Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

plotting

Narrative Mode ~ #4 Cain & Abel

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The Cain and Abel narrative is very versatile with lots of opportunities for adjustment:  two brothers, two sisters, two siblings, two cousins, two co-workers, two businesses, etc.

  • You need opposing factors in single or equal multiples who seem at first to be on the same side.  Brothers in the same family, friendly competitors, step-sisters who get along well.
  • They start out friendly and social, but one starts getting more recognition, more appreciation.  Parents don’t feel there is any preference, but the older child sees things differently.  Or one company notices stock market increases where the two companies used to be rising equally.
  • Some denied jealousy, a little frustration when efforts are made to get that recognition and it doesn’t work.  Everybody loves a little sibling rivalry, improves the effort.  Companies always rise and fall in value over time.
  • Things escalate, but the brotherly love seems safe from damage.  A little argument here, a friendly challenge maybe taken to extreme.  But one uses less than quality workmanship.
  • Until the tipping point arrives and one destroys the other.
  • No sign of guilt or taking reponsibility.  Then punishment, ostracism, life of misery.  Or earned forgiveness.

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

Tuesday prompt: #10 2013

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This is an exercise for plotting.  Below is a plot that contains a major flaw: the main character has no challenge to reaching her goal.  Replot the events so that the character still gets to the goal, but she doesn’t have an easy time of it.

  • Susie eats at the same diner each day without fail, ordering eggs, bacon, and hash browns.  Though she does not know the cook’s name, he always nods at her when he sees her head for a her favorite booth in the corner.  A short time later, her breakfast arrives.
  • Sam enters and takes the booth beside her own.  She sits looking in his direction over the two seat backs, he hers.
  • Each time she looks up, she finds herself looking into his eyes.  He smiles every time.
  • She hasn’t any ketchup at her table and asks him if he could pass her his.  He walks it over to her and waits for her to finish before returning to his own seat.
  • She eats every bite, pleased she didn’t have to do so without the ketchup.

(And you thought this was all about Susie and Sam.)

Now the goal is the ketchup.  Time to alter the plot so that she still gets the ketchup but the process is not easy.

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.

Narrative modes ~ #1 the Heroic Journey

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Boon

Organizing your novel or story around a narrative mode can help your story follow a reliable framework and ensure you maintain your reader’s interest.  The heroic journey is a great narrative structure to follow and is one of the most popular in use, just check out every Pixar movie.

The heroic journey calls for several elements and in a fairly standard order.  There are variants in the structure, but this is one in common use.

  1. The main character, in this case the average Joe or Joelyne (potential hero) arrives on the scene.  
  2. An event occurs which forces Joe to leave his home and go in search of something important.  This is known as the call to adventure.  The event can be falling in love, having someone he cares about become sick, a favor asked for by someone, something taken away he must retrieve, or a trick used to get him out out of the way.
  3. What Joe needs can be a magic item, forgiveness, a physical quality, knowledge, a person, any number of things, a.k.a., the boon.    
  4. He need not go alone.  He may bring along friends (known as companions) to aid him in acquiring his boon.  The companions come in several archetypes: the simpleton, the loyal friend, the trickster, the guide, and there are many others.  They also can be acquired in the course of the journey.
  5. Frequently, the hero is not recognized as a hero, but he/she may already have a secret weapon.  This is known as a talisman and is used to give the hero strength.   It can be anything you can imagine: an object, a physical quality, intelligence, a innocent token carried for sentimental reasons, an inherited object.  The talisman must play an important role in the course of the journey, though it starts out innocent of any value.
  6. He must leave what is known and enter the unknown.  This is a case of crossing the threshold.  He has lived in a world where the rules are obvious and normal (the overworld).  When he crosses, he will find himself in the underworld where everything he has known will no longer apply.  The locations are often jungles, forests, desert, but could be just as easily, a country the hero has not been to, an experience, such as bungee jumping.  He will have to face several trials as he travels to acquire his boon.  These trials are challenges that strengthen the hero as he wins each one. Tests of strength and intelligence are the usual fair.  Traditionally, they are monsters, riddles, and puzzles that force the hero to mature for the final feat required to earn the boon.  For non-fantasy stories, personal fears and weaknesses can supply plenty of challenges.
  7. Along the way, he may face a challenge that is too great for him.  In this case, supernatural intervention is available to come to his aid.  The source of this intervention can be his talisman, the guide who is a companion or an outside force that provides the necessary time he needs to come up with his own means of meeting the challenge.
  8. After the final challenge, he receives his boon.  This can be a crucial event.  A nice twist at this point can be that he gets the boon he needs rather than the one he sought.  So the fellow searching for money and fame, finds the girl of his dreams instead or the woman determined to find independence and individual freedom, gives it up for someone else’s needs, but it gives her satisfaction.
  9. The last step is the hero recrossing the threshold, returning to his original home and integrating into society as a recognized hero.

And so the story is told, and the reader’s attention maintained. Next week, is the Faustian Legend narrative mode.

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