by Sacha Black
“Need has to do with overcoming a weakness within the character. A hero with a need is aways paralyzed in some way at the beginning of the story by his weakness.” John Truby, The Anatomy of Story, p.44.
In essence, need is what creates the change in the hero (the hero needs to overcome his flaw), but the desire is based in the external story. The story is where the hero’s need is placed so the reader has an expression of the hero’s need. Needs and desires must be relevant to the protagonist and the story. No one cares if John Smith wants to save enough money to plant a plum/prune farm to help his mother’s irritable bowels. But the audience will care if, in order to get the money, John has to rob a bank and kill the banker.
Opponent
We all know we need a bad guy. Truby simply says you should pick the best character to be the villain. Sounds obvious, but he means you should pick the character who:
can strike the hero in the precious parts and attack his weakness most effectively, and
the character who wants (at the deepest level) the same thing as the hero, as this produces the most significant conflict.
Plan
This is the plan the protagonist creates to reach his goal. It’s the vertebrae making up your story’s spine. It will include the key events leading the reader from the first page to the final climax, and inherent in the plan are all the obstacles the hero must face to defeat their flaw.
Battle
This is the battle in which you pit hero against villain (or hero against flaw). The tension should continue to rise through your story as a result of repeated interactions between your hero and villain. During the earlier interactions, the hero will lose to the villain because he is still flawed. The villain knows the hero is flawed and is able to utilize his flaw against him. But as the confrontations reach the climax of your novel, the hero will have a self-revelation allowing him to understand how he must change to defeat the villain and overcome his flaw. Thus commences the final battle, in which the hero finally defeats the villain.
Self-Revelation
A point to note: unless you’re extremely careful, having your protagonist state their revelation will make your story sound preachy. There’s no need for the exposition. Your hero should be able to demonstrate the revelation he’s had through his actions. This is the tipping point of the character arc — the moment in which he reaches the highest peak — the revelation, the defeat of the flaw — and then tips over to race back to what Truby calls the new equilibrium (or, as Vogler would say, the ordinary world).
New equilibrium
The villain has been defeated, the hero's flaw is vanquished and life can return to its new normal. New because a part of the hero will be changed permanently. Whether that be for the positive or negative depends on her character arc.
Dan Wells’s Seven-Point Plot Plan
The last type of structure is from Dan Wells. He gives a fantastic set of lectures on story structure and the seven-point plot plan. You can see the full lecture series on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC430F6A783A88697
The reason I’ve included his story structure model is twofold. First, it’s the simplest of the three models. Second, Wells makes a suggestion as to the order in which you should create your story structure. So, not only does Wells give you a framework on which to work, but he also gives you a torch and a freaking map to boot.
The elements of Wells’s plot structure, in the chronological order of your story, are as follows:
Hook
Plot turn 1
Pinch 1
Midpoint
Pinch 2
Plot turn 2
Resolution
The below is an explanation of the elements in the order in which Wells suggests you tackle them:
1. Resolution. Wells (along with Truby, along with me) argues that you should start with the ending. Why? Because if you’re going for a walk, you need to know where you’re going to decide which direction to travel. If you have an endpoint, you can create a map. Everything in your story will lead to this point. As I’ve already mentioned, if you know how your character’s arc ends you know who she needs to be at the start and the journey she needs to go on.
2. Hook is the next element Wells suggests you work on. The hook is the opposite of the resolution. In other words, the beginning. What is the opposite state to the ending? That’s where your character arc begins. In technical terms, the ‘hook’ is the literary device you use in the first few pages of your story to reel your readers into the rest of the novel. Often, it’s a question implied in your opening — a question your readers can only get the answered by devouring the rest of your book. For example, an unexplained dead body that shows up.
3. The Midpoint is the third element you should focus on. The midpoint is the moment in the story where your protagonist moves from reaction to action. In a character arc, it’s the point where the hero takes charge and no longer wants to ‘be done to’. The term ‘midpoint’ is used loosely as it doesn’t need to be the physical middle of your book but the ‘middle’ of the story indicated by the change in behavior from the hero — no longer passive, but actively driving the story.
4. Plot Turn 1 is the fourth element you should focus on. This is where you introduce the first real moments of conflict or twist. This is where your hero starts her tests, faces the reality of her flaw and realizes she needs to be better to win. Your villain should be introduced at this point (if they haven’t been already). This plot turn is where your villain applies enough pressure on the hero that it pushes the hero from the hook to the midpoint.
5. Plot Turn 2 is where you focus next. This plot turn moves you from your story’s midpoint towards the ending. It’s the moment in the story where your protagonist obtains the final piece of the puzzle (or weapon, or has the self-revelation) needed to defeat the villain. For example, in the Matrix movie, this is the moment Neo realizes he is The One.
6. Pinch 1 this is the sixth element. Pressure should be applied to your hero, i.e. an obstacle or barrier or interaction with the villain or an underling. It should also force the characters into action.
7. Pinch point 2 - You work on this last. Apply even more pressure. Make the situation seem hopeless for the hero. Remember the ‘dark moment’? That.
Connect it, baby
I’ll pause here for a second and bring it back my love child, the web of connectivity. Plot and theme connect seamlessly. No matter what you call them, most stories have the following key elements:
A plot point, where something significant happens.
A pinch point, where the villain ramps up the pressure.
Turning points, usually a significant event in favor of the hero.
At each of these points, you need to bury the theme into your story, whether it be through character action, decision, dialogue or a theme-based obstacle. Grab the theme (and a shovel), dig a hole in your book and bury it.
You need to do a Hansel and Gretel and drop theme-shaped breadcrumbs within your story’s plot points, scenes and characters’ actions. Every crumb you lay down is another clue for your readers to pick up and follow until they find your glorious thematic conclusion.
These breadcrumbs are clever little bastards. They make the reader go on the journey with your hero. It makes them feel like they have the thematic revelation personally. Instead of the hero explaining his epiphany, the reader has the ‘ah ha’ moment with them. And that nifty little trickster is how you connect that web and leave your reader with your book’s essence. It’s the ultimate book hangover full of magic and bookish ghosts that will haunt them for eternity.
The principles of story arcs
Although brief, we’ve covered three different methods for structuring your story (and therefore character) arc. Each story will create a different variation of story structure, but that’s to be expected. The principles though will always stay the same, but I’ll talk about that in a second. I started this book by telling you r
ules are made to be broken, and that’s precisely why I showed you three different structure models for story.
If your hero has a negative arc, your story will naturally be an inversion of a positive arc. If you have a more social or philosophical point to make, then maybe a flat arc is right for you. Whatever your story, be bold, be fierce, break the rules and experiment with structure.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the simplest arc of them all?
I don’t want to repeat the arc and structure stuff I’ve just gone through, but it’s worth noting the commonalities between them all. Which, in my typical style, has been paired down to the absolute simplest form:
Flawed hero - All stories start with an inadequate hero. That is the purpose of the story: to push him through enough experiences he will become a better person.
Hero has goal - The hero’s goal and desire is what ultimately pulls him into the story and makes him take the call to action.
Hero tries to achieve goal and fails repeatedly - These are the obstacles and challenges your hero faces during the plot.
Hero has a realization – The hero discovers why he’s failing and gains a magical item or newfound strength or insight that enables him to succeed.
Hero achieves goal – The villain’s defeated, the hero’s flaw is banished, the party’s started… wait… ignore that last bit.
Back to normal life - The story is complete and life returns to the new normal.
And now to some principles.
Double up on the weak front
Giving your hero a moral weakness as well as a psychological weakness deepens the complexity and believability of your protagonist. It also gives him another thing to overcome in his character arc.
Moral weaknesses are derived from psychological weaknesses. Whatever the psychological weakness is, an immoral behavior can extend from it.
Example: Cady Heron from the movie Mean Girls is weak because she’s agreeable. So agreeable she refuses to create any conflict even when it’s needed. This results in her joining a popular group of girls at school. Despite having a secret plan to take these popular girls down, her agreeable nature leads to a moral flaw. She ends up hurting her real friends in her plight to defeat the popular girls.
Good plot problems, bad plot problems
You need to create a plot problem good enough that your hero can’t refuse the challenge. Of course, sometimes change is forced upon your hero (rules are always made for breaking, after all). But the problem should create a pull on the hero’s emotions and values. So much so, he has no choice but to take the journey through your story. Make the journey mean something.
Lies and choices
We’ve already discussed the lie your hero believes in STEP 3 but, after his self-realization, the hero is often posed with a question. It might be an implied question rather than through dialogue:
Should the hero open Pandora’s box? Should Ned Stark choose justice or loyalty? It has to be a choice your hero can’t wriggle out of.
Whatever the choice, it should be difficult to make, which means it can’t be as simple as ‘kill the villain to save the dame’ or ‘don’t kill the bad guy and let the dame die’. That’s not a choice: there is no choice there. The answer is far too obvious and any hero worth their salt would choose to slay the villain in a demonstration of muscled torso and oil-slicked biceptery.
So, then, what actually makes a difficult choice a difficult choice? What pits a lame choice apart from a juicy one? Well, juicy choices make the hero wriggle and writhe under the weight of it. A choice is only tricky if the options you have to choose from are similar or have similar outcomes. Offering someone licorice and vomit flavored ice cream or a scoop of strawberry isn’t a choice. But, between strawberry and raspberry, it might be. Likewise, pitting two moral values against each other creates inner conflict — like Ned Stark’s experience of trying to choose between his loyalty and his wisdom.
It works the same way if you pit the decision negatively between two evils. For example, in Sophie’s Choice written by William Styron, the protagonist, Sophie, is made to choose which of her two children must die by gassing during the Holocaust. Neither outcome is positive, and ultimately the choice she makes leads her down a dark path she can never recover from.
Change, like rewards, must be earned
See, this is the difference between us chunky monkey humans and your flat on the page characters. We breathers get the benefit of the doubt. Your characters do not. Any change they undergo must be fought for and earned.
Your hero has an entire novel to try and get what she wants. Why would you give it to her after her first mini battle? That’s like getting down and dirty on a first date. Unless you’re a total hero slut, don’t do the dirty. Don’t give her what she wants in the first act. Treat them mean to keep them keen. Make your hero work for it, throw in some Rocky training montages, a quest or five and a few fisticuffs. It’s far more interesting for the reader.
Essentially, you need to torture your hero before giving her what she wants. Now, try not to roll out the battle cannons and profess that you could never torture your darling, because tough. You gotta whip out the flail and wooden stocks and flip the switch on your empathy. The only thing you should be getting down and dirty with is some full-blown hero torment.
Why do you need to torture your hero?
Because of believability.
Everyone knows that getting what you want in life (and fiction) is hard. The universe actively tests you and puts barriers and obstacles in your way. Some days you’ll take ten steps forward, other days you’ll be knocked back and feel broken and lost. Even the most successful people in the world have experienced failures and setbacks. It’s a kind of universal torture!
“When I got a rejection slip from AHMM, I pounded a nail into the wall above the Webcor, wrote ‘Happy Stamps’ on the rejection slip, and poked it onto the nail… By the time I was fourteen… the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it.” Stephen King, On Writing, pp.33-34.
Some of the most famous real heroes and leaders have found the path to success impossibly hard. For example:
5127 - the number of failed prototypes James Dyson made before finally creating the first bagless vacuum cleaner.
2 - the number of times Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.
4 - the age Albert Einstein was before he could speak.
J.K. Rowling was broke, depressed and about to be bankrupt before she sold Harry Potter.
While I was being semi-facetious about torturing your protagonist, whatever their goal is, it needs to be exceptionally hard to achieve. But, more importantly, the journey to their goal should be emotional and heart-wrenching, because people change when they’re pushed to their limits.
Your protagonist needs to suffer and make sacrifices if they want to win. But remember: as much as your hero wants to win, so does your villain. Do you think General Zod will just roll over and let Superman save Metropolis? Don’t think so. You wouldn’t find Usain Bolt slowing down in the 100m sprint no matter how many times he won.
The challenge must be so acute that part of your hero has to change fundamentally to win. John Truby, in The Anatomy of a Story, goes as far as saying:
“In a good story, as the hero goes after a goal, he is forced to challenge his most deep-seated beliefs. In the cauldron of crisis, he sees what he really believes, decides what he will act on, and then takes moral action to prove it.” p.80.
Do you know the next line Stephen King wrote after the nail fell down from the weight of rejection slips?
“I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.” Stephen King, On Writing, p.34.
That’s exactly what your hero should do – pull up his big girl pants and carry on fighting.
Dexter Morgan, created by Jeff Lindsay and famous both for the Dexter books and TV series, is one of my favorite examples
of a tortured protagonist.
Plot Summary: Dexter Morgan is a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police department, he also moonlights as a serial killer. The twist is that he only kills bad guys that meet a specific code: he has to be sure of their guilt, and the police have to have failed to capture them. The series follows Dexter as he commits these murders and the spiraling problems being a serial killer and trying to lead a family life creates.
Lindsay tortures Dexter in three key ways:
Mental Torture:
Dexter works for the police force, the very people who would jail him for the murders he commits. This means he has to hide who he is and all the psychotic shenanigans he gets up to twenty-four hours a day. In one season, another killer, the Ice Truck Killer, comes on the scene and threatens to expose Dexter’s secret life. Dexter discovers that the Ice Truck Killer is actually his real brother, who he was separated from as a child. Dexter’s brother (the Ice Truck Killer) also then dates Dexter’s adopted sister as a kind of twisted torture, putting Dexter under intense pressure while trying to juggle his secret life, his family, protecting his sister and his blood spatter analyst job. It leaves him exhausted, exposed, vulnerable and, quite frankly, the audience (and me) on the edges of our seats.
Physical Torture:
Granted, sprinkling a spot of military stress torture and fingernail removing might not be appropriate for children’s fiction. However, depending on your genre, physical torture might well be an option, even if you don’t think it is. For example, even if you’re writing a chick lit book, you can physically torture your character. Make them take a long, arduous, physically demanding journey to their lover. And why not chuck in a few obstacles along the way?