Beginning
Middle
End
Beginning-Ace of Cups. A young woman finds herself pregnant and unmarried. Her boyfriend abandons her, but she refuses to relinquish the infant. Her parents died when she was a child, and now she thinks this baby is her only chance to have a family of her own.
Middle-Nine of Pentacles. The young woman goes to live with her great-aunt, an octogenarian who owns a vineyard in Northern California. Over the next few years, as she raises her child, she struggles to live up to the old woman's high expectations and strict demands. Along the way, she unexpectedly learns almost everything there is to know about winemaking-the hard way. It is a competitive and sometimes underhanded business.
End-Two of Cups. When her aunt dies, the young woman is utterly bereft; she didn't realize how frail her strong-willed mentor had become, or how much she had come to love and respect her. She inherits the vineyard, but nearly loses it to a corrupt estate attorney. At the same time, she is forced to fend off a takeover bid by the owner of a neighboring vineyard. In a surprise twist, she realizes that she has fallen in love with him-and that he has loved her since the day they met. They marry and merge their two estates.
Three-Act Structure
Aristotle's overview is a good starting point, but you can take it one step further by developing it as a three-act structure-a format favored by contemporary playwrights and screenwriters. Link the acts together with plot points-significant moments that represent turning points, plot twists, and individual points of no return. Here's a typical three-act structure:
Act I, the exposition, introduces the protagonist, the setting, and the plot. It delineates a character's ordinary world, and helps define his motivation.
Plot Point 1 marks the beginning of Act II. This is where the story really begins, with a single, clearly defined, life-changing event. It's the catalyst; it jump starts the action and propels the hero forward-either mentally or physically, because he'll either understand his mission better or find himself in another location.
Act II develops the story and the drama, as the lead character undergoes a series of challenges and overcomes obstacles that keep him from reaching his goals. On some level, those obstacles mirror his psychological issues. As the protagonist confronts each challenge, he will probably seem to fail in his mission.
Plot Point 2 represents the protagonist's greatest challenge-the key to his total success or his complete failure. Plot Point 2 leads directly to the climax, at which point the end of the story is predictable.
Act III, the resolution, resolves all of the loose ends and concludes the story.
The Three-Act Spread
The three-act structure lends itself naturally to a tarot card spread. Shuffle your deck and lay three cards side by side, to represent three acts. Then add cards to represent plot points and your story's climax. For high drama, here's an example based solely on Major Arcana cards:
Act I-Temperance. It seems like a normal Tuesday for Malachim French, an angel who has chosen to spend a thousand years in human form. He works as a registered nurse in southern California, and he moves smoothly and efficiently through his routine morning duties at Riverside Community Hospital.
Plot Point 1-The Tower. At 10:15, however, he excuses himself and makes his way to the hospital's roof. An angelic friend has warned him that an earthquake is about to strike, and he wants to bear witness to the event. He positions himself on the helipad, and watches as the neighborhood crumbles around him.
Act 11-The Emperor. Once the shaking stops, Malachim heads down to the emergency room, where he knows he'll be needed. As expected, the hospital's chief of staff has implemented the facility's disaster plan.
Plot Point 2-Death and the Devil. There's an unexpected development, however. A legion of demons have made their way up from the Underworld through fissures in the earth-and like Malachim, they're incarnating in human form. Their methods, however, are truly evil: they're taking over the dead and dying bodies of earthquake victims. In fact, one of the bodies they've appropriated is that of the hospital's chief of staff, who was grievously injured during the earthquake. In the chaos and confusion, he actually begins to murder patients who weren't seriously hurt, to make more bodies available for his minions. Only Malachim can see what's really going on-but if he reveals his true identity to anyone, he knows he'll be sent to limbo indefinitely.
Act III Judgement. The stakes are too high. Malachim breaks his vow of silence. He confesses his secret to the hospital chaplain, and together they fight the forces of evil. While the odds are overwhelming, they work together to vanquish all of the demons-except for one. The chaplain, it seems, is a fallen angel himself-and he has a much larger objective in mind than empowering a legion of low-level demons. Just as Malachim grasps that horrifying reality, the chaplain escapes, sounding a dire warning about the future of the world. Malachim wins a reprieve from limbo to pursue the chaplain . . . in the second book of this series.
The Plot Thickens: The Structure of Your Storyline
Many adventure, mystery, suspense, and science fiction stories are plot-driven, which means the story advances more than the characters. Sometimes, the characters don't change at all; they're only along for the ride. On the other hand, a surprising number of relationship and coming-of-age stories have very little action. The characters change, but the scenery doesn't.
The best stories combine character development with an exciting plot. When the storyline is balanced, readers make an emotional connection with the characters and they enjoy the excitement of a fast-moving story. Whether your story is character- or plot-driven, you'll find that most plots follow a standard format.
The exposition introduces a story, establishes the mood, and reveals the basic facts of setting and character. Don't confuse exposition with backstory; that's something you'll want to reveal, bit by bit, throughout the course of your work. You might want to work some foreshadowing into your exposition, however, to hint at things to come.
The inciting force-also known as the problem, inciting incident, inciting event, or catalyst-triggers the action and kick-starts the story. It introduces the conflict, too, and hooks the reader.
Rising action usually includes complications, twists, and turns that completely submerge your characters-and your readers-in conflict. Throughout the course of most stories, characters should face a series of obstacles and turning points that force them to keep moving.
The climax comes when, eventually, those complications lead to crisis. At its peak, during the climax of the story, that crisis will be full-blown. Ideally, your protagonist will save the day by making full use of his or her larger-than-life qualities, including intelligence, creativity, courage, and perseverance. The victory will be even sweeter if those qualities happen to be the same traits that hurt your character in the past. Usually, the climax is the point where readers can predict the outcome. Don't trick your audience by employing a Deus ex machina-a ploy based on ancient Greek drama, when stagehands would lower a god to rescue the hero. A similarly contrived ending might be a convenient way to conclude a story, but it's cheating.
Falling action ensues when, after the climax, most of the action dies down, and characters start to make their way back home.
The resolution ends a story. Most stories come to a closed conclusion, which leave no questions in a reader's mind. Some resolutions, however, are open-ended, which leaves room for readers to draw their own conclusions. Some stories also end in cliffhangers, which pave the way for subsequent work in a series.
The denouement, a French term that refers to untying a knot, unravels all the complications and brings a story to its conclusion.
Freytag's Pyramid
In 1863, German novelist Gustav Freytag described the pattern he found in the storylines of successful books. He diagramed that pattern in the shape of a pyramid-a design that can serve double duty as a tarot card spread.
Writing Practice
Freytag's diagram
makes it easy to visualize the rising and falling action of a compelling story. Try it: shuffle your deck, and develop a simple storyline based on a pyramid structure. Here's an example based on seven random cards:
Exposition-The Moon. A band of guerilla soldiers have made camp for the night.
Inciting force-The Seven of Swords. An agent provocateur sneaks into the camp and disables their communication equipment.
Rising action-The Knight of Swords. In retaliation, the group's rebel leader assassinates a high-ranking government official.
Climax-The High Priestess. He then goes into hiding, forcing his way into the countryside home of an old peasant woman. She's not surprised: she is a shamaness, and she saw his arrival in a dream. In a long series of adventures, she initiates him into the ancient mysteries of spiritual leadership.
Falling action-The Ace of Cups. She tells him about an ancient goblet, hidden in a distant jungle, that has the power to renew a long-lost utopia.
Resolution-The Eight of Cups. He embarks on a quest for the goblet-but along the way he concludes that the goblet is metaphoric, not literal.
Denouement-The Hermit. Eventually, the former guerilla becomes a shaman in his own right.
Conflicting Opinions
While the storyline may reveal the course of a story, a story itself is based on conflict-a dramatic struggle between two opposing forces. A story's conflict can be as simple as a clash of personalities, or it could detail a complicated series of interactions as characters battle over incompatible goals, actions, and desires.
There are five types of conflicts in fiction-and each one serves as a barrier that keeps characters from reaching their goals.
1. Man versus man, a story that pits an antagonist against a protagonist.
2. Man versus nature, a story that puts human life in perspective and illustrates a character's courage and strength.
3. Man versus circumstance, a story that forces a character to fight circumstances and fate.
4. Man versus society, a story that pits a single individual against society's norms, customs, expectations, values, and mores.
5. Man versus self, a psychological drama that teaches a character about himself.
Writing Practice
What forces are at work to keep your characters from reaching their goals? Do they face opposition from other people, or are they caught in the spinning wheel of fate? Could your character even be his or her own worst enemy?
Try using tarot cards to define a conflict for your story. First, shuffle your deck and draw two cards: one for your protagonist, and one to represent the conflict that he or she will face. Then determine how the conflict might play out in your story. Two randomly drawn cards help set the stage for this example:
Protagonist
Conflict
Protagonist-Knight of Cups. Young, innocent, and idealistic, Lance Knight is a young businessman who wants to heal the world with his own brand of commuter bicycles and recycled sports bottles.
Conflict-Wheel of Fortune. When he runs into financial difficulties, he tries to gamble his way clear with the "help" of an Egyptian bookie named Anwar. Before long, Lance's betting problem spins out of control.
Just for fun, try using the same two cards to develop all five types of conflict. You'll be amazed at how well the images and symbols can suggest entirely different situations.
The Writer's Celtic Cross
For more than a century, tarot enthusiasts have relied on the Celtic Cross to streamline their readings. You can readily adapt the spread for writing projects. This version, the Writer's Celtic Cross, can help you lay out a standard plot.
Writing Practice
Try a Writer's Celtic Cross to outline a story. You may want to put more than one card in each position, so you can delineate a series of events or add detail and dimension to your story. Feel free to use clarification cards, wild cards, and advice cards. You can also add cards, timeline style, to see how an issue will play out into the future, or play with alternate outcomes. You could even develop a tree-like matrix of related spreads, branching out from any position in the spread, to focus on individual characters, situations, or events. Here's a storyline based on ten randomly assembled cards.
I. Setting-Three of Wands. Our story is based in a fort, a battlement, or a protected enclave of some sort. Let's look at the next card for clarification: This story will be set in the Garden of Eden.
2. Protagonist-The Lovers. Adam, Eve, and the Angel Raphael are the most obvious figures in the card, but let's make the serpent our protagonist. We'll call him "Samael," one of his ancient Hebrew names.
3. Antagonist-The Queen of Swords is sometimes said to be a divorcee. This must be Lilith, Adam's first wife.
4. Foreshadowing-Seven of Pentacles. Here's Adam, watching his garden grow. Little does he know that soon he'll harvest bitter fruit.
5. Exposition-The Emperor looks like a child's drawing of God. He'll have the first word in our story, of course, just as he does in the book of Genesis.
6. Inciting force-The Two of Pentacles. It looks as though Adam was trying to juggle the affections of both women at once.
7. Rising action/Complications-As everyone knows, Adam and Eve are thrown out of the garden. But what happens to the serpent Samael? In our story, he'll stay to claim the garden-and the abandoned Lilith-as his own.
8. Crisis-The Hierophant. In the new, post-Eden world, Samael assumes the guise of a spiritual authority. He begins to preach a selfish, one-sided gospel.
9. Climax-The Hanged Man. Samael's true identity is discovered, and he's hung upside down as a traitor to humanity.
10. Falling action-The High Priestess. Lilith takes Samael's place as a spiritual leader.
11. Resolution/Denouement-Justice. Lilith teaches a more balanced theology that combines both feminine intuition and masculine reason.
Subplots
Subplots make long stories and novels more interesting. They're a good way to present information about supporting characters, throw complications into the main plot, or provide comic relief from a more serious storyline. Subplots can also add to the atmosphere and mood of a story.
Subplots share the same elements of a main plot, but on a smaller scale. They have a beginning, middle, and end, and they should include a crisis, a climax, and rising and falling action.
Writing Practice
To generate wild subplots at random, try a technique developed by writer Melani Weber. First, choose one card to represent your stopping point. You can deal it off the top of the deck, or you can choose a card you like. Shuffle that card back into your deck, and then start dealing new cards to incorporate into a story. Keep dealing and writing about each new card until you reach the card you originally selected-your predetermined final card-and end the story there.
Multiple Storylines
In real life, everyone has a story. In fiction, every character also has a storylinehis or her own narrative thread, which will play out alongside every other character's experience.
You might want to develop a storyline for all of your major characters, and weave them together throughout your story. On some level, each character's personal experience should parallel the larger story. Every individual's internal conflict should reflect the external conflict of your plot. The stakes should continually rise, and your characters' hopes should rise and fall with every plot twist. For your characters to be successful in overcoming both internal and external conflict, they'll need to use all the lessons they've learned during the course of the story.
As you plan your storylines and subplots, pay attention to your character arcs-the growth your characters experience over the course of the story. Explore how time and experience change them, force them to make pivotal decisions, and propel them toward their own conclusions.
Scenic Vistas
Most stories consist of a series of scenes, just like the scenes in a movie or a play. Within that series, each scene represents a single link in a storyline's c
hain of events. Most scenes start when characters enter a new location, and most scenes end when those characters leave. Along the way, something happens to keep the story moving. It could be action: a plane could fall out of the sky. It could be revelation, as new and surprising information comes to light: those noises in the attic aren't coming from mice. It could be a complication: a train is coming, and the car is stalled on the tracks. Every scene should introduce a surprising twist that will force the characters to respond, and compel readers to keep reading.
One easy way to construct a scene is to implement a dialectic-a three-step series of events. A dialectic opens with a single statement or position, called a thesis. As an example, let's imagine a simple story that opens with Bob, who declares his love for Betty. Bob's thesis will generate a response, or antithesis, from Betty. Let's make Bob happy, and imagine that Betty declares her love in return. Now Bob and Betty are joined together. Bob's thesis and Betty's antithesis have led to a synthesis. Their synthesis, however, doesn't freeze them in time. Instead, the synthesis they forged becomes a thesis of its own. Betty has a jealous ex-boyfriend named Buddy, and he's going to make trouble when he sees them together. In effect, Buddy is developing his own antithesis to Bob and Betty's joint thesis. Buddy will challenge Bob to a fight, and the dialectic will start over again: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
As you build your storyline, you might want to picture a dialectic in even simpler terms. Think of the three steps as action, reaction, and movement.
The Action, Reaction, and Movement Spread
You can lay out three cards to develop a scene dialectically. Pull three cards from your tarot deck for a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In your mind, the cards should represent an action, a corresponding reaction, and the forward movement or change that result. Here's a three-card spread that could advance the plot of a science fiction story:
Thesis (Action)
Tarot for Writers Page 7
