We're looking at the Inner Journey this week. Here's the inner journey (to my eyes and ears anyway) of the main character, Ian Paine, in Lisa Unger's Crazy Love You (336 pages). Spoiler Alert. And Long Post Alert. Crazy Love You is about Ian, a 30-something graphic novelist who writes Fatboy and Priss, heavily based on … Continue reading Character Change: How Lisa Unger does it
Category: Plot
Character Change: The Inner Journey, Part 2 — A Master Outline
We're looking at the Inner Journey this week (Part 1 here), and today we're looking at the structure of the character arc over the course of a story. In general, a story has four Parts with key Points happening between each Part (more on this next week when we get to the outer journey). The following … Continue reading Character Change: The Inner Journey, Part 2 — A Master Outline
Character Change: The Inner Journey, Part 1
Updated 2.5.20 Other names for the character's inner journey include character arc, character change, character transformation, ritual pain, and range of change. CHARACTER ARC: WHAT IS IT? "Character change, also known as character arc, character development, or character range of change, refers to the development of a character over the course of the story," says … Continue reading Character Change: The Inner Journey, Part 1
Setups and Payoffs: In our own work
We're looking at Setups and Payoffs this week, and today we're going to see if we can come up with some Setups and Payoffs for the one-liners we've been working on. Here we go. 1. Our human-rights-attorney story: Set in the mid 1950's, against the backdrop of the first US Supreme Court case to affirm gay … Continue reading Setups and Payoffs: In our own work
Setups and Payoffs: How the masters do it
We're looking at Setups and Payoffs this week, and today I've got some examples from Harlan Coben's No Second Chance, which we also looked at last week, and Lisa Unger's Crazy Love You. Spoiler Alert. No Second Chance is about Dr. Seidman, who is shot in the opening scene. When he comes to, he learns … Continue reading Setups and Payoffs: How the masters do it
Setups and Payoffs: What are they?
Here’s how Robert McKee sums 'em up: "To set up means to layer in knowledge; to pay off means to close the gap by delivering that knowledge to the audience. When the gap between expectation and result propels the audience back through the story seeking answers, it can only find them if the writer has … Continue reading Setups and Payoffs: What are they?
Tension, Conflict, Suspense: In our own stories
It's Tension, Conflict, Suspense week. Let's see what kind of macrotension questions and conflicts we can come up with for the one-liners we've got going. 1. Our human-rights-attorney story: Set in the mid 1950's, against the backdrop of the first US Supreme Court case to affirm gay rights, a human rights lawyer joins a wealthy Los … Continue reading Tension, Conflict, Suspense: In our own stories
Tension, Conflict, Suspense: How Harlan Coben does it
It's Tension, Conflict, Suspense week, and today we're looking at how Harlan Coben milks the tension, conflict, and suspense in No Second Chance. I guarantee that I did not pick up on all of his uses and manipulations, but here's what I did spot:d Levels of Tension Macrotension: No Second Chance is the story of Dr. … Continue reading Tension, Conflict, Suspense: How Harlan Coben does it
Suspense: What it is and Ways to Create It
We're looking at tension, conflict, and suspense this week. You can find tension and conflict here. Onward to suspense . . . What is Suspense? "Suspense is any unresolved tension in the story that makes the reader want to see what happens next," says James Scott Bell. Raymond Obstfeld agrees: "On a basic level, suspense … Continue reading Suspense: What it is and Ways to Create It
Core Conflict: What is it?
Conflict is the tool that fills up the vast majority of your story and provides the bumps that are the journey the reader takes from the opening character-with-a-goal to the closing character-who's-achieved-(or not)-her-goal. So . . . What is Conflict? Half a dozen masters put conflict this way: two dogs, one bone. "The idea of … Continue reading Core Conflict: What is it?
Writes With Tools 