Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

embedded plots

Narrative mode: #8 The Christ Figure

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A traditional narrative plot is the Christ Figure.  It works well with stories which require a hero but follow the version where the hero does not survive the challenge he has to face.

  • There must be a social catastrophe in the making.  
  • Tension should lead up to it with the designated hero a known quantity: always reliable, always there to help others, and yet he will lack belief in himself though he always meets the demands that seem to feel likely to overwhelm him. That’s his role in life and he accepts it.
  • Alternate:  He can even be a recognized rogue who is thought of as less then worthy, but that is merely misunderstanding.  He has never met with a challenge that has caught him ethically or spiritually before. No one expects him to be of any use in the conflict that is building.  But something this time drags him in, inspires him.
  • In either case, now society needs someone to rise and meet the danger that is coming to the community. (This can be more personal: one character with a personal tragedy and one hero who doesn’t know he can make a difference.)
  • There needs to be subtle change and subtle challenge that will bring the hero into the bout of his life.  Whether he is the recognized do-gooder or the ne’er-do-well, he takes part in the effort to slow the arrival or stop it all together.  He even seems for the moment to have saved them all.
  • However, the challenge has greater complication than anticipated, greater danger.   Here is the greatest tension, for the hero must make a difficult decision.  Never has he had to give so much of himself, never had he expected to. But the hero chooses sacrifice to ensure that the community survives.
  • And survive it does, with the reciprocal challenge of being better than it was, worthy of his sacrifice.  The perfect hero is purer than imagined.  Or if the hero was the less-than-model citizen, then he is glorified, proving that everyone can rise to the finer self.

Tale of Two Cities by Dickens makes use of this narrative.  Sidney Carton, an excessive drinker, flawed to the extreme, faithless, presents himself as promised to be the saving grace for another human being should the need ever be called upon.  Neither his lifestyle nor his philosophy supports this promise.  But the condition he set forth does arrive, and he becomes a savior, giving his life so that another person, more worthy than himself, may live, and in the end, he gains worthiness and personal faith, and those he has sacrificed himself for reach the safe haven he hoped to give.

 The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Narrative mode: #6 Hemingway’s Code Hero

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Some authors create their own frameworks and follow them in several novels.  Hemingway was one such author.  His work has been analyzed for the Code Hero which is quite different from the hero of the Heroic Journey mode.  

  • Hemingway’s Code Hero courts death as a matter of honor. In fact, the hero must constantly challenge himself with facing battles which will likely end in his death.  Winning though good, is merely a delay from facing the ultimate final battle.  
  • Courage, honor, individualism and endurance are key features of this framework.  The hero must follow the rules, maintain his ethical standing in the community yet accept these challenges knowing and even creating opportunity for death.  
  • Classic dangerous animals are the common form of danger faced, so the death is not without injury and physical scarring.  Still the hero goes on.  
  • Oddly, Hemingway’s Code Hero is often afraid of the darkness, a condition too close to the emptiness of death which he fears while pursuing it.

How might this show itself in a story?  The hero must be strong, viewed as invincible by his community, yet he must also be humble, often poor and limited by his station in life.  Winning against life’s challenges is not like running a race or struggling with illness.  The win is not one that is recognized by many, and may only be acknowledge by a single person.  The hero’s gain comes from within.  So it would not be unusual to find the character as a loner who must be in the wilderness battling to travel through snow storms or a solitary man traversing a jungle to find the remains of a lost airplane.

If you have read Old Man and the Sea, then you have see the Code Hero in action.  Santiago daily goes out alone on the ocean to seek prize fish.  It is dangerous, stressful, and physically debilitating, but he does not turn away nor wish for any other life.  In battle, he fights, both loving his opponent and plotting its death while accepting his own if that is how it must end.  When he does return to land, the battle over, he returns to his solitary, weary life, and the reader knows that tomorrow he will head out again, perhaps to meet his ultimate fate, death.

 The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Narrative Mode ~ #3 Coming of Age

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The Coming of Age format is often used for YA novels because the main character is often a young character, usually on the verge of coming to terms with the difficult realities of life.  It is also not unusual for the main character to be an adult, one with a rather innocent view of life.  A writer can certainly make numerous tweaks to this narrative mode, but below is a fairly standard plot.

  • The young character finds his/her current life is understandable and carries demands that can be managed.  There may be struggles, but these are challenges to be expected and he/she is prepared for them.
  • A sudden event changes everything.  This can come in the form of a death of a parent, the loss of economic stability, grave illness or injury, any major tragedy of which the child (or innocent adult) cannot negotiate easily.
  • This young person has personal strength and a strong sense of self and the rules of his society.  But these beliefs come into questions as he/she works through the rising difficulties.  People he counted on may fall short.  Rules long reliable may lose power.  Places always safe are not.  He/she must revise the solid set of values that have been a part of life for as long as he/she can remember.  Consider Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry has believed and followed the law of slavery.  He views slaves as a subgroup that are appropriately under the control of their slave owners.  As a result when he comes to know an adult slave he has always viewed as lacking intelligence and sensibilities, he must questions these recognized laws.  In fact, as he spends more time with Jim, he finds him a caring man, a substitute father, and unexpected life guide, limited only by opportunity and education. 
  • Negotiation of the often negative demands of the new order become a necessary action of the main character.  In some way, the character must come to terms and establish a new sense of ethics or hold the original ethics as inviolate.  Huck had to make a decision: live by the rules he has always accepted or proceed to break those rules knowing what the consequences will be.  He chooses to view Jim as a human deserving of the same rights he has, and he works to give Jim a chance to acquire those rights through getting him into non-slave territory.  He knows he is working against society and the laws of his group, and he accepts he will be punished for this.  He was guilty of treating Jim as less than human, but he has learned the true value of friendship and promises.  He has come of age.

Well, I am still thinking about what will be next week’s narrative mode.  I’ll let you know then.
The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.