Dorothy's quest is similar to Don Quixote's in many ways. It's not hard to see the parallels between the great knight of La Man-cha and the brainless Scarecrow, the heartless Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. Although their adventures have a different spin on them, the effect is the same. (We don't share Don Quixote's hallucinations with him—we see them from a distance—but we share Dorothy's hallucinations with her as if they were real.)
Each of Dorothy's buddies has his own quest—the Scarecrow, his brain; the Tin Woodman, his heart; and the Cowardly Lion, his courage. Together they survive the various scourges of the Wicked Witch, including winged monkeys, ferocious talking trees and sleep-inducing flowers. (All this may sound fantastic, but it's no more bizarre than what the Argonauts encounter on their trip.)
As you begin your Act Two, try to imagine what difficulties would make the most interesting and challenging obstacles for your main character. The skill in making obstacles is not just presenting hurdles for your character to run over, but hurdles that somehow alter your character. These are life experiences that teach your character something about his quest and something about himself. Any quest, such as with Fred C. Dobbs's search for gold in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, is ultimately a journey about self. Fred Dobbs isn't the person he thought he was. Life tests him, and he fails.
You also need to keep the challenges interesting. If your character climbs a mountain, the obstacles he encounters may be obvious: a piton gives way, a snowstorm settles in, a landslide blocks his path. But these obstacles in themselves are only physical. It's how these obstacles affect the character that counts. Does he give up? Does he fall into a deep depression? Does he decide to take a desperate chance? The mountain should teach the character each step of the way.
The true relationship between character and event depends on your ability to bring the two of them together.
Act Three
Plot is a game of connect-the-dots. Each scene you write is a dot. If you're a good writer, the reader will understand the relationships between any two dots and connect them. When it's all over, the reader has the completed picture before her.
In the first and second acts (or dramatic phases, if you prefer the term), the reader shouldn't be able to project the picture properly. You've given clues, perhaps (some of them might even be red herrings to throw the reader off the track), but you don't want to get caught early on in your story. If you are, your audience will abandon you or give you a curt, "I thought so."
The final movement of your fiction includes the revelation. In the quest plot, the revelation occurs once the protagonist obtains (or is denied) the object of her search.
It isn't unusual in this type of plot for there to be additional complications as a result of obtaining the goal. Things aren't what the hero expected them to be, and it could be that what the hero was searching for all this time wasn't what she really wanted. But there is the moment of realization, which is an insight made by the hero about the nature and meaning of the quest itself.
Jason, through his bravery and cleverness (with a little help from his friends on Mount Olympus), kills the dragon that guards the Golden Fleece. Okay, that means he goes home and collects his crown, right?
Not exactly.
Jason returns to the evil king and throws the fleece at his feet and demands the king turn over the keys to the kingdom. Only the fleece is no longer golden. The king welshes on the bet. Jason points out there was nothing in the bet about the fleece having to stay golden, only that he would find and retrieve it.
Still the king refuses.
Jason has to take matters into his own hands. That night, while everyone is asleep, Jason kills the king.
Now he has everything: his rightful kingdom, the enchanted Medea, and the not-so-Golden Fleece.
You might ask yourself, "Why didn't Jason just kill the king up front and save himself a lot of grief?" He could've, of course, but then he wouldn't have been a hero. It is Jason's trials that make him a king, not the crown.
This tale isn't that different from dozens of fairy tales that circulated throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. We know the tales: they're always about a young boy or girl who must go out in the world to find something. It is their contact with the outside world, the world away from home, that teaches them the lessons they need to mature into adults. Jason learns the lessons he needs to mature into a king.
Dorothy matures, too. She isn't on her way to becoming a queen, but she is on her way to becoming an adult, just as her friends are on their way to becoming integrated human beings by finding their potpourri of brains, heart and nerve.
After Dorothy's triumph against the Wicked Witch of the West, she and her friends confront the great wizard, who in spite of his promises to help everyone turns out to be a bumbling old humbug. But the wizard, who looks suspiciously like Professor Marvel from the carnival, is clever enough to point out that everybody already has what they want, having proven themselves by rescuing Dorothy from the clutches of the witch.
Everyone but Dorothy, that is, who's still hung up in Oz and can't get home.
The wizard promises to take her home in his hot air balloon, but that plan goes awry when the balloon sails off without her. Dorothy finally gets home with the help of the good witch Glinda. All she has to do is say, "There's no place like home," and bang, she's back in her own bed in Kansas along with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Dorothy's realization that true happiness can be found in her own backyard depends on her verbal acknowledgement. As soon as she says it out loud and with feeling, she's home.
Gilgamesh, in his search for immortality for his friend Enkidu, ends up going to the underworld in search of the secrets of life. He meets the Babylonian version of Noah, who tells him about the Great Flood. The old man is a terrible fatalist and tells Gilgamesh that nothing lasts forever and that life is brief, and death is part of the process. He also tells Gilgamesh that the secret of life is a rose that grows at the bottom of the waters of death. Gilgamesh tries to get the rose, but an evil serpent eats it first.
Gilgamesh goes home disillusioned, alone and defeated. He makes a final plea to the gods, one of whom takes sympathy on him and arranges a meeting with his dead pal. Enkidu tells Gilgamesh what life after death is like: full of worms, neglect and disrespect. Gilgamesh accepts his lot because he must, and he returns to his kingdom feeling mortal for the first time.
Don Quixote goes home just as disillusioned. Like Gilgamesh, he doesn't find the object of his quest, and he gives in to the harsh world around him.
As you bring your main character to the climax of your story, and as you make him confront the realities that have presented themselves during the course of your story, you have either created a character who rejects the lessons he's learned (and goes back to point zero) or one who learns from them by accepting them. This plot, more than many others, points out the change in your character from beginning to end.
CHECKLIST
As you write your story, keep these points in mind:
1. A quest plot should be about a search for a person, place or thing; develop a close parallel between your protagonist's intent and motivation and the object he's trying to find.
2. Your plot should move around a lot, visiting many people and places. But don't just move your character around as the wind blows. Movement should be orchestrated according to your plan of cause and effect. (You can make the journey seem like there's nothing guiding it —making it seem casual—but in fact it is causal.)
3. Consider bringing your plot full circle geographically. The protagonist frequently ends up in the same place where she started.
4. Make your character substantially different at the end of the story as a result of her quest. This plot is about the character who makes the search, not about the object of the search itself. Your character is in the process of changing during the course of the story. What or who is she becoming?
5. The object of the journey is wisdom, which takes the form of self-realiza
tion for the hero. Oftentimes this is the process of maturation. It may be about a child who learns the lessons of adulthood, but it also may be about an adult who learns the lessons of life.
6. Your first act should include a motivating incident, which initiates your hero's actual search. Don't just launch into a quest; make sure your readers understand why your character wants to go on the quest.
7. Your hero should have at least one traveling companion. He must have interactions with other characters to keep the story from becoming too abstract or too interior. Your hero needs someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to argue with.
8. Consider including a helpful character.
9. Your last act should include your character's revelation, which occurs either after giving up the search or after successfully concluding it.
10. What your character discovers is usually different from what he originally sought.
The adventure plot resembles the quest plot in many ways, but there are some profound differences between them. The quest plot is a character plot; it is a plot of the mind. The adventure plot, on the other hand, is an action plot; it is a plot of the body.
The difference lies mainly in the focus. In the quest plot, the focus from beginning to end is the person making the journey; in the adventure plot, the focus is the journey itself.
The world loves a good adventure story. For the hero, it is a going out into the world; for the readers, it is a vicarious adventure to places they've never been, like Fez and Novosibirsk and Tierra del Fuego. It is eating dinner in a small restaurant on the Left Bank or eating Mongolian barbecue outside a yurt with a flock of sheep and goats at your side. Adventure is love in strange places. It is whatever is exotic and strange. Adventure is doing things we'll probably never do, going to the brink of danger and returning safely.
The protagonist goes in search of fortune, and according to the dictates of adventure, fortune is never found at home, but somewhere over the rainbow.
Since the purpose of the adventure is the journey, it's not important that the hero change in any appreciable way. This isn't a
psychological story like the quest plot. What's important is the moment at hand and the one following it. What's important is a sense of breathlessness.
We don't get lectures about the meaning of life and we don't get characters who suffer from post-Modernist angst. The protagonist is perfectly fitted for the adventure: she is swept up in the event because the event is always larger than the character. The character may prevail through skill or daring but is defined by the event. Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker and James Bond are defined by their actions in their stories.
Going into the world can mean different things. Consider Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or Jack London's The Sea Wolf or even Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. In these stories the world is defined variously as the bottom of the ocean; aboard the sailing ship Ghost with a tyrannical captain; or marooned on an island off the coast of South America. The world can take many forms. What's important about the locations is that they are anything but the mundane world we inhabit. Readers enjoy adventures as much for the places they get to go as for the action that involves the character.
The world may also be an invention such as another planet, a sunken continent or the interior of the planet; or it can be pure imagination, such as the lands of Gulliver's Travels.
Bruno Bettelheim, the Freudian analyst who interprets fairy tales, talks at great length about the child's fear of leaving Mother's lap and going into the world. Many fairy tales are about just that: venturing into the unknown. The adventure story for adults is nothing more than an extension of the child's fairy tale.
ONCE UPON A TIME . . .
When it comes to studying the structure of the adventure, the fairy tale is the best place to begin. People tend to underestimate the value and technical skill of fairy tales. They aren't simplistic tales for grade-school minds; they're exquisitely fashioned fictions that are precise, economical and rich with meaning and symbolism. And yet they appeal to the young mind, which doesn't get tangled up with all kinds of heavy moralizing or complicated plots.
Fairy tales use a relatively limited number of plots, but one of the most common is the adventure plot. "The Three Languages" as collected by the Brothers Grimm is the prototypical adventure. The story begins with an aged Swiss count with a son who, according to the count, is stupid. The count orders his son to leave the castle to be educated. Adventures usually begin at home, but once a reason has been established for leaving, the hero departs immediately.
As is typical with fairy tales, the story begins with the first line, a lesson a lot of us could learn. While the child may be reluctant to leave home, the adult is usually eager to get out. In either case, there should be some kind of motivating incident that forces the hero to move. In the case of "The Three Languages," the motivating force comes in the second line, when the father throws his son out of the house. The son has no choice; he must leave. Simpler reasons for the leaving (out of curiosity, for example) aren't enough; the act should impel the character. Oftentimes the character has no choice but to act. Ned Land in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea leaves to investigate a giant sea monster that has been sinking merchant ships. Robin Hood begins his journey as the prince of thieves only after he shoots one of the king's stags on a bet and must go on the lam. Lemuel Gulliver gets shipwrecked, as does Robinson Crusoe, as does Humphrey Van Weyden in Jack London's The Sea Wolf, who has the misfortune of being picked up by the brutish sea captain Wolf Larsen. Same with Kipling's Captains Courageous. Even Mole in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows gets spring fever and leaves his hole in the ground to stroll in the meadow, where he meets Water Rat, who takes him for a trip down the river.
THREE STRIKES . . . YOU'RE OUT
Meanwhile, back at the castle, the count has kicked his son out and told him he must study with a celebrated master. The boy obeys and spends a year with the master. At the end of the year he comes home and the count asks him what he's learned. "I have learnt what the dogs say when they bark," the boy replies.
The count isn't exactly thrilled and sends his son to a second master for a year, at the end of which the boy comes back. Again the count asks his son what he's learned. "I have learnt what the birds say," the son answers.
This time the count is furious. "Oh, you lost man, you have spent the precious time and learnt nothing; are you not ashamed to appear before my eyes?" He sends his son to a third master with the warning that if he doesn't learn anything useful this time, he shouldn't bother coming home.
A year later the boy shows up at the castle gate. (Are you projecting the pattern?)
The father asks what he's learned this time. "Dear father, I have this year learnt what the frogs croak."
That's the last straw for the count. He disinherits his son and orders him taken into the woods and killed. The servants haul him off but feel sorry for the boy and let him go.
The boy is now alone in the forest and can't go back; he must go forth into the unknown and fend for himself.
All of this action constitutes the first movement of the plot. Its elements are basic: a father who wants his "stupid" son to learn something; a son who obeys the orders of his father but doesn't learn what his father thinks he should learn; and the father's disinheritance of his son, which allows for no going back (since his father assumes his son is dead).
There are five events in the first act; they are pure cause and effect, and you can follow them easily: the initial impetus for movement ("get an education"), the three journeys to celebrated masters (each resulting in failure), and the final rejection and sentence of death. Each scene stems directly from the one preceding it. That's the beauty and economy of the fairy tale.
The boy in "The Three Languages" does go forth into the world, but he returns each time, suggesting he really doesn't want to go; he's only doing so because his father wants him to. Finally his father throws him out (both literal
ly and figuratively). No longer guided by the demands of his father, he must act on his own now. This distinguishes the first from the second act: The boy's motivation is different.
As you develop your own idea for this plot, keep in mind that you should develop a series of events and locations that are colorful and exciting, but that also mesh for the sake of the plot. In the case of "The Three Languages," we are entranced by the dark, mysterious mood of the places the boy visits. There is also a good reason for the boy to go to each place. We don't understand that until the end of the story, but looking back it's clear that each step of his education has come into play.
Don't just move your character through a series of unrelated stops. Try to tell a story. You're free from the restraints of the quest plot, in which each event challenges the hero in some meaningful way and affects his character. In the adventure plot, the character can simply enjoy the events for their worth. But don't abandon cause and effect. Your hero is still an important figure in the book, and the reader always looks to find some correlation between place and event with the hero.
Now let's begin the second movement.
The boy (let's call him Hans) comes to a great castle and asks for a night's lodging. The lord of the castle, who isn't a great host, says he can sleep in the ruins of an old tower nearby but to watch out for the wild dogs who might kill him.
Hans goes down to the tower and, having learned the language of dogs, eavesdrops on them. He finds out that the dogs are crazy because they're under a curse that forces them to guard a great treasure in the tower. He tells the lord that he knows how to get the treasure and release the dogs from the curse that keeps them there. The lord is impressed, promising to adopt Hans if he can get the treasure. Hans delivers the treasure and finds a new father.
End of second movement.
Notice how the author goes back to the material in the first movement and builds on it in the second? Lay the groundwork for the journey in the first movement, then actually make the journey in the second movement. As you develop a series of events (and difficulties for your hero), remember to keep the reader challenged. Description of exotic places and people can be interesting, but you still must deliver the goods when it comes to some kind of story. Otherwise you have the equivalent of a pile of adjectives with no nouns. Put your characters into interesting situations, but make sure those situations relate to some kind of intent on behalf of the hero. It may be something as simple as a young man who goes out into the world to find a wife. It may be the story of a woman who goes into the world to find her lost father. This is the core of the story; don't be sidetracked from it. The rest is just window dressing. It may be exciting and colorful, but it's still just window dressing.
20 Master Plots Page 8
