Welcome to the whole story… or at least a chance to step back from looking at single aspects of writing, like the last two Plot-Device posts did. Now that we’ve explored how characters’ movement and knowledge keep changing how the story works—and the ways each ends up reshaping the tale—it’s time to look at a third aspect and see how they all fit together to build a story. I call this third quarter of the Plot Device, Strength.
(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)
(“Strength? What if my story only has a bit of fighting in it?” comes the voice from the back row.)
I’ll admit it, I’ve never had a perfect name for this one. That’s because it takes in every component in the story world that doesn’t fall into the other three groups.
“Strength” could be any tool or resource characters use to make a change in the story, and whatever’s in the story that gives them that opening. A hammer can break down a door, or nails can put it back up—or it could be someone having the muscle to smash that door, or how fast someone’s tiring from the room being on fire, or the fact that there’s a door there to smash and not just another stretch of wall. It does usually means physical “things,” but there’s also room for some abstract power in the grouping; if our hero’s goal is to write an unforgettable song, “strength” might be inspiration, time to work on it, and probably years of study or experience so he’s ready to write.
But the reason I group all these together is to tease out the other Plot Device aspects separate from them, and let them work in the ways we covered in the other posts. Our musician may test out and “learn” which chords work for his song, but that still works better as working through the songwriting’s Strength on its own terms. Meanwhile if part of the process is hearing one musical style and remembering it’s the way he always wanted to sing, that might open up things like:
- Since he only has to hear that sound again once, it’s Knowledge—and like we’ve seen, it can have a whole investigation to track it down, or a theme-friendly depth of learning what kind of musician he’d rather be.
- If he has to go to a hundred clubs before he hears it, that’s Movement’s way of spreading the story out, and giving him a chance to stumble into friends and enemies on the way.
Or there’s Motive—but that’s for the next post. Combining these two with Strengths is fun enough.
Finding Strength factors can be trickier than it looks, with so much weighing into it. My rule of thumb is:
Everything characters deal with is a lock; some just have keys that are harder to get....
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- The “locks”: look on all sides for what makes anything a weak link, or ready to change. Small-scale example: look left and right and all through the building for where there might be a door someone can try to open. (Are there windows? Or are the doors so reinforced it’s easier to smash the wall?)
- Don’t forget, what’s changing on its own: from tides coming in and batteries dimming, to politics changing as whole generations fade away. Or, what times are they just not there (or some rare thing is) and that changes the mix?
- The “keys”: what tools, resources, skills, possible allies, and so on are out there that can change one of those—enable it, fix it, whatever you need?
- Yes, those keys might need components to build them, or bargaining chips to get someone involved, that break a simple process down into more scenes. We’ve all seen stories plotted like that, but they make sense if you don’t take them for granted.
- Plan B, C… You’ll always come up with a few locks and keys that might work, and some that would have worked if the conditions weren’t forbidding them, and probably a few that sound beyond crazy. Any of those are good for that moment when our hero shows he’s trying to think of everything—or of course if you have any time for Things To Go Wrong.
- The other guys, and forces. Remember to check all the above for how every other character (like the villain) is busy looking for their own shot at their own goals, and how all characters have changes around them even if nobody’s taking advantage of them. The hero has to sleep too, and if our villain knows where…
- Strong enough? Once those Strengths start to come together, you can write two ways: You can run a fight, surgery, or any other scene with the classic suspense of whether they’ll actually win. Or you can keep all the tension on the plot twists just before that, on just who’ll get the right tool or enemy attack there in time. (But then, I like to have the outcome hanging on skill and then keep changing the rules…)
Again, this the purely Strength side of it. You might have the perfect “key” that our hero just doesn’t Know about, or can’t Move out to get. Because it’s that combination, taking those Strength points and pacing them out with Knowledge and Movement (and all the smaller cycles within those) that really starts to look like a story. In fact it starts to look like a treasure map, but one that does justice to the complications you’d have trying to follow it.
The Treasure Map of Oz
Time to see how these work together. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s goal is simple: getting home. The Strength to do that turns out to be in her magic shoes (silver or ruby, depending on your choice of media) and her love of family to make them work. But that’s the Plan B, since there’s also the Wizard—
(There’s that back-row voice again: “Her goal is getting home? Doesn’t that make all of this Movement?” Well yes, it could be called that, but that’s a move she doesn’t start until the story’s end. The tale’s Movement parts aren’t the flight to Kansas and whatever happens on the way, they’re her journey to find Strengths that could let her go.)
So Dorothy’s quest is to discover the depth of love (Strength) to work those shoes… after she stops relying on the Strength of the Wizard. In fact the Wizard’s offering two ways out: a perfectly good balloon ride (that turns out to be too time-sensitive for a girl with a dog-shaped Deus Ex Machina), and before that his “magic” that’s a red herring—a bit of Knowledge plotting. But first, just to learn about that “Strength” she has to go and claim another Strength, by beating the Witch.
And those several Strengths are scattered over Oz—imagine how much shorter the tale would be if the Wizard and Witch were right there when she landed with the Munchkins, ready to fight out their differences with her in one busy scene! Instead it’s that Movement (and the missing Knowledge about the Wizard) that spreads the story out on the way to those Strengths; it’s what gives her time to meet her three friends, dodge the Witch’s attacks (our villain doesn’t miss her chances to use own Strength), and of course build up the Strength she’ll really need. And all those journeys, discoveries, and fights are made up of their own combinations of these—the Tin Woodsman even gets to break down a door.
Other stories are their own mix of the same elements. A thriller might turn on getting hold of a bloody shirt for evidence, layered over with the trail of Knowledge to find it, the Movement to get to each clue, and the Strength to reach them and come out alive. A business story could be gathering the resources to launch that billion-dollar idea; a monster hunt needs get hold of its silver bullets and then track down and shoot the werewolf.
(“But that isn’t ALL the story! Why is Dorothy even chased by the Witch, why’d the Wizard send her after her, why are her friends and her home so important—”)
I know. That’s the last piece of the Plot Device puzzle. Strength may give us pieces that Knowledge and Movement lay out, but we all know the thing that really aligns them all, and makes the story mean something. So next week: Motive.
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