by Larry Brooks
Against the odds, and with her life in constant peril, can Fantine get home to find out why Berry betrayed her and clear her name?
Notes from Larry: The hero’s motivations are critical to making a story work. Fantine wants to clear her name. Fine, but why? And why will we care? It seems a little self-focused for her; she’s not “saving” anybody, it’s all about her image in the community. This isn’t all that dramatic relative to stakes. What is heroic about her quest—the need to prove herself innocent? Every convict in every prison hopes to prove themselves innocent … and there’s nothing inherently heroic in doing so, even if they are innocent. The stakes need to be higher, playing for something bigger than herself.
This reveal needs to connect to the big picture (which is still a little unclear), and there needs to be stakes involved, something beyond her own good name. Her innocence, or not, is a small story compared to her doing something (like Katniss is doing in The Hunger Games series) that benefits the entire population, or even the oppressed part of it.
Through her ordeals she uncovers beautiful truths about herself and ugly truths about her homeland and has to learn to trust again and also to forgive.
Notes from Larry: These truths, beautiful or otherwise, don’t matter unless they change something, and unless the change is opposed by the people in power, causing them to try to stop her. What she learns about herself is secondary; a plot about self-discovery is weak because there are no stakes involved. There need to be big stakes in a story like this. This isn’t a character study; it needs to be big, a story about a girl becoming a hero. Learning about one’s self is not the stuff of heroics in stories. It should be bigger.
What is the external source of conflict your hero must face? (Note: If this answer doesn’t match the previous question, we need to talk.)
Fantine is sent away before she can discover why she was betrayed and clear her name. Before she can find her way home, she must survive cruel guards at the prison camp and violent rebels who drag her into their plot to take back the mines.
Notes from Larry: Major caution here: It sounds like you have no primary villain in the story. In fact, it sounds like it will be episodic, “the adventures of Fantine as she struggles to get back to the city …” but to do what, exactly?
As in The Hunger Games, you need a villain, a face for whatever blocks the hero’s path (it’s the president in that case; it boils down to Katniss vs. the president). In your story, what does it boil down to, confrontation-wise: Fantine vs. … who? And why?
What does your hero need or want in this story? What is his or her “story journey”? (Note: This is one that stumps a lot of writers, and yet, it’s perhaps the most important thing you need to know about your story. For example, in a concept in which your hero needs to find the man that kidnapped his children, don’t answer this question with something like this: “His primary need is to conquer the inner shyness and hesitation that extends from his childhood as the son of a disapproving father.” That may be the case, but it’s not the answer to the question. For that particular concept, a good answer would be “The hero needs to find the location of the kidnappers soon because his daughter needs medicine and she’ll die before he can scratch up the ransom money.”)
Fantine needs to survive her punishment and the rebel attack and get home to discover why she was betrayed and clear her name.
Notes from Larry: My opinion: This is too thin. Why would the reader care about Fantine clearing her name? What are we rooting for? What are the stakes in doing so? She clears her name, and then what? Who benefits? She should be playing for more than just clearing her name. Of course she’s earning her continued freedom—and that’s good—but it’s still not enough. With this setup, it’s all about her. It’s self-focused, whereas great heroes are fighting for the good of others, the good of all. You haven’t put Fantine into that position with this setup—it’s too small. You need to give her a bigger, darker, more important game to play, with stakes that extend beyond herself.
Also, the core of your concept was those magical gems. But they’ve completely disappeared for the story you’re telling here. In fact, there is no high-level corruption going on at all—it’s all about her. It would work better if it ends up being about a bigger picture.
What dramatic question does this present? (Example: “Will the hero get the girl in the end, despite XYZ?”)
Will Fantine survive and return to clear her name?
Notes from Larry: This could be stronger. Why will the reader care that she succeeds? What are the stakes of this, beyond her own well-being?
How will she be received if/when she gets back, given that the leaders of Hollity are led to believe she’s a traitor on the side of the rebels, and given that she can expose the lie of the gems and given that the gem powers she gains are far and above those of even the leader of Hollity?
Notes from Larry: Again, what is the risk to the leaders of Fantine exposing the lie?
Why is she the only one with access to this level of power? This last part needs to be explained, and it needs to be logical. Be careful of contrivances in a story like this; everything needs to make sense.
What are you asking your reader to root for in this story?
To root for Fantine to clear her name because she is neither guilty nor a traitor.
Notes from Larry: That’s not enough; we need a much bigger, stronger reason to root for her. What are the stakes, the upside, the consequences, of her clearing her name? Why should we root for that?
Readers will see she is talented and adored by many because throughout the story she selflessly uses her herb healing to help even those who act against her, including the camp commandant, the rebel leader, and fellow prisoner Jineen, who betrays her because she is jealous of her relationship with fellow prisoner Dac. The reader will ache to know why Berry betrayed her.
Notes from Larry: I disagree. It’s too thin. Leaning into soap opera, I fear. I think, based on this, that you are still in the “search for story” phase, that you haven’t found or defined a story that is strong enough yet. The fix is a bigger story with stronger stakes, and a logical reason that Fantine becomes a player, probably the lynchpin player, in saving the rebels and the oppressed from the leaders. How does “the lie” even matter? What happens if that is exposed (at a glance, there are no consequences to this).
The story, as is, is not broken, per se; it just isn’t strong enough, in my opinion. Use The Hunger Games and Katniss (or any other story in the dystopian genre) as a model, and you’ll see that these heroes are all playing for much larger, darker, and more urgent stakes than Fantine is engaged with, something for The Greater Good, beyond her own innocence.
What opposes the hero (the exterior antagonist) in the pursuit of this goal?
Before the First Plot Point, the teacher who accuses her, and Berry (the daughter of the teacher) who betrays her. After, the rebels who use her to further their cause and then renege on their promise to free her; the ambitious camp guard Garin, who wants the commandant’s job; and the council, who wrongly convicted her and who, upon her return, do not at first believe her side of the story. Also, the constant threat to her life after the First Plot Point.
Notes from Larry: The story would benefit from a singular villain, the face of that which opposes her (and opposes her on a stronger, more urgent quest than the one you’ve given her). What you have is episodic, a series of minor antagonists who simply go away, leaving us with “the adventures of Fantine” as she travels this story road. While you could make it work, it isn’t strong enough at its core to work at a higher level.
What are the goals, motivations, and/or rationale of the exterior antagonist?
The teacher is jealous because her daughter Berry is not talented.
Notes from Larry: This is the setup of the story. The teacher isn’t the villain until and unless that teacher is the one who emerges as the primary antagonist in Fantine’s story quest over the arc of the whole story. This
isn’t the case here.
There was a really bad TV movie with a similar villain dynamic: The mother of a girl who is competing for a place on a cheerleading squad sabotages, and then tries to kill, one of the more talented girls competing for a spot. Notice this wasn’t based on a novel. In fact, it’s really thin villain motivation, bordering on the absurd.
She looks down on Fantine because she is mixed class, the daughter of an elite father and a Workfolk (lower-class) mother. Fantine gets her herb healing talent from her mother, a skill looked down upon by the elite who use gem healing. It later transpires that Fantine’s father passed the teacher over to marry her mother, and although the teacher went on to marry a high elite council member, she never got over the rejection.
Notes from Larry: This is all backstory and setup … but not the villain you need.
Camp guard Garin takes a disliking to Fantine when he blames her for the escape of Dac and more so when she gains favor from the Commandant, the drunken brother of the leader of the council, by healing him.
Notes from Larry: This guy is only a villain until she breaks out and arrives in the city, where a villain isn’t present at all. This, alone, exposes the story as too episodic.
Your answers describe relationships and nuances well into the story, when the problem with this resides at the highest levels of the story, rendering these answers moot. What is the big-picture dramatic story here? That’s simply not clear, and less than compelling, in your answer.
The council believes she is a criminal and a traitor, and upon her return is afraid of her powers and that she can expose the lie their society is based upon.
Notes from Larry: A “council” isn’t a good villain. You need one person who has reasons to stop her and gives us someone (not a council) to root against. What does the council have to lose? How does Fantine threaten them? That seems vague, yet it’s critical to making this work.
What is at stake for the hero relative to attaining (or not attaining) the goal (which can be stated as survival, the attainment of something, the avoidance of something, the discovery of something, and so on)?
Survival, not getting back to clear her name, not knowing why she was set up and betrayed.
Notes from Larry: Too small. Too self-focused. She’s not enough of a hero. Why will we care? She needs a higher purpose, something that is truly heroic, such as fighting to save the oppressed and changing the city itself. She gets her record cleared … so what? That’s too small a story.
Notice she’s not out to stop the bad guys or to bring them to justice. It’s all about her. She’s not heroic enough, and her quest isn’t compelling enough, because the stakes are too inward, and not something that will motivate the reader to empathize.
Virtually everything you promised in your concept, whatever was conceptual, is completely gone now. There are no more magical gems from the gods, no more political fraud to be exposed; it’s just your hero trying to clear her name. The story has jumped lanes, from an unclear and illogical lane into a thin and narrowly focused lane, now void of potential heroism, rendered less than compellingly dramatic because of its episodic nature.
Moreover, it’s chaotic. The focus seems to jump from arena to arena, without an overriding, compelling dramatic question with stakes that make us care. That’s what’s missing here. When you throw in the chaos, the whole thing is destined for a rejection slip.
You need a stronger concept and premise, at square one, before this will work as you hope it will. An agent will tell you the same thing: This is too small. There aren’t enough strong stakes in play. It’s all over the place, and it has no dramatic focus that connects to the concept you have pitched.
Until that happens—a stronger story, and a much more dramatic, stakes-driven story arc—the remaining answers don’t matter in context to this feedback. They are describing a story that is too small and won’t work at the level you need, the level required to land an agent or a publisher, or, if you self-publish, a significant readership.
The problem, and the fix, is at the core level of concept and premise. This isn’t big enough. You need a singular villain, opposing a much more meaningful, urgent, and heroic quest for your hero than what you have in place now. Fantine needs to “fix” something, expose bad guys, save the community. None of that is in play as described.
When you get that, everything in the story will change. The Part One setup will change, because you’ll be setting up something else, something bigger (the big picture). The First Plot Point will change because that newer, bigger, better story will give your hero a larger, more consequential quest, against a stronger, singular antagonistic villain. Thus, the other story milestones change in context to all that.
I’m sorry if this sounds like a “back to the drawing board” conclusion, but that’s precisely my call here. You’re not done crafting a story that is deep enough, that gives us a protagonist with an empathic-enough quest, something with much stronger stakes attached, and, thus, much stronger drama along the way, against a much stronger singular villain who blocks her path precisely because the city itself will crumble if she succeeds.
In your current story, once she has her good name back, and once “the lie” is exposed, nothing changes for the city or anyone else. It’s too small. My job here, the highest calling of this process, is to identify any potential issues that will hold a story back, as well as evaluate the blueprint, which depends on a solid concept and premise as its basis. When those are thin, the structural stuff becomes a moot point.
You do show a good comprehension of many of the basics here, including structure. But I think you’ve settled on a story too soon, a story that doesn’t deliver something amazing and fresh and knock-an-agent-out-of-the-chair compelling—because it has some holes and some thin ice, as I’ve described.
I hope, once the sting of this subsides, that you find this feedback exciting, because now you know what the need is, and the challenge is clear. As is, the story isn’t horrible, but it’s just not strong enough. Again, that’s my opinion.
Thanks for the chance to chip in. I wish you the best with this going forward.
Chapter 16
Case Study Three
Even a Winner Raises Yellow Flags
The cover memo I sent to this writer with her feedback, which appears below, tells you everything you need to know before reading this case study: the issues, the missteps, the virtues. Learn from these issues, and look for the contextual connections between them.
The news isn’t always bad. Yet a nod in the direction of improvement is always a good thing in the early stages of story development—even if you develop that clarity for yourself, from your growing story sensibility. That’s the ultimate goal: to be able to spot potential weakness before the story leaves your hard drive.
Even writers with promising stories don’t quite grasp the true nature and function of premise. There is nothing more critical to a story. You are about to see that situation here, in what is a really solid story proposition. See what it looks like. Learn to recognize it in your own work.
Larry’s Cover Memo to the Author
Hi _____________________,
Here you go. I love your story. I think it has huge potential.
I give you a hard time in your statement(s) of concept, premise, and theme. You are off the mark in your understanding of all three terms. I think you need a crash course on those elements and their subtleties, as they are important to the writing itself.
My notes on the story sequence are prompts and yellow flags. You do have a nice dramatic arc in play, and I think I’ve given you some saves and added some additional value.
I make a drastic suggestion in my closing comments, which alters everything, including how you view the story. It’s part of my urging to think bigger with this. Your narrative strategy, as is, is self-limiting, for reasons I explain in my responses.
Thanks for letting me play here. I wish you great success. You have the raw stuff to make it happen
with the bones of this story. I hope you’ll go for it!
Larry
Current working title:
The Secret Daughter
Notes from Larry: I like the title. That’s an important element. This catches my eye.
Genre:
Historical fiction with a romantic element. Possibly it’s historical romance, but I am perplexed and confused about this. I have written a story about real historical figures, which screams historical fiction, but two of my critique partners (who are romance writers) say that it is a romance. One of my critique partners (who writes mainstream women’s fiction) says it could be either.
Notes from Larry: Historical fiction is one of the toughest genres to pull off. Also note that it’s often a very risky proposition to write a story about real historical figures. It sounds like you’re leaning more into historical. That said, it’s perfectly fine to write a historical romance. That seems to be where this story lands.
As you will see below, my genre dilemma is driving me batty because if I just knew where it belonged I would probably know what my POV voices should be!
Notes from Larry: Don’t sweat genre. Write the book you want to write, and see what happens. If it works, an agent will see it, and she’ll find a place for it.
Which “voice” will you use: first-person past, first-person present, or third-person omniscient?
My current/initial draft is in multiple third-person points of view (heroine, hero, antagonist).
Problems: The concept of my story aligns with historical fiction, but there is also a romantic subplot that ends with a happily ever after. So I have a heroine POV, the love interest/sworn protector (hero) POV, and an antagonist POV. The main journey is the heroine’s (but the love interest also has a fully fleshed-out arc, including plot points). I have toyed with the idea of making her POV first person and the love interest and antagonist third person. But is this too difficult for an unpublished author to make work?