That is the essence of a compelling argument.
There you have it. To develop deep structure, you must develop an irreconcilable argument that has two mutually exclusive sides, both of which are equally logical, valid and compelling.
SOMETIMES DOING THE RIGHT THING IS WRONG AND SOMETIMES DOING THE WRONG THING IS RIGHT
Let's take a closer look at the whole question of good and evil.
There are two worlds. One is the "oughta be" world and the other is the "as is, where is" world. The "oughta be" world is the one we'd like to live in. In this world, good is good and evil is evil and the division between the two is as large as the part in the Red Sea. When situations occur, the decisions are obvious, the results clear. However ...
The world we live in has few clear decisions and probably even fewer clear results. The water is rarely, if ever, clear. The black-and-white world of "oughta be" gives way to a hundred shades of gray in the "as is, where is" world. We know how we should act in different situations, but when those situations come up in our lives, it's never that clear or easy.
Sometimes situations force us to reexamine what is right and what is wrong. We've all been in situations where doing the right thing was obviously the wrong thing to do, and in situations where doing the wrong thing was obviously right. It may start with something simple, such as telling a little white lie to spare someone's feelings. Or it may end up with a decision to do something of catastrophic proportions. That's when the phrases the end justifies the means and rules are made to be broken come in handy.
If the morality in your work deals with traditional concepts of right and wrong and the basic moral dilemmas that we are all faced with at some point in our lives, take a closer look at those dilemmas. Forget easy solutions. They don't help and they rarely work. Worse, they're of little comfort for the character who must suffer through a complicated moral issue when all he has are a bunch of cliches at hand. We live in the "as is, where is" world, and the issues that plague us (and our characters) most are the ones that defy simple solutions.
Gray areas allow irreconcilability, where action is neither wrong nor right. In the absence of absolute solutions ("this is always the right thing to do"), there must be artificial or operational ones, ones that work for your character in those specific circumstances. What is "right" in our society is often decided arbitrarily by artificial means (by the courts or by social consensus, for instance), but life constantly throws situations at us in which abiding by the law is wrong. Effect? Moral dilemma. Do you obey the law? Or do you break the law for what you consider a greater good? Where do you draw the line? How do you draw the line?
These are the real issues that confront us every day.
Whatever approach you take to your story, and whatever kind of moral system is at work, try to develop your idea so that you create the dynamic tension of irreconcilability. Be consistent and be fair to both sides of the issue.
This chapter is about the relationship between character and plot. It's strange, in a way, to separate the discussion of character from the other elements—it's like talking about each part of a car engine individually and not how the parts all work together—but some considerations of character as they relate to plot bear discussion. The previous chapters included discussion about characters to some degree because I wanted you to see how the primary elements relate and depend on each other. You don't separate these elements when you write. Everything comes to bear all at once. I don't know of any writer who sits down at the word processor and says, "Okay, this morning I'm going to write character." And yet that's how most books treat the subject: "Okay, now we're going to talk about character." Henry James is right: When a character does something, he becomes that character, and it's the character's act of doing that becomes your plot. The two depend on each other.
First let's look at the dynamics of character in plot.
People relate to each other. When Alfred (A) walks into a room and sees Beatrice (B) for the first time, he falls in love. Alfred asks Beatrice out but she tells him to get lost. The story is under way.
The character dynamic here is two. That doesn't mean it's two because there are two people, but because there are a maximum
of two character and emotional interactions possible: A's relationship to B, and B's relationship to A.
Add a third major character, Chuck (C). Beatrice loves Chuck, not Alfred. The character dynamic in this case is not three, but six, because there are six possible emotional interactions:
• A's relationship to B;
• B's relationship to A;
• A's relationship to C;
• B's relationship to C;
• C's relationship to A;
• C's relationship to B.
Now add a fourth major character, Dana (D). Chuck loves Dana, not Beatrice or Alfred. The character dynamic is now twelve, with twelve emotional interactions possible:
• A's relationship to B, and B's to A;
• A's relationship to C, and C's to A;
• A's relationship to D, and D's to A;
• B's relationship to C, and C's to B;
• B's relationship to D, and D's to B;
• C's relationship to D, and D's to C.
As a writer, you certainly aren't obliged to cover every angle of all the possible relationships. But you'll find that the more characters you add to the mixture, the more difficult it will become to keep up with all of them and to keep them in the action. If you include too many characters, you may "lose" them from time to time—in effect, forget about them—and when you try to bring them back into the action it will seem forced and artificial. Pick the number of characters that you feel comfortable with. That number should allow maximum interaction between characters to keep the reader interested, but not so many that you feel like you're in the middle of an endless juggling act.
Don't even think of adding a fifth major character. If you did, the character dynamic would be twenty. (Sounds like a nineteenth-century Russian novel, doesn't it?)
Obviously it would be hard if not impossible to keep up with the emotional relationships and interactions with a dynamic of
twenty. Think of the incredible burden on the writer trying to juggle twenty character interactions simultaneously. Juggling twelve is possible, but it takes great skill: You'd have major characters going in and out of phase constantly, with usually no more than three majors in a scene at any one time, except for big confrontation scenes and the climax.
Now let's go to the other extreme and look at the original scenario of two major characters with a dynamic of two. We're confined to seeing how Alfred acts in the presence of Beatrice and how Beatrice acts in the presence of Alfred. The situation doesn't offer us the flexibility we need to be comfortable developing their characters. Of course it's been done, and done well, particularly on the stage. But having just two major characters limits what you can do with those characters, and you'll need to be a strong, inventive writer to overcome the handicap.
This brings us to the Rule of Three. If you pay attention to the structure—whether it's the classic fable or fairy tale or folktale, or a B-movie on television—you'll notice that the number three holds strong sway. Character triangles make the strongest character combination and are the most common in stories. Events also tend to happen in threes. The hero tries three times to overcome an obstacle. He fails the first two times and succeeds the third.
This isn't a secret numerology thing. There's actually a rather obvious reason for it: balance. If the hero tries to do something the first time and actually does it, there's no tension. If the hero tries to do it twice and succeeds the second time, there is some tension, but not enough to build on. The third time is the charm. Four times and it gets boring.
The same is true with characters. One person isn't enough to get full interaction. Two is possible, but it doesn't have a wild card to make things interesting. Three is just right. Things can be unpredictable but not too complicated. As a w
riter, think about the virtues of the number three. Not too simple, not too complicated—just right.
Which brings us to the classic triangle: three major characters with a dynamic of six. Now you'll have room to move. The romantic comedy Ghost, with Patrick Swayze, Whoopi Goldberg and Demi Moore, gives us a clear model. In the story Swayze and
Moore's characters are in love; he's killed during a mugging. He becomes a ghost but can't communicate with her.
Enter Goldberg, a fake psychic, who learns (to her surprise more than anyone's) that she really can communicate with the dead (Swayze). This is more than she can take, and she wants no part of it. But Swayze convinces her she must talk to Moore because she's in danger (from the man who had him killed).
If the story had been set up that Swayze's character could talk directly to Moore's from the beyond, the story wouldn't have any real tension to it. But since he must talk through a third and thoroughly unlikely person (we find out she's got a record for being a con artist), the plot suddenly takes on greater depth and comic possibilities:
1. Swayze must convince Goldberg that he's a ghost and is talking to her from the great beyond, then
2. Goldberg must convince Moore that she really can talk to her dead boyfriend.
All six character interactions take place in the story:
• Moore relates directly to Goldberg and indirectly (through Whoopi) to her dead boyfriend;
• Swayze relates directly to Goldberg and indirectly (again through Whoopi) to his living girlfriend;
• And Goldberg (as the medium) relates directly to both Swayze and Moore.
The character triangle looks like this:
It's a tight package with a twist that works well.
Or take another ghost story, the Gothic romance Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (later made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock).
The setup is simple: Dark, brooding and mysterious Maxim de Winter brings back a naive, head-over-heels-in-love bride to his estate, where the memory of his dead wife Rebecca still looms very large, especially through the character of the housekeeper, a sinister woman who was (and still is) entirely dedicated to the dead woman. De Winter is haunted by his beautiful, dead wife and cannot return the love his new wife lavishes on him.
In Rebecca, the ghost of the dead wife doesn't literally stalk the halls of the mansion, but she does figuratively. Reminders of her are everywhere. The new wife (who curiously never has a name in the film) cannot overcome the presence of the old wife. To make matters worse, the housekeeper plots the new wife's destruction.
All three points of the triangle are developed:
• Maxim de Winter's relationships to the housekeeper and his new wife (both of which are affected by Rebecca);
• The housekeeper's relationships to de Winter and his new wife (again both affected by Rebecca); and
• The new wife's relationships with her husband and the housekeeper (you guessed it, all affected by Rebecca).
Rebecca, whom we never see in flashback or ghostly vision, affects everyone and everything in this story. So the triangle looks different because all three major characters are affected by a fourth character who never appears. The triangle then, would look like this:
In terms of sophistication of plot, Rebecca is the better story. Ghost is simple and straightforward and clever, but it lacks depth of character. We enjoy it mainly because of its cleverness, which is manifested through humor. Rebecca, on the other hand, even with its Gothic coloring (cliffs and storms and huge, hollow castles) deals more with people.
So when you develop your opposing forces in your deep structure, decide which level of character dynamic you want in your book. Ask yourself how many major characters best suits your story: two? three? four? And understand the consequences of having two, three or four major characters.
THE DYNAMIC DUO
Plot and character. They work together and are inseparable. As you develop your story, remember that the reader wants to understand why your major characters do what they do. That is their motivation. To understand why a character makes one particular choice as opposed to another, there must be a logical connection (action/reaction). And yet you shouldn't have the character behave predictably, because then your story will be predictable (a nice way of saying boring).
At times the character's behavior should surprise us ("Why did she do that?"), but then, upon examining the action, we should understand why it happened. Just because there's a logical connection between cause and effect doesn't mean it has to be obvious.
Aristotle felt that characters became happy or miserable as a result of their actions. The process of becoming happy or miserable is plot itself. The events that happen to the protagonist change her. That change will probably leave her happier or sadder (and perhaps wiser). Aristotle put plot before character. Today we don't agree that must be the case. But it is true that we understand who a person is by what he does. Action equals character. What a character says about himself isn't that important. Paddy Chayefsky, the author of such films as Network and Hospital, said that the writer is first obligated to create a set of incidents. Once you've established those incidents (plot beats), you should create
characters who can make those incidents happen. "The characters take shape in order to make the story true," said Chayefsky.
Your character will come to life by doing, not by sitting around and telling us what she feels about life or about the crisis of the moment. Do, don't just say. Then your major characters will develop in relation to the other characters in your story.
There's a short scene in Lawrence of Arabia that gives insight into the main character. The point of the scene is to show that Lawrence is determined to achieve his goal, whatever the personal cost. He harbors an almost pathological fear that he's too weak to accomplish his goal of uniting a fractured Arabia. He's not your typical macho type out to conquer the world; in fact, Lawrence is afraid of any kind of pain. It would be easy for him to sit around with some of his buddies and say, "Gee, fellas, I'm not sure I'm really up to this task." Talk is cheap.
The scene in the film is far more intense and doesn't have a single word of dialogue. Pure action. Alone, Lawrence lights a match and holds it between his fingers until the flame burns him. In the context of the story this isn't bravado. We know Lawrence is afraid of pain, so we understand when he tries to overcome that fear by letting the match burn his fingers. This scene becomes important later in the film, when Lawrence is captured and tortured by the Turks.
Plot, then, is a function of character, and character is a function of plot. The two can't be divided in any meaningful way. Action is their common ground. Without action there is no character, and without action there is no plot.
A final note: Later in this book I divide plots into action-based and character-based plots. You might ask yourself how I can make those distinctions when I've just said that character and action can't be divided. Well, obviously they can be. The division is based on your focus. If you as a writer are more interested in writing a story about events (action) and create your characters to make the action happen, you're writing an action-based plot. Your focus isn't on people but on events. If, on the other hand, you write a story in which characters are the most important element, you have a character-based plot.
The rest of this book is dedicated to twenty master plots and how they are constructed. That may sound odd after my telling you there are only two master plots, as if they had somehow mutated and increased their power by ten. The truth still holds about plots of the mind and plots of the body, and in these twenty are examples of both categories. Beyond the basic two plots, it doesn't matter which number you come up with, whether it's Gozzi's thirty-six plots or Kipling's sixty-nine, or whatever. As I said before, it's only a matter of packaging. I present these twenty basic plots as a way of showing the different types of patterns that emerge from forda (stories of the mind) and forza (stories of action).
The key word is pattern: patterns of action
(plot) and patterns of behavior (character), which integrate to make a whole. The master plots that follow are general categories such as revenge, temptation, maturation and love; and from these categories an infinite number of stories can flow. But my primary concern in presenting these plots is to give you a sense of the pattern, not to give you a template so you can trace the design (although you could if you wanted to). As contemporary writers, we are all under a terrific strain to be original, to make the big breakthrough, though no one has any idea what that means. These plot patterns are as old as the hills and in some cases older. But that doesn't
mean they've lost their effectiveness; rather, time proves their worthiness, their importance to us. We use the same plots today that were used in the world's oldest literature. Plot is one of the few aspects in all of art that isn't subject to fashion. We may favor certain types of plots over others during a particular historical period, but the plots themselves don't change.
THE QUEST BEGINS
So what does this quest for originality mean? Find a new plot that no one has used before? Obviously not, because plots are based on common human experience. If you found a plot that had never been used before, you're into an area that is outside the realm of shared human behavior. Originality doesn't apply to the plots themselves but to how we present those plots.
Each plot seems to have its own character, its own flavor. If you're serious about becoming a writer, you must learn from what others have done before you. That's why I give a lot of examples in each of these chapters about master plots. The more you read, the more you'll understand the nature of the pattern. You'll understand where you can bend and shape the plot and where you can't. You'll understand what the reader expects and what the reader rejects. You'll learn the "rules" for each plot, and then learn how to break those rules to put a new spin on the plot. I've never come across a writer, no matter how great (that is, "original"), who didn't admit to getting his ideas from others. Lionel Trilling made it clear: "Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal." (That's odd, because T.S. Eliot said, "The immature poet steals; the mature poet plagiarizes." Who stole from the other?)
20 Master Plots Page 6
