Disturbance

Disturbances don’t have to happen just at the beginning. You can sprinkle them throughout. When in doubt about what to write next, make more trouble. Raymond Chandler used to say, just bring in a guy with a gun. You can create the same feeling in a variety of ways, consistent with your genre.

The Care Package

The Care Package is a relationship the Lead has with someone else, in which he shows his concern, through word or deed, for that character's well being.

This humanizes the Lead and engenders sympathy in the reader. It works even if the Lead happens to be a louse, because this one element gives the reader hope that the Lead might be redeemed.

Argument Against Transformation

[Theme]that it’s about a “life lesson learned.” What is it that the character learns by the end of the story? What truth is it that she will live by from then on?.. The arc is Katniss growing from no hope to hope, from someone who sees no good future to someone prepared to fight for a good future.

Her argument against transformation occurs early in Chapter 1. It’s only one line.

“I never want to have kids,” I say.

That’s the ultimate argument against hope. So what happens at the end of Book 3? She is having a child.

She has been transformed.

You can have a negative arc, too. Michael Corleone in The Godfather is an example. In the opening scene he tells his fiancé, Kay, that his family’s criminal dealings will not be his life. At the end, he has become the head criminal, and lies to Kay’s face about it. He’s been transformed all right, but not in a good way.

Trouble Brewing

Somewhere around the middle of Act I is a scene where we get a whiff of big trouble to come. It’s not the major conflict yet, because we’re not in Act II yet. But we can sense that it’s out there, brewing.

After the opening Disturbance, there is a chance to introduce main and minor characters. You have space to set the players in motion, describe the ordinary world, establish the tone of the book and so on. Micro conflict and tension should be present, meaning between the characters. But a Trouble Brewing moment reminds the reader that there is bigger conflict to come.

Doorway of No Return #1

The beginning of a novel tells us who the main characters are and the situation at hand. It sets us in the story world with a disturbance up front and some hint of the major trouble yet to come. It has conflict and tension, because that’s needed for all good scenes.

But the novel does not become “the story” until we get into the confrontation of Act II.

And to get there, the Lead must pass through a Doorway of No Return. The feeling must be that your Lead, once she is across the threshold, cannot go home again. The door slams shut. She has to confront death (physical, professional or psychological) and overcome it, or she will die.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch accepts the job of defending a black man accused of raping a white girl. For Scout Finch, the narrator, this event thrusts her into a dark world of prejudice and injustice. Which way will she go? Will she grow up just like her prejudiced neighbors? If she does, she will have died psychologically

Checklist 1

Have you given us a character worth following?

Have you created a disturbance in the opening pages?

Do you know the death stakes of the story?

Have you created a scene that will force the character into the confrontation of Act II?

Is it strong enough? Can the Lead character resist going into the battle?

Does it occur before the 1/5 mark of your total page count?

Kick in the Shins

Soon after passing through the Doorway of No Return #1, the character must face an obstacle, the first real test in the death stakes of Act II.

A Kick in the Shins can also be an emotional jolt, a deepening of the interior stakes. That’s what happens in The Hunger Games.

Recall that Katniss is thrust through the Doorway of No Return #1—a group of Peacekeepers marches us through the front door of the Justice Building. Now there is no way out, no escape. She must go forward to the Games.

And what will be a major obstacle for her? Her conflicted feelings for Peeta, the boy who once showed her kindness.

A Kick in the Shins is part of the building process. Trouble needs to mount as the novel progresses. This beat is the first hit of Act II. It is crucial for the readers to experience. It instills in them confidence that the rest of the book is going to have more and bigger obstacles for the Lead.

The Mirror Moment

a moment where the main character has to figuratively look at himself, as in the mirror. He is confronted with a disturbing truth: change or die.

[Casablanca] Rick, full of self-disgust, puts his head in his hands. He is thinking along the lines of, “What kind of man am I to do something like that?”

He is looking in the mirror. At himself.

The rest of the film will determine whether he stays a selfish drunk or regains his humanity. And that is what Casablanca is truly about, in both narrative and theme.

It’s about psychological life and death.

There’s one other kind of mirror moment, usually found in an action film. It’s when the character looks at her situation and thinks, “The odds are too great. I can’t possibly survive. I’m probably going to die.”

Such a moment is right in the middle of The Hunger Games. Here is the paragraph:

I know the end is coming. My legs are shaking and my heart is too quick . . . My fingers stroke the smooth ground, sliding easily across the top. This is an okay place to die, I think.

The biggest changes we make in our own lives occur when we are thrust into a crisis. Enduring fiction is built upon that same thing: it’s about how a character, through force of will, fights life-threatening challenges and is transformed because of it. It’s only when we feel we must change that we do change. The mirror moment makes that clear to the character and, most important of all, to the reader.

Pet the Dog

[Dirty] Harry runs with the dog down the alley, out of harm’s way. The shooter gets away. But the dog is safe.

What Harry did was stop in the middle of his own troubles to help out someone weaker than himself.

This is the Pet-the-Dog beat.

Coming sometime within Act II (usually just before or just after the mirror moment scene), the Pet-the-Dog beat shows that the Lead has heart. Maybe it’s a reluctant heart, but he follows it nonetheless.

[Fugitive] So Kimble saves a boy’s life at the risk of being found out. And the filmmakers use it for just that purpose. The doctor on the trauma floor saw Kimble looking at the film. She catches up to him and confronts him. Not satisfied with his evasions, she grabs his ID badge and calls for Security.

Doorway of No Return #2

[Act II] is where the major action takes place. The stakes are death (physical, professional or psychological) and the Lead has to fight.

The second act is a series of scenes where the character confronts and resists death, and is opposed by counter forces.

Unless there is a way to get to the final battle, Act II will go on forever. The natural rhythm of the three-act structure dictates that this second doorway open up with about one quarter or a little less of the book left.

Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice Starling that Buffalo Bill covets what he sees every day. Clue! This information leads Clarice to the killer. (The Silence of the Lambs)

The bullet-ridden body of a bundle-carrying ship's captain collapses in Sam Spade's office. Inside the bundle is the black bird. Major discovery! (The Maltese Falcon)

Tom Robinson, an innocent black man, is found guilty of rape by an all-white jury, despite the evidence. Major set-back! (To Kill a Mockingbird)

Readers do not like to see the Lead helped out of trouble via coincidence. So don’t let this second doorway seem to offer that. A crisis or setback can happen that way, because it’s not help. It’s more trouble. But a discovery or clue ought to happen because the Lead has done something to find it, or earn it. It’s the result of her efforts or cogitation that opens the door.

Mounting Forces

[Lethal Weapon] To prove this point, Busey shoots Murtaugh’s buddy.

The forces have mounted in a big way. The mercs know what’s up, are willing to murder people over it, and now it is going to be a battle to the death.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, some time after Tom Robinson is convicted (the major setback that is Doorway of No Return #2), Bob Ewell seeks out Atticus Finch and spits on him, daring him to fight. Atticus does not, but clearly Jem and Scout see the danger. They think Atticus ought to start packing a gun.

There is a double barrel to the forces in the book. Physical danger toward Atticus from Ewell, and psychological danger for Scout from the ladies in town. They want to make sure Scout grows up to be like them.

Mounting Forces is perhaps the most logical beat in all of Super Structure. By Act III, the momentum toward the end is relentless. Remember Wells Root’s picture of the rushing river? Act III is like going over a waterfall. You can’t stop it. The antagonist knows this, and gathers his strength. He knows what kind of death is on the line, so it’s logical that he makes preparations for the Final Battle.

No matter what kind of novel you write, the story ought to feel like the trash compactor in Star Wars. Your Lead is thrust into the situation of the novel. Then notices the walls starting to close in. In Act II, he’s still got time to get out of danger. But in Act III time has run out. The walls are about to crush him.

Lights Out

The blackest night.

The point when all seems lost.

This is Lights Out. This is where it looks as if the Lead can’t possibly win in his struggle with death.

It may be that the forces arrayed against him are too strong.

Or it may be a dilemma that leaves no good choice.

This is where you have the readers biting their figurative nails. Or even real nails.

You want them thinking, “There’s no way out!”

Like most great literary fiction, To Kill a Mockingbird is about inner transformation. Scout will move from innocence to awareness, from childishness to budding maturity.

How will she handle what has happened to her and Jem? That’s the question we ask when the lights go out.

Why This Works

My friend and teaching colleague, Christopher Vogler (author of The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers), calls this a “death-and-rebirth” beat. The hero must “shed the personality of the journey and build a new one that is suitable for return to the Ordinary World.” There is a final “cleansing” that takes place.

What this accomplishes in the audience, says Vogler, is a catharsis. In a satisfying story, the audience moves beyond mere narrative to an actual “expansion of awareness.”

This is always most effectively realized when the lights go out.

Now what? That is the subject of the next chapter.

Some of the greatest endings––like Casablanca––involve sacrifice. Rebirth can only follow death, and death is very often the sacrifice of the thing the Lead wants most. It may be his very life, as in Spartacus and Braveheart.

Q Factor

]High Noon] Of course, if he does this, he will die psychologically. He will be a coward. He will have failed in his sworn duty as a lawman, too.

So he’s having to choose between physical death and psychological death.

Great stories are about death, and when facing death a character must deal with fear. Fear manifests itself most when all the forces are marshaled against the Lead. Fear and common sense tell the Lead to give up, run away.

What makes him stay and fight? The Q Factor, an emotional element that comes in when needed most.

A novel is about a character using strength of will to fight the forces of death. This fight cannot just be analytical. We are moved to action through emotion, not simply logic.

Final Battle

Every great ending is a Final Battle inside or outside the main character. Sometimes a mixture of both.

In The Hunger Games, which is filled with physical battles, the Final Battle comes down to another dilemma for Katniss. After rescuing Peeta from Cato’s grip, there is a stunning announcement from Claudius Templesmith. The recently changed rule allowing two winners has been reversed! Now there will be only one!

Katniss and Peeta are the only two contestants left.

Who is going to kill whom?

How will Katniss solve this final battle of wills with the Gamemakers?

She solves it with a brilliant move. Knowing the Capitol needs a victor in the Games, she and Peeta agree to poison themselves. Just as they are about to do it, the rule change is reversed again! Both Katniss and Peeta are declared the winners.

The Final Battle is the whole point of the novel. It’s what everything is leading up to. Without it, there is no resolution, no satisfaction, no coming away from the story with a feeling of completeness. The Final Battle works simply because it has to be there or there is no story at all.

Transformation

In Casablanca, Rick has learned that there is something bigger to live for than the problems of “three small people.” There is a larger context, a universal concern for the community.

To prove that, he not only tells Ilsa to get on the plane with Laszlo, he makes sure it happens by holding a gun on Louis, the French police captain, and then actually shooting the Nazi major, Strasser, as he tries to stop the plane.

Talk about proof! Rick has sacrificed his very life for the principle he has come to believe. Of course, in a stunning reversal, he is given his life back by Louis.

My favorite proof of transformation comes from Lethal Weapon. Riggs starts out as a suicidal loner. He ends up coming back to life through the loyalty of his partner, Murtaugh, and the warmth of Murtaugh’s family.

Back in the Argument Against Transformation, Riggs had shown Murtaugh the hollow-point bullet he was saving to blow his head off someday.

Now here at the end, Riggs shows up at Murtaugh’s house on Christmas Eve, and Murtaugh’s daughter answers the doorbell. Riggs says he has a present for her to give to her dad.

He pulls out the bullet with a little bow around it. “Tell him I won’t be needing it anymore.”

Transformation proved.

Your readers pay you for two things: emotional engagement and completion. You take them on a ride, bonded to a Lead, and then close the story arc.

Do those two things masterfully, and you’ll have a hit. Keep doing it, and you’ll have a career.