The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman
"I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope." - Stanley Elkin
Lukeman's approach to plot is largely through characterization. If your characters are well-developed enough, they will have such a rich inner life, they will take over your plot and tell you how the story should progress. None of this will be possible, however, unless you know every aspect of your character's inner life.
He offers long lists of aspects of your character about which you should know. Most I had encountered before, but a few were thought provoking:
How big is the discrepancy between your character's inner and outer life? Does he put on a completely different face for the outside world? This would put a very interesting spin on a character. The concept of leading a double life does interest me.
A discrepancy between a character's interior monologue and his actions is a powerful tool to show a character out of touch with himself.
"The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you can leave it to him." - Graham Greene
Oddly enough, writers often develop minor characters more then major ones, because the character operates in a smaller playing field. Also, characterization is often better at the beginning of a book than at the end, because the writer lets down his guard and reduces his standards in order to finish the piece.
The purpose of narration:
1) To tell the story - Consider your protagonist's basic storytelling abilities. These can be tinkered with. For instance, is your narrator insane? Does he get the facts wrong, or is he a liar? This sort of thing is very difficult to on the reader and will probably cause him to give up on your story.
2) The narrator should color the story with his perspective. Without a perspective, the telling of a story can become flat and dull. The power of the narrator's perspective can be more influential than the actual events. Lukeman discourages the use of multiple perspectives, however. And I agree. I think multiple perspectives take the focus off the story. (I'm getting rid of my multiple perspectives.)
3) The narrator should convey his personal involvement with the story.
The writer must assess if the characters he has developed have the potential for good interaction. It helps to have characters with conflicting agendas. That adds to the conflict. Are they working together toward a common goal? Do they have something that drives them apart?
Can a character truly get to know someone during a fleeting encounter? Can he never really know someone, despite living with him his whole life?
Suffering can bring out a lot in a person. How does Rosalind react to having to flee the country to escape from Jack, then learn that some malevolent thing is following her?
Multidimensionality - Characters, being human being, can act paradoxically. For example, a man who devotes his life to charity might beat his wife. This can be difficult to achieve and can be a major problem if not done by an expert. An inexperienced writer could end up creating a character who is not clearly sympathetic or unsympathetic, just morally ambiguous and uninteresting.
A reader needs someone to care enough about, whether positively or negatively, to be invested enough to keep reading. "If a character is endearing enough, we can both love him and hate him, be perpetually confused by him, and yet never want to stray from his presence."
Some exercises I thought were good was making a scene list, listing ten things that could set up a peak experience (good or bad) for your character. Think of how each of these circumstances can be the core of a scene that can more the work forward.
The Journey - story telling is not about giving away information but about withholding it. The information itself is never as important as the path you take in disseminating it. The destination is never as important as the journey itself.
"The task of the writer is to create characters that can propel and sustain such a journey, it is to create characters on the verge of change, characters that will, in some way, be unrecognizable by the end of the work. Ripe characters."
"The ideal character is like a volatile compound: Unstable, unpredictable, a hair breadth away from either curing all disease or causing mass destruction."
Realization about others - We often live with blinders on. To wake up one day and acknowledge what is wrong will cause a character to travel down the road to self-realization. For most people, this is scarier than anything else. So, Rosalind has to wake up and realize that Jack is bad for her.
The character who embarks on the journey of self-realization will not realize that his group is a cult, but will go one step further and recognize that something inside him led him there. Once they reach that point they might set new limits, not allow certain treatment anymore. Rosalind goes through the experience with Jack and is a very different person once she is in Montreal, however, her journey continues with fighting off the Dop and coming to terms with letting Ian into her life.
Next the character must take action based on that realization.
What if someone comes to a realization of wrongfulness, but is forced, by reason of external circumstances, to continue his evil actions? Perhaps Rosalind will come to know that what Jack is doing is wrong but will not be able to break away because he would harm her if she did.
Most satisfying of all, you can have the character come to a realization and resolve to take action but have it be too late. Rosalind may take action to stop Jack and find it is already too late. He has already killed Fred as a human sacrifice, because he was trying to turn her against Jack.
Endings - Many writers do not know how their work will end. Even though it is true that plot should evolve through character, the writer cannot allow the characters to wander aimlessly. Nor should the writer force the characters follow a preconceived path. By virtue of having a predetermined ending, the characters can become more creative within its confines. If having one final destination for your work is too intimidating, you can start by breaking the work up with several smaller destinations.
Change - We love to see characters journey and change. We get a rush from the first week on a new job, having a new lover, buying a new car. Change is an affirmation of free will.
Suspense - Suspense is about anticipation, what we do not have, what has not happened. It is about the process of watching events unfold. Suspense is about creating and prolonging anticipation. Elements of suspense are:
1) The objective. The first step toward creating anticipation is having an objective (or destination) in mind for your character.
2) Raising the stakes.
3) Danger.
4) The ticking clock - Adding a time limit goes a long way toward creating suspense. Stay in touch with the time line of your story. Most works can accomplish just as much over a shorter period of time. In the process, a sense of urgency will be added. When you want to give a crucial scene the greatest suspense, slow down your work to nearly the actual time of its transpiring.
5) Inability to take action - One of the most powerful forms of suspense comes when a character has an important objective, but is unable to take action. Rosalind is unable to kill the Dop because by killing it she will kill herself. She must find a different approach.
6) The unknown - There is nothing more terrifying than the unknown. We can bear nearly any form of torture as long as we know what it is we are getting into. But keep us in the dark, give us time to ponder the possibilities, and the suspense will be unbearable. This is because our imagination usually conjures up worse scenarios than will ever happen.
7) Sexual tension - Sexual tension can create one of the most powerful forms of suspense. Forbidden romance is one of the most effective. Suspense disappears when the courtship is consummated, when the lovers are content.
8) Dramatic irony - "Dramatic irony" occurs when we, as readers, are privy to something the characters themselves are not - often something that is about to affect them.
9) Living in the future - Lukeman says that a simple way to increase suspense is to increase the sheer amount of time a character spends anticipating something. We tend to spend little time showing our characters anticipating the future. This can be a way to build suspense. It also gives the audience joy in watching the difference between anticipation and reality.
10) Lack of resolution - This relates to cliffhanger chapter endings. End a subplot at a crucial moment, leaving the audience dangling.
11) The Secret - Lukeman states that, if properly used, the secret can create enough suspense to propel an entire work. However, for the secret to be used for suspenseful effect, we have to know that there is a secret. The secret of the true identity of MOG in Richard Laymon's "In the Dark," kept me eagerly reading until the end. (Of course, when I found out it was a complete stranger who had nothing to do with either of the characters, I was let down.)
12) The Character - Some unpredictability or mystery about the character can build suspense.
Prolonging suspense: I think I often build up to an opportunity to create some good suspense then inadvertently dissipate it. It all comes down to being able to identify those suspenseful moments and maximize them. You can't prolong a scene then let the audience down at the end. As an exercise, go through each suspenseful scene and identify how you can prolong the suspense. Also, take each suspenseful scene and turn it into two scenes by means of a cliffhanger break.
Conflict: Every choice in our life implies a conflict. Here are the basic forms of conflict.
1) The Characters - Create and bring together characters who are complete opposites so that conflict is inevitable. Every character in your work must have the potential to conflict with every other character. (This concept gave me the idea to have Fred [the gay assistant] conflict with Rosalind in the matter of going out with Jack. This resulted in the idea to have Fred be the human sacrifice.)
2) Groups of people
3) Forced to be together
4) Conflicting objectives: How characters deal with conflict reveals a great deal about them.
5) Raising the stakes of objectives: To bring out maximum conflict, the writer must raise the stakes of the objectives.
6) The power struggle: Once you've located the struggle, heighten the stakes.
7) Competition
8) Time
9) Family: Lukeman states that the family can be a breeding ground for special forms of conflict found nowhere else.
10) Romance: Lust and physical attraction can blind a couple to each other's faults.
11) Work
12) Perspective
13) Inner conflict
Look at your choice of characters. Can you change them to cause greater conflict?
Can you prolong conflict leading up to a major life decision? I'm at the point now when Rosalind is almost ready to flee from Jack. She is at a motel for a couple of days to get away from him, but what will make her leave her home and business and flee the country?
Repetition: Edit your work for repetition, not only of words, but of characters, settings and concepts.
The last chapter in this book was titled, "Transcendency," and it had some interesting issues to consider:
Character Multidimensionality: In works that have stood the test of time, the characters are not always so black-and-white. "Often in transcendent works, we love characters despite their faults, we hate them despite their virtues." We can relate to these characters because they remind us of ourselves.
These kinds of characters also allow the work to be open to interpretation. These are the kinds of books we can read over and over again, because we can come to different conclusions each time. However in the hands of an unskilled writer the work can seem confusing or ambiguous.
Timelessness: I'm always amazed every time I see "Rosemary's Baby," at how well this thirty-year-old film holds up. Is it the writing of Ira Levin, the excellent direction of Roman Polanski, the fine acting? Probably a combination of all of these. The theme is timeless and hits a chord (especially in anyone brought up Catholic) -- selling your soul to the devil. We wonder if we perhaps would do the same thing in a similar circumstance.
The writer's task is to incorporate the time without making the work a product of the time. Would readers be able to relate to your book thirty years from now? Here are questions I would like my book to generate: How many times have I done something stupid for a man? Would I sell my soul to the devil if motivated? Would I compromise my ethics to win approval?
Jack has to kill someone he loves for the sake of gaining absolute power. This is why he created the Dop. He must kill Rosalind, but he loves her so much he creates the Dop with the intention of transferring Rosalind's soul into it to enable her to have immortality. I'm also realizing that Jack must come back toward the end of the book for a final confrontation.
Ian starts out trying to help Rosalind, but in the end, she must rescue him. Toward the end it should seem that perhaps Ian is in the whole thing with Jack. Maybe he sold his soul to the devil to gain fame as an actor in exchange for delivering Rosalind to Jack. (I did kind of want Ian to be a good guy, though.)
Relatability: This is something I've often heard referred to as "scope." To me a perfect example of this is the film, "American Beauty." Who can't relate to being numbed by their present circumstances: a thankless job, a meanligless existence, thankless kids, a spouse for which you no longer have any feelings? Who hasn't wanted to break away from it all?
Great works span various cultures and make us realize that human beings are the same all over, thereby making us feel a little less alone in the universe. People want to feel connected.
Lasting impression: I thought back to books that have really left an impression on me and why that is. I know I can relate to the characters. These books never had goody-goody characters, they were always morally ambiguous.
Lukeman suggests speaking to the audience's subconscious by means of symbolism, imagery and metaphor. Imagery resonates with us on a deep level and will often bring us back to a particular book. He warns that the elements must be organic, not manufactured.
The Audience Arc:
Curiosity: The reader is curious enough to pick up your book and begin reading.
Interest: The reader is intrigued by your opening, characters and plot.
Need: The reader HAS to know how the book ends. "The work has created such strong characters and circumstances, initiated so many journeys, created such a lack of resolution, earned deep sympathy, and made the audience utterly relate to the character that is as if they are watching their own lives play out. If they haven't seen it to the finish, they feel as if their own lives hang in the balance."
Action: Very few works reach this stage. The reader is inspired to take action based on what they've read.
One way to help arouse interest is stir the audience's emotions. Emotions are much more powerful than reason. Consider having emotional characters in your book. Although wildly emotional people are exhausting to be around, they are also exciting and unpredictable.
Your conscious motivation: Why are you writing this book? What's your motivation? How are you hoping to affect the reader? What attracted you to this idea? Get in touch with your own unconscious motivation. Your unconscious motivation will show in the writing and will resonate with the audience. Check yourself at the deepest level. Where are you coming from when you write?
Lukeman tells us that stories are as necessary as food or water. They have supreme importance for the human race. There is a mystical, magical element in storytelling that defies definition. Few things on earth are more powerful than human thought.
This book actually raised questions that helped me to clarify my plot. Through all of my reading, I'm realizing the importance of connections. Having the plot and characters tie into each other in never-ending circles is of tantamount importance.
"I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope." - Stanley Elkin
Lukeman's approach to plot is largely through characterization. If your characters are well-developed enough, they will have such a rich inner life, they will take over your plot and tell you how the story should progress. None of this will be possible, however, unless you know every aspect of your character's inner life.
He offers long lists of aspects of your character about which you should know. Most I had encountered before, but a few were thought provoking:
How big is the discrepancy between your character's inner and outer life? Does he put on a completely different face for the outside world? This would put a very interesting spin on a character. The concept of leading a double life does interest me.
A discrepancy between a character's interior monologue and his actions is a powerful tool to show a character out of touch with himself.
"The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you can leave it to him." - Graham Greene
Oddly enough, writers often develop minor characters more then major ones, because the character operates in a smaller playing field. Also, characterization is often better at the beginning of a book than at the end, because the writer lets down his guard and reduces his standards in order to finish the piece.
The purpose of narration:
1) To tell the story - Consider your protagonist's basic storytelling abilities. These can be tinkered with. For instance, is your narrator insane? Does he get the facts wrong, or is he a liar? This sort of thing is very difficult to on the reader and will probably cause him to give up on your story.
2) The narrator should color the story with his perspective. Without a perspective, the telling of a story can become flat and dull. The power of the narrator's perspective can be more influential than the actual events. Lukeman discourages the use of multiple perspectives, however. And I agree. I think multiple perspectives take the focus off the story. (I'm getting rid of my multiple perspectives.)
3) The narrator should convey his personal involvement with the story.
The writer must assess if the characters he has developed have the potential for good interaction. It helps to have characters with conflicting agendas. That adds to the conflict. Are they working together toward a common goal? Do they have something that drives them apart?
Can a character truly get to know someone during a fleeting encounter? Can he never really know someone, despite living with him his whole life?
Suffering can bring out a lot in a person. How does Rosalind react to having to flee the country to escape from Jack, then learn that some malevolent thing is following her?
Multidimensionality - Characters, being human being, can act paradoxically. For example, a man who devotes his life to charity might beat his wife. This can be difficult to achieve and can be a major problem if not done by an expert. An inexperienced writer could end up creating a character who is not clearly sympathetic or unsympathetic, just morally ambiguous and uninteresting.
A reader needs someone to care enough about, whether positively or negatively, to be invested enough to keep reading. "If a character is endearing enough, we can both love him and hate him, be perpetually confused by him, and yet never want to stray from his presence."
Some exercises I thought were good was making a scene list, listing ten things that could set up a peak experience (good or bad) for your character. Think of how each of these circumstances can be the core of a scene that can more the work forward.
The Journey - story telling is not about giving away information but about withholding it. The information itself is never as important as the path you take in disseminating it. The destination is never as important as the journey itself.
"The task of the writer is to create characters that can propel and sustain such a journey, it is to create characters on the verge of change, characters that will, in some way, be unrecognizable by the end of the work. Ripe characters."
"The ideal character is like a volatile compound: Unstable, unpredictable, a hair breadth away from either curing all disease or causing mass destruction."
Realization about others - We often live with blinders on. To wake up one day and acknowledge what is wrong will cause a character to travel down the road to self-realization. For most people, this is scarier than anything else. So, Rosalind has to wake up and realize that Jack is bad for her.
The character who embarks on the journey of self-realization will not realize that his group is a cult, but will go one step further and recognize that something inside him led him there. Once they reach that point they might set new limits, not allow certain treatment anymore. Rosalind goes through the experience with Jack and is a very different person once she is in Montreal, however, her journey continues with fighting off the Dop and coming to terms with letting Ian into her life.
Next the character must take action based on that realization.
What if someone comes to a realization of wrongfulness, but is forced, by reason of external circumstances, to continue his evil actions? Perhaps Rosalind will come to know that what Jack is doing is wrong but will not be able to break away because he would harm her if she did.
Most satisfying of all, you can have the character come to a realization and resolve to take action but have it be too late. Rosalind may take action to stop Jack and find it is already too late. He has already killed Fred as a human sacrifice, because he was trying to turn her against Jack.
Endings - Many writers do not know how their work will end. Even though it is true that plot should evolve through character, the writer cannot allow the characters to wander aimlessly. Nor should the writer force the characters follow a preconceived path. By virtue of having a predetermined ending, the characters can become more creative within its confines. If having one final destination for your work is too intimidating, you can start by breaking the work up with several smaller destinations.
Change - We love to see characters journey and change. We get a rush from the first week on a new job, having a new lover, buying a new car. Change is an affirmation of free will.
Suspense - Suspense is about anticipation, what we do not have, what has not happened. It is about the process of watching events unfold. Suspense is about creating and prolonging anticipation. Elements of suspense are:
1) The objective. The first step toward creating anticipation is having an objective (or destination) in mind for your character.
2) Raising the stakes.
3) Danger.
4) The ticking clock - Adding a time limit goes a long way toward creating suspense. Stay in touch with the time line of your story. Most works can accomplish just as much over a shorter period of time. In the process, a sense of urgency will be added. When you want to give a crucial scene the greatest suspense, slow down your work to nearly the actual time of its transpiring.
5) Inability to take action - One of the most powerful forms of suspense comes when a character has an important objective, but is unable to take action. Rosalind is unable to kill the Dop because by killing it she will kill herself. She must find a different approach.
6) The unknown - There is nothing more terrifying than the unknown. We can bear nearly any form of torture as long as we know what it is we are getting into. But keep us in the dark, give us time to ponder the possibilities, and the suspense will be unbearable. This is because our imagination usually conjures up worse scenarios than will ever happen.
7) Sexual tension - Sexual tension can create one of the most powerful forms of suspense. Forbidden romance is one of the most effective. Suspense disappears when the courtship is consummated, when the lovers are content.
8) Dramatic irony - "Dramatic irony" occurs when we, as readers, are privy to something the characters themselves are not - often something that is about to affect them.
9) Living in the future - Lukeman says that a simple way to increase suspense is to increase the sheer amount of time a character spends anticipating something. We tend to spend little time showing our characters anticipating the future. This can be a way to build suspense. It also gives the audience joy in watching the difference between anticipation and reality.
10) Lack of resolution - This relates to cliffhanger chapter endings. End a subplot at a crucial moment, leaving the audience dangling.
11) The Secret - Lukeman states that, if properly used, the secret can create enough suspense to propel an entire work. However, for the secret to be used for suspenseful effect, we have to know that there is a secret. The secret of the true identity of MOG in Richard Laymon's "In the Dark," kept me eagerly reading until the end. (Of course, when I found out it was a complete stranger who had nothing to do with either of the characters, I was let down.)
12) The Character - Some unpredictability or mystery about the character can build suspense.
Prolonging suspense: I think I often build up to an opportunity to create some good suspense then inadvertently dissipate it. It all comes down to being able to identify those suspenseful moments and maximize them. You can't prolong a scene then let the audience down at the end. As an exercise, go through each suspenseful scene and identify how you can prolong the suspense. Also, take each suspenseful scene and turn it into two scenes by means of a cliffhanger break.
Conflict: Every choice in our life implies a conflict. Here are the basic forms of conflict.
1) The Characters - Create and bring together characters who are complete opposites so that conflict is inevitable. Every character in your work must have the potential to conflict with every other character. (This concept gave me the idea to have Fred [the gay assistant] conflict with Rosalind in the matter of going out with Jack. This resulted in the idea to have Fred be the human sacrifice.)
2) Groups of people
3) Forced to be together
4) Conflicting objectives: How characters deal with conflict reveals a great deal about them.
5) Raising the stakes of objectives: To bring out maximum conflict, the writer must raise the stakes of the objectives.
6) The power struggle: Once you've located the struggle, heighten the stakes.
7) Competition
8) Time
9) Family: Lukeman states that the family can be a breeding ground for special forms of conflict found nowhere else.
10) Romance: Lust and physical attraction can blind a couple to each other's faults.
11) Work
12) Perspective
13) Inner conflict
Look at your choice of characters. Can you change them to cause greater conflict?
Can you prolong conflict leading up to a major life decision? I'm at the point now when Rosalind is almost ready to flee from Jack. She is at a motel for a couple of days to get away from him, but what will make her leave her home and business and flee the country?
Repetition: Edit your work for repetition, not only of words, but of characters, settings and concepts.
The last chapter in this book was titled, "Transcendency," and it had some interesting issues to consider:
Character Multidimensionality: In works that have stood the test of time, the characters are not always so black-and-white. "Often in transcendent works, we love characters despite their faults, we hate them despite their virtues." We can relate to these characters because they remind us of ourselves.
These kinds of characters also allow the work to be open to interpretation. These are the kinds of books we can read over and over again, because we can come to different conclusions each time. However in the hands of an unskilled writer the work can seem confusing or ambiguous.
Timelessness: I'm always amazed every time I see "Rosemary's Baby," at how well this thirty-year-old film holds up. Is it the writing of Ira Levin, the excellent direction of Roman Polanski, the fine acting? Probably a combination of all of these. The theme is timeless and hits a chord (especially in anyone brought up Catholic) -- selling your soul to the devil. We wonder if we perhaps would do the same thing in a similar circumstance.
The writer's task is to incorporate the time without making the work a product of the time. Would readers be able to relate to your book thirty years from now? Here are questions I would like my book to generate: How many times have I done something stupid for a man? Would I sell my soul to the devil if motivated? Would I compromise my ethics to win approval?
Jack has to kill someone he loves for the sake of gaining absolute power. This is why he created the Dop. He must kill Rosalind, but he loves her so much he creates the Dop with the intention of transferring Rosalind's soul into it to enable her to have immortality. I'm also realizing that Jack must come back toward the end of the book for a final confrontation.
Ian starts out trying to help Rosalind, but in the end, she must rescue him. Toward the end it should seem that perhaps Ian is in the whole thing with Jack. Maybe he sold his soul to the devil to gain fame as an actor in exchange for delivering Rosalind to Jack. (I did kind of want Ian to be a good guy, though.)
Relatability: This is something I've often heard referred to as "scope." To me a perfect example of this is the film, "American Beauty." Who can't relate to being numbed by their present circumstances: a thankless job, a meanligless existence, thankless kids, a spouse for which you no longer have any feelings? Who hasn't wanted to break away from it all?
Great works span various cultures and make us realize that human beings are the same all over, thereby making us feel a little less alone in the universe. People want to feel connected.
Lasting impression: I thought back to books that have really left an impression on me and why that is. I know I can relate to the characters. These books never had goody-goody characters, they were always morally ambiguous.
Lukeman suggests speaking to the audience's subconscious by means of symbolism, imagery and metaphor. Imagery resonates with us on a deep level and will often bring us back to a particular book. He warns that the elements must be organic, not manufactured.
The Audience Arc:
Curiosity: The reader is curious enough to pick up your book and begin reading.
Interest: The reader is intrigued by your opening, characters and plot.
Need: The reader HAS to know how the book ends. "The work has created such strong characters and circumstances, initiated so many journeys, created such a lack of resolution, earned deep sympathy, and made the audience utterly relate to the character that is as if they are watching their own lives play out. If they haven't seen it to the finish, they feel as if their own lives hang in the balance."
Action: Very few works reach this stage. The reader is inspired to take action based on what they've read.
One way to help arouse interest is stir the audience's emotions. Emotions are much more powerful than reason. Consider having emotional characters in your book. Although wildly emotional people are exhausting to be around, they are also exciting and unpredictable.
Your conscious motivation: Why are you writing this book? What's your motivation? How are you hoping to affect the reader? What attracted you to this idea? Get in touch with your own unconscious motivation. Your unconscious motivation will show in the writing and will resonate with the audience. Check yourself at the deepest level. Where are you coming from when you write?
Lukeman tells us that stories are as necessary as food or water. They have supreme importance for the human race. There is a mystical, magical element in storytelling that defies definition. Few things on earth are more powerful than human thought.
This book actually raised questions that helped me to clarify my plot. Through all of my reading, I'm realizing the importance of connections. Having the plot and characters tie into each other in never-ending circles is of tantamount importance.
posted by Sally Bosco at
11:05 AM
