Supporting characters in protagonist design

Now that I’ve done a series on plot, I figure it’s time to do a series on my favorite topic of all time: Character.

I love characters. As much as I love plot, I love character ten times more. Why?

How many of you could remember the plot details of The Empire Strikes Back the first time you watched it? Now compare that to how many of you could remember every facial expression and snarky comment that Han Solo made?

Not a movie nerd? What about Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind? Can you list all the myriad intricate turning points in that gigantic tome of brilliance? No? Even so, I bet you remember some of Elodin’s eccentricities. I mean, who wouldn’t remember a lunatic sorcerer who walks around naked and convinces people to jump off towers?

Plot is awesome. But character is king.

Characters will thrive long after the stories in which they were first born have faded. Character is what allows stories to be told because character is unique and (honestly) plot is same song second verse a whole lot faster and much much worse. I love plot. But that’s the truth. There are no new stories, just fresh methods (characters) to tell them.

Characters can be as unique as we are, and that makes them unlimited.

So what I’ll be working through in this series is different means and methods to create, refine, establish, and expand on character. Where do they come from? How do they find their voice? What are the tricks of communicating who they really are inside without giving too much away or boring people to death?

The best means I’ve found to present character in a story is with a lovely little tool called a supporting character.

Supporting Characters

Have you ever wondered at the fact that actors win Academy Awards for a supporting role in a movie? I used to. And then I began to understand how vital a supporting role is in a story.

Supporting characters are vital to storytelling. Even in Shakespearean soliloquies, the speaker has someone to relate to, even if it’s just the audience. I once saw a one-man show on the famous German composer Schubert, and even though it was just one man on stage, he interacted with other imaginary people around him. And his reaction to them demonstrated a great deal about who he was.

That is what supporting characters do: they present an opportunity to know a character from a different perspective.

So, what roles do supporting characters play in a story?

Well, supporting characters can do just about anything. They can be just about anyone, and as far as a role goes? The sky’s the limit.

Supporting characters can be sidekicks. They can be love interests. They can even be antagonizers. They can be fully realized, rounded characters. They can be stock characters inserted to simply advance the plot. They can be funny. They can be sad. They can be smart. They can be the village idiot. They can even function as ex deus machina—an act of God.

They can be someone who brings out the best in your main character. Or they can be someone who brings out the worst in him. They’re usually the opposite of your main character, but they don’t have to be.

But what they do, no matter who they are or what they are or why they exist, they are there to enhance your protagonist.

Examples for consideration:

The Man and the Boy – The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Man is the protagonist, the one who tells the story. The Boy is the one who he is protecting, the one he is trying to save. Even though the Man is the main character, the story is about the Man relating to the Boy. … and it’s also about death and destruction and eating people. But that’s another story.

Chuck Noland and Wilson – Castaway

Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a FedEx employee who ends up stranded on a deserted island with no one but a beat up volleyball to talk to. The volleyball becomes “Wilson,” and even though Wilson never says a word, we all love him. And he shows us a side of Tom Hanks’s character that wouldn’t have been revealed otherwise. After all, he’s alone on a deserted island. What else is he going to do to tell us who he is if he doesn’t talk to a volleyball?

Roger Rabbit and Detective Eddie Valiant – Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Roger Rabbit is the main character of this crazy 1980s movie that combined animation with live-action. But Roger Rabbit was such a ridiculous character that he couldn’t have held down a protagonist role alone. That’s why you needed a crusty, grouchy, toon-hating detective in a supporting role to help keep him on track.

All that to ask, can you write a story without a supporting character? Sure. But your story may not be effective as it might have been without one—or two—or twenty.

Uses for supporting characters

If your main character is too serious, he needs a funny sidekick. This is a Batman and Robin example. Or, if you only look at the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight universe, it would be Batman and Alfred. Batman is far too dark to hold down a story without injecting some kind of humor into it. Not a lot, mind you. But a snarky butler like Alfred puts just enough laughter in that we don’t all want to jump off a balcony at the end of the movie.

If your main character is too silly, he needs a serious sidekick to help him focus. This goes back to the Roger Rabbit example. If your protagonist is too crazy and funny, people won’t take him seriously.

If your main character is overly confident, he needs a sidekick who is right more often. This is a bad example but there was an old cartoon show from the 90s called The Tick, and the Tick was an idiot and didn’t know it. But that’s where his trusty sidekick Arthur the Moth came in. Arthur was a former accountant and was always able to point out when the Tick went wrong, even if the Tick didn’t realize it.

Another interesting example is the dynamic between two fully rounded characters featured on a science fiction show called Stargate Atlantis. Lt. Colonel John Sheppard is technically the main character of the show, but Dr. Rodney McKay is equally as important. Actually his character predated the Atlantis show with an appearance on the foundational Stargate SG-1 television show. But they function alongside each other in Stargate Atlantis. Dr. McKay is pretty much the smartest person alive, and he’s very sure of the fact; but Sheppard is a closet math genius. And there are many times throughout the series when Sheppard is able to match wits with McKay when no one else can. And the way they both react to it tells us a lot about who they are as characters. (My best friend just did a post on friendships, and she used the SGA crew as examples … I’m so proud of the geek she’s turning into.)

Supporting characters can be fully realized characters – you just don’t focus on them.

Sometimes, the difference between your protagonist and your supporting characters is simply the focus of your story. The best example I can come up with off the cuff is from the Twilight books.

Bella Swan is undoubtedly the main character. Most of the series is told in first person, her voice. But Edward Cullen is a fully rounded character too. We just don’t get to see into his head. But Stephenie Meyer’s truncated work Midnight Sun was designed to give readers a look into Edward’s thought processes. Midnight Sun was Twilight from Edward’s perspective, but she hasn’t been able to finish it yet.

Edward is a supporting character in the Twilight books, but the character himself is completely realized and can stand alone in his own story.

Supporting characters can be stock characters with little back story.

If you don’t need to create supporting characters with full back stories, you don’t have to. An example of stock characters used in supporting roles are the other District Tributes from Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

Many of them aren’t even named, or if they are it was only mentioned once. There are 24 Tributes altogether, but only one of them, Katniss Everdeen, is the main character. The rest are supporting roles, and their level of development ranges from Peeta (who is extensively developed) and Rue (who is marginally developed) to the others who die straight out when the Hunger Games begin. We really only know their district numbers.

But the story wouldn’t happen without them. They are plot devices that advance the story or deepen the culture or the main character’s view on the world. Nothing more.

In Greek literature, writers would use gods as plot devices. I think it’s the Iliad; Athena pops in to save the day at the last minute during some battle. It’s been a while since I read it. That’s what’s usually referred to as ex dues machina, an act of God. It’s a plot device where a supernatural being steps in to save the day when all hope is lost. Most modern audiences don’t go for that anymore, but in ancient history, it was all the rage.

But the same is true for a random passing stranger who encourages your protagonist. Maybe someone who witnessed a vital piece of the puzzle in a mystery too. You don’t have to go into deep detail about a supporting character if all you’re going to use him for is advancing the plot.

However …

Supporting characters can surprise you the more you get to know them.

Even though building a full back story for a supporting character may feel like an exercise in futility, I still recommend it for any character you create.

Sorry to return to the Twilight universe, but this is an example I just can’t pass up.

Jacob Black started out as an inconsequential plot device, a means for Bella to learn the Quileute legend of the Cold Ones. But the more Meyer worked on him, the more real he became. Meyer herself fell in love with him as a character, and pretty soon she had created a far more substantial role for him. He even ends up narrating a third of the last book! Now people can’t imagine the Twilight series without Jacob Black.

So don’t write out a supporting character just because you think he’ll only be useful for advancing the storyline. You never know what a supporting character can teach you.

Supporting characters are essential for telling a story. People are social creatures no matter how reclusive we may think we are. Supporting characters give main characters a reason to live, a reason to keep fighting, a purpose to keep going. They enhance your main character, push them to succeed, or sometimes kick them while they’re down.

So when you’re creating your main character, don’t forget to throw in a supporting character too. You’ll be glad you did.

How to build a complex plot based on a simple message (Part 9)

Part 9: The devil in the details.

Plotting is a never-ending process. Even after you have the crazy novel actually written, you can still go back and find plot holes that need to be filled. Or you can find plot points that need to be repaired.

The crazy, ridiculous thing I came up with in the last couple of installments of this blog is something I created on the fly. It’s random, and I just threw it together for example’s sake. I’m sure if I were to go back through it a page at a time, I would find all sorts of thigns that need to be fixed.

But the fact remains, that it’s a writable story with a decent plot. It may not be the best, but it’s workable. Let’s review:

Message: Stealing is wrong.
Direction: External.
Genre: Steampunk.
Character: Confused Robin Hood.
Conflict – Turning Point One: Confused Robin Hood chooses to accept the accolades of his people even though he neither wants nor deserves them in order to preserve his relationship with his Beloved Uncle and Unlikely Maid Marian. We learn that Sheriff wants the Golden Arrow for himself (maybe we learn this, maybe we don’t, but either way it’s understood) and thinks that Confused Robin Hood knows how to use it. And he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win.
Conflict – Turning Point Two: Confused Robin Hood is forced to admit his crimes, and the people blame the Professor’s death on him. And by putting him in prison, it puts Sheriff in charge.
Conflict – The Point of No Return: Confused Robin Hood realizes that Sheriff is the one who killed the Professor and Unlikely Maid Marian, but because his own actions started all of the trouble, he is willing to accept the blame. But he wants to take Sheriff down with him.
Conclusion: Confused Robin Hood is able to prove that Sheriff is guilty, and he not only kills Sheriff but is able to rejuvenate the soil in his town for the sake of the people. But they are still angry at him, so he steals Unlikely Maid Marian’s necklace and runs for it. He returns months later to give the necklace back. And he disappears again.

The point of the story is that stealing is wrong because you can get into all sorts of trouble. Who knew that just by stealing something random from the bottom of an eccentric man’s house that Confused Robin Hood would end up in so much trouble?

And Confused Robin Hood got what he wanted in the end because he got to be just like everyone else.

But just because you reached the end of your first plot draft, does that mean it’s the one you should go with?

No. Way.

Actually, that’s a terrible idea. Your first plot should be a foundation you can build on, the basis for the work that is yet to come. You have some idea of what you want to accomplish and how you can do it, but if you read back over it and you don’t like it, guess what? You can change it.

If you think Confused Robin Hood would be more fun if this were an internally direceted story, change it. If you think it would be more powerful if Confused Robin Hood were Confused Robin Hoodette, change it!

This is your world. It’s your story. Nothing is set in stone.

Build your first plot out. Add more supporting characters. Flesh out your main character and your villain. Write their back stories. Write whole descriptive paragraphs about your setting. Figure out the history of your world. Once you have all of those things figured out completely, go back over your plot and see what you can add. See what you can change.

Deepen it. Add connections.

If you’re going to have someone help Confused Robin Hood prove his innocence, bring that person in randomly at the beginning.

Add a village idiot for comedic relief.

Why not?

Just remember that the devil is truly in the details.

You have to know your world. You have to know what the sky looks like and what the ground looks like and what the houses look like. You have to know what songs are popular in the culture, what clothing is popular on the street, what food sells the best in the market. You have to know what technology is common and what technology is expensive, especially in a steampunk book.

You have to know your characters. You have to know what they wear and what they eat and how they dress and what they say and what they think.

Do people fly in zepplins? Do they wear goggles? Do they drive steam-powered cars? Do they walk everywhere? Do they listen to Big Band era music? Do they dance? Do they eat apple pie?

You have to know your world and your characters backward and forward, and then it will be easy to slip into their world and create a story about them.

The more tiny details you can slip in (unobtrusively, of course), the more real it will seem to your readers. The more you know about the world you’ve created, the more natural it will feel to step into it.

Once you understand the culture you’ve created, your characters will flow more naturally. Once you understand the world you’ve created, your characters will seem at home there. Once you understand the limitations of the universe your story exists in, you will find that your entire plot will come together seamlessly.

But all of that doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen by itself either.

Plotting takes work. Hard work and research. You have to dig deep into other genres of the same sort to find out what makes them work. You have to know a lot about a lot of things. You have to pay attention to the finer points in life, especially the ones that take a second glance.

Don’t Forget Perspectives

Who is telling the story?

What voice do you envision telling your story? Is it told from the perspective of a bystander? Is it told from the perspective of someone close to the action? Is it told from the perspective of the person who the story is about? Whatever you choose will affect the whole tone of the story.

First, you need to decide what Person is telling the story. First, Second or Third person options will change the tone of your writing immensely.

Second Person narration or exposition is very difficult to do and oftentimes really annoys your readers. The only example I’ve ever run into with Second Person perspective is A Prayer for the Dying. Second Person would be something like this (I find it annoying):

You wake up in the cold morning air and watch your breath turning to clouds as you sit up in the bedroom of your old, unheated house. You scramble out of your bed and dress quickly and hurry downstairs to eat a warm breakfast before you go out to do your chores.

Third Person is the most common perspective, but First Person is becoming more popular. The Twilight books are written in First Person perspective.

Excerpt from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer:
My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.

The Harry Potter books are written in Third Person Limited.

Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling:
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they didn’t hold with such nonsense.

You can also choose present tense or past tense. You can also choose limited or omniscient.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is written in First Person Past Tense Omniscient. It’s a story about someone else narrated by Death who witnessed it and who knows how the story is going to end.

Excerpt from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak:
As for me, I had already made the most elementary of mistakes. I can’t explain to you the severity of my self-disapointment. Originally, I’d done everything right: I studied the blinding, white-snow sky who stood at the window of the moving train. I practically inhaled it, but still, I wavered. I buckled — I became interested. In the girl. Curiosity got the better of me, and I resigned myself to stay as long as my schedule allowed, and I watched.

A general rule of thumb to follow in choosing a point of view is to choose the perspective of the person who is going to change the most in the story. Or the person who the story will impact the most.

In my opinion, in the plot that I laid out in the last couple of posts, the person who will be affected the most is Confused Robin Hood.

So the next question would be First Person or Third Person. In either case, Omniscient forms of writing are really falling out of popularity unless they are done extremely well. It’s just not usually a good idea to try to explain everything that is happening and why to your audience, unless you have a really good reason.

A unique example of perspectives is The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, my favorite new author. He uses Third Person Limited, but because his plot is so complicated, he employes both a Narrator to introduce the story as well as a Main Character to live the story. I dont think I can do an excerpt because they are both so complicated, but I highly recommend both of these novels. Incredible work!

And that’s about it.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering how I ever wrote anything because my brain is so screwed up. But I’ve met a lot of really odd writers in my day, and I’ve discovered that not many people even know how to start plotting. So this series was an attempt to write down my un-process to see if anyone could use it for themselves.

Thanks for reading!

How to build a complex plot based on a simple message (Part 8)

Part 8: The End?

All righty. We’re almost at the end of this little primer on how to take simple ideas and turn them into complex plots.

Let’s review what we put together so far:

Message: Stealing is wrong.
Direction: External.
Genre: Steampunk.
Character: Confused Robin Hood.
Conflict – Turning Point One: Confused Robin Hood chooses to accept the accolades of his people even though he neither wants nor deserves them in order to preserve his relationship with his Beloved Uncle and Unlikely Maid Marian. We learn that Sheriff wants the Golden Arrow for himself (maybe we learn this, maybe we don’t, but either way it’s understood) and thinks that Confused Robin Hood knows how to use it. And he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win.
Conflict – Turning Point Two: Confused Robin Hood is forced to admit his crimes, and the people blame the Professor’s death on him. And by putting him in prison, it puts Sheriff in charge.
Conflict – The Point of No Return: Confused Robin Hood realizes that Sheriff is the one who killed the Professor and Unlikely Maid Marian, but because his own actions started all of the trouble, he is willing to accept the blame. But he wants to take Sheriff down with him.

Conclusions are important because you need to wrap everything up in a way that is satisfactory for everyone. Your readers need to feel fulfilled when they get to the end, unless you intend to write a sequel and even then you need to have an ending.

Your characters need to come full circle, and your story needs to have a definite ending place.

At this point, we have set everything up. The characters have everything they need to bring this crazy story coming crashing down to a wild conclusion.

The people and Sheriff are getting ready to hang Confused Robin Hood. But somehow (and that somehow is in the details), Confused Robin Hood is able to prove that Sheriff is the one who actually did the killing.

Maybe it’s with a witness account. Maybe it’s with evidence he gathered from the crime scene. Whatever it is, he is able – at the last possible moment – to prove that Sheriff is the one to blame for the murders. All that’s important to know at this point is that it happens. You can figure out how later.

Sheriff and Confused Robin Hood can have a last climactic battle. Sheriff regains control of the Golden Arrow, and he tries to use it to benefit himself. But at the last moment, Confused Robin Hood finds a way to change it to help the people by repairing the damage done to the soil. In their last fight, Confused Robin Hood can use his thieving skills to win an advantage over Sheriff.

Sheriff is electrocuted in the process, and Confused Robin Hood, injured and weary, escapes on a horse. He thinks about staying, but at the sight of the angry mob, he decides to run. As he leaves, though, he steals Unlikely Maid Marian’s necklace.

Now, that can be your conclusion if you want. That would work. But personally, I think it needs a little more.

For a story like this, I would do an epilogue. Confused Robin Hood rides back into his town after a few months have passed, and he finds it to be flourishing. Everyone is happy. Theft is down. He sits at the local café, and talks with the bartender about something. He is disguised so no one recognizes him. And he needs to make some comment about being just like everyone else.

At the end of the conversation, he leaves the necklace with Unlikely Maid Marian’s mother or father or some relative. And he disappears again.

What’s fun about this is that it demonstrates, in a meaningful way, that Confused Robin Hood hasn’t really changed as a character. He still has his old habits, but he’s been redirected slightly. He understands the consequences of what he’s doing, but he still chooses to do it in a way that isn’t hurtful. And he got what he wanted in the end.

And that’s the end! Or is it?

Hardly.

Now the real work begins.

Part 9 will deal with the process of going back over your rough plot outline and filling in the gaps with the details.

How to build a complex plot based on a simple message (Part 7)

Part 7: The Point of No Return

Turning Point Two will bring you to the beginning of Act Three where all hell breaks loose. Everything hits the fan. And all other catastrophic clichés probably apply as well.

Act Three will be the shortest act, usually. It will be the most fast paced. And it will be the most tense. These are the parts of your plot that need to move quickly, and the tension needs to be off the charts.

We left our main character is in a horrible situation. Let’s review:

Message: Stealing is wrong.
Direction: External.
Genre: Steampunk.
Character: Confused Robin Hood.
Conflict – Turning Point One: Confused Robin Hood chooses to accept the accolades of his people even though he neither wants nor deserves them in order to preserve his relationship with his Beloved Uncle and Unlikely Maid Marian. We learn that Sheriff wants the Golden Arrow for himself (maybe we learn this, maybe we don’t, but either way it’s understood) and thinks that Confused Robin Hood knows how to use it. And he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win.
Conflict – Turning Point Two: Confused Robin Hood is forced to admit his crimes, and the people blame the Professor’s death on him. And by putting him in prison, it puts Sheriff in charge.

We are rapidly approaching what is commonly called The Point of No Return. It is the point in the story where your hero has to make a decision that will carry the plot to its eventual conclusion. The stakes have to be enormous.

How do we raise the stakes beyond where they already are?

I have discovered that the best way to raise the stakes super high is to use material you already have. Go back over what you have already created and find a point or a character that can be utilized. This not only provides an opportunity to deepening your supporting characters but it also helps the continuity of your entire novel. If you can utilize a (supposedly) minor character or a (supposedly) minor point you created at the beginning of the novel, your whole story will feel more whole. We already indicated that there is a romantic possibility between Confused Robin Hood and Unlikely Maid Marian, but so far we really haven’t explored it at all. This is a good opportunity to do that. How can we use Unlikely Maid Marian to raise the stakes?

So let’s say that when Confused Robin Hood admits that he broke into the Professor’s house and stole the Golden Arrow, that’s all he is able to say because everyone turns against him. Even Unlikely Maid Marian. He is disinherited, dishonored, and thrown in prison and abandoned. The only person he has left is Sheriff. Sheriff mocks him because he is finally normal, like everyone else.

Then, Sheriff grills him on what he wanted with the Golden Arrow and how he made it work. Confused Robin Hood, of course, has no idea what he’s talking about because he barely even looked at the thing. He just stole it and then took it back. But Sheriff doesn’t believe him and has him beaten in hope that it will loosen his tongue. But as he keeps questioning and keeps interrogating, Sheriff realizes that Confused Robin Hood isn’t going to tell him the truth. So Sheriff decides that he has to take drastic measures.

And what is a good villain going to do? He’s going to poke holes in the hero’s weaknesses.

So let’s have Sheriff order Unlikely Maid Marian brought in and tortured in front of Confused Robin Hood, trying to find out how to use the Golden Arrow. But Confused Robin Hood can’t tell him because he doesn’t know.

Just a quick note about characterization. Once you have a main character, ask what is the most important thing or person in his or her life. What is the one thing that character can’t live without? Once you identify that most important thing or person, take it away. Deprive your character of the thing or person they cherish most and see what they do. As in real life, you can tell who a person really is when they are battling the greatest sorrows. If a person is a genuinely selfless individual, even when they are suffering, they will care about the suffering of others more than themselves. If a person is a genuinely cruel individual, he or she will be cruel when they are suffering. That’s just the way people are, so that’s just the way your characters should be.

In this case, because Confused Robin Hood needs to understand what it’s like for someone to steal from him (something that can not be returned), let’s have Sheriff kill Unlikely Maid Marian. So if Confused Robin Hood witnesses the brutal murder of Unlikely Maid Marian, what is he going to do?

A note on character death? Generally, I try to avoid it. But if the death of your character(s) serves a purpose, don’t be afraid to do it. But  ask yourself if it’s worth it. Is it worth it to eliminate one character to deepen the reality and relatability of another character? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. That choice is up to you.

So, deep in sorrow, Confused Robin Hood mourns Unlikely Maid Marian’s death, but he doesn’t have much time because he is being marched out to be electrocuted for killing the Professor. As they are strapping him into the electric chair, he sees the Golden Arrow in Sheriff’s bag and realizes exactly what happened from the clues he uncovered on his own.

He fights his way free of the execution, steals the Golden Arrow back, and flees into the woods.

Now he has another choice: he can keep running . . . or he can go back and try to set things right. He figures that there has to be something special about the arrow if Sheriff was willing to kill Unlikely Maid Marian over it, so he goes back to the Professor’s house to snoop around, even though he knows that getting caught would mean death. He uncovers a bunch of information about it that explains what the Golden Arrow actually does.

Okay. Time out.

Now is the time to answer the question, what does the Golden Arrow do?

It’s obviously an important part of this story. So we need to figure out what it is capable of doing. We already know what the Sheriff thinks it can do. But what does it actually do?

Okay, well now we can go back to our genre and setting. This is Steampunk. Steampunk is usually somewhat post-apocalyptic in a historical way.

This is our world. We can do whatever we want with it. So let’s take what we know: Common people steal from each other. Why? Because they’re bad people? No. Most likely because they don’t have enough for themselves. What is the most common thing people will steal from each other?

Food. So, why don’t they have enough food?

Well, let’s say that part of the historical steampunkish alternate universe that we’ve created is that the ground was poisoned and won’t produce crops anymore. So people are starving because they can’t grow enough food to feed themselves.

So let’s say that Professor Nottingham invented the Golden Arrow to repair the damage done to the cropland. That’s what it does. So that everyone can grow enough food to feed themselves instead of stealing from each other.

And there’s an additional thematic irony: Confused Robin Hood now holds the key to making everyone equal, just like he always did. He could have distributed his wealth among them so that he didn’t have to feel like the rich outcast. But he never thought of that. Now he is able to help them all become “equal” but he just has to figure out how to work it.

Oh, and let’s not forget about Beloved Uncle. Where is he in all this?

Well, let’s have Confused Robin Hood go to his Beloved Uncle for help, but his Beloved Uncle won’t have anything to do with him. And the people are coming to arrest him. His Beloved Uncle turns him in, and he learns that Sheriff has blamed Unlikely Maid Marian’s death on him as well.

Confused Robin Hood accepts the blame. Even though he didn’t kill Unlikely Maid Marian or Professor Nottingham, he accepts the blame and is willing to accept the punishment. He realizes that he always wanted to be just like the common people, and this is how the common people are punished. He always deserved to be punished, and so he is getting what he deserves. The people drag him out to one of the fields for a lynching, and Sheriff joins them.

This would be what I would call the Point of No Return. This is the part of the plot where your character can’t escape it anymore. He has to face up to what he’s done. Or he has to face his situation. It’s the part where everything blows up and whoever is left standing is the one who wins. At this point in the story, your protagonist can live or die.

In Part 8, we’ll talk about the conclusion.

How to build a complex plot based on a simple message (Part 6)

Part 6: Choose your conflict. Again. (Turning Point Two)

After Turning Point One passes, you arrive at the middle of your story where you can do a little more work on developing your characters and their relationships with each other. This is where Confused Robin Hood will struggle to maintain the façade that he’s accepted, the façade of a hero.

Much of the Middle of the Story (also called the Second Act in the Three Act Structure) can be created after you have finished plotting the overall story. But in the beginning stages of your planning process, the middle shouldn’t take up much room, except for you to lay out the basics that occur.

The part to focus on right now is Turning Point Two, which marks the end of Act Two.

Turning Point Two has to be bigger and more captivating than Turning Point One. You have to up the ante even more. Your stakes have to jump from just a personal level (the relationship between Confused Robin Hood and Unlikely Maid Marian) to a public level. The conflicts that begin on a smaller scale have to jump up to a larger scale, making it even more necessary that the whole problem be brought to a resolution . . . hopefully, a happy ending.

So where do we go from here? Let’s refresh where here is:

Message: Stealing is wrong.
Direction: External.
Genre: Steampunk.
Character: Confused Robin Hood.
Conflict – Turning Point One: Confused Robin Hood chooses to accept the accolades of his people even though he neither wants nor deserves them in order to preserve his relationship with his Beloved Uncle and Unlikely Maid Marian.

How do we punch up the possible problems in this plot? (yay for alliteration!)

At this point, I like to start incorporating details about the setting. The history of the world. The people in the world. The cultures of the world. Remember, this is a Steampunk book, so you can have all sorts of fun rearranging history to suit your needs.

However, you don’t always have to make up something new about your world. Look back over the resources you’ve already created to see if there’s some aspect of your story you can reuse and deepen.

For example, let’s talk about what Confused Robin Hood stole. What did he steal from Unlikely Maid Marian’s house?

A blanket? A toy? A can of preserved beets? Anything will work. But can you make it something that will advance your story and deepen your plot? Absolutely.

What if Unlikely Maid Marian is a nanny for an eccentric gentleman who invents things? What if the object that Confused Robin Hood stole was an invention that has the ability to change the world? What if this invention has the potential to bestow ultimate power on whoever unlocks it? Whoever figures out this invention could rule the world.

Let’s say that Confused Robin Hood stole this invention—we’ll call it the Golden Arrow—from the eccentric Professor Nottingham. Confused Robin Hood didn’t care what it was and brought it back because that is what he does. Of course, he got caught returning it and is now regarded as a hero. Both his Beloved Uncle and Unlikely Maid Marian think he’s wonderful.

So what would happen if someone else knew about the Golden Arrow? What about someone who already suspected what Confused Robin Hood was up to? If we create another Supporting Character, one who already suspected Confused Robin Hood was up to no good, one who already understood the power the Golden Arrow could bestow, and one who wanted it for himself so that he could rule the world, what would that character look like? What would that character do to replace Confused Robin Hood as the hero? What lengths would that character travel to come out on top?

That character would be a villain.

Even if your protagonist is something of an antihero, you still need a villain to balance out the story. You still need an antagonist to push the plot forward. Your villain is just as important as your hero. He needs the same amount of back story. He needs the same (if not more) amount of development. And he can’t just be evil. He has to have a motivation behind all of his choices. The really awesome bad guys aren’t evil. They’re just regular folks who had to make a choice.

So, just for continuity’s sake, I’m going to name our villain Sheriff.

And just to keep things moving in the romantic sense, I’m going to say that Confused Robin Hood, Unlikely Maid Marian, and the Sheriff all grew up together as good friends. And I’m going to say that Sheriff was always a just little kid who didn’t believe in mercy but because of the culture he was okay with stealing . . . just not when someone stole from him.

And let’s say he grew up to be a fairly influential business person in their area and is pursuing Unlikely Maid Marian, one, because she’s hot; and two, because he wants to make an inroad with Professor Nottingham. Why? Because Professor Nottingham knows the secret to the Golden Arrow and with it he can rule the world and keep law and order everywhere.

Let’s say that, as a lawman, Sheriff already suspected Confused Robin Hood of stealing and returning things. He just couldn’t ever pin it on him. Until the Golden Arrow incident. But let’s say that the Sheriff now believes that Confused Robin Hood holds the power to controlling the entire world because he thinks he unlocked the secret of the Golden Arrow.

So what would he do?

Well, one, he’s going to want to get the Golden Arrow.

Two, he’s going to want to get the secret from Confused Robin Hood.

Three, he’s going to want to use them both to obtain his goal.

He’ll make a plan, and he’ll start implementing it. But unless you’ve chosen to write your story from an Omniscient Third Person Point of View (we’ll talk about that later in the section on points of view), your reader isn’t going to know that. All your reader is going to know is that Sheriff starts appearing and things start going wrong.

So you’ll need to know how your main character is going to react to the unseen plans that the antagonist is implementing.

In our case, let’s say that Sheriff sneaks into Professor Nottingham’s house and kills him to obtain the Golden Arrow. As the hero of the area, Confused Robin Hood is asked to weigh in on the subject, and he tries to sound like he knows what he’s talking about for Unlikely Maid Marian’s sake.

In the mean time, some people can start becoming suspicious because this is the second time someone broke into the Professor’s house. And their first person of suspicion will be Confused Robin Hood because fame is fickle.

So as Confused Robin Hood and Sheriff try to catch the person who killed the Professor, more and more evidence starts pointing to Confused Robin Hood – because Sheriff keeps planting it. And Confused Robin Hood gets more and more nervous because he can’t defend himself because he did break into the Professor’s house.

After however many pieces of evidence point to Confused Robin Hood, the whole city is in such an uproar that he has to be put in jail to protect him. Meanwhile, Unlikely Maid Marian never doubts him, and he feels more and more like a heel. A judge gives him a lie detector test, and when they ask him if he broke into the Professor’s house to steal the Golden Arrow – he must answer yes.

That is Turning Point Two. Where the whole world gangs up against your main character. And his choice will either take him closer to his goal or cause him to fall farther away from it.

Part 7 will deal with the dreaded, overwhelming doom of the Point of No Return!