Month: August 2021

Plot A Novel Like a Hero

~ Jack ~ 4 Comments
True Grit. A classic Western novel by Charles Portis. Both movies, this one (1969) and its remake (2010), did an excellent job of staying true to Portis’s work.

If you’ve ever read the novels True Grit or The Wizard of Oz, or seen the movies based on them, you’re familiar with the hero’s journey plot structure. It’s sometimes referred to as monomyth and was described in Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). He studied stories and myths from throughout the world and from this, he discovered three common elements which he set forth in his book.  

In The Writer’s Journey, Hollywood consultant Christopher Vogler wrote an updated version of this structure. Hollywood uses it a lot. We’ll follow Mister Vogler’s version in this post.

ACT I

Stage One: The Ordinary World

The hero lives an ordinary life in an ordinary world.

Stage Two: The Call to Adventure

The hero’s life gets disrupted when he/she is called to solve a problem, face a  challenge, or go on an adventure. The stakes are high and the consequences serious if the hero doesn’t accept the call. Mattie Ross’s life is disrupted in True Grit when Tom Chaney kills her father. If she doesn’t get justice for him and find someone to help her get revenge, Chaney may kill again.

Stage Three: Refusal of the Call

For reasons the hero believes are valid, he/she either hesitates or refuses the call. In Rocky, when Apollo Creed challenges him to a championship bout, Rocky Balboa makes excuses and refuses. Later, however, he changes his mind  and agrees to fight.

Stage Four: The Mentor

The hero meets a mentor, who is a teacher or guide. Deputy Marshal Rooster Cogburn becomes the mentor for young Mattie.

Stage Five: Crossing the Threshold

The hero sets out on an adventure. To Rooster’s and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf’s dismay, Mattie follows them when they try to leave Fort Smith without her to  pursue her Chaney. Eventually, though grudgingly, they accept her. So, Mattie crosses the threshold and sets out on her adventure. She cannot return home until she brings Tom Chaney to justice.

Mattie Ross “crosses the threshold.” She follows Rooster and LeBoeuf and sets out on her adventure.

ACT II

Stage Six: Tests, Allies, and Enemies

The hero enters a new kind of world, encounters numerous conflicts and tests. These encounters help the hero grow and change. The hero meets villains and finds new friends. Mattie’s new friends become Rooster and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. She also meets the outlaw gang which Chaney has joined.

Stage Seven: Approach to Inmost Cave

This is the story’s second threshold, and it’s a dangerous place. The approach is  when the hero makes plans on how to deal with it. Mattie gets captured by Chaney; Rooster and LaBoeuf must help her escape.

Stage Eight: The Ordeal

Here, the suspense and tension are heightened. After Mattie kills Tom Chaney,  her gun’s recoil kicks her into a pit full of rattlesnakes. Her arm is broken and a rattler bites her in the hand. Will she get rescued before she dies?

Stage Nine: Reward

LaBoeuf and Rooster rescue her. Her rescue is her reward.

Mattie approaches the “inmost cave.” She shoots and wounds Tom Chaney, but Chaney’s gang captures her within minutes.

ACT III

Stage Ten: The Road Back

The hero still has to get back to a normal life. Mattie, having been bitten by the snake, isn’t out of the woods yet. She needs medical attention, so Rooster carries her on his  horse at a fast gallop back to Fort Smith.

Stage Eleven: Resurrection

In this stage, the hero faces a final challenge. If you read the book (I don’t recall this doctor’s scene in the movies), you’ll learn about Mattie’s final fight for her life. She’s in a stupor. The doctor at Fort Smith gives her morphine and amputates her arm. We see her amputated arm in the remake, as shown in the scene below. In John Wayne’s version, Mattie’s arm isn’t amputated. In this regard, the remake is truer to the book, though both versions stayed pretty true to the novel– a reason why I love both films!

Stage Twelve: Return With the Elixir

The hero returns to an ordinary life. Mattie survives her snakebite, never marries, but resumes a normal life.

Matiie has returned home and to a normal life. Years later, she meets two famous former outlaws–Cole Younger and Frank James, who are now part of a Wild West show.

Mister Vogler advises authors not to follow this structure “too precisely.” Vary the order of the stages and work in the story’s details. This story should also be written so seamlessly that readers don’t notice that this structure is being followed.

Bibliography

Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 2nd Edition, Studio City, CA., Michael Wiese Productions, First Printing October 1998.

Plot a Novel Like Aristotle

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File:Aristotle Altemps Inv8575.jpg

“A whole story is what has a beginning, a middle, and an end.” Aristotle, in Poetics

Plot structure is as old as old Aristotle. Although he wrote the above quote about drama, it also holds true for fiction. It’s the classic three-act structure many novelists follow; other authors put their own twists on it. Before experimenting, though, it’s important to understand how this formula works. Let’s look at Aristotle’s structure as though our characters are climbing a mountain.

Act One: The Beginning, or Setup

At the mountain’s base, we have the beginning. It introduces the setting, the hero and villain, and the tone. It immediately draws readers into the story, includes conflict and begins in medias res (Latin: in the middle of things). That is, in the middle of the conflict and action.

The hero must have an important goal or objective, and the villain must try to prevent the hero from realizing his goal.  Also, readers should care about the characters and what happens to them.

An inciting incident disrupts the hero’s world, and he gets involved in its event. He starts “climbing the mountain,” for he cannot go back. This incident may not happen in the first scene or first chapter, but it must happen in Act One. As the main character struggles through it–“up the mountain”– he moves toward the middle of the story and into Act Two.

Act Two: The Middle, or Confrontation

The villain does everything he can think of to stop the hero from reaching his goal–the mountaintop. Yet our hero continues climbing and struggling against him and his obstacles. Each obstacle the hero encounters should be harder than the previous one, and the stakes higher, ramping up tension, with setbacks (stumbles down the mountain) and regrouping.

Another way to show conflict is internal — the hero’s inner battles that must be fought before reaching his goal. In C.S. Forester’s novel, Greyhound (original title, The Good Shepherd), an American destroyer captain, Commander George Krause, commands the naval escorts shepherding merchant vessels across the Atlantic during World War Two. Krause doesn’t just fight Nazi submarines, though. He also battles self-doubts, personal demons, and physical and mental weariness. Commander Krause’s internal and external conflicts (the battles with U-boats) keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Near the end of the book, Krause and his ships are low on fuel and ammunition. Will he and his ships survive the enemy’s wolfpack? This is the reader’s main concern.

As we see from this, Commander Krause’s stakes are high: life or death for him and his crew, the sailors in the other naval vessels he commands, and the lives of the merchant mariners he escorts. Also, England’s need for the supplies the merchant ships carry so it can keep fighting Hitler.

Are your hero’s stakes high enough? Will your hero be harmed in some way if his goal isn’t met? If not, the stakes aren’t serious enough.

Also, do we care about our hero? We care about Commander Krause for lots of reasons. He’s an honorable man, this is first trip across the Atlantic in command of a naval squadron, and he grieves over Evelyn, his wife who left him for another man. We want him to succeed.

Act Three: The End, or The Resolution

Alas, hero and villain go at each other on the mountaintop—the story’s climax. Conflicts come to a head and issues are resolved. Then the hero proceeds down an easy path with falling action to the mountain’s base as his life returns to normal. After a tense and exhausting journey fighting Nazi U-boats and protecting merchant ships, Commander Krause finally gets the sleep he desperately needs.

By the end of Act Three, the main character(s) should be changed, either in a positive or negative way. This is called the Character Arc. Author K.M. Weiland, in her excellent book Creating Character Arcs., mentions a third arc she calls the Flat Arc. We’ll discuss the Character Arc in another post at a later time.

Next week, we’ll look at a different plot structure.

Cut the Clutter: Watch Out for Boxcars!

~ Jack ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes, when I stop for a passing train, I’m reminded of prepositional phrases. For me, boxcars are a metaphor for them. As the cars rattle past, I imagine a long sentence coupled together with one prepositional phrase after another. Of course, we need to use them, but if we have too many strung together like boxcars our prose suffers. It sounds choppy, even mechanical and forced, and makes for uninteresting reading.

What is a prepositional phrase? It’s a phrase that begins with a preposition (a word that shows movement or direction) and ends with a noun or pronoun.

A few examples: on, in, into, onto, of, at, etc. More can be found online or in a good grammar book.

Let’s look at a sentence to see what I mean.

Julie sat at her desk beside a window and looked out it to see a swallow flapping in a nest in a tree beside a brook. (6 prepositional phrases/26 words)

  1. at her desk
  2. beside a window
  3. out it
  4. in a nest
  5. in a tree
  6. beside a brook

Revision:

Julie sat at her desk and looked out her window to see a swallow enjoying her treetop nest beside a brook. (3 prepositional phrases/21 words)

In this revision, after a little thought, I was able to reduce my prepositional phrases from six to three as well as make the sentence more concise by cutting out five words.

When to Keep Prepositional Phrases in Our Sentences

  1. When they’re necessary for sentence clarity.
  2. When we want to slow down our story’s pace

Rule of Thumb: Whenever we can revise to delete them, do so. Use them, but try to keep them to a minimum. Too many prepositional phrases strung together like boxcars on a train clutter our prose.

Try This Exercise

The sentence below has five prepositional phrases in italics. How many can you revise?  I’d love to see your revisions in the comments.

Doris knocked on the door before she stepped into the house with a basket full of flowers to give to her grandmother.

SEE ALSO: Edit Strings of Prepositional Phrases – Writing Commons

Cut the Clutter: Nouns and Verbs

~ Jack ~ 6 Comments
Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Pexels.com

I own hundreds of draft horses. I keep them in my stables. They’re so strong they can do the work of two, three, or even more…adjectives and adverbs. See, my draft horses are concrete nouns and dynamic action verbs, and my stables are my dictionary and thesaurus. They come whenever I ask them to, and they make my sentences stronger, more visual, and more concise. If I choose them wisely, they’ll always pull their weight.

Let’s look at some examples.

SENTENCE: The little dog ran very fast across the street.

First Revision: The Chihuahua ran very fast across the street.

Things to Notice

  • I capitalized Chihuahua. Why? Because Chihuahua is a geographical region in Mexico.  When dog breeds have a geographical region as part of their breed designation, the breed is capitalized. On the other hand, a breed without a geographical region as part of their designation is not capitalized. An example of this would be border collie.
  • The world is full of little dogs, so the adjective little weakens the sentence. I solved thisissue by using a “drafthorse” noun—the concrete noun Chihuahua. Being this specific creates an image in readers’ minds and cuts the sentence down by one word.
  • Chihuahua, then, pulls the adjective’s weight.
Photo by Chait Goli on Pexels.com

Second Revision: The Chihuahua sprinted across the street.

Things to Notice

  • In the example sentence I used an adverb, very, to modify a general verb, ran.
  • To solve this issue and get rid of that tired old, overused and often unnecessary adverb, I used a strong, dynamic “draft horse” verb—sprinted.

By using strong concrete nouns and dynamic action verbs, then, we can cut the clutter of adjectives and adverbs. But are there times when we need to use these modifiers? Of course, though some writers may disagree. If they can help readers visualize the noun or verb, use them. Just be sure to get rid of those that aren’t needed.  

When to Use Adjectives and Adverbs

A Few Examples

While I drove to Dallas, two black crows flew past my car.

  Here, the adjective isn’t needed because all crows in the United States are black.

  • The black standard poodle darted across the street.

 This adjective is fine because not all standard poodles are black. The adjective helps create a clear image in readers’ minds.

  • She whispered softly to me…

 The adverb softly isn’t needed because all whispers are typically soft.

  • She whispered loudly to me.

 The adverb loudly as used here is fine because whispers are, by definition, soft. So loud isn’t a way people typically whisper. Sometimes, though, people do whisper louder than usual. Thus, the adverb enhances the sound. However, there are also possible synonyms, such as stage whisper or audible whisper. Either of these synonyms would work as well.

When reviewing a manuscript, pay close attention to the adjectives and adverbs. Can they be deleted through the use of stronger nouns and verbs? If you cannot find stronger nouns and verbs to replace them, keep the modifiers. If you can find stronger nouns and verbs to replace them, get rid of the modifiers.  

Cut the Clutter: Redundancies

~ Jack ~ 4 Comments

Through careful examination of our first drafts, we writers must keep alert for redundancies. Redundancies are words that serve no useful purpose toward sentence clarity. They can be repetitive or just hangers on like wedding cans on a bride and groom’s getaway car. They clutter our prose and can bore/irritate our readers. Whenever we spot them, delete them to strengthen our sentences.

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EXAMPLES OF REDUNDANCIES

Jane pedaled all the way to town on her bicycle.

If Jane pedaled to town, then all the way is understood, and thus it’s redundant.

Both Joe and Bill will go fishing tomorrow.

The word both isn’t needed because it’s understood.

So, as you revise, ask yourself this: Does each sentence I wrote need every word I used? Can I get rid of some words or phrases without affecting my sentences’ meanings? If you have such words or phrases, get rid of them. Here are a few to watch out for, though the list of redundant words is huge. 

  • Add up

Let me add up the price and I’ll give you the cost of the groceries.           

(Why is up needed for greater sentence clarity? I cannot think of a reason.)

  • Ask a question

  I want to ask everyone a question about that tractor.

  (What else does a person ask besides a question?)

  • Actually

Actually, it’s true the dog bit my sister.

(It’s either true or not true, so actually isn’t needed.)

  • Follow after

  Jim follows after Joe in the lineup.

(If Jim follows, then after is understood.)

  • Past experience

Past experience proved to John that he couldn’t dance.

(If experience proved something to John, then past is understood.)

  • Very old

My grandfather lived to be a very old man.

(This word very, in numerous cases, isn’t needed. Either my grandfather was old or he wasn’t, no very about it.)

Two Internet Sites

Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Many internet sites have lists of redundant words. Here’s two of them.

Redundant-Words.pdf (simplystatedbusiness.com).

Redundancies 101: 400+ Redundant Words to Avoid in Writing (kathysteinemann.com)

Tautology and Pleonasm

Tautology

        Definition: Needlessly repeating what’s already been said.

He is his own worst enemy.

He is his worst enemy.

She is my personal assistant.

She is my assistant.

He gave a brief glance at the newspaper.

He glanced at the newspaper.

Pleonasm

Definition: Words in a sentence that don’t contribute to its meaning.

Based on the fact that I grew up on the coast, hurricanes don’t frighten me.

Because I grew up on the coast, hurricanes don’t frighten me.

In my opinion, I think my high school team won’t have a good season this year.

I think my high school won’t have a good season this year.

Watch out for redundancies in your revisions. They often sneak up on writers, especially in first drafts