Tag Archives: story question

Technique

Setting up the story question

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This entry is part 19 of 24 in the series The plot thickens (Mwahahaha)

We discussed the Story Question at the beginning of our series on plotting. The more we’ve discussed plotting, however, the more I realize I have more to say on this topic.

The first time we talked about it, we defined the story question like this (well, we’re using different emphasis this time):

The story question is the basic concept of the story. It’s asked (or hinted at) at the beginning of the story, and answered by the end. It’s the controlling, overarching action of the story.

So how do we hint at the story question at the beginning, especially if we don’t plan to formally ask it until the Call to Adventure, or Plot Point #1?

In all the plotting paradigms we’ve looked at, there’s a period at the beginning of the story where we get to see the character’s world: the Ordinary World, the Setup. Note that the three act, the five act and Brooks’s story structures all place the transition from this world at the 1/4 point, where we’re introduced to the BIG conflict.

But how can we introduce the story question in the beginning if we can’t actually “ask” it for some 25,000 words?

As we show the Ordinary World, we have to show something is wrong there—something is missing. Something is lacking—something that the conclusion of our story will bring to him or her.

If it’s a romance, we need to see in the beginning that the hero and heroine are lacking something—they’re alone. If it’s a mystery, we need to see a lack of justice (which an unsolved murder portrays nicely). Perhaps our main character is naive (or jaded), and the end of the story will bring knowledge or wisdom (or crack his hard exterior).

That doesn’t mean, however, that our characters have to spend the first quarter of the book whining about how lonely they are, and it doesn’t mean we have to wait until the 1/4 point to introduce them (conversely, we aren’t obligated to have them meet, sparks flying, on page 1, line 1).

We have to have conflict in the Ordinary World. If you’ll recall, in The Incredibles, this conflict related directly to the main plot—each member of the family was having a hard time, challenged by the Ordinary World. When we ask the story question (well, at each of the turning points), the stakes are raised for each member of the family.

This conflict in the Ordinary World should relate to the main plot. Imagine if we spend 25,000 words worrying about whether Pa’s crop will come in, and at the 1/4 turning point, we ask if Angelica can find true love. Can you imagine readers’ whiplash—and disappointment (or even outrage) that they just wasted X amount of time reading about something that has nothing to do with the story? That all those characters we cared about don’t matter anymore?

Even if we ask if Angelica can find Pa’s murderer, was the treatise on chopping cotton really necessary? Only if someone killed him for his crop, and even then, the first section might need to be adjusted a little to focus on the story question and not the agricultural practices of white sharecroppers in the 1930s.

What do you think? How have you set up your conflict before asking the story question?

Photo credits: question—Svilen Mushkatov

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Technique

The act structure in action

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This entry is part 6 of 24 in the series The plot thickens (Mwahahaha)

I have a three-year-old, and as three-year-olds are wont to do, he likes to watch the same movie over and over and over for about two weeks straight. So when I wanted to show the three- and five-act structures in action, I knew I had to use his latest obsession: The Incredibles.

incrediblesI’m comparing the different structures’ divisions of the “text” here, so the synopsis will be largely the same, but the placement of the acts will vary among the three act, Freytag’s five act and my five act structures.

Three act structure

(Paragraphing is mostly for readability.)

Act I—Setup—the characters’ world (still with conflict): Super heroes were celebrated icons. Bob (Mr. Incredible) and Helen (ElastiGirl), super heroes, get married. Super heroes fall out of favor and are hidden by the government.

Fastforward 15 years, and Bob and Helen are trying to look like a typical suburban family. Bob is dissatisfied with his life. The kids aren’t happy with hiding (or having) their super powers. Bob loses his job.

First turning point: Mr. Incredible is offered a secret super hero assignment and decides to take it. He also decides not to tell his wife that he has been fired or offered this high-paying assignment.

Act II—Confrontation—lots of rising conflicts: Mr. Incredible completes the assignment on a remote island. When he returns for a second assignment, he finds out there’s a villain, learns of the villain’s secret plans and is captured. His wife and kids come to save them. They learn to use their powers together, but are captured. They watch as the villain’s dastardly plan plays out in their home town, then the villain leaves to play his role there as well.

Second turning point/climax: Working together, the family escapes and pursues the villain and his evil robot. They defeat the robot.

Act III—Resolution: They return home and save the baby from the villain. They’re now a family of super heroes, and are happy and united against the forces of evil.

Freytag’s Five Act Structure

Act I—Setup: Super heroes were celebrated icons. Bob (Mr. Incredible) and Helen (ElastiGirl), super heroes, get married. Super heroes fall out of favor and are hidden by the government.

Fastforward 15 years, and Bob and Helen are trying to look like a typical suburban family. Bob is dissatisfied with his life. The kids aren’t happy with hiding their super powers. Bob loses his job.

Act II—Rising Action: Mr. Incredible is offered a secret super hero assignment and decides to take it. He also decides not to tell his wife that he has been fired or offered this high-paying assignment. (This is really the divider between act I and II still.)

Mr. Incredible completes the assignment on a remote island. When he returns for a second assignment, he finds out there’s a villain and learns of the villain’s secret plans.

Act III—Turning Point/Midpoint: Suspecting her husband is doing something not-so-good, Helen activates the homing beacon in his super suit. She knows where he is now—but the homing beacon alerts the villain of Mr. Incredible’s presence and he’s captured again.

Act IV—Falling Action: (booooring name). Helen and the kids come to his rescue. They learn to work together as a team, but are ultimately captured. The villain attacks their hometown with his evil robot.

Act V—Resolution: They escape and defeat the evil robot. They return home and rescue the baby from the villain. They are happy and united as a family against the forces of evil.

My Five Act Structure

incredibles2Act I—Setup: Super heroes were celebrated icons. Bob (Mr. Incredible) and Helen (ElastiGirl), super heroes, get married. Super heroes fall out of favor and are hidden by the government.

Fastforward 15 years, and Bob and Helen are trying to look like a typical suburban family. Bob is dissatisfied with his life. The kids aren’t happy with hiding their super powers. Bob loses his job.

Act II—Rising Action: Mr. Incredible is offered a secret super hero assignment and decides to take it. He also decides not to tell his wife that he has been fired or offered this high-paying assignment. (This is really the divider between act I and II still.)

Mr. Incredible completes the assignment on a remote island. When he returns for a second assignment, he finds out there’s a villain and learns of the villain’s secret plans.

Suspecting her husband is doing something not-so-good, Helen activates the homing beacon in his super suit. She knows where he is now—but the homing beacon alerts the villain of Mr. Incredible’s presence and he’s captured again.

Helen and the kids come to his rescue. They learn to work together as a team, but are ultimately captured.

Act III—Climax: The villain attacks their hometown with his evil robot. They escape and defeat the evil robot. They return home and rescue the baby from the villain.

Act IV—Falling action: A few months later, they attend a track meet for their son with superhuman speed (who was acting out in the setup b/c he had no other outlet), whom they finally let compete in sports. Their shy daughter is now confident enough to ask her long-time crush on a date—and he’s the one who gets flustered.

Act V—Resolution: As they leave a track meet, a new villain appears. They don their masks and grin, ready to take on the new challenge.

Quiz time: read Acts IV and V under My Five Act Structure. What’s the story question? Did they ask and answer the same question?

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Technique

The story question

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This entry is part 5 of 24 in the series The plot thickens (Mwahahaha)

Yesterday’s post spawned an interesting discussion in the comments about story questions. To be quite honest, I was familiar with the concept, but I’d never given it that much thought. I linked to a great article on story questions by my friend Annette Lyon, but our discussion also brought out a few more interesting points that I wanted to share.

The story question is the basic concept of the story. It’s asked (or hinted at) at the beginning of the story, and answered by the end. It’s the controlling, overarching action of the story.

In a romance, it’s “Will the boy win the girl?” In a mystery, it’s “Will they catch the murderer?” (And the answer is supposed to be yes on both of those!)

I like to think in romantic suspense, both of those are the story questions, but when it comes down to it, there can only be one—one question whose answer brings the book to a satisfying conclusion. If the hero wins the girl before he catches the bad guys, then catching the bad guys is the story question—the story would be incomplete without it. (And vice versa.) There is only one story question (the book only ends once 😉 ). However, there must be a number of intermediate goals and questions.

Make sure your story is asking and answering the same overarching question. Don’t start off asking “Can Jezebel win Horatio’s heart?” and end with “Yes, Horatio can win the Nobel Prize!” (*cough*cough*Winchester Mystery Story*cough*)

So how can you make sure you’re setting up the right story question? Let’s use Jezebel and Horatio. If we want Horatio’s quest for the Nobel Prize to be the story question—if winning the prize ends the story—then make sure it ends the book. Answer (and, most likely, ask) Jezebel’s question within the bounds of the story created by Horatio’s question. Show them getting together (or not) before they award the prize.

Another way to do this is to make one question dependent on another. If Jezebel’s quest for love is the overarching question, Horatio’s quest for the Nobel Prize should depend on her question. Maybe Jezebel did her dissertation on an obscure enzyme that’s just the breakthrough Horatio needed, but he would never know that until he looks up from his test tubes.

frustrateA third way is to answer an intermediate question without satisfaction, making another answer (the story question) necessary. Maybe Horatio does with the Nobel Prize (because he passed off Jezebel’s work as his own, let’s say, and she is furious and leaves him and gets a lawyer). But even after he’s won, his life is empty. He misses her annotated love notes, her pocket protector, her obscure jokes. He tracks her down in her Antarctic research station, proclaims his love (and promises to publish the truth about her research).

Thanks to everybody who joined in the discussion yesterday—I certainly learned something. I realized that part of the problem I’ve had with a few pieces I’ve been plotting was that I was answering the wrong story question. I’ll have to find a different question to ask, or find a way to answer the question I’m already asking in the conclusion.

What do you think? Are you asking and answering the same question? How else can you make sure the right question is the story question?

Photo credits: question—Svilen Mushkatov; frustrated—John De Boer

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Mechanics, Technique, Publishing

What Will Get You Rejected: Mistakes Not to Make by Janette Rallison, LDStorymakers

Presented by Janette Rallison (blog)

There are six basic types of problems that will get you rejected: point-of-view problems, tag-line problems, motivation problems, story question problems, goal and conflict problems and sentence structure problems.

POV problems—avoid head hopping or authorial insertions. [The trend these days is deep POV in 3rd person—we’re seeing the character’s inmost thoughts, but using 3rd person pronouns. So use your character’s thoughts and vocabulary for . . . well, everything! Never put in something that character can’t know and add a scene break if you’re changing POV characters. Janette probably said all of this, but I missed the beginning of her presentation because I had to run home to feed my baby!]

Tag lines—”90% of the time, tag line should be ‘said.'” Also acceptable, when situation calls for: ask, answer/reply. [But the trend these days is to not use dialogue tags most of the time, instead using action beats to identify speakers.]

Rarely use others—if the dialogue itself can’t show how the words are said, maybe it needs to be revised. Janette gave an example of when one of her characters said something that wasn’t true, but the reader wouldn’t know that, so the line went: “I can dance ballet,” I lied. [Personally, I think it’s acceptable when you have to call attention to the manner in which it was said—specifically whispering, since there really isn’t a way to choose your words to make it read like a whisper.]

Instead of using adverbs or specialized dialogue tags, let the dialogue speak for itself and translate it into actions [those action beats I was telling you about earlier!]. These show so much more powerfully! Janette’s example:

DON’T: “I never want to see your cheating face again,” he yelled angrily.

DO: He ripped the alimony check out of the checkbook with numb hands. He’d written checks a thousand times—for piano lessons, Girl Scout cookies, every elementary school fundraiser that came along. This time it felt as though the ink had come from his own veins. “I never want to see your cheating face again.”

Again, the exception is to use adverbs when the dialogue contradicts tone/facts (like when someone says something cutting in a sweet tone or vice versa).

Motivation problems—Put as little backstory in first chapter as you can. In chapter one, the main character should have a problem and there should be action.

Is your main character an idiot? [We have an acronym for this: TSTL—it means does your character do things that, say, if you saw them in a movie, you would be screaming at the television, “No! Don’t go into that dark attic!”? (Exception: law enforcement officers, who willingly run into danger for us every day. But even they don’t go looking for it if they don’t have to!)]

Story question problems
Your story should have:

  1. Character
  2. Problem—start story on the day your character’s life changed.
  3. Goal—the character has to be proactive, to have direction in life, instead of merely reacting
  4. Obstacles—don’t use coincidence to get people past their obstacles—use it to get people into trouble, but not out!
  5. Antagonist—someone or something that opposes main character’s goals: man v. man, man v. nature, man v. self. The stronger the antagonist, the more intense and exciting the story will be.
  6. Consequences of failure—there has to be a reason why they can’t just give up (this can be the antagonist)

“Fiction is a very dangerous neighborhood to live in.”

You can put these all together into a story question from Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain:

When [MC] finds herself in [situation], she [goal]. But will [antagonist and obstacle] make her [consequences of failure]?

This story question should be answered at the climax.

Goal and conflict problems—Don’t let your characters wander through your books without goals. Somebody has to have a goal in every scene. [Even better—all major characters have goals in a scene and they conflict!]

No goals or conflict in a scene? Throw in obstacles, highlight the consequences of failure, hearken back to the antagonist [or give other characters in the scene conflicting goals].

Sentence structure problems—Watch for repeated backward sentences—too many get awkward. [Always vary your sentence structures. Reading aloud is the best way to find repetition like this!]

About the conference: LDStorymakers is a writing contest geared to LDS writers. The conference covers both the niche, regional publishers that cater to the LDS market as well as national publishers.

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