Part 7 Plot and Character
1354 Words
I. How the protagonists establish contact
1. Natural ways to establish contact:
1) Inherent relationship: Kinship (a relationship predestined at birth, such as an aunt and a niece).
2) Acquaintance:
a) Focus on place:
If two people come from the same school, then they are classmates.
If they come from the same company, then they are colleagues.
If they live in the same apartment building, then they are neighbors.
If they both go to the same hospital, then they might find common ground while in the waiting room and become friends.
b) Focus on something: a treasure is an excellent example of a focal point that could engage the protagonists.
c) Focus on purpose: in the same example, if the protagonists came together, the purpose would be to seek the treasure.
3) Bridging:
a) middleman:
· If the hero is the best friend of a heroine's brother, the brother would be the middle man, IF he was the one who "Bridged" the gap between the hero and the heroine.
· If the heroine helps an old woman who is the hero's grandmother, the grandmother will serve as the "Bridge."
4) Through a temporary relationship
a) Supply and demand relation
b) Lawyer -client Relationship
c) Doctor-Patient Relationship
d) Cooperation relationship
e) Business partners
5) Chance encounters
a) Congenial
· Meet and talk based on common interests such as a book club.
· Opportunities to help by chance: a hero might save a beautiful girl from danger.
b) Joy enemy
· Quarrel by chance: two people might want the same thing, such as the last X-box at Best Buy.
6) Reunion:
a) Meeting a long-lost friend
b) Celebrating someone's return
2. Tips:
· The difference between each person's character should determine the scope of their relationships.
· Typically, rich people go to five-star restaurants instead of going to fast-food restaurants.
· Poor people can't live next door to rich people.
If there are reasonable and special reasons, it will become a special conflict，the above tips can be ignored. For example, a bankrupt president might eat at a fast-food restaurant.
II how to sublimate the emotional line
1. Obverse promotion (sweet)
1) The hero is exactly the image that the heroine yearns for. To make this happen, we can first shape the heroine's life to make her yearn for specific characteristics in a man, and then create a hero that matches her desires.
2) The hero helps the heroine to solve the difficulties in life. For example, if one of the heroine's family members fell ill, the hero could help her by paying the hospital bill.
The nature of the help could tie into the protagonist's career. For example, a lawyer could help to resolve a lawsuit, or a doctor could save a life.
3) Opportunity to be together (their storylines should be deeply entangled):
· The author should set up more opportunities for the hero and heroine to be together to deepen their emotional connection. One way to do this is to have the couple cooperate for common purposes.
4) Help and guard:
Examples:
· During the tour, the girl sprained her ankle, and the boy carried the girl down the mountain.
· When the heroine is ill, the hero goes to visit her and cook for her.
5) Conditions of previous accumulation:
Examples:
· A budding romance or resentments that have been unresolved and held over many years.
· Ex-boyfriend and girlfriend relationship
2. Reverse promotion (sadness and twist)
1) Suspicion and misunderstanding
Example:
· With a couple, the insertion of a third party might cause one partner to seek a divorce. Suspicion might be the catalyst that triggers the climax of the story and push readers to the edge of their seats.
2) Family problem
Example:
· The substantial geographical gap between family members
· a lengthy feud between the two families.
3. The importance of supporting role
1) Obverse assist
a) Match up
Examples:
· The protagonist's relatives and friends deliberately create opportunities for a couple to meet each other.
· The child of the divorced protagonists might do something to make them consider getting back together.
b) The relationship between the heroine and the man in the supporting role breaks down.
Example:
· The man in the supporting role abandoned the heroine, or did something that disgusted the heroine, so the heroine no longer wants anything to do with him.
c) The protagonist is regarded as a substitute for a supporting role.
Example:
· The man in the supporting role might have been an old lover of the heroine, who has since died. If the hero happens to look like the heroin's old flame, she might be more inclined to like him.
2) Reverse assist--The function of an emotional enemy is to create conflicts. Conflicts promote the development of the plot.
a) Arousing emotion:
Example:
· The antagonist and the heroine are intimate together. When the hero sees them, the hero is stimulated to do something that he wouldn't normally do, like summon up the courage to confess his love to the heroine, or kill the antagonist.
Delay the end of the story. If the hero pursues the heroine, the story may end. To keep the story going, the author joins the rival to hinder the love of the hero and heroine.
III Tips: Characters need to change with the plot.
1. What is a Character arc?
The finest writing not only reveals true character, but arcs or changes that inner nature, for better or worse, over the course of the telling. [1]
A character arc is a transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. If a story has a character arc, the character begins as one sort of person and gradually transforms into a different kind of person in response to changing developments in the story.
Example: George is an outstanding responsible teacher at the beginning of the story, but by the end of the story, he becomes a fugitive. This shows the change of his character, and the justification for that change should be in the story arc.
People are shaped by their environment, experiences, and opportunities, but the change will not always be in one direction. The different things they meet and the different personalities of individuals will help the characters develop in diverse directions.
1) Positive change
The most common character arc is that of the character who overcomes external obstacles and internal defects to become a better person. In the process of achieving a goal, they should be hindered by lies or setbacks. Then, after overcoming difficulties, one can become strong and mate with one's true love.
2) Negative change
In contrast to positive change, negative change happens when characters make poor choices. By the end of their character arc, these characters are usually either die or in jail.
2. How do you create a character arc?
A driving element of the plots of many stories is that the main character seems to be unable to overcome opposing forces, possibly because they lack skills, knowledge, resources, or friends. If the main character is to overcome such obstacles, they must change, perhaps by learning new skills, to arrive at a higher sense of self-awareness, or capability. Main characters can achieve such self-awareness by interacting with their environment, by enlisting the help of mentors, by changing their viewpoint, or by some other method.
1) The story lays out the protagonist's characterization.
2) We're soon led into the heart of the character. His true nature is revealed as he chooses to take one action over another.
3) This deep nature is at odds with the outer countenance of the character, contrasting with it, if not contradicting it.
4) Having exposed the character's inner nature, the story puts greater and greater pressure on him to make more and more difficult choices.
5) By the climax of the story, these choices have profoundly changed the humanity of the character. [2]
References:
[[1]] Bell, James Scott (2004), Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, ISBN 1-58297-294-X
[[2]] Robert McKee (1997), STORY: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting, published by arrangement with It Books, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.
BY Blair
- Writer
