Are You a Magician or an Audience Member?: Making Ordinary Plots Extraordinary
Readers and writers despair that there are no “new” plots. This makes me laugh because there hasn’t been an original plot since Greece (and I’m not speaking of the musical.) Ronald Tobias explains why this is in 20 Master Plots; he says that stories are written about the human experience. If you have found a plot outside of the “ordinary”, you’re probably writing outside of human experience—and that’s not likely to find you a readership. (That’s roughly paraphrased; sorry, Mr. Tobias.)
The point is: we read stories so we can connect with Everyman; so we don’t feel like the only person who has had their heart broken or scared by the unknown that goes bump in the night or held back by our insecurities. I believe all stories can be boiled down to two elements: love and conflict. We seek tales that have conflict and heroes who overcome the Big Obstacle and prevail, and we appreciate this type of story if it also features love. We have to love the character—we want to identify with the character (and that’s easier if we like/love him). We want to be liked, accepted, and loved—that is the whole point of the Human Experience. We read books that have this theme to learn how to do it in our own lives. We spend our whole lives trying to figure out how to do this, to explain it, to refine it, to ignore it, to pretend it doesn’t matter, to learn in the end that it IS the only thing that matters. We all learn the hard way, and that too is part of the Human Experience.
So how do you give your readers what they want: love, conflict, and the human experience without falling into “this plot is so stale pigeons wouldn’t touch it”? Good question.
The answer is: it depends. Are you a magician or an audience member?
Yeah, I know, this blog went in a totally different direction than you were thinking, right? Ha. Keep up.
In magic tricks (if you watch the same movies as me), you know that there are three parts, three acts to a magic trick.
Act one is The Pledge. It’s where the magician-type writer introduces his characters and makes everything look ordinary—though it’s not. You make use of the misdirection you reveal here. In act one of most storylines, you have the inciting incident that forces the hero to make the first step to Adventure. The inciting incident is something that cannot be avoided by the hero; he must go; but he goes not truly realizing he will be changed by everything he does from here on out. In act one, the hero might meet the quirky next door neighbor and realize they have competing, diametrically opposed goals, but he does not realize he’s going to fall in love with her. She’s too crazy. As a writer, in act one, you’ve made a “pledge” to your audience that the hero will somehow be changed from his/her adventure, and if you’re like me, will find true love and live happily ever after.
Act two is The Turn. The performance of the trick—the action between Cute-Meet and Happily Ever After, complete with conflict, misdirection, misunderstanding, obstacles, and Black Moments. This is the time where you, as the magician, make the ordinary extraordinary. This is where you make your audience bounce on pins and needles wondering how you’re going to make the impossible possible. “He can’t possibly fall in love with her! They have nothing in common! They fight all the time! And besides, she overheard him saying she wasn’t anything special—ha! And when he did propose, it was against his will. Pigs will fly before those two get together!”
Your goal as the writer is to make the audience just as convinced as the hero and heroine that there is no possible way that everything could work out. If you can make your characters believe there is no way on earth, you’ll fool your audience too. Characters are people, remember.
Make the trick big. Cutting a woman in half is always more interesting than making a coin come out of someone's ear. The bigger you make your story: the bigger the characters, the conflict, the obstacles, the black moments—the more hooked, the more fooled your audience will be when you present The Prestige.
Yes, the HEA. Act three, The Prestige, is where you deliver the Illusion, what the audience is expecting, our Happy Ending. How are you going to give us the Happy Ending we’re waiting for and watch us be amazed at how magical it seems? The better you’re able to make The Turn, the more magical the kiss will be at the end when we know those two lovebirds are going to work out after all.
There have been some books I’ve read that I didn’t think there was any way on God’s green earth that a Happy Ending could be wrought, and yet the author did a slight of hand, and all was well.
So back to the “it depends”: what are you, the magician or the audience? Maybe you’re the kind of writer who writes from the audience’s POV—you want to discover the Illusion along with everyone else, or i.e. a pantser. Or maybe you’re the kind of writer who writes from the POV of the magician, pleased to fool everyone so well, or i.e. a plotter. Or maybe you’re Michael Caine, a plotser who knows the trick and technique; but in the end you’re totally wigged when you realize what the outcome is, when you thought it was something else all along.
Anyone else see The Prestige? If you had to spend 7 minutes in Heaven with Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman, who would you pick? And are you a magician or an audience member—or Michael Caine? What sort of plot devices do you gravitate towards in reading/writing (Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty…)?
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35 comments:
I'm totally in to Beauty and the Beast! That's got to be the best movie ever! And the story is compelling no matter how it's retold.
I'd love to be a magician(in the figurative sense, of course) but I'm definitely an audience memeber. Sometimes, it seems, that things would be so much easier if I had a predecided game plan in play.
Alos, I haven't seen the prestige but have heard great things.
And if I got seven minutes in heaven I'd choose both guys. This is a fantasy after all.lol.
Make that *member and *also. Also, there shouldn't be any commas in the sentence *Sometimes it seems that ... It's still too early for me*g*.
And I seem to be a Cinderella kind of girl.
Sheer brilliance.Opaque brilliance, too. Your blogs astound. Mesmerize.
No to seeing The Prestige, but I did see that other magic movie with Edward Norton and Jessica Biel and yes, I was surprised at the ending just like Paul Giamatti.
Pantser.
Neither Bale or Jackman do it for me*ducking from rum bottles*
This is brilliant. Fran, I swear, sometimes you scare me.
I am a magician. I need to know how it all works. I can't just sit and be amazed, though I do that to an extent. It just isn't enough. It's why now I have to rip apart books I read. I've got to understand. I've got to do it myself.
As far as my story goes, I would imagine I'm the Beauty and the Beast there too. It seems my girls have it together, but the guys deal with something. In my first story, he needed to be vindicated. My second book, my hero is going to burn to gain revenge.
And Jackman, of course. Something with the smile and charisma.
Ooh, I love how you weave your posts together, Fran! Wonderful!
Jackman, for sure.
Kelly, I had to go back and reread your post twice to catch the grammatical errors you were even talking about. Dude, you're on a pirate ship. You don't have to do that. We know you can spell in real-life. *LOL* And you're definitely feeling the pirate in full form if you'd take BOTH of them. *LOL* (Christian did actually look pretty good in this one, but I've always been a Hugh fan.)
Maggie: Mesmerize? You mean, like MAGIC? *grins* Sorry, I couldn't resist. I loved The Illusionist and I totally didn't see what was going to happen until the end. Though I knew something was up because the girlfriend I'd gone with was twitching in her seat, just a moment away from going into full Hermione Granger mode of waving her arms and saying, "I know it! I know what happens! I know it!" (*makes note to start going to whodunit movies by herself again*)
And it's okay you don't like Christian or Hugh...there's always Michael Caine. *LOL* He was particularly roguish in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. *LOL*
Okay, 2 Beautys and 1 Cinderella so far. (I'm a Beauty too...so 3 Beautys and 1 Cinderella.) Do you guys think The Little Mermaid is its own "plot" or is it a sort of Cinderella gone wrong?
Marnee: I get that a lot, actually. *LOL* Interesting. I can see you as a Magician with your Excel spreadsheets and grids.
And I knew the others girls were going to be shouting: Audience Member, left and right. *LOL*
I think I'm more like Michael Caine (who's also a little scary now that I think on it): I know just enough about the trick, but in the end there is always something that takes me by surprise. Or I plan just far enough ahead to be dangerous. *LOL*
A lot of Jackman fans! Are you all fans of his from the X-Men (Wolverine) or from Kate and Leopold? I'm not a Wolverine fan (he's too hairy), but as Leopold... *fans self* OH, and there's that movie he did with Ashley Judd: Someone Like You? OMG. Yeah. I could eat him with a spoon.
It's times like these I wonder why you have us on this ship at all. You really don't need us, you know. You're bloody brilliant!
I'm Michael Caine I guess. Though I haven't seen this movie. *makes note to add to Netflix* As I read I was trying to see if I have these three acts in my WIP. I do have the inciting incident. And I know where that turning point comes into play. The Prestige is cloudy but I have an inkling how it will go. Now I'm wondering if it's big enough to pay off.
I don't know what plot device I follow. And I'm not sure I could choose between Bale and Jackman. I love them each for different reasons. I'm thinking maybe Jackman because he seems like he'd be fun while Bale would be all intense and serious. Or I could follow Kelly's example and just take them both. :)
Oh, go for the threesome, Terr, you know you want to. Besides why choose between fun and lighthearted and intense and serious? Okay, in your case, you probably should choose fun and lighthearted. You're probably intense enough for you and Hugh. *LOL*
I'm actually going for a threesome tomorrow. LOL! Fun story for another time. ;)
What plot device do I follow? Really, I have no idea but I'm curious.
Celi's got the Ugly Duckling paradigm going on. I don't know if that's the story you're going for though. Or maybe a Sleeping Beauty sort--being woke up by Bryan to how he sees her.
Great blog! I'm definitely the magician. Last weekend, I actually sat down with a huge piece of poster-board, and made a color-coordinated chart of each scene, sorted by the POV, how it advanced the plot, and the timeline. I'm insane. But it works for me.
And uh, I'd definitely have to choose Christian Bale. Terri - you picked my favorite words for a man - intense and serious. As for plot device - probably Beauty and the Beast is closest - after all, the hero is holding the heroine captive at the moment *g*
I don't know, those both sound somewhat accurate. But my story is about trust. Letting go of the past and taking risks for the future. I'm sure there's a classic plot there, but I don't know what it would be.
Hal! That's great! I love to do something similar with posterboard and post-it notes. It totally wigs Sin out, much like how a vacuum cleaner wigs out a cat. (It takes a long time to lure her out back from under the bed. "Come on, Sin, I've put the scary posterboard away." *shakes bag* "Come on, I've got coconut cookies from HyVee out here...FRESH.")
So you're definitely a magician! I love that you know how the scene "advances" the plot. I'm never able to be that...concrete. I'm much more philosophical about everything...and vague. *LOL*
NICE! I love captive heroine stories! And intense and serious can be really, really good. Too bad you can't get a guy who's both. *LOL*
Sleeping Beauty. She's asleep for a 100 years...stuck in the PAST, and it's only when she's woken up that she realizes the future is where she should be. Or at least in the PRESENT. She has to be woken up to let go of her past...
Oh, see, I haven't seen that movie in forever. But that's it. Do you think we repeat the same plot device the way we often have a theme that runs throughout our work?
I'm dying laughing at the image of sin tucked up under the bed and staring suspiciously at the cookies.
I don't know if I can actually get a handle on how each scene advances the plot, but I color coordinate for mystery plot, backstory, romance plot, new obstacle, etc. Then I make little lines to show how each scene is related to scenes before it....sometimes I just end up with a huge mess on a poster and am more confused than I was to start with.
Yes, I do. Unknowningly though...and I think we can break from the mold and do a different plot device, but I think there is just a plot device we love to tell our stories most through. In different ways, clearly.
It's only a mess on the posterboard. I'm convinced it's all perfect in our heads, just waiting for the right key to unlock it. One of those Open Sesame moments. I still think the posterboard helps. It helps commit the things that ARE working to paper and memory (so you don't forget your strokes of brilliance) and leaves open for interpretation the things that aren't...until you can replace them with what does work.
Sin does have a REALLY suspicious look.
haliegh - I commend you for all that work. I'm afraid even I would be hiding under the bed if asked to do that. LOL! Though a Hershey bar could easily lure me out.
Do you find that when you start to write, you stay on track with the storyboard or does the story take off on its own and force you to alter or abandon scenes?
Terri - I should have clarified - lol. I storyboard backwards. Completely backwards. I do every scene I've written up to that point. I'm a visual person, so I need a pretty, colorful chart that I can see in a glance, to understand where I've been and hopefully where I'm going.
I do outline, usually a chapter or two ahead of where I currently am (which could be anywhere since I can't seem to write in a linear line to save my life). But at the end of each day, I usually have to scrap the outline and start over, because something has changed. The story always takes off on it's own. I just let it go, and re-outline accordingly. It'd be no fun if I forced the characters to stick to an outline *g*
What do you do? Are you a panster too? I'm so jealous of people who can just write and watch it come together. I have to know where I'm headed, or else I freeze up and stare at a white screen for hours.
AH, see, that makes sense! And then you can see at a glance where you should go next. (They recommend storyboarding at the end to make sure your story is balanced, but this is handy as you go so you can't get writer's block.) VERY COOL.
Hal is Michael Caine (Plotser) rather than true pantser or plotter.
Yes! I'm Michael Caine. Nice :)
Oh, that's a brilliant idea!!! I'll be writing along and think, "Wait, did I mention this back there so it will make sense here?" Or "Which cheek is that dimple in again?" This is just what I need, to be able to look up and see what I have so far in a glance.
Haleigh - I LOVE YOU!!! (and..uhm...sorry about spelling your name wrong. LOL!) I must buy posterboard and find those post-its I bought months ago.
I love you too Terri :) (and don't worry - everyone spells my name wrong. I didn't even notice!). I'm glad you both like the system - it works for me. Though, unfortunately Hellion, it doesn't entirely stop writer's block. Though maybe that feature will work for you! It can sometimes get me back on track, though other times I just sit there and stare at it, which is less productive.
Staring at it is also productive. I think if you're at least staring at your computer, trying to think of something to write is more productive than eating ice cream and watching So You Think You Can Dance while you think of something to write. Sort of the difference between having a gym membership and showing up and having a gym membership and going home.
I resemble that comment in more ways than one. *sigh*
I want to be the fairy tale who heroine who doesn't clean. Cinderella has to clean and she sleeps with mice. No thanks. Snow White cleans, cooks, and whistles a happy tune. No way, Jose. Little Mermaid wears a bikini and then dies at the end when the Prince marries someone else and becomes part of the ocean--some prize. Yeah, that fairy tale sucked majorly when I read it.
Beauty reads. She likes roses. She has a thing for beastality love. Oh my god, it's Anita Blake! LOL.
I'd choose Beauty just for the books and the food.
I saw the Edward Norton movie (btw, he really is not that attractive) and solved the movie way before it ended. I always know the twist, you just have to look for the clues.
I'd choose the third guy in the corner... Richard Armitage. God, I am becoming more and more in lust with that guy. *g*
You can learn a lot from The Little Mermaid. Here she was, a perfectly acceptable, gorgeous mermaid, and she thought he would never love her because she had a fin. So she goes to the sea witch and trades in her fin--which made her special--for legs, which made her like everyone else. Then when the Prince married some other girl (clearly a guy who likes a girl who's able to express her opinion rather than just a pretty face), the little mermaid dissolves into the ocean, depressed and suicidal. She did not love herself as she was; and therefore no one else was able to love her for who she was.
BE YOURSELF. Which the movie that makes me think of that theme: The Truth About Cats and Dogs.
Cool blog, Captain! It really triggered some deep thought. :-)
I'm for Beauty and the Beast, which means I'll have to take both Hugh and Christian. Why? Hugh's character was riveting, his sense of loss and vengeance, compelling. Christain's character (s) split, two halves of despair/passion. Hugh's hairy macho-ness brings the beast out in X-men but he's still got that loyal quality a girl can believe in, not to mention animal magnetism. Christian's Batman, deep, pensive, unquestioningly powerful, with charisma to burn as Bruce. Who can resist either? (On a side note, I fell asleep during The Illusionist. Never saw the whole thing. But Edward Norton is, hands down, the best Dr. Banner (Hulk) EVER!)
Most of my stories focus on Beauty and the Beast. Nothing pulls at readers more than taming the beast or the shrew. :-)
I would've said I was the magician, but my CPs tell me I'm Michael Caine. There's always a twist in my stories, something you never expect.
See, Terrio, I finally came out of lurkdom. :o)
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