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Throughout the process of working on my debut novel, I’ve continued reading craft advice. So far, only one book actually made me stop and shout “You bastard, what have you just done to my novel?” and that would be John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller.
What’s my conflict with Truby? Conflict. He loves the stuff. Thinks everyone should be at odds with everyone else, even the love interest and the protagonist. Yes, lovers are an ‘opponent’ in disguise. Why? To wield a worldview at odds with the hero’s.
And once that notion dawns on you, you start looking askance at every character in your novel, wondering if they’re pulling their weight? Not plot-wise, but as counter-examples of how one should live their life. As agents to help get your point across.
Progressively Enriching Your Story
Initially, I only consciously appreciated reading catchy turns-of-phrase, beautiful style (e.g. 3rd edition Strunk & White, grammar rules aside), and a good dose of action.
Stories with passable description and dialog might still either fall flat or rouse the soul, everyone’s experienced that. And it’s due to qualities that go deeper into the human story-psyche. Not everyone knows what those mystery qualities are — could discern the herbs and spices at work — but we feel it when they’re missing.
Wit and style often proxy these deeper qualities, but an author needs more techniques and more design to succeed. So, I studied my early set of writing-advice books, and definitely built appreciation for the craft.
Thus began the early scenes for ‘The Curse of the Unholy Grail’.
Ah, but there’s always more ways to improve, aren’t there? Such as the unwelcome lessons about finding and nurturing theme. Happily, full-pass editing lends itself to amplifying themes, especially as themes are often uncovered only late.
Now I kind’a view theme as a not-so-optional thing, in part because of this pithy piece of writing advice.
“Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”
–Kurt Vonnegut
Of course, you don’t want to preach over this topic-you-care-about, and so you end up sneaking it in via theme.
How and Why to Spin the Conflict Web
With me so far? We have some moral themes in the story, themes reflecting our reason as writers for getting this story on the page to begin with. The hero will learn — and readers by watching him or her do so — that moral lesson.
No character, symbol, or plot detail should hit the page without the writer wondering if it can accrue to why the protagonist needs this lesson and how their life won’t get unstuck ’til they do. Not with overt monotony, but as a target of opportunity, say.
Enter Mr. Truby.
Our hero’s opponents exist to help us all learn the protagonist’s moral lesson. (We’ll focus just on that for this post.)
Opponents mustn’t be mere two-dimensional obstacles, rather embodiments of alternative moral solutions to the hero’s central problem. Opponents who are going about trying to solve the same moral dilemma, but by choosing different answers. And if they win, the hero loses.
In fact, Truby feels a story’s twists and turns mostly arise via these oppositions (or friendships).
Reading The Anatomy of Story shakes up constructing the roster of non-player-characters (NPCs). Not tumble-the-walls-of-Jerico shake (unless, of course, all your scenes were already written. Ahem!), but it will require some (re-)work.
When Truby describes the web-of-characters, what he really means is the electric fence of characters, with every pair-wise-combination of people experiencing some intrinsic amount of voltage between them.
Their approach to life needs to have some contrast to the protagonist’s. Everyone’s there as a kind of foil, reflecting-surface, contrast, temptation, or clarifier.
Great. How? First, Truby reminds us the author must “suggest your hero’s insight by the actions he takes leading up to the self-revelation.” He goes on to say “Most writers come at character all wrong. They start by listing all the traits of the hero, tell a story about him, and then somehow make him change at the end.” Instead, “begin not by focusing on your main character but by looking at all your characters together as part of an interconnected web.”
Then you compare each character to the hero and find differences you can bring to light in each. Or, in the case of some allies, provide a sounding-board that helps us grasp the protagonist. Your job is to “create a group of opponents (and allies) who force the hero to deal with the central moral problem. And each opponent is a variation on the theme; each deals with the same moral problem in a different way.”
Even your subplots exist mainly to contrast how the hero and the subplot-NPC deal with substantially the same problem or thematic issue in different ways (Dr. Jones deals with her off-her-meds-addled mother while our hero Dr. Smith is rebuilding his reputation after his own addiction, say).
In Truby’s view, we empathize with the protagonist for two reasons: their desire and the moral problems they face. Thus, all this what-are-others-doing stuff we set up will accrue to how the reader invests in the hero.
Compare how? Meaningful comparisons often occur along dimensions of the character’s weaknesses, need, desire, values, power/status/ability, and moral philosophy. Start comparing the protagonist with the main opponent, then the minor opponents, then the allies. For added richness, then compare the opponents with each other and allies with each other.
As mentioned, actions speak louder than words. Thus when the plot pits the hero against the opponent, you must show them manifesting their different world-views. With the scene’s PoV character (I use third-person-subjective), you can and should also show why the character acted this way … or at least why he/she thinks they did. Real motives may differ.
Scene-Edit Examples
My book, The Curse of the Unholy Grail, had finished developmental and scene editing, and I’d moved on to fixing typos and nixing flabby metaphors and the like. But then I read the Anatomy of Story with its upfront, foundational character-web activity (that’s the point where I grumbled, “John, you bastard!”, as mentioned earlier). Here’s a few scene repairs that ensued. (Spoilers ahead!)
Let’s take a simple theme: How do you wield monstrous power without yourself becoming monstrous? Nikki does this, in part, by valuing free will (in the grand sense, i.e. not enslaving nor tyrannizing nor murdering … unless someone tried to kill her first. They’re screwed.). The villain, Harlon Cord, on the other hand, rules by fear and subjugation and merciless exploitation.
In the boss-battle, Cord knows the dhampir will catch him and he can’t defeat her. Nikki’s tactic is to convince his men to give up, putting pressure on Cord to surrender (a not-very-murderous worldview). Cord’s tactic is to distract Nikki by throwing a live grenade into his own men (a quite-murderous worldview). The way the scene was originally written, Nikki laid waste to everybody and Cord lost, … but this didn’t show, in concrete ways, the difference in moral systems between the opponent and the protagonist. Saving the guards from their own boss’ grenade, demonstrates their differences dramatically. (And it also greased the wheels for their later cooperation, improving later scenes!)
In the temptation-in-the-desert scene, Lierre lays out a compelling argument that humanity is corrupt, a powerful hand is needed to fix things, and Nikki could wield that power. But Lierre is not above seducing her daughter, killing any mortal that gets too close to the Grail, and she shows angry impatience to attain absolute power. Nikki prefers distraction over bloodshed and fears losing herself to darkness so badly that she smuggles allies in to stop her if she fails to follow through (if she loses her free will or tries to take it from the world).
We’ve done big plot scenes but now we’re giving the reader two moral codes at work amid the scene. That’s richer than just popcorn-munching fight scenes.
Wrap up
As I said, today’s focus was on making and using the character web to give depth via contrast. Truby’s book discusses a whole slew of other techniques. In fact, it’s subtitle “22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller” refers to touchpoints that resonate with our psycho-biological wiring for story. They’re akin to the beats of Save the Cat or The Power of Myth, but span the dimensions of plot, character, story-world, and moral argument. The book’s definitely worth a read for aspiring authors. Leave a comment about your thoughts on this or other Trubian topics.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the post. And thanks for reading.
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