives to make contact with the god he believes to be his father. (Goal)

Enter Simo, a boy pledged by his father to Poseidon’s service. Simo is a sadistic bully who mocks the notion that Theseus is of divine parentage. Simo disrespecfully shoves Theseus to the ground to underscore his point. Theseus responds by fighting with Simo. (Conflict)

Theseus wins the fight. But the doubts Simo has sewn in his mind cause Theseus to doubt himself – and the story of Poseidon being his father. (Disaster)

So, while Thesus wins the fistfight with Simo (a victory), he has not achieved his key goal: to assure himself that his origins are indeed honorable.

The Reaction scene shows how Theseus begins to compare himself with other boys born the same year he was.

Because he is slight in build, and believes Poseidon’s son should be tall and sturdy, he decides to compensate by being more daring than the others. His immediate goal now is to outdo the other boys to prove himself. This sets up the next action scene.

In the next action scene, Theseus returns to Poseidon’s temple and is again confronted by the slow-to-learn Simo about his parentage. This time, Theseus stamps his foot in anger and, just then, an earthquake shakes the temple compound. This overwhelms Simo who now believes in Theseus’s divine origins. (Conflict)

So the chapter ends with Theseus’s victory over Simo.

Does this fly in the face of what we’ve talked about – that an action scene needs to end in a disaster?

Not at all. While Theseus has triumphed over a bully in the earthquake scene, he has still not achieved his key goal: to once and for all prove to himself and to others that his father is divine.

We know, from Theseus’s earlier eagerness to exhibit his god-like origins (bravery, daring, and physical prowess), that the victory over Simo does not constitute the achievement of Theseus’s key story goal. Simo is a brutish bully. The victory over such an adversary carries little by the way of glory, which is Theseus’s true goal. Nor does convincing one person ensure Theseus that the story of his divine origins will be universally accepted.

Theseus has won another little victory in the earthquake scene. He has achieved a short-term goal. But his main goal as yet eludes him.

Renault underscores this in the next chapter which takes place four years later and has Theseus observing that people have already forgotten about the foot-stamping/earthquake incident. Once again, his origins are being questioned, and more than ever he yearns to prove himself.

So action scenes can end in a small victories, so long as the hero remains frustrated insofar as his key goal is concerned. That, after all, is what maintains the story tension – and keeps readers turning pages.

Happy writing!