Читать книгу Original Plots - Bryan O'Neill - Страница 6

Great stories begin with a solid foundation. If the construct of a story we want to create can be broken up into five acts, you might be wondering how long those acts should be. Story length will depend on many factors including type of story (book or movie) and premise. What you need is the help of a story grid to organize thoughts, and information, as well as provide a fresh layout to make writing your story easier. Sentence structure can be placed in a diagram to find out different grammatical components. Stories can also be placed in a diagram to find out their story components. What the grids do is build information that we can later place within the Five Act Structure to create a story.

A premise is short main idea of your story. It is one of the most important single components of your entire work. It is a seed from which your story (after much time, money, and devotion), will grow into a tree. At the end you will have a nice big tree. People may look at it, and applaud you for your hard work. But what if the tree you grew is not the right one? What if what the audience needed was a palm tree but you just spent all this time putting your efforts into growing a maple tree? The last thing you want to do is start over after spending all this time and money on your work just to have it fail at the end. The key is a premise built on quality and details.

The reason why many stories fail is because their premise was poor to begin with, but someone thought it would be a good idea to take it and put $200 million behind it. Movies that fail in epic ways, ruin stuido reputations, actor careers, and waste the time of audiences. The sick thing is, so much of this waste could have easily been prevented if more thought was taken at the beginning.

Very simple questions like, “Is this premise going to work with an audience?” should be said over and over before the cameras are even turned on. Star power in Hollywood is not what it used to be. Big name actors and actresses can not “save” a feature or even draw people to the theater. If a story is bad, a story is bad, and the audience knows that. The story should not be based around an actor. The actors should always be in support of the plot. How can you tell the difference. Ask yourself if the story can stand alone without being acted out by anyone. Do the characters come alive off the page without anyone in mind to play them?

If the story is a true story, or based on a true story, then the premise will be sound, just make sure you do the needed research to back it up and get all the facts straight. Stay true to the source material and do not deviate much from it. If the work is comedy, then keep in mind that most comedy falls into three different types, physical comedy, social satire, parody, or a mix of all three.

With comedy, what is funny to one person may not be funny to the next. Here, research your audience. Make a point, but keep it light and easy. Social satire delivered in a heavy handed way will come off as preachy. Accidents and pratfall’s can be funny, but get old quick. Parodies not only need to know the subject matter they are making fun of, and also require the audience to have seen it before, otherwise they will not get the joke.

For any drama premise where one of the main characters die or strife or suffering happens, keep in mind that the world is a pretty dark place to begin with. We do not live in a perfect, happy word, and most people just want to read or see stories that entertain them, make them smile, or simply forget about “the real world” for awhile. What this means is the most successful stories from a critical and financial standpoint are going to be “feel good” type comedies or action adventures that transport an audience to another place, and hopefully, someplace original.

This is an important concept to understand. It is true, that heroes do not always survive or save the day. That is definitely a realistic concept, but even if the characters do not survive, some sort of positive concept like hope, or change could. Since we live in a world slanted with a billions of unhappy people, positive stories are going to do well. Down the road, if the Earth ever enters a period of utopia, peace, sunshine, rainbows and Unicorns, then you might see tragedy stories come back as popular. Until then, though, make sure you have a good reason for telling a tragic premise. Just keep in mind the road to success will be slightly tougher for a tragedy.

For a premise that is science fiction oriented, the key is also in the details. If a science fiction movie fails it is because it took itself too seriously and added death, or drama where it did not need to be, and did not add enough details to explain the mysteries. In most cases these stories fail because they end up asking more questions then they answer.

Once you have your well thought out premise, the next key is to avoid “Writer’s Block.” The case for creating story grids is a good one because they can effectively erase any writer’s block because you know where the story will go. Some may be able to start with a blank page and create a story from beginning to end with no outside help; I am not one of those people. I need some sort of outline for the story, the world, my locations, and my characters. The more information you have on these, the better, and story grids keep track of this.

A story grid creates this needed structure and outlines thoughts in a linear way. Granted stories do not have to be told in a linear fashion, but ultimately all stories are linear. You might have flashbacks that explain parts of a character’s back story or intentionally show parts of your story out of order, but there will be a linear story there if the pieces are rearranged back to chronological order. If you tell the story in pieces, your audience can piece together what happens, arranging the scattered pieces back into the linear arc that they need to get the full story. Even alternate universe stories are just story arcs running in parallel.

Story grids have been around for years. J. K. Rowling, author of the successful Harry Poter series, is said to have used story grids when writing her books. She used them to understand where the characters were in their story arcs from book to book, and as a quick reference for how their character traits flowed. Story grids break up the monumental task of story writing into smaller pieces that are easier to work with.

The term “grid” implies that the information is setup in a rigid, conformed way. Certainly the information will be easier to manage if it is represented in spreadsheets of some kind, be it a grid you make on paper, or a grid in a spreadsheet program on a computer. How you choose to record the information in your various grids is up to you. The idea is you are creating a database of information to pull from for your story so you can easily fill it in with information, and never run into writer’s block because you will know what to write.

The Story Outline Grid

The Five Act Structure lends itself well to a story grid. Before jumping right into a story there should be an outline to follow. For the grids, you can sketch out these grids by hand or use computer software to create them. This saves a lot of time, and is easily changeable. The grids are built to ask many questions that you fill in, then use as a resource to populate your story.

The first step of a stories creation is determining what the overall size is going to be. Since the grid is going to be an outline and not a rule, you can always change the number of pages later. There is no rule that states how long a book should be, nor will I be telling you what has to happen on each page. Typically, 300-700 pages is a reasonable size for a novel, but all that will changed depending on fonts used, pictures if added, or the physical book dimensions upon publication.

The idea is just to think about an overall size so you can construct your outline. Without knowing how long a book is going to be it could take years to complete and keep going and going, throwing characters into tangents. The story can become overwhelmingly big and focus can be lost.

The idea for your story will be deciding how many pages your story will be, then divide that by five acts. At 300 estimated pages, divided by five acts, would give us 60 pages per act. We take 60 pages per act and break that up into six chapters per act. Next, we need to think about chapter length. Five to fifteen pages per chapter is a good average to shoot for. Ten pages is a good average chapter length so ten pages times six chapters give us our 60 pages per act.

Now right off you might be saying, what if I end up having eleven pages instead of ten, or eight pages instead of ten. Or what if later I find I need more than six chapters to fill out and make a point for my first act? Then that is ok. Keep the chapter lengths consistent and up the size of the book if you need to.

With that in mind, already things are becoming a little easier. Instead of worrying how to write 300 pages from beginning to end and being overwhelmed, all we have to worry about is easily digestible writing portions.

You might even be wondering why I do not base a story’s length on the number of words written? That is certainly an option but not as an exact science. It is much easier to worry about act and chapter lengths then worrying about how many words make up different sections. One rule of thumb is there are 200 words per page, but even that is pretty arbitrary. Fiction novels can range anywhere from 50,000 words to 200,000 depending on the story.

If we start drawing lines in the sand and say there are 200 words per page, then a 300 page story would be about 60,000 words. I would rather break everything up into smaller sections and tell you to focus on the quality of your acts in 60 page chunks then tell you you have to have your first point of no return moment for your core group before you reach 12,000 words. It would not be exact. As long as you can stick to the grid I believe it is easier.

It is important to not get hung up on the numbers inside these particular grids. As you write and fill out your story you will find that the acts and chapter lengths vary; that is absolutely fine and expected. The idea is you create a mold for your story to grow then break that mold with your own originality.

As you continue to write, your chapters may change around and the length of those chapters will be varied. When the finished book is finally published, the number of overall pages will vary depending on font and your final physical book size. Story grids are simply meant to provide structure as an outline to be filled in.

Once an estimated story length is established, we need to outline chapter names and main ideas. Some authors simply list their chapters in order by number with no chapter titles as they write. If you end up having hundreds of chapters, I can understand that, but if you are writing a novel I feel this can be a missed opportunity.

Some use chapter (or episode) titles to clarify main ideas. Using chapter titles help the reader navigate the story better and quickly find areas of the story they enjoy. I would say if you find yourself writing a smaller story with 50 chapters or less, think about creating chapter titles instead or in addition to numbers.

Now that we have an estimated length of each chapter it is time for us to figure out what the story is going to be about. Keep in mind anything that goes into the story grid can be changed or modified later.

The idea is to get a handle on the pacing and consistency early. First include your story title. For the chapter ideas include character introductions and plot twists describing what the chapter is about. Once you have main ideas filled out chapter names will come easier. Ideally you would want to put these in a spreadsheet program, but writing it out works just as well. The basic story grid outline for a 300 page story would look like this:

Story Outline Grid (300 Page Story)

 (Your Story Title)

 Act 1: Exposition | Beginning

 Chapter 01 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 02 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 03 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 04 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 05 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 06 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Act 2: Rising Action | Plot Point 1

 Chapter 07 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 08 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 09 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 10 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 11 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 12 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Act 3: Climax | Middle

 Chapter 13 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 14 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 15 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 16 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 17 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 18 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Act 4: Falling Action | Plot Point 2

 Chapter 19 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 20 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 21 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 22 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 23 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 24 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Act 5: Denouement | Ending

 Chapter 25 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 26 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 27 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 28 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 29 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

 Chapter 30 (Chapter Name) (Chapter Idea)

A grid for movies and television, and a grid for books are located at the end of this chapter.

The World Grid

“Don’t put the cart before the horse,” means do things in the correct order. Stories work this way. It is easy to come up with compelling characters but most writers fail to build enough detail into the world that they populate.

The World Grid concept is a way to break down a stories environment and detail the setting. Instead of following a characters arc through a story the world arc follows the world setting within your story. Details in this grid may or may not ever show up in the story but remain for reference.

You will have to determine if your story needs this much work. Thinking about what properties the world your characters populate may not sound like much fun, but in a truly epic story it is needed, especially for science fiction. Even if your story is small and taking pace at one location, does it take place during a day, a week, a year?

This type of grid keeps track of setting details like the passage of time and the seasons. In epic stories entire worlds are often created and it is critical to keep track of this because it will dictate where your characters can go and travel. Here are some of the questions that need to be answered in a world story arc. This grid should also take into account smaller locations, from the world, to the country or province, to the kingdom, city, village, or town.

 ACT 1: Exposition | Beginning

 Where is this story taking place when Act 1 starts?

 Is the story taking place in a physical (world) or mental (dream) realm?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 If this world is not Earth, what are special traits or features of this world?

 What makes this place special?

 What kind of climate is there when Act 1 starts?

 What time of day is it when Act 1 starts?

 What time of year is it when Act 1 starts?

 Is the setting meant to be an obstacle for your characters?

 ACT 2: Rising Action | Plot Point 1

 Where is this story taking place when Act 2 starts?

 Is the story taking place in a physical (world) or mental (dream) realm?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 If this world is not Earth, what are special traits or features of this world?

 What makes this place special?

 What kind of climate is there when Act 2 starts?

 What time of day is it when Act 2 starts?

 What time of year is it when Act 2 starts?

 Is the setting meant to be an obstacle for your characters?

 ACT 3: Climax | Middle

 Where is this story taking place when Act 3 starts?

 Is the story taking place in a physical (world) or mental (dream) realm?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 If this world is not Earth, what are special traits or features of this world?

 What makes this place special?

 What kind of climate is there when Act 3 starts?

 What time of day is it when Act 3 starts?

 What time of year is it when Act 3 starts?

 Is the setting meant to be an obstacle for your characters?

 ACT 4: Falling Action | Plot Point 2

 Where is this story taking place when Act 4 starts?

 Is the story taking place in a physical (world) or mental (dream) realm?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 If this world is not Earth, what are special traits or features of this world?

 What makes this place special?

 What kind of climate is there when Act 4 starts?

 What time of day is it when Act 4 starts?

 What time of year is it when Act 4 starts?

 Is the setting meant to be an obstacle for your characters?

 ACT 5: Denouement | Ending

 Where is this story taking place when Act 5 starts?

 Is the story taking place in a physical (world) or mental (dream) realm?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 If this world is not Earth, what are special traits or features of this world?

 What makes this place special?

 What kind of climate is there when Act 5 starts?

 What time of day is it when Act 5 starts?

 What time of year is it when Act 5 starts?

 Is the setting meant to be an obstacle for your characters?

The Rules Grid

The Rules Grid is without a doubt one of the most overlooked and underdeveloped arcs in storytelling. Following the rules is ever fun, but for the purposes of your story, it is important. This grid is used mainly for plugging plot holes in your story. A plot hole is any state of inconsistency in your story. Lapses in where people are or what is going on and when can cause the continuity of a story to flounder. Plot holes in your story can cause an audience to lose track of what is going on; this leads to confidence failure, and any empathy that you have built may be in danger of disappearing due to confusion.

Stories that involve fantasy for example may take a creative license on the laws of physics. Anything can happen and it doesn’t have to make sense; however, stories that do take the time to craft out a rule structure are more likely to succeed in the long run.

One of my favorite movies is Back to the Future (1985) and illustrates how the rules story arc can come in handy.Time travel movies are notorious for breaking their own rules. Einstein’s General Relativity says you can not travel through time while areas of quantum physics say, given the right circumstances, it might be. The debate continues to rage on! For time travel movies there has to be a set of rules in place to govern what is and is not allowed in the story.

What happens if you go back in time and somehow prevent your own birth? This creates what is called a paradox which is a true statement that leads to a situation which defies logic. If you went back in time and prevented your own birth, how could you later go back in time in the first place? Depending on the writer there are many answers to a paradox. Having a set of rules for how it all works is a great idea if you want the story to make sense. For first Back to the Future movie, this worked.

In the movie Marty McFly goes back in time to 1955 and alters how his parents meet which changes his own existence. He is able to rectify the situation with his parents but their meeting happens a different way. This also changes the world Marty knows back in 1985. When Marty arrives back in 1985 his parents are together, but the life he knows it is different. The story works but you never find out what happened to the other timeline Marty left originally. Maybe it disappeared completely. Maybe it went on without Marty ever being born.

It is fine to add rules as your story goes on, but if the story is meant to be taken seriously you have to explain them. Audiences are expected to suspend belief in most cases, but rule adherence varies through the different genres. Different storys will have different sets of rules. My advice is be consistent.

An example of a movie that did a great job of following its own rules to critical and financial acclaim was Inception (2010). In that movie the main protagonist Dom Cobb is a specialist at dream sharing. A corporate mogul wants Cobb to plant an idea in a rivals mind. This concept called Inception is not easy to do. Cobb He assembles a team to help and they go through several layers of dreams to plant the idea.

Many movies tinker with the idea of exploring dreams, but what writer Christopher Nolan got right with Inception is making up and sticking to his own rules till the end. They never go into the details of the device that allows the dreams to be shared but along the course of the movie the characters do define how the dream sharing works first in practice, then in implementation. As the teams go deeper into the dream states knowing the rules and sticking to them help the story, creates detail, and pays off in the end.

The story was a tremendous critical and financial success. The takeaway here is when it comes to writing, creating your own rules and following them pays off in big ways. Sticking to your own rules cuts down on continuity errors and plot holes. The grid for keeping track of the rules would look something like this:

 ACT 1: Exposition | Beginning

 What are the rules or laws set for the settings you have created?

 What is the heiarchy of leadership for the beings in this world?

 Are there general rules that must be followed for a plot device to work?

 What possible outcomes if a character does not follow the set rules?

 What are the punishments or rewards for characters concerning rules?

 If alien in origin, how does the equipment or devices in your story work?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 ACT 2: Rising Action | Plot Point 1

 What are the rules or laws set for the settings you have created?

 What is the heiarchy of leadership for the beings in this world?

 Are there general rules that must be followed for a plot device to work?

 What possible outcomes if a character does not follow the set rules?

 What are the punishments or rewards for characters concerning rules?

 If alien in origin, how does the equipment or devices in your story work?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 ACT 3: Climax | Middle

 What are the rules or laws set for the settings you have created?

 What is the heiarchy of leadership for the beings in this world?

 Are there general rules that must be followed for a plot device to work?

 What possible outcomes if a character does not follow the set rules?

 What are the punishments or rewards for characters concerning rules?

 If alien in origin, how does the equipment or devices in your story work?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 ACT 4: Falling Action | Plot Point 2

 What are the rules or laws set for the settings you have created?

 What is the heiarchy of leadership for the beings in this world?

 Are there general rules that must be followed for a plot device to work?

 What possible outcomes if a character does not follow the set rules?

 What are the punishments or rewards for characters concerning rules?

 If alien in origi,n how does the equipment or devices in your story work?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

 ACT 5: Denouement | Ending

 What are the rules or laws set for the settings you have created?

 What is the heiarchy of leadership for the beings in this world?

 Are there general rules that must be followed for a plot device to work?

 What possible outcomes if a character does not follow the set rules?

 What are the punishments or rewards for characters concerning rules?

 If alien in origin, how does the equipment or devices in your story work?

 Is this story happening in our universe or somewhere else?

The Character Grid

Now it is time to build a grid for the characters. If our end goal is to build empathy a complete and fulfilling story arc for your main characters will need to be created. No character should be left behind! This grid keeps track of all the characters in your story.

 ACT 1: Exposition | Beginning

 What are the individual goals of these characters for Act 1?

 Where are these characters when Act 1 starts?

 What are the personal goals of the characters?

 What motivates these characters to act?

 What do these characters want for others?

 Are these characters in love or have a crush on anyone? If so who and why.

 What personal issues do these characters have?

 What special traits or powers do these characters have?

 Are these characters critical to the story?

 ACT 2: Rising Action | Plot Point 1

 What are the individual goals of these characters for Act 2?

 Where are these characters when Act 2 starts?

 What are the personal goals of the characters?

 What motivates these characters to act?

 What do these characters want for others?

 Are these characters in love or have a crush on anyone? If so who and why.

 What personal issues do these characters have?

 What special traits or powers do these characters have?

 Are these characters critical to the story?

 ACT 3: Climax | Middle

 What are the individual goals of these characters for Act 3?

 Where are these characters when Act 3 starts?

 What are the personal goals of the characters?

 What motivates these characters to act?

 What do these characters want for others?

 Are these characters in love or have a crush on anyone? If so who and why.

 What personal issues do these characters have?

 What special traits or powers do these characters have?

 Are these characters critical to the story?

 ACT 4: Falling Action | Plot Point 2

 What are the individual goals of these characters for Act 4?

 Where are these characters when Act 4 starts?

 What are the personal goals of the characters?

 What motivates these characters to act?

 What do these characters want for others?

 Are these characters in love or have a crush on anyone? If so who and why.

 What personal issues do these characters have?

 What special traits or powers do these characters have?

 Are these characters critical to the story?

 ACT 5: Denouement | Ending

 What are the individual goals of these characters for Act 5?

 Where are these characters when Act 5 starts?

 What are the personal goals of the characters?

 What motivates these characters to act?

 What do these characters want for others?

 Are these characters in love or have a crush on anyone? If so who and why.

 What personal issues do these characters have?

 What special traits or powers do these characters have?

 Are these characters critical to the story?

 Are all of the story arcs closed for each character?

At the beginning of this chapter I said great stories begin with a solid foundation. The Story Outline, World, Rules, and Character Grids represent great tools any storyteller should have. Simpler stories will never need this much detail, but true epics will. Even if you never use the information in your stories, having filled out these grids as best you can will give you a great knowledge base to work from. Filling out the grids will save you time and trouble later on because you will know what to write. Cutting down on plot holes, increasing consistency, and at best fighting writers block is what these grids are all about.