Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure

by James Scott Bell

  Moby Dick is another huge allegorical novel, full of symbolism.

  Jack London’s The Call of the Wild has allegorical significance. It is a dog story on the surface, the story of a domestic dog living the civilized life, forced into survival mode when dognapped and sent to the Klondike. Upon Buck’s return to nature, he overcomes great odds to become not only the Lead dog, but the legendary “Ghost Dog.”

  Under the surface, however, London’s philosophy of the survival of the strong is at play, showing his chief influences of the time — Darwin and Nietzsche.

  Notice, however, that all of these novels follow the three-act structure. If you analyze them, you’ll see they all do the tasks the three acts demand, and in the proper order. That is why they work.

  In The Call of the Wild, Act I is in civilization, and Act II is Buck struggling between two worlds. Act III is the slide into the wild for good.

  Moby Dick is three acts as well: Ishmael on land. The pursuit of Moby Dick. The battle with Moby Dick.

  Allegory is difficult to do well since it may come off as merely preaching in the guise of an imaginative tale. If you choose this pattern, be sure to work hard on all the elements of plot discussed in this book. Make the characters real and not just stand-ins for your ideas.

  EXERCISE 1

  Analyze some of your favorite novels. Can you recognize each plot as a familiar pattern or combination of patterns?

  EXERCISE 2

  Analyze the structure of the novels you selected. Write down what happens in each act.

  EXERCISE 3

  Choose one of the above patterns and sketch out a fresh plot based on it. Don’t worry about making it too original at this point. Just write a two- or three-page narrative, with characters you make up. This will give you a feel for structure in pattern.

  EXERCISE 4

  Do the above, only this time combine two of the patterns.

  Chapter 13

  Common Plot Problems and Cures

  I told my doctor I couldn’t afford the surgery he recommended. So he touched up my X-ray.

  — Henny Youngman

  The nice thing about being a writer is that we can perform surgery on our work. But to do it right, we need to make the proper diagnosis. Otherwise, our manuscript may die a premature death.

  I love that sequence in the movie The Fugitive where Dr. Richard Kimball (Harrison Ford) is trying to sneak around Cook County Hospital as a maintenance man. An emergency room nurse tells him to wheel a kid down to surgery. The kid’s in pain. Kimball, still the doctor, can’t help looking at the kid’s X-rays and chart.

  He sees that the kid has the wrong diagnosis. So he takes him to the emergency operating room instead, where he can get immediate help.

  That’s what this chapter is about. The right diagnosis and immediate help. You don’t even have to scrub up.

  PROBLEM: SCENES FALL FLAT

  Always make sure scenes have tension in them, either the tension of pure action (something bad is about to happen) or inner tension (the characters worrying about something).

  Even when characters are at rest in a relatively quiet scene, there should be an undercurrent signaling that things are not as calm as they seem.

  The Hot Spot

  Some scenes can take a long time to “get going,” interrupting the pace. For this scene problem, Raymond Obstfeld, in Novelist’s Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes, has a helpful tip about the “hot spot.”

  Every scene should have that moment or exchange that is the focal point, the essential part. If your scene doesn’t have a hot spot, it should probably be cut.

  After you locate the hot spot on paper, Obstfeld counsels that you put a circle around it. Then read the paragraph immediately preceding the hot spot. Is it necessary? Are all the sentences necessary? Underline any that aren’t.

  Keep going backward until you have eliminated any nonessential fluff that comes before the real heat of the scene.

  Sure, you’ll want to keep some things in that offer a good lead in. But you’ll be surprised at how much you can actually get rid of, and how much better your scenes start to move.

  PROBLEM: MISHANDLING FLASHBACKS

  There is an inherent plot problem when you use flashbacks — the forward momentum is stopped for a trip to the past. If not used properly, the reader can get frustrated or impatient (not to mention editors, who tend to distrust flashbacks altogether). Here are some tips about flashbacks so they help, rather than hinder, your plots.

  Necessity

  About a flashback scene (we’ll get to back flashes in a moment), ask first if it is absolutely necessary. Be firm about this. The information we get in the flashback must come that way because that’s the best way to present it. (A flashback is almost always used to explain why a character acts a certain way in the story present.)

  If such information can be dropped in during a present moment scene, that’s always the better choice.

  Function

  You’ve decided that a flashback scene is necessary. Then make sure it works as a scene — immediate, confrontational. Write it as a unit of dramatic action, not as an information dump. Not:

  Jack remembered when he was a child, and he spilled the gasoline on the ground. His father got so angry at him it scared Jack. His father hit him, and yelled at him. It was something Jack would never forget.

  Instead:

  Jack couldn’t help remembering the gas can. He was eight, and all he wanted to do was play with it.

  The garage was his theater. No one was home. He held the can aloft, like the hammer of Thor. “I am the king of gas!” he’d said. “I will set you all on fire!”

  Jack stared down at the imaginary humans below his feet.

  The gas can slipped from his hand.

  Unable to catch it, Jack could only watch as the can made a horrible thunking sound. Its contents poured out on the new concrete.

  Jack quickly righted the can, but it was too late. A big, smelly puddle was right in the middle of the garage.

  Dad is going to kill me!

  Desperate, Jack looked around for a rag, anything to clean up the mess.

  He heard the garage door open.

  Dad was home.

  You get the idea. A well-written flashback will not detract from your story if it is essential to the narrative and works as a scene.

  Navigation

  How do you get in and out of a flashback, so it flows naturally? Here’s one way that works every time.

  In the scene you’re writing, when you’re about to go to flashback, put in a strong, sensory detail that triggers the flashback:

  Wendy looked at the wall and saw an ugly, black spider making its way up toward a web where a fly was caught. Legs creeping, moving slowly toward its prey. The way Lester had moved on Wendy all those years ago.

  She was sixteen and Lester was the big man on campus. “Hey,” he called to her one day by the lockers. “You want to go see a movie?”

  So now we are in the flashback. Write it out. Make it dramatic.

  Now how do we get out of it?

  By returning to the sensory detail (sight in the case) of the spider. The reader will remember the strong detail, and know that he’s out of flashback:

  Lester made his move in the back of the car. Wendy was helpless. It was all over in five minutes.

  The spider was at the web now. Wendy felt waves of nausea as she watched it. But she could not look away.

  Proceed With Caution

  Watch out for the word had in your flashback scenes. Use one or two to get in, but once in, avoid them. Instead of:

  Marvin had been good at basketball. He had tried out for the team, and the coach had said how good he was.

  “I think I’ll make you my starting point guard,” Coach had told him right after tryouts.

  Marvin had been thrilled by that.

  Do this:

  Marvin had been good at basketball. [Use one to get us in. Now switch to the scene.] He tried out for
the team, and the coach said how good he was.

  “I think I’ll make you my starting point guard,” Coach told him right after tryouts.

  Marvin was thrilled.

  Flashback Scene Alternatives

  An alternative to the flashback scene (which you may be tempted to turn into an information dump) are back flashes.

  These are short bursts in which you drop information about the past within a present moment scene. The two primary methods are dialogue and thoughts.

  Dialogue

  In the example below, Chester’s troubled background comes out in a flash of dialogue:

  “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You were in the newspapers, what, ten years ago? The kid who killed his parents in that cabin.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Chester A. Arthur! You were named after the president. I remember that in the story.”

  Thoughts

  We are in Chester’s head for this one, as he reflects on his past:

  “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  “No.” Did he? Did the guy recognize him? Would everybody in town find out he was Chet Arthur, killer of parents?

  “Yeah, yeah. You were in the newspapers, what, ten years ago?”

  It was twelve years ago, and this guy had him pegged. Lousy press, saying he killed his parents because he was high on drugs. They didn’t care about the abuse, did they? And this guy wouldn’t, either.

  The skillful handling of flashback material is one mark of a good writer. Using back flashes as an alternative is usually the mark of a wise writer.

  PROBLEM: THE TANGENT

  You think you have everything under control. You’re writing away and the story is flowing out of you like Perrier Jouet champagne. This is a common feeling in the first few chapters. Beginnings are easy.

  Perhaps you are an OP, and you have the story in your iron grip. But suddenly, around 10,000 words into the novel, you come to a grinding halt. You are troubled. And you get up from your desk thinking perhaps you need a Red Bull or Mountain Dew to get you back on track.

  But when you return to your screen, the trouble remains. Suddenly you are not so confident about your outline or what you planned to write.

  You may be fighting a tangent.

  The tangent is a side road that was not on your original map. It is a suggestion of your writer’s mind.

  What do you do?

  You have a couple of choices. You can ignore the tangent and move on, gritting your teeth and digging ahead like Charles Bronson in The Great Escape, knowing what the plan is and sure that you will find daylight soon.

  Or you can follow that tangent awhile because it may be leading to the very place that will mean your freedom.

  What I suggest you do is open a new document on your computer — or take out a blank legal pad or a pile of napkins — and write a free-form outline of your next few scenes, as if you had no idea what was to come next.

  Begin this way: Close your eyes and ask your movie projector to show you a vivid scene of its choice. You don’t have to force anything. Your characters will appear of their own accord, called into service by your inner projectionist.

  Watch this scene unfold for a little while. Then stop and record what happened in the scene, not in full detail but in a few lines, as if you were summarizing it.

  Now take a moment and ask yourself, “If this scene took place in my novel, what consequences would follow?”

  New scene ideas will suggest themselves. Write them down in summary form. You can use index cards for this exercise or another favorite way of recording ideas.

  Take a break. Go for a walk. Drink that Mountain Dew.

  Come back to your scene cards or notes. Think about them rationally. Does the tangent suggest a story line that is fresher and more original than the one you had in mind? If so, be ready to revise any outline you have done and go for it.

  If the tangent seems a bit too radical, you may use the material you’ve recorded as fodder for future scenes, worked in naturally.

  If you go through this exercise, it is likely that your plot block will be removed. Your mind itself will have taken a little tangent or vacation of its own, and is now ready to get back to work on the story.

  A good night’s sleep before making major decisions is another good idea.

  PROBLEM: RESISTING THE CHARACTER FOR THE SAKE OF THE PLOT

  You’ve heard writers who say,“My characters took over the story.” They usually say this with a half smile of satisfaction.

  Here is a bit of my free-form journal for a female lawyer character I had to stop and get to know better:

  I’m a thirty-two-year-old lawyer in private practice. When I bite, my jaw locks. I will not give up. I can’t, because I once lost a case I should have won! I’m driven by the need not to lose another case!

  So how do I feel about life? I think you have to work yourself almost to death, or the shadows will destroy you. You have to keep going, stay ahead of them. My attitude about all this is stoic realization: we’re all we have, baby, and that’s that. I can’t suffer fools or phonies, and I’ll tell you so.

  It helped to put those words down and hear the voice of my character. I was able to go on with a better handle on her and continue with the novel.

  And don’t forget to use our old friend, the movie mind. Your inner projectionist is waiting to show you a film or a scene that could be just the ticket for you.

  I can’t remember who suggested the following exercise, but it’s a good one for generating new plot material based on getting to know your character better.

  Close your eyes and see your character vividly. Dress her up for a night on the town. Have her go to a social event where she will see a number of old friends as well as some of the most powerful people in her world. She opens the door, steps into the party, and then what happens? Watch this scene in your mind. Hear the sounds, smells the smells, make it as real as possible.

  At some point have someone come over to your Lead and throw a drink in her face.

  What does she do? What do the others around her do or say?

  Let the scene go on of its own accord.

  Then take your character back home, have her getting ready for bed. She’s talking to someone she lives with, or her dog, about what happened. What is she feeling? Get into her emotions.

  You can do this movie-mind exercise any time during your writing, of course. And when you’re not writing. At home, just before nodding off to sleep, ask yourself what your character is doing right now.

  Maybe you’ll dream a scene, or more likely wake up the next morning with some thoughts to record on that pad you have on your nightstand.

  You do have a pad, don’t you?

  PROBLEM: SLOGGING

  So you’re in the middle of your novel and the writing has become tough slogging. You feel like you’re running a marathon in mud.

  This is not uncommon, even for writers who use outlines. Sometimes even the best laid plans are not enough — we look at the immediate horizon and see just lifeless scene cards lying there.

  Of course this can happen to NOPs as well, and that’s fine because it is part of the process. The question is, what do you do?

  There are three main strategies.

  [1] Go back. First, you can back up. Is there some place in your earlier pages that seems dull? Or beside the point? Have you lost sight of the Lead’s objective at any point? Are there long blocks of dialogue that are really about nothing more than the characters exchanging talk?

  Keep going back until you find a spot where you felt good about the writing, about being on track.

  Now ask yourself if you can cut any of the subsequent material. Come up with a better scene idea than the one that is already there. Perhaps your Lead can take another angle on the problem, talk to a new character, or be hit with something out of left field — like a new item of negative information.

  Take some time to brain
storm possible scenes to take you from the spot you are now parked in. Maybe you’ll come up with something that restarts your engine; at the very least, if you take a break you might come back to your original story line fresher.

  You also might consider doing a 180. That means going in the very opposite direction.

  I did this in a novel of mine, Deadlock, where I reached a point of dullness in the story. It just didn’t feel like it was working, and the scenes I’d come up with in my planning were shouting at me not to write them.

  I tried to picture something better, but no pictures worth recording came on.

  Finally, a little desperate, I went back to a character who had been hospitalized, close to death, but was now miraculously recovered.

  I looked at her for a moment — she was in bed and feeling good — and I decided she had to die.

  A 180. I know she was probably not pleased about that, but she wasn’t the author. I was. And that 180 was just what the plot needed. I went on from there without another hitch.

  [2] Jump cut. In filmmaker terms, the jump cut is a move ahead in time, sometimes within the same scene, but always with the same characters.

  Try taking the characters in the scene you just wrote and moving them forward in time. Switch them to a different location if you wish, with different people around them, but give them some sort of problem — especially your Lead.

  Sometimes you can jump ahead in your story, come up with the scene, and then think about how to connect your story up to that scene. Do a scene that has a lot of conflict or otherwise grabs you. This can get the juices flowing again.