From Story Idea to Story

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

A common question that aspiring writers ask the pros is "Where do you get your ideas?" Stephen King claims he gets his in a little shop in Utica, but the true answer to the question is that he gets his ideas from the same sources as every other writer, aspiring or pro: from dreams, mental images, newspaper headlines, reading, anecdotes told by others, personal observations, song lyrics, classroom lectures, history--the list is all but limitless.

But what one more than likely means, perhaps, to ask by this question is "How do you develop your ideas into stories?" The answer is simple, really: bring together person, place, and thing.

• The person is the story's main character, or protagonist.
• The story's place is its setting.
• The story's thing is its theme.

What brings the three of them together is the story's conflict and the main character's attempts to resolve this conflict, which includes both his reason, or motive for doing.

Another way of= saying the same thing is to say that a writer develops a story idea into a story by answering six questions: who? (protagonist), what? (conflict), when? and where? (setting), how? (resolution), and why? (motivation and theme). Here's an example:

Idea: A girl is possessed by the devil.

• Who? Father Damien Karras, a priest who doubts his faith (protagonist)
• What? fights the devil (conflict)
• When? and where? in a Georgetown townhouse (setting)
• How? using exorcism (resolution)
• Why? to save a possessed girl's soul and retain his own teetering faith in God (motivation and theme).

That's how it's done and why.

(There's a fill-in-the-blank way of developing the scenes of a story, too, which I explain in "The Fill-in-the-Blank Guide to Writing Fiction").

Learning from the Masters: Ian Fleming

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Regardless of the genre in which one writes, an author can learn from his or her peers--regardless of the genres in which they write. In this and the next post, I will consider a couple of the many tricks, for example, that Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond series of novels, can teach writers of horror fiction--or, for that matter, writers of any other type of narrative literature.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) is different from the other novels featuring 007. For one thing, it doesn’t tell his story. As the novel’s title suggests, The Spy Who Loved Me is a woman’s story, for “the spy” is none other than James Bond. The “me” whom he loves is the story’s protagonist, Vivienne Michel, a woman who, down on her luck in love, finances, and otherwise, takes the job of managing an isolated motel. The motel is not doing well, and its owner is heavily in debt. He hires two gangsters, Sluggsy and Horror, to burn down the place so that he can collect the insurance he's taken out on the establishment. Vivienne fears she will be ravished and killed by the men. As the arsonists close in on her, she hears “the sharp sound of the buzzer at the front door,” and “everyone” freezes (95).

In "The Grand Entrance," I discuss the importance of having one’s main character make a grand entrance of some sort--that is, a memorable debut that makes an indelible impression on the reader, calling attention to the protagonist and setting him or her apart from other characters. Although The Spy Who Loved Me is Vivienne’s story, James Bond is the hero of the series of books in which he appears and he is, of course, normally the protagonist of these novels. Therefore, one can expect Fleming to pull out all the stops when he introduces him (especially when Bond doesn’t put in an appearance until page 100 of a 164-page novel, as is the case in The Spy Who Loved Me). The author doesn’t disappoint his reader; this is the way that Fleming introduces the spy:

At first glance I inwardly groaned--God, it’s another of them! He stood there so quiet and controlled and somehow with the same quality of deadliness as the others. And he wore that uniform that the films make one associate with gangsters--a dark-blue, belted raincoat and a soft black hat pulled rather far down. He was good-looking in a dark, rather cruel way and a scar showed whitely down his left cheek. I quickly put my hand up to hide my nakedness. Then he smiled and suddenly I thought I might be all right.

Here is a tall, dark, handsome man with an air of “deadliness” to him that matches that of the two gangsters who, having come to burn down the motel that Vivienne manages, decide to ravish and kill her, too. Will this unlikely hero, with the “cruel” face and the “scar. . . down his left cheek” rescue the damsel in distress? If so, how? If not, why not? Won over by Vivienne’s unfortunate past and the traumas it has inflicted upon her emotionally, by her beauty, by her determination and endearing personality, and by her desperate present situation, readers hope, with her, that this dangerous-looking stranger, despite his gangster-like appearance, might somehow save the day--and the damsel in distress. As readers, we are hooked, and Commander James Bond, Agent 007, is an engaging character who is expertly and effectively introduced.

Theme as the Springboard to a Story's Plot

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Dorothy Gale discovers she's not in Kansas anymore

I usually start my stories with an inciting moment, the point in the action that launches the rest of the narrative forward. (In The Wizard of Oz, the film version of L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for example, the story begins when the protagonist, Dorothy Gale, runs away from home, because, had she not done so, she’d have been with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands in the storm cellar and would have avoided the cyclone that carried her off to her adventures in faraway Oz.)

A story’s inciting moment can be virtually anything. I once had a list of a couple hundred potential inciting moments. A few on this list might have been:

• The protagonist receives a strange package.
• The protagonist makes a spontaneous (and, as it turns out, a poor) decision.
• The protagonist is abducted by strangers.
• The protagonist buys his girlfriend a present different than the one he’d intended to buy for her birthday.
• The protagonist awakens in a strange place, not knowing how he or she got there.

In a previous post, I explain how Edgar Allan Poe wrote his famous narrative poem The Raven backward, by first determining the effect that he wanted to produce (horror) and then determining the details, of plot, tone, setting, and so forth, that would best help him to produce this predetermined effect. This morning, in the wee hours, as I lay half-asleep and half--awake, which is usually when the muse puts in her appearances--I hit upon another way to accomplish this same feat: One can write backward, so to speak, by first determining how the main character will change by the end of the story!

The change doesn’t have to be drastic, although it should be significant. The change may involve in alteration in the protagonist’s aspirations, attitude, beliefs, decisions, emotions, perceptions, reasoning, thoughts, understanding, or values. Whatever type of change occurs, however, it will derive from the experiences that he or she undergoes during the course of the story, and his or her change will constitute a lesson of sorts for him or her. In fact, I often think of the theme of a story as the lesson that the main character learns as a result of his or her experiences.

Looked at backward, so to speak, the story’s theme (the lesson learned, as reflected in the protagonist’s change of behavior) can be the springboard for the narrative’s entire action, a kind of inciting moment in reverse, as it were. In other words, by determining beforehand how the main character will change, a writer can then plot the story’s action in reverse, determining what will make him or her change and what lesson he or she will learn as the result of the experiences that he or she thus undergoes.

Job, in better days

Let’s take the Biblical story of Job (a horror story, if ever there was one) as an example. At the end of the story, Job’s understanding of God increases: Before the story, Job has a simple idea of God as One who rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior; by the conclusion of the narrative, Job learns that God’s will is inscrutable, or unknowable, and that He must be trusted despite human beings’ ignorance of His ultimate character, or, as Job phrases his newfound knowledge (the story’s theme), “The just shall live by faith.”

Job has not learned the lesson that bad things sometime happen to good people and not just to the bad guys. Therefore, he is puzzled when things go from good to bad for him, and his faith (trust) in God is severely tested. By knowing in advance that Job’s understanding of the nature of God is what will change as he learns his lesson (“The just shall live by faith”), the writer would be able to select the incidents of the plot, including those of the exposition (God points out Job’s faithfulness to Satan during an assembly of the heavenly host which the devil also attends); the inciting moment (Satan is allowed to test Job’s faith); the rising action (the increasingly horrific torments that Job must endure during the testing of his faith); the turning point (Job’s refusal both to curse God and to himself accept blame for the catastrophes that befall his fortune, his family, and himself); the falling action (God’s interrogation of Job out of the whirlwind); and the denouement (Job’s confession of both his ignorance of, and his faith in, God and God’s restoration of Job’s fortune, Job’s family, and Job himself).

By plotting backward, so to speak, from the story’s theme and using it as a sort of reverse inciting moment, the narrative’s sequence of action, including the elements of its plot, can be determined in such a way that this sequence of action will result in the protagonist’s change of behavior and the learning of his or her lesson. In addition, this approach allows the writer to connect plot to character much more closely, perhaps, than he or she might have been able to do had his or her story begun not with the final outcome (the theme of the story, which accompanies or leads to the protagonist’s change in behavior), but with a simple change in the routine of the protagonist’s normal, everyday life. Moreover, this approach helps the writer to ensure that everything that happens in the story is related to the character’s development and change and to his or her recognition of a new truth (the lesson that he or she learns).

Bits & Pieces: Story One-Liners

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pulman

No, I’m not endorsing USA Today. In fact, its political bent slants opposite of my own. However, I’m certainly not denigrating it, either. It’s a decent daily in many ways. Besides, I don’t depend upon it for my news (although, I must admit, I do enjoy reading its “Across the USA: news from every state” column. It offers something I don’t see anywhere else: news from every state.

But I also check out the “TV Tonight” listings on occasion. In doing so, I find, the one-sentence summaries of TV episode and movie plots frequently encapsulate, in nut-shell fashion, identifications of the protagonist, the antagonist, conflict (if only implicitly), and the conflict’s resolution. Not bad for a sentence. Here’s an example: “A man [protagonist] drinking himself to death [conflict] finds solace [conflict resolution] with a hooker [antagonist]” (6D). While this summary, which is of Leaving Las Vegas, is not of a horror movie, the same approach can be used to sum up a horror film. Here’s an example: Ben Mears (protagonist) leads a fight against vampires (conflict), liberating his boyhood hometown (conflict resolution) from the bloodsucking fiends (antagonists). The summary is, of course, of Stephen King’s novel ‘Salem’s Lot.

The one-sentence statement of a story’s basic plot keeps a writer focused on the narrative’s main character, antagonist, conflict, conflict resolution, and through-line, which is no mean feat when one writes novels of the length of ‘Salem’s Lot. The synopsis can fit on an index card that one can tape on his or her computer monitor, pocket to take with him or her to the library (for research beyond the Internet’s delivery capability), and keep close to hand during rewrites and revisions. Again, not bad for a sentence!

Establishing Verisimilitude

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a woman sitting on her porch, reading a letter. Across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched, but we do not see the watcher.

Who is this woman? Who wrote the letter, and what is in it? How does she react to its contents? Does she smile, laugh, sigh, weep, shake her head, nod, shrug?

Who is watching her? A man? A woman? Why is he or she watching the woman? Is the watcher a police detective? A mobster? A stalker? A secret protector? Does he or she mean the woman harm or good?

The answers to these questions (which will suggest additional questions) depends on the genre of the story that one is writing. Is it an action-adventure story? A detective or mystery story? Espionage? Fantasy? Romance? Science fiction? Western?

Or horror?

If it’s a horror story, the watcher could be either a predator or a protector. If a predator, it could be an alien (extraterrestrial), an animal, a demon, a ghost, a madman, a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a zombie, or some other kind of monster, human or otherwise. Depending upon what kind of menace the watcher is, he, she (or it) may or many not respond to the woman’s reading of the letter and to her reaction to its contents.

Were I developing a plot about such a situation, I would opt to make the threat a human one or an intelligent entity, at least, because such an antagonist could respond to the situation, including the woman’s reaction to the letter, and if she is going to be described as reading and reacting to a letter, it would be seem desirable to the make the most of the emotional and dramatic potential of such a scene. Otherwise, why have her read a letter at all? She could just as easily be watched while she waters the flowers, takes a walk, or does any of a hundred other things. Therefore, my watcher must be one of the following: an alien, a demon, a madman, a vampire, or a witch (or, possibly, a ghost). Eliminated would be the animal, the werewolf, the zombie and any type of subhuman monster.

If, on the other hand, the watcher was the woman’s secret protector (secret because, if she know of him, he wouldn’t have to observe her from hiding), he (or she) would have to have a motive that seems feasible to readers. His or her role may or may not be related to the monstrous antagonist. If it is related, perhaps the protective character is a government agent, a demon hunter, a psychiatrist, a vampire slayer, a clergyman, or a ghost hunter or psychic. Obviously, if such were the case, this character would be present to protect the woman from the monster. Perhaps the protector’s awareness that the woman is due to receive a letter from a particular correspondent is the reason that he or she is watching the woman. Maybe the protector wants to see how the woman reacts to the letter’s contents (which, of course, implies that he or she is him- or herself aware of these contents).

The letter’s contents could be the device that links the three characters: the woman, the protector, and the antagonist. Does it announce the protector’s mission (to protect the woman) from a threatening entity (the antagonist)? Does it explain the true situation of which the woman is to play an integral part, a fact of which, until her reading of the letter, she has been unaware? Does the letter warn the woman of the monster that threatens her or will begin to threaten her, if it has not done so before? Could the woman be subject to a post-hypnotic command expressed in the letter she reads?

Why does the antagonist want to abduct or kill the woman? What is the antagonist’s motive for doing so? Is the villain acting alone or as part of a group?

The woman’s role in the situation must not be forgotten. In fact, it is likely that either she or the protective character is the story’s protagonist (unless there is no monster and the watcher is him- or herself the narrative’s antagonist). Was she expecting the letter she now reads or did it come to her out of the blue, as it were? Is the letter from a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger? What does the letter say? Why does she react to its contents in the way that she does? Is her reaction appropriate or inappropriate to the news, and why? What else does the reader need to know about her? Is she single? Married? Separated? Divorced? Widowed? Does she work? Is she between jobs (“redundant,” as the British say)? Is she retired or independently wealthy? What predicament is she in? (She must be in some sort of predicament, of course, either now or very soon, for, as Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren point out in Understanding Fiction, “no conflict, no story.”)

Of course, the basic situation with which we started--that of a woman’s sitting on her porch, reading a letter while, across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched by an unseen watcher--could be developed in several ways besides the one I set forth as an example, and the story would, as a result, develop differently in each case, but, by linking the woman, the antagonist, and the watchful protector through the letter, we attain coherence among the characters, which establishes both a sense of narrative logic and believability, or a sense of verisimilitude, as writers and critics--mostly critics--are fond of saying.

Imagined Horrors

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

-- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Conqueror worm"

Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are tales of madness and, quite often, murder. In many of them, the protagonist’s insanity is evident in his perceptions and thoughts, which tend toward the hallucinatory. In listening in on their musings, as it were, readers understand that their notions are irrational. A famous case in point: “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which begins with the admission that there is nothing wrong with the character of the man whom the narrator-protagonist would kill; his victim’s error is not in his ways, but in a physical--indeed, a facial--feature: the injured party’s offense, such as it is, is in the eye of the mad beholder:

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.

Likewise, in “The Cask of Amontillado,” the narrator-protagonist informs the reader that he is about to avenge himself for an “insult” that he, the protagonist, claims he has recently suffered at the hands of his intended victim, Fortunato. The protagonist paints himself as a longsuffering man, but as one for whom patience in the face of longstanding, ongoing abuse has finally reached its end: “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

As readers, we observe that the avenger never specifically identifies any of the “thousand injuries” he has suffered at the hands of Fortunato, possibly because he cannot do so, since these slights and injuries, in fact, never happened except in his own mind. Likewise, we see that he has plotted his revenge upon the unfortunate Fortunato, presumably for some time, and according to a principle:

AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled--but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

The avenger has a powerful intellect, but his use of reason is perverted by his madness. He is careful to ensure that his vengeance goes undetected and, therefore, unpunished, as, he says, a proper act of vengeance must; a sane man would not suppose that vengeance be perpetuated according to a code or standard.

As readers, we also notice that the protagonist does not confront his intended victim with his allegation that Fortunato has in some way “ventured upon insult.” He does not give his acquaintance the opportunity, as it were, to defend himself or explain his actions. Like a husband who murders, rather than divorces, his wife, the protagonist, rather than confront his longstanding acquaintance or break off his friendship with him, decides to murder him and, indeed, takes pains to pretend that all remains well between them: “It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile NOW was at the thought of his immolation.”

No doubt, the protagonist’s pretense is designed to keep the unsuspecting Fortunato unsuspecting and to permit the avenger to carry out his vengeance with “impunity,” but it also shows the apparently rational man to be utterly irrational and the supposedly injured protagonist to be injurious, indeed. Again, the fault does not appear to lie in the character or behavior of the victim, but in the thought processes, or reasoning, of the mad protagonist.







Other of Poe’s stories, such as “The Black Cat,” are constructed on the basis of the same premise: an unreliable (because mad) narrator tells a story about his own past criminal conduct and, in the process, exposes his madness.


Poe’s method is still used by writers today, who depict similar madmen (and women) whose telling of their stories depict them as insane and whose madness is itself the source of the twisted perceptions or understandings that give rise to the acts of violence and murder that they commit. (Charlotte Gilman Perkins’ “The Yellow Wallpaper” and H. G. Wells’ “The Red Room” are masterful examples of more recent stories that depend upon their protagonist’s hallucinatory or mistaken perceptions and understandings.)

Such an approach suggests that, to an insane person, anything can be considered wrong, perverse, or threatening because the horror is not in the things themselves, or the world, but in themselves. It has been truly said that one’s perceptions are, to the one who experiences them, realities, even if they are mistaken or, indeed, entirely the products of their own psychoses.

For example, why does that light flicker so, in the dead of the night? What must it be thinking? What is it trying to communicate, so fervently ands insistently, and why?

Formulating Horror Fiction

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

To formulate horror fiction, ask four simple questions:

Who or what is under attack?
Who or what is attacking it?
How is he, she, they, or it being attacked?
Why is he, she, they, or it being attacked?

Turn each question into one word:

Who or what is under attack = victim
Who or what is attacking it = antagonist
How he, she, they, or it is being attacked = technique
Why it is being attacked = motive (or cause)

Now, flesh out the sentence; for example, here is the storyline for The Exorcist:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation (motive), the devil (antagonist) possesses technique of attack) Regan MacNeil (victim).

Here is the storyline for A Nightmare on Elm Street:

To avenge his murder (motive), Freddy Krueger (antagonist) invades the nightmares of (technique of attack) the children of the parents who murdered him (victims).

The plot storyline for ‘Salem’s Lot:

To feed (motive), vampires (antagonists) bite (and kill) (technique of attack) the townspeople of ‘Salem‘s Lot (victims).

Notice that this formula describes the storyline from the antagonist’s point of view. This is good, because it identifies the villain’s purpose, or motive, in attacking his, her, or its intended victims and the technique that the villain uses to do so. However, stories are written from the protagonist’s point of view, not that of the antagonist. Therefore, once you’ve identified the antagonist’s motive, technique of attack, and intended victims, you need to turn the angle from which the storyline is being viewed around, so to speak, so that you are seeing it from the hero’s or the heroine’s point of view. In other words, the protagonist is now the doer of the deed (and, therefore, the subject of the sentence), the deed is the action of the story (and, therefore, the verb of the sentence), and the antagonist is the person or the thing upon which the action is performed (and, therefore, the direct object of the sentence). His or her motive can be supplied in an introductory infinitive phrase:

To rescue Regan MacNeil (motive), Father Karras (protagonist), exorcises (method of attack) the devil (antagonist).

You’ve identified the main character, his or her motive, the victim, and the villain, and you’ve related them through the action that the protagonist performs upon the antagonist. Applying the same technique, you can reorient other storylines from the antagonist’s to the protagonist’s point of view. Occasionally, when there is more than one motive, protagonist, action, or antagonist, you might have to extend the sentence to express the storyline more fully, as is done with regard to the storyline for ‘Salem‘s Lot.

To survive (motive), Nancy (protagonist) captures (method of attack) Freddy Krueger (antagonist).

To protect humanity (motive), Ben Mears (protagonist) returns to ’Salem’s Lot and kills (methods of attack) vampires (antagonist).

By first starting with the plot as it appears from the antagonist’s point of view, you will be clear as to the villain’s motive, method of attack, and intended victim. By then switching the perspective from which you view the story’s events, you are clear as to the protagonist’s motive, method of attack, and antagonist

You can now combine these two perspectives into a single, comprehensive depiction of the storyline:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation, the devil possesses Regan MacNeil, but Father Karras rescues her by exorcising the fiend.

To avenge his murder, Freddy Krueger invades the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him, but Nancy survives by capturing him.

To feed, vampires bite (and kill) the townspeople of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Ben Mears returns to save humanity by killing the vampires.

Of course, these storylines are but the bare bones of a fully developed plot. However, they do give you a framework--a skeleton--upon which to build by asking pertinent questions related to each element (the protagonist’s and the antagonist’s respective motive, method of attack, and intended victim):

Protagonist

Who is he? Father Karras. Who old is he? Middle age. What is he (occupation)? Catholic priest. What are his strengths of character? He is compassionate, honest, humble, or teachable, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He doubts his faith. Why does he want to rescue Regan? Obviously, it is the right thing to do. However, Karras’ protective impulse would be likely to be activated by Regan’s plight, as an innocent child abused by an evil power. In addition, by exorcising the devil, Karras might be able to silence, or even eliminate, the doubts that plague him concerning his faith in an all-powerful and loving God.

The same sort of questions can be asked regarding the antagonist of your story. Concerning the antagonist of The Exorcist, questions might include:

Antagonist

Who is he? Is he Satan? Some other demon or group of demons? What are his strengths of character? He is intelligent, strong-willed, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He is full of hatred, dishonest, unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, and unredeemable evil. Why does he possess Regan? Primarily, by giving evil a face--and that of an innocent young girl--and tormenting her cruelly so that she suffers horribly, the devil hopes to get Father Karras to renounce his faith in God so that he will be damned to hell. His possession of the girl is primarily a means to this end, although he enjoys corrupting and degrading her and causing the girl‘s mother grief and emotional anguish as well simply because he is evil and sadistic.
Why does the devil select Regan as his victim?

Victim

What makes Regan attractive to the devil as a victim? Her youth? Her innocence? Why is the victim a girl, rather than a boy? Is a girl a more sympathetic character? She is physically weaker and, perhaps, more emotionally vulnerable (or is likely to be perceived to be such, at least, by much of the audience), and the devil’s deep, masculine voice, speaking through her, will seem more perverse and unnatural, heightening the effect of horror. Also, Father Karras feels guilty for having (he feels) abandoned his mother, a female. Regan is also a helpless female, even more vulnerable than the priest’s aged mother, because she is a child.

In this manner, you build up your plot and characters. You could use the same method to develop the plots and characters in the other stories, A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Salem’s Lot, or any other novel or motion picture. (victims).

Notice that this formula describes the storyline from the antagonist’s point of view. This is good, because it identifies the villain’s purpose, or motive, in attacking his, her, or its intended victims and the technique that the villain uses to do so. However, stories are written from the protagonist’s point of view, not that of the antagonist. Therefore, once you’ve identified the antagonist’s motive, technique of attack, and intended victims, you need to turn the angle from which the storyline is being viewed around, so to speak, so that you are seeing it from the hero’s or the heroine’s point of view. In other words, the protagonist is now the doer of the deed (and, therefore, the subject of the sentence), the deed is the action of the story (and, therefore, the verb of the sentence), and the antagonist is the person or the thing upon which the action is performed (and, therefore, the direct object of the sentence). His or her motive can be supplied in an introductory infinitive phrase:

To rescue Regan MacNeil (motive) Father Karras (protagonist), exorcises (method of attack) the devil (antagonist).

You’ve identified the main character, his or her motive, the victim, and the villain, and you’ve related them through the action that the protagonist performs upon the antagonist. Applying the same technique, you can reorient other storylines from the antagonist’s to the protagonist’s point of view. Occasionally, when there is more than one motive, protagonist, action, or antagonist, you might have to extend the sentence to express the storyline more fully, as is done with regard to the storyline for ‘Salem‘s Lot.

To survive (motive), Nancy (protagonist) captures (method of attack) Freddy Krueger (antagonist).

To protect humanity (motive), Ben Mears (protagonist) returns to ’Salem’s Lot and kills (methods of attack) vampires (antagonist).

By first starting with the plot as it appears from the antagonist’s point of view, you will be clear as to the villain’s motive, method of attack, and intended victim. By then switching the perspective from which you view the story’s events, you are clear as to the protagonist’s motive, method of attack, and antagonist

You can now combine these two perspectives into a single, comprehensive depiction of the storyline:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation, the devil possesses Regan MacNeil, but Father Karras rescues her by exorcising the fiend.

To avenge his murder, Freddy Krueger invades the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him, but Nancy survives by capturing him.

To feed, vampires bite (and kill) the townspeople of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Ben Mears returns to save humanity by killing the vampires.

Of course, these storylines are but the bare bones of a fully developed plot. However, they do give you a framework--a skeleton--upon which to build by asking pertinent questions related to each element (the protagonist’s and the antagonist’s respective motive, method of attack, and intended victim):

Protagonist

Who is he? Father Karras. Who old is he? Middle age. What is he (occupation)? Catholic priest. What are his strengths of character? He is compassionate, honest, humble, or teachable, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He doubts his faith. Why does he want to rescue Regan? Obviously, it is the right thing to do. However, Karras’ protective impulse would be likely to be activated by Regan’s plight, as an innocent child abused by an evil power. In addition, by exorcising the devil, Karras might be able to silence, or even eliminate, the doubts that plague him concerning his faith in an all-powerful and loving God.

The same sort of questions can be asked regarding the antagonist of your story. Concerning the antagonist of the Exorcist, questions might include:

Antagonist

Who is he? Is he Satan? Some other demon or group of demons? What are his strengths of character? He is intelligent, strong-willed, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He is full of hatred, dishonest, unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, and unredeemable evil. Why does he possess Regan? Primarily, by giving evil a face--and that of an innocent young girl--and tormenting her cruelly so that she suffers horribly, the devil hopes to get Father Karras to renounce his faith in God so that he will be damned to hell. His possession of the girl is primarily a means to this end, although he enjoys corrupting and degrading her and causing the girl‘s mother grief and emotional anguish as well simply because he is evil and sadistic.
Why does the devil select Regan as his victim?

Victim

What makes Regan attractive to the devil as a victim? Her youth? Her innocence? Why is the victim a girl, rather than a boy? Is a girl a more sympathetic character? She is physically weaker and, perhaps, more emotionally vulnerable (or is likely to be perceived to be such, at least, by much of the audience), and the devil’s deep, masculine voice, speaking through her, will seem more perverse and unnatural, heightening the effect of horror. Also, Father Karras feels guilty for having (he feels) abandoned his mother, a female. Regan is also a helpless female, even more vulnerable than the priest’s aged mother, because she is a child.

In this manner, you build up your plot and characters. You could use the same method to develop the plots and characters in the other stories, A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Salem’s Lot, or any other novel or motion picture.

Quick Tip: For A Story To Be Suspenseful, It Is Necessary For Its Protagonist To Suffer

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In a comedy, the main character ends up better off at the end of the story than he or she was at its beginning. A tragedy is just the opposite: the protagonist ends up better off at the conclusion of the narrative than he or she was at its start. The main character in a comedy may not end up well off or happy. He or she may be only relatively better off or happier than he or she was at the story’s beginning. A disease, believed to be fatal, might, instead of killing the protagonist, merely cripple, or disable, him or her. Likewise, although the main character in a tragedy will end up worse off or more miserable at the end of the tale than he or she was initially, he or she may actually go from bad, rather than good, to worse off.

Gustav Freytag, as I pointed out in a previous post, breaks dramas into five acts, the second one of which, which constitutes the rising action, he says, complicates the story’s initial, basic conflict, usually by tossing one obstacle after another, each more serious and more difficult to overcome than the previous, into the protagonist’s path or attempt to realize his or her goal. Dean Koontz says much the same thing when he advises writers to make it as hard on the main character as possible. Likewise, Joss Whedon told Sarah Michelle Gellar that, to make Buffy the Vampire Slayer as compelling a series as possible, it was necessary to make the character she played suffer as much as possible. Readers cheer on main characters who suffer to succeed, and, as soon as a protagonist overcomes one problem, another, worse one needs to arise, just as, when Hercules sought to kill the Hydra, cutting off one of its nine heads, two new heads appeared from the resulting wound, making his task always twice as difficult as it originally had been.

In other words, during the beginning of the story, during its rising action, a writer must make everything worse and worse for his or her protagonist. Koontz demonstrates this technique (as do most popular novelists) in all of his books. In Relentless, a sociopath who also happens to be a critic, attacks the protagonist (a popular novelist!) and his family. Warned that the antagonist is a relentless killer, the writer packs a few bags, planning to take his wife and son with him and flee their home. Rather stupidly leaving their son unattended in the back seat of their getaway car, the parents, after hearing a cellular telephone left in a closet by their assailant ring, witness their clock radios reset themselves and begin counting down toward explosions. They flee back to the car, only to find their son missing. A bad situation (looming explosions) has gotten even worse (their son is missing as the bombs are about to detonate).

By taking a tip from Koontz, Whedon, and other popular storytellers in plotting the action of your story so that one problem, as soon as it is resolved, is overtaken by a more difficult one in which the stakes (one’s home is about to be destroyed) are increased (one’s son is missing and may be killed), you, too, can generate and maintain suspense while complicating your story’s basic conflict.

Quick Tip: Writing the Short-Short Story

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

A short-short story is a narrative that is under 1,000 words in length, It is often made up of only a single scene, wherein a conflict, usually between two characters, is posed and resolved. There is frequently a twist, or surprise, ending to the story, which is generally effected through dramatic irony, situational irony, verbal irony, or a combination thereof. However, these are not hard-and-fast rules, but sweeping statements. Many times, short short stories derive from situations. In any case, they must be tightly written. Every word counts, adding to the narrative’s development and effect.

My own short-short story, “Finis” illustrates the form. After writing it in full, I changed the second paragraph to provide a stronger motivation for the protagonist’s extreme action. Before this revision, the paragraph supplied enough information to suggest why the actress might do as she does, but not sufficient motivation for her to do what she does; the revision makes her actions more believable.

Finis

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

The director asked, “Ready, Amanda?”

The actress thought of her husband and three-year-old daughter trapped inside their SUV, burned alive before they could be rescued; of the doctor’s pained expression when he’d detected something suspicious in her left breast and had, sober-faced, his voice flat, an attempt at a smile faltering at the corners of his lips, telling her that, “just to be on the safe side,” he wanted to order a biopsy; and of the five million dollars she’d been paid for this role and of how the money would finance her institutionalized daughter’s needs, and she nodded. “Ready.”

“I’d like to get it right the first time,” he said, and she nodded.

The production assistant held the clapboard between her and the camera: Snuff, Scene 1, Take 1. He snapped the top lever, the clapstick, down, upon the board, clack!

“Action!” the director called.

The camera dollied in, close.

Blood spurted from Amanda’s left forearm, bright and explosive.

She grimaced, drawing the straight-razor down the vein in her other forearm.

Blood was everywhere. Amanda felt faint. She listed to her left, her head spinning. Dizzy, she capsized, landing in the pool of her own splattering blood. The vital fluid was warm and thick. She moaned.

“Cut!” the director cried. “Perfect. Print it.”

For Amanda, everything went dark, and silence claimed her.

Quick Tip: Theme As Lesson

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

The theme of a story is frequently defined as the point, meaning, or moral of the story, the lesson that the story imparts, explicitly or (more often) implicitly. This definition is true enough, and helpful, but I prefer to think of the story’s theme as the lesson that the main character, or protagonist, learns as the result of his or her experience as this experience is related in the story.

For example, the theme of The Wizard of Oz, which Dorothy Gale learns as a result of her being whisked off to Oz, encountering the enchanted land’s various residents, and defeating the Wicked Witch of the West, is “There’s no place like home.” The theme of The Exorcist is similar to that of the book of Job, that true faith in God persists despite the existence of evil and human suffering. The theme of ‘Salem’s Lot is that, by banding together, a community can defeat a force far greater than any single individual.

Quick Tip: Relate the Turning Point to the Moment of Recognition

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

To ensure tighter unity between plot and character, make sure that the former’s turning point is the vehicle for the latter. The turning point, or climax, of a story is the point at which the protagonist’s fortune changes for the better or the worse or goes from good to better or from bad to worse. (If the story is a comedy, the main character’s state of affairs will improve by the story’s end; if the story is a tragedy, the main character’s state of affairs will worsen by story’s end.)

The turning point, as part of the tale’s action, is an element of the plot. The moment of recognition occurs when the main character learns or realizes something significant about him- or herself.

For example, in The Wizard of Oz, the turning point happens when Dorothy, sent by the wizard to seize the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, throws water on her (trying to extinguish the fire the witch has set upon the scarecrow), thereby destroying her and obtaining the broomstick. Until this moment, Dorothy has been a dependent child who has not appreciated fully the responsibilities of adulthood or her family and her home life. Now, she takes responsibility for herself, acting on her own behalf, and matures. She is able to appreciate the responsibilities of adulthood and her family and home life. The act is the means by which she changes (for the better).

This same principle works in other stories, too, including horror stories. For example, in The Exorcist, the death of Father Merrin not only places the responsibility of the exorcism squarely and solely upon the shoulders of Father Karras, but it also becomes the vehicle for the younger priest’s recovery of his faith, which enables him to sacrifice himself to rescue the possessed girl, Regan MacNeil.

Characterization via Emotion

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Characterization operates by means of depicting emotion. Literary characters are, in fact, embodiments of emotion. Some emotions may be negative, either in the sense that they are unpleasant or in the sense that they cause problems, personal, social, or otherwise. Emotions can also be positive because they are pleasant or because they alleviate or resolve problems, personal, social, or otherwise.

Characters’ responses to incidents--that is, their feelings concerning events--motivate their actions. In other words, characters are often reactive: they respond to internal or external stimuli. Internal stimuli are their own attitudes, beliefs, desires, fantasies, hopes, thoughts, and, of course, emotions, such as fear, love, and self-respect. External stimuli are persons, places, things, qualities, and ideas that elicit characters’ passions, and can include threats, money, beauty, and death.

The overall, consistent pattern which underlies and is discerned in an individual’s behavior over an extended period of time suggests his or her basic personality traits and causes him or her to be regarded as just, wise, kind, ruthless, arrogant, vain, or whatever. However, many lesser, secondary traits also comprise most fictional people at any time of his or her literary life.

Hamlet is driven by his sense of duty to avenge his murdered father, but he is also hesitant, wanting to make sure that he acts justly in killing his father’s true killer--if, indeed, his father was killed, as the spirit who alleges to be the ghost of his father contends the late king was. These traits are the primary ones that motivate Hamlet, both to act and to refrain from acting. Therefore, he can be said to be a dutiful and just, but hesitant, character. In short, we might regard him as being a man of valor.

His antagonist, who is also his uncle and his step-father, King Claudius, is shown to be cold, calculating, and unrepentant, and he is driven by lust, both for power and for sex, having married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, shortly after Hamlet’s father died. Therefore, Hamlet can be read as a dramatization of a conflict between these two sets of emotions: Hamlet’s dutifulness, justice, and hesitation collide with Claudius’ coldness, calculation, unwillingness to repent, and lust for power and sex.

Horror fiction is primarily about fear, but its characters are motivated by other emotions as well. Beowulf’s hero wants to prove his mettle as a warrior. Although The Exorcist’s Father Damian Karras has begin to doubt and, perhaps, to lose his faith, he remains a man of God who loves humanity, as it is represented in the possessed soul of young Regan MacNeil, enough to risk his own life in an attempt to exorcise the devil’s victim. Many of Stephen King’s characters are motivated by their need to bond and by their need to belong to a community, or by brotherly love, one might say.

Not only the protagonists of horror fiction are motivated by their emotions; their antagonists are as well. In Beowulf, the monstrous outcast, Grendel, attacks the Danes because he envies their camaraderie. In The Exorcist, the devil possesses Regan in an attempt to get Father Karras to renounce his faith and thus be damned. Many of King’s villains (‘Salem’s Lot’s Barlow, Andre Linoge in Storm of the Century, and the protean monster of It, for example) prey upon the weaknesses of small communities and their residents, motivated by their narcissistic desire to perpetuate themselves. The emotional conflicts in Beowulf, The Exorcist, and ‘Salem’s Lot can be represented this way:

Valor vs. Envy
Love vs. Condemnation
Brotherly Love vs. Narcissistic self-perpetuation

By motivating your characters to act according to their passions, you will make your fiction seem more realistic, and you will show what’s at stake, on a personal level, as it were, in the struggle between the story’s protagonist and antagonist. The nature of the struggle, in turn, may suggest your stories’ themes. For example, The Exorcist suggests that love casts out condemnation, just as Beowulf implies that valor vanquishes envy and King's novels indicate that brotherly love is more important than narcissistic self-perpetuation.

The Calm Before the Storm

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

In previous posts, we have advanced the claim that the general formula for the horror story consists of three phases:

1. Bizarre incidents occur.
2. The protagonist learns the cause of these incidents.
3. The protagonist uses his or her newfound knowledge to end the incidents.

What we omitted is that the first phase presupposes a period of quiescence or normality to contrast with the bizarre incidents. Although the bizarre is apt to be seen as such even without a preceding period of serenity or normality, it is also true that a prior state of peace and order will make the subsequent pandemonium all the stranger and more horrific than it might be otherwise. We might call this period of quiescence or normality the calm before the storm.

This period of calm can be presented in almost any terms, as long as the terms are commonplace and ordinary. The everyday will be the state of affairs that is disturbed by the eruption of the bizarre. Most writers take the opportunity to characterize their protagonists and, sometimes, other characters during the calm before the storm, making them likeable, or at least understandable, to their readers before imperiling them, as Dean Koontz does in The Taking and most of his other novels and Stephen King does in Carrie and may of his other works. Writers may also take advantage of the peace and quiet to show the reader around town, as it were, as King does in ‘Salem’s Lot. Of course, writers also establish the story’s basic conflict, although, in doing so, they may also introduce a red herring, as it were, to distract from the true conflict that will later be revealed. Koontz takes this approach in The Taking, implying that the forces of evil represent an advance force of aliens who have come to Earth to reverse-terraform the planet, making it hospitable for their species’ invading army, which is on its way. In reality, the aliens turn out to be Satan and his army of demons, come to destroy humanity. The calm before the storm, in effect, equals the story’s exposition, during which, while things have yet to get out of hand, writers lay the groundwork for the grand story to follow, providing much of the background information that makes the story as a whole intelligible to their readers.

The Home and the Lair, or Heaven and Hell

Beowulf and his men prepare to ambush Grendel when he attacks Heorot.

There are only two ways for, or directions of, action: inner and outer, or to and from. Therefore, if, in a horror story, the monster is to be encountered, it must either come to the protagonist and the other characters or they must go to the monster. I like to think of these two means of egress, the coming to or the going forth, as having one’s home invaded by the monster or entering the monster’s lair. In thinking of the comings and goings of the characters (and, make no mistake about it, in horror fiction, the monster most definitely is a character--usually the antagonist) in these terms allows us to consider what writers, readers, critics, and other interested parties (including the monster itself, it may be) regard as “home” and what they regard as “lair.”

In Alien, Lieutenant Ripley and the others of her platoon enter the monster’s lair, which takes the form of a derelict spaceship in which the xenomorph has taken refuge. “Home,” on the other hand, is human civilization, as represented by a detachment of this civilization, in the form of Ripley and her crew.

In Psycho, Marion Crane enters the monster’s lair. This time, the den takes the form of the Bates’ Motel, where she checks in but she does not check out. The monster is, of course, Norman Bates. “Home” is the office and the relatively respectable, if not actually thrilling, life that Marion, an adulteress, left behind when she absconded with her employer’s money instead of depositing it in the company’s bank account as she’d been instructed (and trusted) to do.

In The Taking, a Dean Koontz novel, the monster invades the home, which is really the hometown of the protagonist, writer Molly Sloan. The monster--or monsters, actually, since they turn out, despite the alien disguises, to be Satan and his hellish horde--want their small town in the mountains, possibly because of its scenic location, and, presumably, the world, which they’ve begun to reverse terraform. Their den? The Inferno, of course.

Freddie Krueger comes from outside, to invade the dreams of the children of parents who’d banded together to burn him alive inside a building after they caught him molesting their kids. Although, in A Nightmare on Elm Street, we never see it, his lair must be somewhere dark and damp and slimy, like his mind.

In The Exorcist, the devil also enters from outside, trespassing upon the sanctity and the soul of young Regan MacNeil, whom he possesses so he can levitate her and fly her around her bedroom like a cheap propeller-driven airplane (the propeller being her head, which spins around in a complete circle, often while vomiting pea soup). It beats flying Delta, one must suppose. His den? The Inferno, of course. (Weren’t you paying attention when we mentioned The Taking?)

Carrie White, of Stephen King’s Carrie, is also a trespasser; she invades her high school, carrying with her all the guilt and shame that her mother, a religious fanatic, has been able to heap upon her during a pitiful adolescence in a den not so much of iniquity as insanity. For some teens, home is hell.

The outcast monster Grendel, of Beowulf fame, motivated by his jealousy at the Danish thanes’ fellowship, slips out of his lake, or marsh, to invade the Danes’ home turf, represented by King Hygelac’s court and the warrior’s mead hall, Heorot.

Carl Denham, Ann Darrow, and their entourage, motivated by greed, enter the monster’s lair, an island jungle (or a jungle island) inhabited by the gigantic ape King Kong.

One more example: Species. In this film, alien deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA for short) is mixed with human DNA in an attempt to create a teddy bear. Well, okay, actually the scientists are trying to create a docile alien-human hybrid, which is only a slightly less silly premise. Instead, they get Sil, whom the scientists’ military arm immediately try to squash or quash or something before she can mate with men and produce more and more of her kind. She has killer good looks, so the threat’s as real as if she were Pamela Anderson instead of a weirdo-alien-rapist-phallic woman-femme-fatale-monster-thing.

We could go on and on, but we’ve made out point. There is the home, and there is the lair. The home is invaded by the monster. The lair is entered by the human. (Since we are the humans, we enter, rather than “invade,” although the monster whose den we’ve “entered” most likely regards our trespass upon its domicile as an invasion, which is one reason that it fights.) This perspective, skewed in the favor of humans though it may be, sheds light on what we consider home (the near, the dear, and the familiar) and what we regard as the monster’s lair (far and worthless and bizarre): according to our brief survey, at least, HOME = civilization, the workplace, a respectable lifestyle, one’s hometown, peaceful night's sleep, high school, the king’s court or the mead hall (today, we’d be more inclined to call it a tavern), human society, and the LAIR = a derelict spaceship, a remote highway motel, an invaded town, nightmares, one’s own mind or home when it's invaded or headed by a nutcase parent, a swamp, a jungle island (or an island jungle), and the nightclubs in which the sexually desperate shake, shake, shake their booties. Sometimes, we don’t even know that our homes are our homes, valued and loved, until they’re threatened. If we survive, though, we are apt to appreciate them. . . for a time, at least.

Plot Meets Laws of Motion

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Since writers tend to look for metaphors everywhere, they’re apt to find some of them in the strangest places.

How strange?

Think Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion. Then, think plot. Now, there are a couple of strange bedfellows, to be sure.

Nevertheless, the metaphor seems to work, and, for writers, being the pragmatic souls they are, that’s all that matters.

To wit:

1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

In fiction, the external force is the plot’s inciting moment, which is the launch pad, so to speak, that launches the rest of the story’s action. However, in fiction, the inciting moment can be either internal or external and, in fact, is often likely to be both, as is Dorothy Gale’s decision to run away from home and her subsequent leaving, which results in her being caught in a tornado and whisked off to Oz. Once he or she is set in motion, the main character will continue to overcome obstacles (see the third law of motion, below) until he or she succeeds or fails in realizing or attaining his or her goal.

2. The relationship between an object’s mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F=ma. Acceleration and force are vectors, and the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

This law corresponds to the pacing of the story’s action. The bigger the threat that the protagonist encounters, the faster the story’s pace becomes; lesser threats or absent threats slow the pacing.

3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The protagonist is locked in a dance with the antagonist. Every time the former attempts to realize or attain his or her goal, the latter acts to block or otherwise frustrate the protagonist’s effort or other obstacles appear to oppose the main character. These series of antagonistic reactions to the protagonist’s actions represent the story’s rising action (that part of the plot wherein the story’s basic conflict is complicated, prior to the climax, or turning point).

Of course, the laws, which may be sufficient to account for motion, don’t exhaust the mechanics of plot, but they are a memorable way of summarizing at least some of the important elements of this element of fiction and kind of cool and interesting in a nerdy sort of way to writers, readers, literary critics, and other geeks and nerds.

Inner Demons

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

 

To be alone is to be alone with one’s inner demons, with what plagues or haunts oneself. Perhaps a person doesn’t even know that he or she is possessed, as it were, by an inner demon of some sort (but, most likely, this individual’s friends, if he or she has any, will know).

 

For most people, the phrase “inner demons” refers to emotional obsessions or semi-conscious impulses, such as rage or a tendency toward alcoholism or some other sort of addiction. According to psychoanalyst Carl Jung, these inner demons are aspects of the shadow archetype. The shadow consists of those aspects of the self that one denies and represses. A good example of this archetype is the rogue slayer Faith, a character who appears in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Faith is Buffy’s shadow--the aspects of herself that she denies expression and the temptations she faces in repressing the impulses to behave according to the desires of these potential selves. Dutiful and responsible, Buffy longs for the carefree (or seemingly carefree) lifestyle that the footloose, if irresponsible, Faith projects. Unhindered by the concerns for morality, Faith has a simple philosophy, which she expresses in bold, if amusing, proverbs and slogans of her own devise. Concerning sex, for example, Faith says, “Get some; get gone.” Her use of Xander Harris as a “sex toy” shows that she is serious about the implications of this statement, that it is a principle by which she actually does operate. Her superhuman powers makes her above the law, Faith tells Buffy, just as Buffy’s own superhuman powers as a fellow slayer make Buffy above the law. They are laws unto themselves, Faith argues. Faith and Buffy, as Nietzschean supermen, as it were, are not bound by the traditional expectations and requirements of the herd. Buffy and Faith are wolves. Although Buffy ultimately rejects Faith’s views, she is tempted to live according to Faith’s philosophy, which seems to follow the dictum laid out by Aleister Crowley: “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” In an episode of the series, Faith, stealing from a store, gives Buffy a shopping hint: “Want. Take. Have.” Crashing a hand through a display case, Buffy retrieves an item of merchandise--a crossbow. “Want. Take Have. I think I’m getting it,” she says, smiling as she echoes Faith’s philosophy. As Buffy’s shadow, Faith is a foil to Buffy--a character who, by demonstrating traits opposite to those of the main character, highlights the protagonist’s characteristics. Faith’s amoral nature and her willingness to live as she pleases, even if her irresponsible behavior results in tragedies for others, contrasts sharply with Buffy’s sense of duty and need to take responsibility for herself and others, even at the cost of her own life, if need be. Joss Whedon, the series’ creator, and the others on his writing team were adroit in the use of both character types, such as the foil, and archetypes, such as the shadow, and their use of these types of characters and archetypes adds a dimension of depth to a show that, otherwise, would have been nothing beyond the ordinary fare offered by weekly television series. To view a character’s inner demons, make a two-column chart. In the left column, list the character’s expressed traits (the ones that make up his or her personality as it is known to him or her and to others). In the second column, list the opposites of these traits; these will be the repressed traits that, together, make up the character’s shadow. (A thesaurus is a useful tool in ascertaining opposites traits, because it will list antonyms as well as synonyms.) Here’s an example, based upon the character of Buffy Summers: 

 

EXPRESSED TRAITS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REPRESSED TRAITS (Buffy, as Persona).

 

(Faith, as Shadow) Dutiful . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rebellious Responsible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Irresponsible Careful. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Negligent Humorous. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snide Altruistic. . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selfish Heroic*

Anti-heroic* *See "Beowulf as the Prototypical Monster Killer" 

 

The list could be extended, but you get the point. (By the way, it’s important to notice that the traits of the character that represents the persona, or public self [Buffy, in this case], and the traits of its shadow, the repressed self [Faith, in this case], need not be mutually exclusive. The characters can share some attributes. For example, both Buffy and Faith are strong, agile, skilled at combat, courageous, witty, popular, and attractive. It’s important to observe that the shadow’s shadow, so to speak, will be the character whose traits contrast his or her own--for example, just as Faith is Buffy’s shadow, Buffy is Faith’s shadow. In the story, however, the viewer or the reader will not be likely to consider the protagonist’s being the shadow of the lesser character, the foil.) 

 

By employing archetypes and stock characters in a similar way, you can add depth (and interest), to say nothing of drama, to your horror story, just as Whedon and his show’s fellow writers did with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This technique is not limited to the psychological level. As we shall see in a later post, it can be employed on the social level as well

Fill-in-the-Blanks (Don't panic! It's not a quiz!)

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

There are many ways to generate a plot idea and to develop it so that the action that flows from the idea follows the format of the traditional story.

A traditional story depicts its main character as wanting to attain a goal for a definite, specific reason. The main character is then pitted against an adversary, the story’s antagonist, who wants to attain the same goal or a conflicting one for a reason of his or her own.

As a result, the main character encounters a series of increasingly more difficult obstacles. At first, all goes either poorly or well. (If the story is a comedy, things go poorly at first; if it’s to be a tragedy, things go well at first.) At the story’s turning point, the main character’s fortune changes for the better or the worse. If things were going poorly to begin with, they improve. If things were going well at the beginning of the story, they begin to deteriorate.

At the end of the story, for a reason that fits the set of circumstances involved, the main character either attains his or her goal or does not do so (or realizes that the goal was not as important as he or she had once supposed). As a result of the experience that the main character has undergone, he or she learns a lesson. The lesson is the theme of the story.

One way to make sure you develop your story along these lines is to use the fill-in-the blank approach. Here’s a template that you can use:

The main character, _________________ _________________, wants to
_________________ because _________________ , but he or she must struggle against _________________ _________________, who wants _________________ because _________________. This story takes place in _________________ (location) in _________________ (time period). To attain his or her goal, _________________ _________________ (the main character) must overcome the following, increasingly more difficult obstacles: _________________, _________________, and _________________ (add more if desired). For the main character, for whom everything goes _________________ (well or poorly) at the beginning of the story, the turning point (climax) occurs when he or she _________________, and then the opposite state of affairs ensues, as things begin to _________________(worsen or improve). At the end of the story, _________________ _________________ (the main character) _________________ (attains or does not attain) his or her goal, because _________________ (reason), learning that _________________ (lesson learned from the experience; the story’s theme) and, as a result, changes by _________________ (how the main character changes).

Now, let’s see how the template would look if it had been used to outline The Wizard of Oz (film version) in which we've added bold font to highlight the key information:

The main character, Dorothy Gale, wants to return to her home in Kansas because she is homesick, but she must struggle against the Wicked Witch of the West, who wants Dorothy‘s ruby slippers because they are magic. This story takes place in Oz (location) in the present day (time period). To attain her goal, Dorothy Gale (the main character) must overcome the following, increasingly more difficult obstacles: escape the fighting trees, survive the deadly poppy field, and seize the Wicked Witch‘s broomstick (add more if desired). For the main character, for whom everything goes poorly (well or poorly) at the beginning of the story, the turning point (climax) occurs when he or she is sent by the Wizard to seize the Wicked Witch‘s broomstick, and then the opposite state of affairs ensues, as things begin to improve (worsen or improve). At the end of the story, Dorothy Gale (the main character) attains (attains or does not attain) his or her goal, because Glinda, the Good Witch, tells Dorothy how to use the ruby slippers to take her home (reason), learning that there‘s no place like home (lesson learned from the experience; the story’s theme) and, as a result, changes by being content with her life on the Kansas farm (how the main character changes).

In future installments, we’ll consider other effective ways to generate plot ideas and develop the story’s action.