All right, guys, let's do class. Yay! Oh,
boy, class!
The way I'm going to format the class year
is, we will do our second week on plot this
week, and then next week I'm going to dedicate
to going through your questions that you've
written on your little slips about plot or
whatever it is. I'll do last week's and this
week's. If there are things that I don't answer
about plot, or things that are confusing or
whatnot, or you want me to dig in deeper to,
put them on your sheets, and those will come
to me next week and we'll do a Q&A episode.
The week after that, I believe, Isaac can
confirm, will be the week that Mary Robinette
will be here.
Isaac: The week of the 18th.
The week of the 18th? Whatever the week of
the 18th is, the week that Mary Robinette
will be here, and she is going to talk to
you about short stories, I think is what we
decided, something she's much better at than
I am.
Let's talk more about plot. Last week we dug
into this kind of my philosophy about promises,
progress, and payoffs. It was kind of high-level
conceptual stuff. Today I want to dig into
a little bit more of the nitty gritty. How
do you actually construct a plot? What are
the pieces that go together to make a plot
work? How do you make an outline?
Now, the caveat to this is, not everybody
uses an outline. An outline is not necessary
to write a story, even a very complex one.
Generally, as we talked about the first week,
people do kind of fall in this spectrum between
how much upfront work they want to do, and
how much back end work they want to do. That's
really the discussion you're having when you're
deciding if you're more of a discovery writer
or more of an outline writer, how much up-front
work, how much back-end work. Both have to
do some up-front work, and both have to do
some back-end work. A discovery writer is
generally offloading a lot of stuff that the
outline writer does to the end, to do more
revisions, to try and fix things that are
broken, whereas the outline writer tends to
front load it and get a cleaner first draft.
If you are a discovery writer by nature and
you think, why are we-- can I go to sleep
for this entire thing? Well, I was a student,
so yes, if you need to go to sleep, go ahead.
These are comfy chairs, much more comfy than
most classrooms.
But most of the time, most of the discovery
writers I know, they like knowing this stuff,
because this is the sort of thing you do in
drafting, is you look for what is the structure
of my plot? What are my promises? What are
my payoffs? How am I making this work? In
fact, a lot of my friends who are discovery
writers, it's like their first draft is kind
of like a really good outline. Their second
draft, then, becomes the equivalent of the
outline writer's first draft. In fact, I have
a good friend who writes every book twice
from scratch. Writes the book all the way
through, puts it aside. Now that's her outline,
and she starts on page one and writes every
word again, using that as an outline. I think
that would be miserable. That's why it's good
that there are different writers and there
is no one way to do this. Because for me,
doing up front work and creating an outline
helps me a great deal.
Why do I like this? Well, I've talked to you
guys a little bit about how, as a writer,
as you progress as a writer, you learn to
do some things by instinct, and you then can
focus on other things in your actual writing,
hour by hour, day by day, and get better at
those things. An outline works a little bit
like that for me, in that I can offload some
of the work that I would have to be doing
while I'm sitting and writing to a planning
session before I start the book. Which means
that when I sit down to write the chapter,
there are fewer things I have to keep in my
brain, because the chapter outline has provided
some of the high-level stuff that I need to
accomplish, and I can just focus on making
this chapter exciting, making it interesting,
making sure it's active rather than passive,
making sure that instead of info dumps we're
focusing on what the characters motivations
are and how I see the world. I
do this. We're going to talk about my method
of outlining right now first. This is just
one that works very well for me.
When I was in high school or junior high or
whatever, they talked about outlines. They
talked about an outline having a number 1,
and then an A, and then i, and then ii, and
that was what your outline looked like.
When I got into writing, I assumed that's
what an outline was. An outline is not necessarily
that. In fact, if an editor asks you to send
them an outline for your story, that is just
shorthand for about a three-page document
telling them your story. It does not indicate,
they do not want heading 1, subheading B.
If they say, "Send me three sample chapters
and an outline," it can be longer than three
pages. Three to five pages is what I would
recommend, nothing longer than 10. Ten is
getting into, like, if you are writing an
epic fantasy, and you are working with the
editor, and they've already bought the book
and they want the outline, then they can get
longer. But they upfront are just asking,
what they want is a summary. Outline means
summary to editors.
Now, for me, that's not what my outline looks
like either. It is not a summary. In writing
my books, and if we get on the ball, we will
post for you guys one of my outlines, because
I can give you the one for Steelheart or for
Skyward. Because those ones are a little bit
easier to understand than Stormlight outlines.
This is in part because so many things in
the Stormlight outline are actually referencing
to my Wiki, my internal Wiki, which is all
my world building, and things like that. Most
of my outlines will look like this. They will
start with a heading for character. Then they
will have a heading for setting. And then
they will have a heading for plot. These will
each be, I will use Microsoft Word's document
map, and I'll make these top level of an outline.
In this case it is building an outline. So
I can easily get through the document and
click to things that I want.
Then underneath character there will be the
names of each of the characters. So, you know,
Kaladin, Shalon, Dalinar, Szeth, for the main
characters. Let me erase underneath and just
kind of go a little bit more. I will give
each main character their own heading, and
then I will have a separate heading for side
characters underneath it, and then there'll
be some bullet points under there that are
a different outline level. The character one
is, I start out saying what is the character's
arc? Under each of these characters, like
if you went to the Kaladin one-- By the way,
I'm explaining it to look way prettier than
it actually does in the original Way of Kings
outline. In Skyward it looks like you might
be able to understand, so I'll try to get
you that one or Steelheart. But it'll say,
under this I'll have a paragraph that explains
who they are. Then I'll have another one that's
just kind of like, this is intro, and this
is arc. That'll be like arc 1, arc 2, and
things like that. This will be for every character.
It'll be like, this is where they're starting,
this is where they're going. I'll get into
how I build those arcs in a minute. All right?
I'm just giving you what it looks like.
The side characters might only have one little
paragraph about each of them. Under setting
I will have large headings that will talk
about things like the magic or the tech, the
world building, like the physical setting,
and the cultural setting. Don't stress too
much about this, because we will have two
entire weeks talking about setting, and we'll
have two entire weeks talking about character.
I'm just giving you the format of what this
looks like for me. Under there, that's going
to read more like an encyclopedia entry. This
is me defining terms for each of these. There'll
be subheadings if it's getting very long.
I usually do split between physical setting
and cultural setting, and we'll do a day on
each of those during world building. We'll
talk about the differences and why I group
them that way. But ignoring all of that for
now, let's look at plot, because today is
our plot day.
When I am building my plot in an outline for
a book, I am looking for a couple of things.
One of the main things I'm looking for are
my promises, my progress, and my payoff. The
most important thing, generally, for me to
determine is the progress part. Because once
I understand the progress part in my outline,
I can figure out the correct promises and
how to make good on that. When I'm doing that,
I'm usually looking for some sort of plot
archetype that I can use. By my definitions
today, a plot archetype is different from
a plot structure. Plot structure, which we'll
talk about a little bit later is something
like three act format or the Hero’s Journey.
A plot archetype is a style of plot, what
we're trying to achieve.
To explain this, I'll talk about, I'll use
Mistborn. When I was building Mistborn, there
were a couple of things that made me excited
to write the book. The first was that it was
going to be a heist. This was one of my primary
plot archetypes. A heist is a type of story.
It is a story that you can go find other heist-type
stories and learn what they did. You can research
them, you can figure them out, and you can
start using them. I also knew, in my outlining,
that there was going to be a master-apprentice
plot, that there was going to be the story
about Vin learning to because a Mistborn.
This is the My Fair Lady side of it. Vin trains
under Kelsior to learn to move among the nobility
and also to learn how to use allomancy.
Then I also knew there was going to be what
I'll call an information plot. This is a plot,
it's a mystery. There are certain things we
don't know about the Lord Ruler that are going
to be teased as clues. I look at these three
things and I say, how do I build a story around
these ideas. Oh, there's also one more. There
is the relationship. There's a relationship,
a Vin and Elend romance subplot. I think I
got all the main ones, looking at that.
Someone asked, when I was scanning the questions,
which we'll start digging into next week,
they said, "Do you use only one sort of progress
and one sort of payoff for a book, or do you
use more?" Which is an excellent question.
There's your answer. Mistborn has four major
ones that I was juggling. This is appropriate
for an epic fantasy novel.
The thing is, one does kind of have to be
more important than the others, and as I worked
on this book, I really kind of moved the heist
kind of almost being secondary, and it was
the master-apprentice plot that became the
actual main, like if you're reading the book,
most of the sense of progress you're getting
is Vin becoming Mistborn, and that is the
core. Most of the time you're spending with
her is her going to the balls, fighting the
people, learning the magics, all of these
things. So it's actually really a master-apprentice
story that has a B plot or a sub mode that
is a heist, that also has these kind of minor
other secondary plots.
Now, building one of these, I'm going to focus
a little bit on the heist, because I want
to talk to you about what I did to build the
heist, even though I just told you it became
the secondary plot. What I find very useful
is to see what other people have done. You
can create something whole cloth. Well, some
people will say you can't. But you don't have
to use one of these plot structures or even
these plot archetypes. But man, it can be
handy to look and see what other people have
done, to try and become a chef in the way
that I told you in the first week. Instead
of just following a recipe, I want you to
start looking at recipes and things people
have created and try to pull out what works.
What I did is I went to a bunch of my favorite
heist stories. I'm going to use films as examples
because they are a little easier to break
down the structure, because they tend to be
more focused than a novel does by the nature
of their medium. I'm going to use, I watched
a bunch of heists, I read a bunch of heists,
I mentioned a bunch of those in a previous
week, and I settled on there being two main
archetypes for a heist. I realized there was
what I'm going to call the Oceans 11, and
what I'm going to call The Italian Job. Both
of these have had very prominent remakes around
the time when I was working on these books.
What happened with these, I looked at them
and I'm like, what makes them interesting?
Why do they work? Well, the Oceans 11 type
plot goes like this. You gather a team. You
usually have one newbie to explain things
to. So you gather a team, you grab your newbie.
You then have an explain the problem. In Oceans
11, the remake, they have this thing where,
it's Brad Pitt that's there, they're saying,
"We have to do this," and he's like, "Which
we can't ever do." It might be George Clooney
saying it. But it's basically they present
the problem with the cool cinematic methodology
to them. It's like here is the casino we're
going to rob. They have this thing that we'll
have to beat, which we can't beat because
it's impossible. And they have this thing
we have to beat, which we can't beat because
it's impossible. And we have this thing. And
they lay out basically here's the big problem
of what we're going to do. Then they start
talking about breaking it to little pieces.
And you follow the newbie, usually, along
going to get all the little parts that are
going to come together for your big solution.
But one of the key attributes of this heist
was, at the end there's a piece missing that
the newbie often is like, "But what about
this?" And they're like, "Oh, we'll figure
that out. You don't have to worry about that."
There's a big piece missing. You get to follow
along in these little pieces as you see how
they're going to solve each of the problems
that they had in the explain the problem plot.
But you've still got this lingering what's
going to happen with the piece that's missing?
Everything's going to go wrong. It creates
this sense of doom and dread and inevitability.
Until you get to the end and the twist is
they all knew how they were going to solve
that problem anyway. They just didn't tell
the newbie so they could surprise us. At the
ending you think everything went wrong, but
then they take off their masks, and lo and
behold they were the S.W.A.T. team all along,
or something like that, and boom, we actually
all went according to plan. You just didn't
know it.
This is different from The Italian Job plot,
which has kind of some similar attributes,
the gather a team, explain problem. But this
style of heist did something really interesting
that I found. They introduced problem A, problem
B, problems A, B, C, and D. They said, "We
are going to solve them with solutions 1,
2, 3, and 4. You follow the plot kind of the
same way. Except at the end, they get to the
ending and they find out that instead of problems
A, B, C, and D, they have problems E, F, G,
and H. You've probably seen heists like this.
They do all the planning. They do all their
preparation. They're ready to go, and then
they move the target. It goes to another country,
or something like that. Suddenly all this
preparation is out the window.
We talked about this a little bit last week
in the pull the rug out from underneath--
No, it wasn't to you guys. It was to someone
else. Never mind. I told someone, they asked
me what do I do if I want to pull the rug
out from underneath people. This is a great
way to do that, because the way that they
solve this, do you guys know? Have you guys
seen this movie? What do they do? They don't.
Exactly. They take solution one and they say,
"Wow. If we jury-rig this thing, we can solve
problem F with that. And number 4, the person
that we've recruited specifically to crack
the safe can actually break into this car
that we can use. And suddenly we'll use 2
for E and 3 for H." What happens is you get
a jumbling up of all the preparations solving
the problems in different and unexpected ways.
Why this works so well is, oftentimes if you
want to have a cool twist in your story and
you pull the rug out from underneath people,
it's a little bit like I said last week, promising
someone a car and giving them something else
completely different that they're not expecting.
In addition, in your storytelling, your reader
will invest time in the middle, in your progress.
They'll spend most of the time in the book
focusing on the things the characters are
doing to progress the story. So if you built
a heist where you made 1, 2, 3, and 4 completely
irrelevant now, that is 80% of the reader's
experience in the story getting thrown out
the window, and they will feel annoyed at
you. They will be frustrated because you promised
them something. You were also probably promising
them a twist if you're doing a heist, because
heists architect kind of about twists. But
you have also upended them.
How do you solve this? You make sure that
the time they spent on 1, 2, 3, and 4 is still
very relevant by applying it on the fly to
solve new problems, which suddenly becomes
very satisfying because you both get a twist,
plus you feel like your expertise, the amount
of time you as a reader spent experiencing
the story, came together at the ending. Breaking
this down, let me ask you guys. Thinking about
as a chef, why is a heist satisfying? Why
do people want to watch a heist? Why do they
enjoy a heist? It doesn't have to even do
with the things I mentioned up here, because
there are pieces I haven't even mentioned
that are relevant. What to you? What makes
it work?
Yeah?
Student: The thrill of getting away with it.
The thrill of getting away with it. Exactly.
For a lot of great heists, even a heist where
the good guys, the heroes are actually on
the side of law, there's a sense of, we actually
got away with it. We robbed Hitler, or something
like that. Yeah, there's definitely a sense
of that.
Yeah?
Student: Hypercompetent characters.
Hypercompetent characters. We will speak in
the character week about how competence is
something really attractive to readers.
Student: The puzzle of figuring out how to
do it.
Yeah, the puzzle. Both of these leave you
with a puzzle. One of them leaves you with
the "we have to improvise," which tends to
work better if you have a lot of viewpoint
characters in charge, because you don't have
to hide things from them. You can cheat and
hide things from people. Because I used more
of an Oceans 11 style for Mistborn, if you
were following these things. I put a little
bit of an Italian Job twist at the end, but
mostly it was Kelsior is hiding things from
everybody, and he's a viewpoint character.
You have to cheat a little bit to do that.
Go head.
Student: The feeling of rebellion. They're
a little bit rebellious or sneaky. They're
sticking it to the man.
Exactly. You're getting away with something.
You're doing something cool that's outside
the rules. Even, again, if the protagonists
are heroes, it's like the Mission Impossible
team. No one else could do this because these
people can break the rules and go outside
what everyone else expects and pull off something
incredible.
Student: We also love to see people succeed
at something impossible.
We do. We really do. This is why there's that
scene with George Clooney and Brad Pitt being
like, "We have to do this, which is impossible,
and this, which we'll never be able to do,"
because it sets this expectation, this promise
to you. And that is, this is going to be cool
to see them pull this off, because it's going
to be hard but they're going to do it. That
scene is a promise. It's a really cool promise.
Yeah?
Student: Because stealing something from the
dragon, I guess, is ontologically very, or
at least we get the same feelings from that
as we-- our lives are part heist movies. Our
lives are like, everything, this whole plot
line is about how we have to confront problems
in the real world with the tools that we have
available. We don't know how we're going to
make it out and we're going to the unknown.
It's just something that's very meaningful
and important because it's real.
Right. So my recommendation to you is, when
you're doing this, when you're breaking down
a plot, one of the things I would recommend
you do is ask yourself these questions. Why
do people love this? Why do I love this? Why
do I really like taking one of these plots
and watching them or playing with them? What
are the elements I have to make sure I don't
get rid of? Hyper competence. You could make
a heist without hyper competence. It would
be a different type of story. But if what
you love about them is that hyper competence,
lean into that and make sure you're making
use of that in order to tell your story.
One of the cool things about starting to look
at plots like this is also you can strip a
plot down to its archetype, and you can apply
the genre trappings to it. It's really interesting.
I've done all this, and then I had a chance
to talk with Joe Russo, who is one of the
filmmakers, one of the directors who made
Infinity War. I asked him, I said, "Joe, how
did you build the plot of Infinity War?"
He said, "Oh, it's really cool. Not a lot
of people understand what it is, but we just
took a heist." For them it was a bash and
grab, which is actually a third archetype
I didn't even put up on here. "And we said,
we're going to do a superhero movie that's
a heist, and we're going to plot it like this
and apply it to superhero sci-fi. And people
will love it because they love a heist, but
they also won't look at it and see a heist
because they'll see a superhero story."
I'm like, "That's really interesting. Tell
me more about how you did that because it
looked really like what I'd like to do." And
indeed it is, I don't think, that uncommon
for storytellers to say let's take what works
really well in this genre and let's apply
other trappings to it so that I have a familiar
framework.
I've talked a lot about the underdog sports
story as an archetype. Because the underdog
sports story is a fun one to point out that
Hoosiers, Ender's Game, and The Way of Kings
all use the underdog sports story plot archetype
as a major section of their story. But these
are three really different stories, aren't
they? Remember the Titans versus Ender's Game,
you'd be like, oh, completely different genres
but they have the same plot archetype, which
is the underdog sports story. Being able to
look at these and strip them down also helps
you understand your progress.
This is where you can go wrong sometimes.
If you're writing a fantasy novel, and you're
like, well, fantasy novels are travelogues.
Let's say you've only read some quest fantasies
that you really like. You're like, it has
to be a travelogue. So I'm going to make my
sense of progress going from city to city
to city. But really what you want to tell
is a romance between two characters, and that's
the bulk of the time you're going to spend
on your pages focusing on this relationship,
and the relationship is not making any progress,
it doesn't matter where you're going. The
reader's going to feel bored. They're going
to feel like nothing's happening, because
the bulk of what you're giving them is a relationship
plot without progress.
What you want to be able to identify is what
are your steps. Now, a heist is kind of interesting
in this way, because your steps are generally,
you have the explain the problem, it actually
gives the reader an outline. Like, here is
the outline of what our story is going to
be. We have these 12 problems and we're going
to attack them one at a time. Then your sense
of progress is as you go to piece by piece
by piece and see them accomplishing or failing
and having to go do something new because
one of their pieces didn't work. It has a
pretty easy, straightforward structure of,
if you're checking things off that list and
coming closer and closer to be able to pull
off the heist, the reader's anticipation for
that heist will grow. They will know something's
got to go wrong, because it always does. You'll
probably put seeds in by saying, "Well, there's
this one thing we haven't figured out yet,"
or by saying, "Everything's great. We're ready
to go tomorrow. Oh, no, they moved the target."
You will be able to build this tension through
progress, progress, progress, progress.
Once you identify that, it makes your promise
scene much easier to write. Your promise scene
in a heist is this one right here. You do
not have to do it exactly as they did it.
In fact, I recommend that you don't. But you'll
see how that promise works really well, and
then your payoff at the end is them pulling
off the heist despite the problems that came
along the way. Very simple, very straightforward.
It is harder to do than say.
Let's look at some other styles of plots and
some of the progress we can have in those,
and how those payoffs can match their promises
in the beginning. Let's start with a mystery.
We've got a classic detective mystery, who-done-it
murder mystery. Why do we enjoy murder mysteries?
Anyone who does? Go ahead.
Student: They're clever.
They're clever. Okay. There's an implicit
promise that the detective is going to be
smarter than the villain. That's what we're
looking at.
Yeah?
Student: The puzzle aspect again. We want
to figure out what happened.
We want to know what happened. We want to
know how they did it. Unless the reversal
is they show you how they did it, and then
you're going to see-- like was that Columbo,
where they reversed, they inverted the trope?
Yeah.
Student: Sometimes it's a puzzle for you,
the challenge of, can I figure this out before
Sherlock Holmes does?
Yep. That, I think, is a major draw of mysteries.
Can I figure it out? Let me highlight that
one for a minute, because mysteries, if you
cheat, and the reader couldn't have figured
it out, a lot of times it will feel very unsatisfying
for this reason. People are not understanding,
writers are not understanding that part of
the promise of a mystery is you will be able
to figure this out. If you are laying the
clues, it's not going to be so out there.
If you've read or watched a mystery that was
really unsatisfying to you at the ending,
it might have been because they promised,
ooo, with these clues of information you could
solve this crime, and then there was no way
for you to come anywhere close. You feel cheated
at the end.
Student: I like the possibility of having
very witty characters with really great dialogue
to bounce off each other as the investigator
tries to decipher [___].
Right. That tends to be a hallmark of the
detective-driven murder mystery, is you're
going to like the detective. It might be because
they're witty. It might just be because they're
folksy, and they're more Agatha Christy. You're
just going to enjoy-- Not Agatha Christy,
Angela Lansbury. They're going to be Angela
Lansbury. You're just going to enjoy watching
her solve a mystery because she's just so
likeable that there's going to be a connection
to the detective. In Agatha Christy, it often
was about how clever the detective was.
Go ahead. Yeah.
Student: I think one of the things I like
about mysteries is the misdirection. You can
still figure it out.
Right.
You don't go from point A all the way to,
okay, okay, I think this is where it's going.
Instead it'll be like, I didn't see that,
but now I can see where that's coming from.
Right. A mystery implies that there is going
to be some difficulty to this, and there are
going to be new revelations. I identify a
mystery as an information plot. A mystery
is, characters don't have all the information,
and the progress is watching the characters
get that information as you try to put together
what that information means. Spoiler, in Mistborn
it is the true history of the Lord Ruler.
I won't say what it is. But the true history
of the Lord Ruler, the book lies to you at
the beginning, and then indicates that the
story is a lie that you've been told, gives
you clues along the way, and then the mystery
comes together at the end of understanding
it.
Now, what is really fun to do is, in Mistborn
the missing piece is not something Kelsior
knows 100%. It is the information plot. If
we can put together the information plot,
we can solve the missing piece of the heist
that Kelsior is confident he can do but doesn't
quite have all the pieces yet. I was able
to slot that information plot into this big
problem in the plan as presented.
But relationships, why do we like--? By the
way, usually a buddy cop movie and a Jane
Austen novel follow about the same plot archetype.
Just with some different trappings and subplots.
A lot of classic romances and classic buddy
cop movies are just relationship plots. Whether
it's a bromance or a romance, it tends to
follow the same plot beat. What's exciting
for us about a romance? Why are we reading
a romance? Why do writers put them in almost
every story?
Student: It gives poor guys like me hope.
Wish fulfillment. Yes. Wish fulfillment. Do
not discount the power of wish fulfillment,
in all kinds of plots. What else?
Student: It's very humanly relatable. We can't
relate to superheroes to the degree that we
can relate to someone who's in love.
Right. Absolutely. I think you nailed it.
It is one of these plots that you can put
into the most fantastical and strange of stories
to give it a really powerful human element.
Student: I think it shares something with
mysteries in that you know the mystery is
going to be solved. You know the two people
are going to get together, because you figure
it out before it happens.
Right. They are generally going to get together,
but how? The how is really exciting and interesting
to us. We have two romance writers right over
here. Do you guys have anything to add?
Student: I was going to say for old people
it's nice to remember how it used to feel.
Nice to remember how it used to feel. That
is also pretty awesome. We're going to have
these two ladies talk to us one of the weeks
about indie publishing, because both of them
have indie published a number of books. So
look forward to that on how we're going to
do that.
I don't want to spend a ton of time on this.
Sometimes we get up on the board and we start
breaking these all down and we spend a long
time on it. I think I did it in a previous
lecture series, so you can watch that on YouTube.
But I think you guys get the idea. Identifying
the why, why we like this, and then figuring
out how you can quantify that, how you can
break it down into small steps, is how you
build a lot of outlines. Not the only way,
but how it works really well.
This is where we get to how does Brandon make
an outline. My outline looks like this. It
starts with, at the top, what I want to have
happen. Relationship. Character A and B are
a couple at the end. I will define what that
is based on the story. That might just be
they have gotten over their issues of hating
each other and are now willing to work together.
Whatever it is, I've identified what I want
to happen.
I outline backward. I start with my goal.
Because once I've identified what makes something
satisfying, I come up with-- what progress
makes it satisfying? I'm like what is the
best ending for this story with that plot
archetype? What is going to work? What is
going to be exciting? Then I'm going to add
underneath this bullet points of all the steps
that will take them from the beginning of
that to the end. Generally, there'll be a
paragraph at the top with the relationship.
It's like, here's what I want to achieve.
These two characters start here. They get
here. Here are all the things I need to include
to make sure that happens. It would generally
be, depending on the plot that I'm doing,
like bullet point 1 would be "Scene showing
how character 1 is really competent in one
area and is living the life, but has a need,
has something that they are missing." Then
character 2, we'll show how they are capable
in their life in some areas, but they are
missing something different. The astute reader
will notice, hey, what this person is good
at is where this person's hole is, and where
this person's hole is, this person has some
strength. Then you will want to introduce
why they don't just immediately propose to
one another the first time they meet. What
is going to be the conflict that is pulling
them apart? Well, one's a Montague and one's
a--
Class: Capulet.
Yeah, that. What is going to be pulling them
apart? Then I'm going to create-- I'm not
going to actually create the scene. I'm going
to say, "Scene where they are working together."
Dave, when he taught this class, talked about
relationship plots as braiding roses. Because
everybody has thorns. At the start of the
story your thorns just smash into each other.
Your relationship plot could go with, the
first time they meet it's a disaster for this
reason. Second time they meet, it's a disaster
for this reason. But then you have a scene
where you realize that what character A does
character B needs, and another scene where
character B realizes, "Wow. What character
A is doing here is something that I admire."
You slowly, as Dave put it, you braid those
roses, so that by the end of the story instead
of the thorns pointing at each other, they
are pointing outward toward anyone who could
come in and try to destroy the relationship,
which is a really great metaphor, which is
why it stuck with me for 20 years. Braid those
roses.
You would come up with all of these things,
and they are just bullet points. They are
not scenes yet. They are, character A sees
character B with his little sister and realizes
that there's a deep caring for other people
that he doesn't often express because of whatever.
You're like, wow, that's an admirable attribute
about him. I am interested. I don't know what
that interaction with the sister is going
to be. I just know the sister is relevant.
I have all of these bullet points. Then I
jump over to the next one.
It's like, now we're going to do our my--
I'm going to say, all right, underneath here--
I guess I didn't circle it before. I put,
like, underneath here I'm like discover X,
and explain why discovering X is going to
be awesome. I want that end scene to be really,
really cool. When Raoden puts together why
the magic is broken, X happens, which is a
very dramatic and powerful scene, because
Raoden's plot is half mystery in Elantris,
and that's kind of the plot structure I was
using. Though I didn't know how to do all
of this back then. I just kind of went with
my gut. Discover X, and this is the scene
that's going to happen. This is how I do it.
And then, how do I earn that scene. Well,
here, instead of all the other things, these
are going to be clues that are going to be
discovered, that are going to interlock with
the other clues, or sometimes be red herrings
that you later on discover weren't doing what
you thought they would do. This is how I develop
my sense of progress, bullet point to bullet
point to bullet point, slow and steady quantified.
I'll do this for every plot cycle in the book,
and generally for every kind of character
arc, once I've determined the character arcs,
what they're going to be.
My outline is generally, at this point, not
in order. It is an order by section. Then,
as I start writing, I start grabbing bullet
points from different headings and saying,
chapter 1 is going to be this bullet point
and this bullet point. Chapter 2 is from a
different plot archetype bullet point and
this one. And I start organizing those bullet
points. This is where, when we give you the
Skyward outline, you'll be like, you'll go
to the end and you'll probably see that a
lot of these bullet points have been moved
into order, into a whole sequence of arcs
and plots. That I am doing while I'm writing.
I am changing this. I've got the bullet points
all done. I usually start writing, and then
I'm building a full outline of the bullet
points in order chronologically, not just
by plot archetype, but together, and I'm building
scenes out of them as I imagine where they're
going to be.
But at the beginning of the day when I sit
down to write, oftentimes it's like, you need
to write a scene that achieves A, B, and C,
which is way easier for me than trying to
keep a whole plot in my head and try to write
so that that plot works. Instead I can be
like, oh, today I just have to do this. Today
I have to write a Navani scene where she does
X, Y, and then encounters Z. I can do that.
Now let's focus on making that scene active,
interesting, it's taking place in an interesting
setting, having some good, dynamic conflict
to the scene. I can use those bullet points
to launch me into a great chapter. This works
for me because, again, it lets me offload
a bunch of stuff to the beginning.
Any questions about that? Go ahead.
Student: Do you necessarily have to have multiple
plot archetypes so they're intertwining with
one another? Or is that mostly just for epic
fantasy [___]?
Excellent question. Do you have to have multiple
plot archetypes that you're intertwining together,
or is that just something for epic fantasy?
The answer is, the shorter the piece you're
writing, the fewer of these you're usually
going to have, and the longer the piece you're
writing, the more of them you're going to
have. It is not a 1:1 correlation. There are
some very long stories that are plotted more
as a series of explosions that the character
is dealing with, and the book ends just when
there's not another explosion. Nothing goes
wrong this time. It feels more discovery written
that way. It works really well. We'll talk
about it under discovery plotting.
But most of the time, for a novel, you're
generally going to want at least one plot
archetype, at least one character arc, and
at least one sort of subplot archetype, either
a relationship or a master-apprentice or something
like that. I would say that's what you're
looking at most of the time. For Skyward,
which is much less complex, for Skyward I
was using the boy-finds-a-dragon-egg plot
archetype. I don't know if you could find
that one in books on plots, but it's one I
noticed. I read a lot of great books. I'm
like, I'm going to use a boy and his dragon
egg, except it's going to be a girl finds
a spaceship. The archetype is kid finds some
cool thing, keeps it secret, works on it.
That was the main plot that I was doing.
But I had a secondary relationship plot going
on, and I had a tertiary. I had a character
arc for her. If you haven't read the book,
Spensa's got this kind of, these ideals of
what a hero should be, and then actually goes
to war and has to deal with her idealized
picture of heroism not meshing very well with
how it is to actually be fighting, and that's
her character arc. Those are the three ones.
There's a couple minor things, but I would
say that's the three. There is a relationship
with the ship she finds, but that's kind of
built into the kid and the dragon egg story.
You can see that one is simpler than Way of
Kings, which has a ton of these things. Like,
the Way of Kings plots don't fit in a file
because I have all this world building and
things. They are crazy. One thing I do like
to do with Way of Kings, though, is make sure
that every book has one very relatable plot
archetype, because the other plots are generally
not following one. This is why Kaladin having
the underdog sports story is so important
to the Way of Kings, because it could feel
like a jumble of a whole bunch of things going
on. Because Dalinar's plot is not as simple
and as clear-cut an archetypal plot. Shalon's
is a little bit more. But there's so much
going on that if you don't have that one sturdy
central plot to hold on to, then it makes
the book feel-- it would make it feel just
crazy. That's where Way of Kings, the first
version I wrote in 2002, went wrong, is it
didn't have this. It had one section of a
bunch of different plots, but it didn't finish
any of them.
Anyway, there was a question back here. Yeah,
go ahead.
Student: Yeah, so quick question. How do you
keep this fresh? Especially like, I know that
good writing will make anything interesting.
Right.
Student: But maybe when you're pitching it
to someone?
How do you make this fresh, adding the caveat
that you know that good writing will make
anything interesting, but how to you keep
it fresh when you're pitching it? This is
where the strange attractor I talked about
comes in really handy. When you can pitch--
when you can say, "It's the story of a boy
and his dragon, except it's a girl and a spaceship."
Suddenly it adds-- you're telling people what
the new fresh take on it is.
That's actually a very small part of what
makes Skyward work. What makes Skyward work,
I hope, is a really great execution of this
plot, with a character arc that feels really
personal and poignant. That's what's going
to make any book work. But what hooks people
is saying, "Oh yeah, the hero who was prophesied
to save the world failed, and now a bunch
of people are going to rob it." They're like,
"Ooo, tell me more!" This is where pitching
becomes an art of its own. Because really,
the pitch is a way to get people to read the
book and see that it works and is good, but
it has to, you usually want to pitch with
one idea. We'll talk more about pitching as
the semester progresses. But, yeah. Focus
on one really distinctive thing in your pitching,
and that's like simply doing another heist
but adding on an interesting magic you've
come up with and a character who's interesting,
generally going to be great.
I often say, plot and character, it's a little
harder to be really different. Because-- actually,
it's really easy to be really different. It's
just unsatisfying. There's a reason that certain
plots are done. There's a reason that certain
characters are done. That is, you can look
at the modernist literary movement and antiheroes,
like in the classical sense, like Madame Bovary,
and things like this, and trying to write
these antiheroes that are just miserable to
read about. But there's a reason why popular
fiction in particular tends to go back to
the same sorts of stories, because they work
real well. It's the distinctive flair you
put on it that's going to make it work.
Setting is where you can go just crazy, as
long as your character is relatable, and it
doesn't matter. You see that in modern animation.
Like, if you think about it, trying to tell
stories about, what is that famous Pixar thing?
They're like, we're going to start and writer
going to make it like bugs have feelings.
And then we're going to make toys have feelings.
And now feelings have feelings. Right? But
because you can make relatable characters,
you can have a story take place inside a tween
girl's mind, with personifications of her
emotional states, and have it work. Because
setting is way easier to go crazy on than
plot and character.
Oh, wait, there was a-- Yeah, go ahead.
Student: You talk about mixing archetypes
in one story, having more than one. But what
if you have the same one, but duplicate it?
Can you do the same plot duplicated in the
same story? Yes, you can. I would have them
play out in slightly different ways. Like,
you can have two relationships and have the
way that one is going sour as a contrast to
the way that one is going well. Pride and
Prejudice, folks. And do the reversal, where
you think the one that is going well turns
very terribly, and they think the one that's
going poorly turns out really well. That is
the reversal that makes Pride and Prejudice
so cool. It's the same two plots, just an
A plot and a B plot.
Student: I guess I ask in terms of, like,
you say that in conflict you've got to have
length, you need to have more of these plot
lines, and so you could have more of the same
ones.
You could have more of the same ones to make
a story longer. If you want to make a story
longer, more steps is also a way. If you wanted
to make a heist longer, what you'd do is you'd
be like, writer going to have to break this
up into three mini heists, which is very common
for these, and this whole section is on stealing
this one thing that will let us later on steal
this other thing. And you do three mini heists,
followed by a big heist at the end, using
the pieces that you've stolen. You just make
sure each of those mini heists has a different
flare, a different feeling. This is kind of,
you see this a big like in Inception, which
is doing mini heists leading to a big heist
at the end that goes crazy.
Other questions? Yes.
Student: You talk about balancing these three
or four or more different things. If you're
trying to balance different things, how do
you keep them going so that one doesn't just
drop out for the whole novel?
All right. If you're doing a whole bunch of
different things, how do you make sure one
doesn't just drop out and vanish, and when
you come back to it they're no longer interested
in it or have forgotten about it. This gets
more and more difficult the longer your story
is, and the more of these you're juggling.
You're going to have to come to your own decisions
on what you want to do here.
There is the, what I'll fondly call the Robert
Jordan. The Robert Jordan method is to basically
break your plot into sections, and then you
will get, you'll be like, all right, there's
kind of a mini climax here. We're going to
do these parts of the relationship, and then
writer going to skip a book, and then you'll
come back to it. I'm going to try to get you
to a part where this is satisfying enough
for now. Or, if it's a big cliffhanger, you
only have to remember one thing, because we're
going to jump a big time gap before we get
back to it. This is where epic fantasy often
has to go.
But there is also the method of do them one
at a time. Be like, all right, opening part
of this big, long book, we are going to focus
on the relationship. But then the characters
are going to be split apart and pining for
each other for the next part where they are
split apart, because they've only just had
their relationship start to work, and now
they get ripped apart. Then that, you only
have to keep in your mind one thing. If you
are-- most of the time I have found that you
can interweave these and not have to do this
too much.
A lot of what I do in the Stormlight is kind
of a hybrid of these two. Way of Kings is
a good example. I take Shalon's plot to a
stopping point, and then I skip a part and
we do Dalinar's plot for a while, and then
I skip back. I try to make sure you're getting
conclusions to both of them in the same book,
and that Kaladin in that first book acts as
a through line. I make sure they're, Dalinar
and Shalon's plots are short enough that you
can do them in half of a book instead of a
whole book. And then I try to weave them together
like that. It is a real difficulty. It takes
practice. This is why doing a little work
ahead of time and realizing, oh, man, I'm
going to have this huge gap where the characters
aren't together. Maybe I should have the big
moment in their relationship happen up here
where they break up, because they're going
to be apart from one another, rather than
having it be in the middle of their story.
All right. We'll do one last one and then
we'll move on. Yeah?
Student: What does your plot brainstorming
session look like? Do you just look for things
you like and write them all down?
The question is, what does my plot brainstorming
look like? Do I just look for a lot of things
and then write them all down? Kind of. Like,
a lot of times these are simmering for a long
time. I'm going to the gym, I'm working out,
and I'm imagining what that last scene is.
Like, the last scenes of a given plot are
what is going through my head many times before
I can sit down to make this thing. But, when
I'm making this thing, I am generally just
saying, all right, here is the plot archetype
that I'm using. Here are important elements
to it. Which of those do I want to use? That's
an important thing that'll segue us into the
next thing I want to talk about is some of
these plot structures.
Now, I'm only going to pick a couple of them
and talk about how you would apply them. Because
there are a ton of these helps out there,
and they all can be really helpful, or they
can just be useless to you. It depends on
if they work for you. But you can buy books.
You can buy Save the Cat, which is a screenwriting
book that's talking a lot about establishing
reading interest and how to plot a story.
You can read many different books. There's
a nine-point story structure. There's a seven-point
story structure. Dan really likes one of those
two. I can't remember which one it is. But
he's got a great YouTube video on it. Is it
seven? It's seven, isn't it? Yeah, he has
a great YouTube video on seven-point story
structure. Dan Wells, writer. Everybody uses
different things.
There are a couple of classics, and one of
them is, in science fiction and fantasy, the
Hero’s Journey. We'll go through it very
shortly. You guys probably all know this.
If you don't, a brief history of it is that
a guy named James Campbell was a researcher,
an ethnographer, and a folklorist, and was
researching different stories that different
people told themselves. He wasn't the first
to come up with this, but he kind of popularized
the idea that a lot of different cultures
across cultural barriers, language barriers,
whatever, were telling the same sorts of stories.
He called this the monomyth, the story that--
He said, he's like all stories align to this.
No they don't. But a lot of stories do, because
it's got a very vague structure that has a
lot of cool elements to it. The monomyth is
you have a character at home who doesn't want
to go on an adventure. They get called on
an adventure. They refuse the call. And then
they are Forced to go out and cross the threshold
into the world. All right? What's that?
Student: To the unknown.
To the unknown. Yeah, to the unknown. Out
to the unknown to the character. The classic
example of this is Star Wars, because Luke
is really like the monomyth. He likes it a
little too much sometimes. But he really likes,
he has actually some really good, there were
PBS specials about the monomyth that I think
George Lucas himself did. But, yes. Luke is
at home. You see the call. He looks up in
the sky. But then when the call-- you see
he wants to go. But then when the call actually
comes and everyone says, "You must learn the
ways of the Jedi," what does he do? He's like,
"No, I've got to go back home and deal with
power converters and stuff." No, I can't,
I can't, I can't. Then he goes home and what
happens? There is no home anymore. Only Storm
Troopers are so precise, or whatever. So he's
forced to go out into the unknown world. Then
they have the trials. This is the road of
tribulation, or whatever it's called. Basically,
problems are popping up, and the character
is learning to overcome them.
Usually there's a mentor. And then there's
not a mentor. Whoop, whoop. No-o-o-o! Usually
you get some buddies who will suspiciously
not be around anymore by the time you get
to the bottom of this, which is the descent
in the underworld, which is where the character
either metaphorically or literally dies and
is sent to the underworld. Metaphorically,
they're at their lowest point. Everything's
going terribly. But then they come out of
it. They have the-- what's it called? There's
the moment of apotheosis and redemption. They
call it something else. Campbell calls it
something else. What's that? There's rebirth,
definitely. Atonement, that's what it is.
Basically, the character's going to change
in some way, make some decision, learn some
new skill, make atonement. They're going to
get rewarded with the elixir. Then they're
going to go home with it and take the elixir
back. There's generally an apotheosis here,
where it's like a meeting with divinity or
with one's father figure, and kind of accepting
and dealing with that, taking the elixir,
and heading home changed, bringing the elixir
back to the people at home, but having been
changed so much that the hero is no longer
the person who can stay home. Often there's
an epilogue where they just wander off. Fallout,
right? Was that Fallout One? That was Fallout
One, wasn't it?
Is this useful? Yes, it is. It's really useful
for envisioning a character arc in an interesting
way. It's really handy. I would recommend
reading about the Hero’s Journey. Where
can it go wrong? Well, there are a lot of
things in the Hero’s Journey that don't
match every story. For instance, Campbell
identified that the hero in the ancient myths
was almost always the result of a divine birth
or a virgin birth. In the old Greek myths,
Zeus was doing something, there was a really
pretty swan or whatever, and there is often
this child of divinity or child that was born
out of mysterious circumstances. So what did
he add into episode one? Where did Darth Vader
come from? He was a virgin birth, born of
the Force. Every single person in that movie
theater when I was there was like, "What?
Like this is cool, but what?" If I'm going
to criticize one of the greatest and most
successful storymakers of all time in George
Lucas, which he really is, that is what I
consider one of the dangers of being too slavish
to a formula or a plot structure. This is
where it gets different from an archetype.
The plot archetypes are like, I want to achieve
this emotion in my readers, and here are some
steps to get that emotion. Structure is, all
right, here's how I actually structure my
story. And if these are too rigid, you will
end up putting things into your story that
just don't feel like they fit. They generally
will not ruin your story. But once in a while,
people can be too slavish, I feel, to following
one of these plot structures.
How would you use the Hero’s Journey? Well,
looking at this and asking yourself as a chef,
why do we enjoy this story? Well, there can
be lots of answers, and we're down to 10 minutes,
so I'm not going to go to questions on this
one. But we can talk about the idea that all
human beings kind of have to go through this.
It's the story of being a teenager in a lot
of ways, and arriving at adulthood, hopefully
about the literal death and rebirth. But it
is this thing where we are going to go through
all of our lives, and we have to—
I have a 12-year-old. I'm like, "You're going
to go to college, not too much further by
adult times, six years or so."
He's like, "I can't do that. I cannot move
out."
I'm like, "You don't have to. You're 12. 12-year-olds
don't move out.”
But to him, this is the most terrifying thing
that he ever learned, is that he is going
to be someday expected to leave the house
and live on his own. That is really scary
to a lot of people. We go through this.
Why else is it cool? Well, it's really satisfying.
Like this moment. It's full of satisfying
moments, right? This moment is satisfying
because you can usually see the hero wants
to go on the adventure, and then they're Forced
to. That moment is kind of cool. The moment
where they go into the underworld, where they're
at their darkest point, and they pull out
of it anyway, is really satisfying. The apotheosis
and atonement, where kind of coming to face
one's destiny, one's parental figures, to
make amends for the things that they've done,
and then return home a better person, having
brought something that helps everyone else,
whether it's having destroyed a Death Star
or not, coming home victorious is really satisfying.
This explains a lot of really satisfying small
steps you can take, and that makes progress
really exciting. When the small steps of progress,
on their own, give people cold chills, then
you're doing the right thing. Then your book
is coming together. The Hero's Journey is
just all about those moments, those triumphant
moments, or those moments that are really
relatable, and it's why it makes such a good
plot structure.
Another one that you guys may have run across
is Three Act format, which is kind of just
a remix on the same ideas as most plot archetypes
are. Three Act format imagines a story as
three acts with two major division points,
the first one being generally where the character
becomes proactive. Now, you can find a lot
on Three Act format. I'll just say, if I'm
not writing the one you know, it's okay. There
are lots of different ways. But one is the
change from inactive to proactive. This is
the moment where you go from Act I to Act
II, where the character says, "I will go do
this." And everybody argues on where the different
act breaks are, which is how you can tell
this is a little more squishy than people
pretend.
Everyone, again, usually uses Star Wars as
a perfect example of this, but they will disagree
on whether Act I ends when Luke decides to
go with Obi Wan because he has no other choice,
or when they get off of Tatooine, or when
they get on the Death Star and decide to go
save the princess. All are legitimate arguments
for the end of Act I.
You usually have a transition between Act
II and Act III where you're at the low point,
where all the things you have tried thus far
have just dug you deeper. And the way you
do the middle is you have, generally there's
a mid-point twist, where the stakes change
in some dramatic way, usually an expansion
of the stakes, or the villain's achieved something.
Generally through here you have this rising
action where you increase stakes, increase
tension, and the character tries things, and
oftentimes fails spectacularly.
This is what we try a try-fail cycle, is how
Dave liked to put it. The character has come
up with a solution to their problem. They
try it, they fail, and it gets worse. They
try it again, they fail, and it gets worse.
They try it again, they fail, and it gets
worse. And now we're at our low point because
we've tried everything. Oh, no, what are we
going to do? Frodo has decided to keep the
ring. Spoilers, right? Yeah. Seventy years
old, is it now? Some spoilers. Sixty years
old? But, yeah. We are at a moment of utter
crisis, and then the ending happens, and very
soon after, woo, end, and then denouement.
This can be really handy, again, to structure
your story if you know you need to have a
moment where your character takes initiative.
You need to have something right about the
middle point of your story where the stakes
change in a dramatic and different way, and
that needs to lead into a low point where
everything has been tried, but there is still
one chance. If Luke trusts in the Force he
can fire the torpedoes, even though the last
ones missed, because he has the Force.
You can bring in, when it works really well,
your overlapping different plots. For instance,
Star Wars has Han's mini plot of an arc of
will Han be a good guy or not? Is he going
to learn to want something more than money?
Lo and behold, what happens is you overlap
the lowest moment, Luke finally deciding to
finally trust the Force, Obi Wan speaking,
and Han returning all at once, and it becomes
this really beautiful moment where all your
different plots intersect. That's what I really
love, is when you can take multiple plots
like a character arc, where the character
makes that last big decision or understands
at last the thing that they have been missing
about their life, overlapping with a big surprise,
overlapping with the climax of the story,
that's where a story can really get me, if
they can do that.
So, Brandon, what about discovery plotting.
I don't have a ton to say on this, because
I don't do it. I would recommend going to
other people who do discovery write, reading
what Stephen King talks about with discovery
writing, reading what George R. R. Martin
says about gardening.
I will tell you one thing you can try, and
we'll end here. Mary Robinette, which if she
goes to a Q&A here you can ask her about it,
taught me a discovery writing method that
works pretty well, and it is called "yes,
but/no, and." Yes, but/no, and focuses on
taking a character, throwing them into some
sort of terrible situation at the very start,
and then just asking yourself, all right,
what's the most intelligent or reasonable
thing they could do right now to get out of
this problem? Have them do that, and then
ask yourself, does it work? If you say yes,
you add a but, something else has gone wrong.
Or you say no, and you escalate that problem
to a bigger problem.
What this does is it creates this sort of
sense of motion where something is always
going wrong for the character, which can be
really handy to keep your stakes up in a discovery
written story. Afterward, after you've written
the book, you can go back and say, okay, can
I move all of these things into being pieces
of a larger plot? Can I somehow tweak this
so this one is foreshadowing for this one?
But as you're writing, you can just remember,
everything needs to be getting worse a lot
of the time. And yes, but/no, and is a method
of doing that. You can find a lot of them
online. I would recommend listening to what
other writers say. You've heard a lot today
about my method. Go research other methods.
Try out a lot of different things. See what
works for you. I'll do Q&A next weeks on anything
about plotting you guys want to know. And
that's it.
