The Last Draft

by Sandra Scofield

  State the story problem. Write a passage that tells what the protagonist feels about it, what she is scared of, what she wants, who she hopes will help her. Spell out where she is at this moment. This isn’t for the manuscript, it’s for you, so let it roll without any worry about how it sounds.

  2. Middle. Spell out the steps of complication that increase the tension, deepen the reader’s concern for the protagonist and other characters, and take her to the point where cymbals crash. (This can be quieter than it sounds, especially in a literary novel, but what isn’t “big” is “deep.” Literary characters have to have obstacles that thwart them, too, even if they turn out to be internal.) Identify the scene where things seem impossible to solve, where the character is facing loss or defeat or failure. You should be able to write a list of captions or sentences that spell out the beats (steps) in the complicating of the story problem. Think of yourself laying out a map of the story, with hills and valleys. Avoid crowding the story with excessive or tangential complications.

  3. End. Describe the highest point of tension, the aftermath, and “how things work out.” Has the protagonist achieved her goals? Has someone won and someone lost? Is there harmony? What is the emotional tenor of the ending? (Should the reader feel sad, mad, glad, etc.?) Were there surprises in this line of events? Again, write freely about how the protagonist feels in that point of great conflict, and how she feels when the problem is solved (satisfactorily or not).

  Go back to your opening chapters and revisit the question raised there. Can you point to places that establish the ground for the story? The place where the plot is set in motion? Where the story question is established? Do you feel now that the novel does in fact answer that question? That the action began there and moved inevitably (but not obviously) toward the conclusion?

  4. Interiority and commentary. Now go through your summaries and indicate places where you know you are writing about backstory, or you have extended description or interiority. For example:

  Here is where I finally reveal how Jeremy died.

  Here is where, through a long night of contemplation, Elise makes the decision to divorce Ben.

  Here I describe how the house and property have been left after the ravages of the fire.

  This is where I explain John’s role in the failure of the company.

  Here the narrator talks about all the ways the doctors missed Patricia’s diagnosis.

  A mother can’t see evil in her son.

  Remember that you are no longer bound to your first draft. Make changes to improve the story. Try different schemes. Take your time.

  Now you can pull together possibilities for your revision: holes in the story; imbalances in scenes; limpness of character; over- or underwriting of interiority; use of backstory.

  Give yourself some time to pull out the stops. Look at a turning point and imagine how you could punch it up, make it more dramatic, make it matter more. Where there’s blood, add guts. Where there’s tears, add screams. I exaggerate, of course, but considering ways to build more drama can’t hurt.

  —

  TURN THIS SUMMARY exercise into something visual. Write a caption for each of the three movements of the plot, across the top of a sheet of paper. Down the left side list your chapter numbers. Now go down the chapters and put a checkmark in the movement where it belongs. Look at the balance of chapters. You should have most of your chapters in the middle section. If you don’t, think about the beginning and ending sections again, and whether there are chapters that should be tied more closely to that middle movement.

  At the “hinge” between movements (going from a to b and b to c) you should be able to identify the scene where there is a shift in plot and tension and mood. Those should be places where a reader might set the book down with a sense of anticipation and concern (a to b) and then heightened concern and anticipation (b to c). In each case, there should be a sense that the story has moved forward to a new place.

  If you make a large chart like this and leave room for sticky notes, you can make additions and other changes as you progress.

  STORY PROBLEMS

  Now think of your novel in terms of story problem. This is one more way to set you up for what is forward motion in the novel; for raising questions that have to be answered and that, in answering, require the protagonist to act.

  Here are some sample story problems, with just a few questions that immediately bubble up.

  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

  Christopher wants to find out who killed the neighbor’s dog. And when he learns in the investigation that his absent mother is alive, he wants to find her. (He’s never left town alone. Can he manage the trip? Will his mother want him?)

  The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

  Martin wants to punish the woman who forged his seventeenth-century painting. Forty years later, he wants to atone for the way he did so. (Is it possible? Will she care? And besides, she lives on another continent now!)

  More Than Allies

  Two mothers want to find a way to reunite their sons with the boys’ fathers. (Can they forgive the men their trespasses? Can they leave the only homes they know?)

  The Good Mother

  Anna has to fight for custody of her daughter—and cope with her self-blame. (Now that she’s been wrongly, badly punished for her sexuality, will she forever reject her lover?)

  The Piano Maker

  Helene wants a quiet good life with work and small comforts. But she is arrested for a crime she was already absolved of. (Can she once again, and finally, defend her innocence?)

  The Great Gatsby

  Jay Gatsby has spent years building a fortune so that he can win back the love of Daisy, who is married to a bullying, immensely wealthy man. (Will Daisy want him? What will the husband do? Who are these people?)

  The Indian Bride

  The police want to find out what happened to a woman who got off a plane in Norway and disappeared; assuming she has been murdered, they want to find the murderer. (First, if there’s a body, where is it? What villager would murder a woman he doesn’t even know?)

  All the Pretty Horses

  John Grady wants to marry the rancher’s daughter, but he must save his own life. (How does he escape the father, and after that, prison? How does he survive the terrible journey home?)

  Benediction

  A man with terminal cancer wants to die a good death. (What wrongs have to be righted? Who isn’t there to say good-bye?)

  The Member of the Wedding

  Frankie feels she doesn’t belong to anyone, anywhere. (Where does she want to fit in? Who will recognize her personhood?)

  A House for Mr. Biswas

  Biswas wants to own his own home and be his own boss, instead of being controlled by his wife’s family. (What will he do, and do, and do, trying to be independent? How will he bear the humiliations of his failures?)

  The Stranger

  In a moment of blind, pointless rage, a man shoots another man to death on a sand dune and is sentenced to death. (How will he ever understand what he did, and how can he accept his fate, which is so cruel and final?)

  For any story problem, you can immediately see that there are associated questions and needs; that reaching one step in a search can mean having to climb another.

  What makes a good story problem?

  It has no easy answer.

  It matters a lot.

  It challenges the protagonist in emotional and moral ways. In a plot-driven novel, there may be physical challenges.

  What makes a bad story problem?

  Who cares? It’s too familiar, too shallow.

  It can be solved too quickly.

  It’s overcomplicated.

  UNUSUAL PLOT DESIGNS

  Are you thinking that your unusual structure doesn’t fit this scheme for analysis? I can’t cover all the possib
ilities for structural innovation, but I will say this: Chronology is your best friend. No matter the order in which you tell the story, you must have a sound story to tell. If you know your story in the most basic logical order, you won’t get lost when you distort it for effect. Start with an analysis that is chronological, from the impetus for the story, through the twists and turns, to the resolution. When you are satisfied that your plot sits well on this straight line, you can more confidently look at how you are mixing time frames, points of view, settings, or whatever you are using in your innovation. You’ll know all the building blocks as you make your special design.

  However you present your story—the design of its telling—you have the same general concerns as the most conventional writer. You want to draw the reader in, pose questions that engage, and then build the escalation of concern and event that is a story. You may want to puzzle the reader, but you never want to frustrate her. Anytime you “pull a switcheroo” in a timeline, be sure you think about what you’ve left, what you are entering, and what expectations you are setting. There have to be points of satisfaction even along the trail of a mystery.

  MORE ABOUT SUBPLOTS

  If your subplots involve a lot of action that doesn’t include the protagonist, I suggest that you lay out the steps of scenes for them just as you do for the plot. A subplot is, after all, a story. It has an arc; things happen; it reflects your vision of the story world. However, it usually involves a character other than the protagonist, even though the protagonist may appear as a supporting actor.

  Subplots complicate the plot. They also provide alternative interests, sometimes contrasting with the mood of the plot and providing relief. They help to build the world that also holds the plot, and while a subplot may be about something different from the main plotline, it can also add to the plotline, weaving in stories of other characters’ lives. Think of your novel as a web of little stories, sometimes crossing, sometimes not. You don’t want mini stories that don’t seem relevant. You don’t want subplots that take up more space than the plot. But a subplot can give the reader another view of the protagonist (as well as the character whose story is the subplot), a friend to lean on, or a colleague to avoid.

  3. Write a brief summary of your protagonist’s fate and explain how it fulfills your vision for the novel.

  Tell your protagonist’s story without all the details. Where was he at the beginning of the story, and where is he at the end? How much of what happened was his responsibility? How much was the result of forces greater than he could control? Does the outcome—the place where he is at the end—seem inevitable, given all that has happened? How does the story leave the reader, emotionally?

  In a novel of plot, inevitability arises from your milieu, your vision of a world (John le Carré novels). In a novel of character, inevitability arises from who the character is, and whether, in your vision, a person can change (Jane Austen’s Emma) or whether fate and outside forces are greater than character even at its best (Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles).

  Go back and reread your statement of aboutness and assess whether the story proved those things true. If you don’t have the feeling of things falling into place perfectly, start taking them apart one by one: the subject, the intention, the context, and so on, testing the events against the vision you had. Try to find what element is out of line, because you will need to make adjustments in plot or structure so that all those chapters add up to the “sum of the story”:

  This is how it was.

  This is what happened.

  This is how a problem was solved.

  This is how a person’s life changed.

  Core Scenes

  4. Develop a scheme of core scenes.

  Unless your novel is exceptionally long, you should be able to see the arc of the story in six to ten major scenes. Start with six; it will force you to evaluate your story. If you have a multiplot, multivoice novel, you would look at each strand of it separately, then look at where they converge. If you have a very long novel (say over three hundred manuscript pages), I would do the core scene work for each of the movements, with four to six in the middle section.

  The core scenes are those that establish the key moments in the forward movement of the story; they are developed around major events that result in changes, complications, new situations. They comprise the plot. They vibrate with tension and emotion. The protagonist is in trouble, has to make a decision, reaches out for help, struggles to escape or vanquish, turns a corner. These scenes have to happen for the story to happen. When a reader remembers the book months later, she remembers these scenes. All core scenes include your protagonist.

  For each scene:

  Write a caption (abbreviated summary).

  Identify the setting.

  State the key event. (What is the source of tension? Is a clock ticking?)

  State the bull’s-eye (the most important moment in the scene, where things take off or explode or collapse or—?).

  Sum up the emotional state of the protagonist.

  State the outcome (“how things are at the end”).

  Why do you think the scene is memorable?

  If you do this on index cards or across a large piece of paper, you can look at your story all at once. Read the captions for all the scenes. Then you can consider these questions:

  Is there an escalation of mystery, need, and tension? What must happen?

  Are the settings the same or different? What do you think of them now? Is there a logic to the choice of settings?

  Put the captions on a timeline. Could these events unfold closer together? What would have to happen in between? Is there a logic to the time frame?

  In which scene does the protagonist try the hardest to solve his problem? Why?

  In which scene does the protagonist have the least hope? Are we on his side?

  What turning points occur in these scenes? Things like: Something is revealed.

  Something is lost.

  There is a power shift.

  The stakes go up.

  The protagonist thinks he can’t go on.

  Hope turns to possibility.

  There is a great stillness, and an echo.

  Caption your turning points in a way similar to these statements.

  Which scenes have strong expression of the protagonist’s state of mind, emotions, desires, fears, etc.? What internal conflicts are explored? Is there a way to heighten any of the effects of the scenes?

  What scene is most powerful? Does it create a big turn in the plot? Or solve a big problem?

  Look across the scenes. Is there variety in the pace and energy of the scenes?

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  NOW YOU WANT to review the scenes you selected and see if you really need them all. If one of them is all about having something happen so that you can convey information—maybe that could be conveyed in summary in another scene. If one of them feels “flat,” maybe it isn’t dramatic enough to be a scene. Again, you can extract what you need and find a way to fold it into an adjacent passage. On one hand, you want to be economical: Don’t have an overlong scene, and don’t have a scene at all if it isn’t dramatic. On the other hand, the scene is where you can show a character in need or jeopardy or struggle or happy arrival.

  If you have questions about a scene, look at the one before it and the one after it. (You’ll need to go to your manuscript; I’m referring to contiguous scenes, not the prior core scene.) Maybe you have diluted the power of an event by breaking it up. Maybe you have something happening that doesn’t have sufficient ground developed in earlier scenes.

  If you think every scene is perfect, your next step is to look at it as the scene after and the scene before, so that either you have an arc in the progression or clearly one of the scenes begins or ends an arc. In other words, you want to see wher
e the scene you have identified as a core scene fits into a sequence of scenes. (You may want to review the example of scene sequences in the section “A Close Look,” step #6, “Create timelines for foreground and backstory chronology.”)

  Fuss with these scenes for a while. Make changes if you think you must. Work in summaries.

  For each scene, choose a moment that captures the essence of what has occurred. Imagine yourself taking a photograph. Describe what you see. You want the “photograph” to capture the relationships, the emotion, the sense of tension or release (depending on the moment you chose). Do the six “photos” make an interesting set? For each one, consider whether it is fully felt in the scene as it is written. You may have identified a need for heightened emotion or drama; if so, tag the scene for later revision. Consider what happens in the moment before the photograph; consider what happens in the moment after the photograph. Now think, again, of the prior and subsequent scenes for each of the six scenes as part of a set. It is most likely that a core scene is the culmination of a sequence, and the scene following it begins a new sequence. If this is not so, look not just at the scene but at the prior and subsequent sequences.

  Once you have six to ten solid scenes that make up a map of the main action of the novel, you can lay them out horizontally, and then you can create maps between each pair; that’s where you sum up the steps it takes to get from Scene 2 to 3, and so on. These are your scene sequences. They are the steps of events or actions that bridge the major scenes. It’s like putting up the walls after you’ve done the framing of a house. Look at your foreground timeline; you may need to fiddle with it, in light of this work on core scenes. Then you create a sequence of scenes between each event; it may take two or three of these sets to comprise the sequence for a “core scene to core scene” plan.