Layer Your Novel: The Innovative Method for Plotting Your Scenes (The Writer's Toolbox Series)

by C. S. Lakin

  But framing a novel based on three acts as a matter of rule makes no sense to me. And I’ll explain why.

  And all this leads to the question: If we aren’t going to look at stories as three-act constructs, what’s the alternative?

  Think in Terms of Problem and Solution

  In my opinion, it makes much more sense when you’re creating a story to think in terms of the natural structure of a problem. You have two main parts: the action that created it and the action that will resolve it.

  The action that creates the problem is called the Inciting Incident or initial disturbance, and the action that resolves the problem is called the principal action. You have a threat, which is the driving force of the inciting action—a bad guy or bomb or zombie—and that’s the cause of the problem. The anti-threat, which is the driving force of the principal action, is your protagonist or hero, the one who opposes the threat and solves the problem.

  In Harry Potter, Voldemort is the threat that creates the problem. He is also the main source of the complications and crises, as well as the need for climactic actions to resolve the crises whenever Harry attempts to solve the problems Voldemort creates.

  In The Silence of the Lambs, Buffalo Bill is the threat that causes the problem and also the main source of resistance when Clarice Starling tries to track him down.

  In The Lord of the Rings, Sauron is the threat that is causing the problem and also the main source of resistance that creates the complications and crises when Frodo and his group try to solve the problem by destroying the ring of power.

  After a story is created, of course, you can divide the action into any number of acts or parts that you like, but it’s counterproductive to think in those terms at the story’s inception. In other words, you shouldn’t be using act structure to lay out or create the story.

  How much better to focus on the natural structures surrounding the problem, which is the central event and heart of your story.

  A Look at the Three-Act Structure

  Since it seems logical to have three acts—to compartmentalize the beginning, middle, and end of your story—shouldn’t you default to that? Simply, no.

  In fact, the three-act structure so highly touted by many might just leave you aggravated.

  Some structure methods work well for some people. Others just can’t seem to fit their “square” story into a round hole. And there is no one perfect method. You may find that your novel doesn’t break down well into three acts or two major plot or pinch points.

  Here’s another fact: just because you’re using structure and following a framework for your story, it doesn’t restrict you like a pulled-too-tight corset. We writers want the freedom of creativity, and a good framework should not be like the proverbial cage in which a bird might unfold its wings but cannot fly (a nod to Kahlil Gibran here).

  So, while we need framework to hold up our story, we shouldn’t be so neurotic or legalistic to the point of suffocating both our great story concept and our creative expression.

  I personally don’t lay out my novels noting where every one of these points go within a three-act structure. I rarely think in terms of “acts.” When I step back and look at some of my novels, I see that I’d let the story line determine the number of acts and sections.

  The Lowdown on the Three-Act Structure

  So what’s this three-act structure stuff all about, and is it a formula you should try? Or maybe start with and veer off from as needed?

  The three-act structure has been around a long time. Screenwriters rely heavily on it, but it’s not found in myths, legends, or other great stories of the past. Breaking stories up into acts is really an arbitrary choice.

  Some research claims it originated with theater and television’s need to have breaks in the programming. Sponsors have to plug their products via commercials, right?

  I remember all the hundreds of scripts my mother wrote for TV (daytime soaps, nighttime series, etc.). Every single script had a scene “fade out” on specific pages (page ten, page twenty, or the like) for that purpose. It wasn’t a choice; she had to structure her scripts that way to allow for the requisite commercials.

  If you write a movie for television, it will likely have seven acts. Why? Because it has to allow for seven commercial breaks. And you will be expected to insert something intriguing at the end of each act to lure the audience back after the break. But that has nothing to do with story structure.

  The Greeks had no act structure in their plays. The plays had one act. The Romans had five acts. It’s arbitrary. Acts and their endings appeared in plays because of the need to have intermissions. People can’t sit for three hours in a theatre without taking a break or going to the restroom. Sponsors (those companies that pay to promote their products during commercial breaks) want to sell something to target audiences. Networks need money and so have to cater to sponsors. None of this has anything to do with story.

  So why should novelists blindly follow the herd? No reason.

  Breaking Up Your Story into Large Chunks

  So, the better way to look at a story, when you are creating one, is not to succumb to an arbitrary dividing into acts but to examine just what story you are telling and what might be the best way to break that story apart into chunks.

  Well, why do you even need to do that—break it up? Because it helps you see the primary sections of your story so that you can set things up and build to those key plot developments, as well as create resolutions to these developments.

  It doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to break things up if you don’t want to. But you might want to give it a try.

  I love Michael Hauge’s six-act story structure, and I often use that. Why? Because to me it’s the most natural and intuitive. (You can learn more about his structure here on his website).

  Let me share some brief examples of what I did in some of my novels.

  In A Thin Film of Lies, one of my psychological mysteries, I have Part One: Opening Shots. This is a prologue, and it has a brief visual of the car accident that kills Libby Denham. This sets up the story, which is about the investigation into her death. These section breaks are told in the voice of the nemesis, although you don’t learn who this character is until close to the end of the novel.

  One-fifth in, you come to Part Two: Developing in the Dark. This section break has two paragraphs, using my camera/film motif to compare crime investigation with photography. The first section ends with Mike Jepson being interrogated about the hit-and-run, his life starting to unravel.

  At about three-fifths into the novel, you come to Part Three: Exposing the Negative. Here I have just one paragraph about how powerful a camera is, and how a shot can destroy a life or even a nation. Part Two ends with Jepson arrested, and Part Three begins with him in jail, wondering how in the world this could have happened to him.

  Part Four comes a bit past the four-fifths mark. I don’t place these sections in based on exact location or page number, which is what some writing instructors advocate. I place these where they best fit and for specific reasons (which I’ll further on). Part Four is called “Fixing the Final Image” and comprises only one brief paragraph that ties in with the title of the novel and pounds home the photography motif:

  Just what is a piece of photographic paper, anyway? A flat piece of paper, coated with a minute amount of silver. In the blink of a shutter, a photographer can create reality or destroy lives. With that kind of power, what is this silver worth by the ounce? What would someone pay, and pay dearly, for that thin film of silver? Especially if it’s a thin film of lies.

  I use this section break to set up the highly charged climax as Mike learns who his nemesis is and now has to find and stop that person before someone is killed.

  Then I have an Epilogue called “Parting Shots” four pages before the end of the book. This last scene matches the style of the prologue, which are both told in the nemesis’s voice (and readers now know who that character is).
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  I love bookending my novels so that the first and last scenes match in many ways (I’ll show you another example of that later). The prologue scene in Part One shows the car accident that killed Libby. The Epilogue scene shows another person hit by another car and killed. Perfect bookends, and a way to end on a strong visual note.

  The Basics You Really Need to Know

  So, did I lay out my novel first into these six sections? Not at all. I first developed my story and followed the loose structure that included these basics (and which I lay out for you in The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction Workbook):

  Opening situation that showcases the protagonist in her ordinary world. In this case, my protagonist, Detective Fran Anders, has been called to the scene of the hit-and-run. Thus begins the investigation.

  Inciting Incident that pushes the protagonist in a new direction. Fran’s initial look at the scene leads her to Mike Jepson as the primary suspect.

  Goal set for the protagonist at around the 25% mark. Fran now has to determine and prove that Jepson is guilty of this crime, but it’s not as easy as it looks.

  This is one of those standard novel structure benchmarks I wholly believe in. The protagonist must settle on a goal for the novel, and it’s about at this juncture that the goal is set.

  What you’ll be soon learning is that these three scene types are part of the ten key scenes that make up your first layer.

  * * *

  Your assignment: Think about the natural structure of your story’s “problem.” You have two main parts: the action that created it and the action that will resolve it.

  The action that creates the problem is called the Inciting Incident or initial disturbance, and the action that resolves the problem is called the principal action. Write a paragraph describing your story, identifying these two parts.

  Now, think about your overall story, whether you’ve written any chapters or not. Do you see any natural sections in your plot? Play around with various numbers of acts, maybe even putting all your scenes on index cards and laying them out on a table so that you can create rows for acts. See what feels best for your particular story. You might find the exercise insightful and inspiring!

  Chapter 2: A General Overview of Novel Framework

  It’s so important to understand that most novels (except epic stories that cover decades, such as a biography or family saga) are about a character going after one short-term goal.

  Being clear about your protagonist’s goal is paramount when it comes to structuring your novel. Why? Because without that goal as the heart of your premise, your story will be flawed. You need to build everything around the goal. This is true for movies and plays and novels.

  Once you’ve figured out where to start your novel, based on that Inciting Incident at the start of your story, you then have these other sections:

  The 25-50% section is the “Progress.” This is where the protagonist makes progress toward his goal. Many screenplays follow this specifically, to the second, and most movies do well sticking to this very expected formulaic structure. But I don’t feel you have to force novels into this framework so fanatically. Novels really are different beasts than films and can succeed with creative or flexible structure, so don’t get your shirt all bunched up trying to force your story into that round hole if it’s got some sharp edges.

  The 50-75% section presents bigger and bigger complications and obstacles as you approach the climax, which falls anywhere between the 75%-99% region. Again, it depends on the story. Hauge uses the movie Thelma and Louise as an example of a climax coming right at the very end of the story (the 100% mark). Really, how can you add any scenes with those characters after they’ve driven the car off the cliff to their deaths? (I suppose you could have an Epilogue that takes place in heaven, with St. Peter saying in a Mel Brooks’s voice: “Aaah, what the hell were you thinking?”). But every story will have its “perfect” place for the climax.

  And, depending on your plot, the resolution to the whole shebang will fall at the end of the book, with (hopefully) a brief wrap-up. I go with the motto “Quick in, quick out,” and that’s what I teach my editing clients. The best novels end quickly after the big climax, which is where the protagonist either reached or failed to reach her goal. Since that’s the point of the story (to see if the goal is reached), it does a writer no good to wander off into a whole bunch of new plot developments at the end of the book.

  I’ve critiqued novels that have another fifty pages of inconsequential story bits that have nothing to do with the premise of the novel or the protagonist’s goal. Bad idea. Readers, after going through the emotional ups and downs of a novel, with the climax bringing everything to a dramatic peak, want that quick and satisfying conclusion so they can let the experience of the journey they’ve taken with the protagonist sink in and settle.

  So, you don’t have to break your story up into chunks and have actual sections. But it will help you in the plotting stages to do this in some fashion. Often breaks are best created when there is a jump ahead in time. It could be a week or a year. Again, this depends on your story. Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Invention of Wings covers the lifetimes of two women, and so she structured the novel into six parts that each center on a group of significant years, instead of covering every single year in their lives.

  Breaks serve many purposes: they allow for a big moment before the end of a section, to set up tension and excitement for the next section that follows, to hint at something coming, to give a breather for the reader to process what just happened (similar to a chapter ending, we tend to pause and prepare to move onward in the story).

  Try Laying Out Index Cards to Get a Feel for Sections

  Don’t just break up a story or create parts to a novel randomly or because someone tells you it’s a must. Fashioning your story into sections is extremely helpful, and it’s something you can do even if you don’t label them as such for your readers.

  Sometimes, after I’ve put all my scene ideas on index cards (as many as I can think of for my novel I’m about to write), I’ll lay them all out on my dining table. Usually, as I said, I have between thirty and fifty scene ideas before I start writing my general outline.

  Once I have all these cards in front of me, I’ll start laying them out in vertical rows. When I get to the place where it feels I’ve built up to a key plot development that presents “a door of no return” for my protagonist, I’ll start a new row with the next scene card.

  It’s only after I do this that I learn how many “acts” I have.

  Does this sound weird? It may, but it works great for me. Maybe it takes experience to know what these big “doors” are and where they should come in a story. And of course, as you get closer to the climax, there are going to be all kinds of complications. So how do you determine where an act “officially” ends?

  There are plenty of books and blog posts that can give you insights on this. I find James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure a great book to start with, which focuses on the traditional three-act structure. And for the most part I feel it’s good for beginning novelists to start there. But just don’t get locked into three acts because you’ve heard you have to.

  Here are other examples of sections I created in my novels:

  In The Map across Time I use one Hebrew phrase (Hebrew is my forgotten ancient language in my series) and the definition of the phrase as a section break. These five breaks come at the end of a key turning point or development in the story.

  In Intended for Harm I have numerous sections, all the names of Bible books and their definitions: Exodus, Numbers, Judges, Song of Songs, etc. I broke up the forty-year family saga into sections, not based on number or years but on milestones the Abrams family faces (death, marriage, tragedy, etc.).

  In The Hidden Kingdom I created five section breaks, and in each one they tell a continuing second story line in brief fashion, as the mother (who is one of the characters in the main story line) tells a bedtime story to her s
on. The bedtime story being told is the novel’s story, but it’s shared in dialogue and internal thoughts, with the character reflecting on the events that play out in the novel. In other words, I use the section breaks to insert a story within a story.

  Note that these are not random choices. They are very specific to the plots of my novels. And each way I handled my section breaks is different. I have section breaks in all seven of my fantasy books in The Gates of Heaven series.

  I love the way Orson Scott Card does this very thing but usually with chapter breaks. In Pathfinder, my favorite of all his books that I’ve read so far, he has a whole story unfolding about the spaceship that left Earth to populate a world far away, told in bits at the start of each chapter, while the reader follows the story of what is taking place on that newly colonized world. Both story lines are essential and pull together like threads in a fabric, and in a sense they collide together in a big crash at the end as all the mysteries set up are exposed and made clear.

  The key is to let the story define the breaks. Once you have a good overview of your plot, you can use the index cards or some other method to take a step back and see where the natural sections fall.

  But . . . all this should lead to determining your ten key scenes. And this is to ensure you have that solid framework. Since it’s hard to just sit down and fill out the Ten Key Scene Chart, by doing this bit of brainstorming on sections, it will help prepare you for all the consequent layering you will do.