Okay! So! Alright, let's... let's get started. Alright, so... I was a little bit more prepared
this time. Was anyone... is anyone here who was not here last week? Right, 'cuz we had
a lesson about different ways of plotting your stories, different methods of figuring
out what you're going to write. Today we're going to be talking about sort of the same
thing, but more about what, exactly, you do to make a good story while you're doing it.
I don't know how best to explain it, but we're going to be talking about a few of these things:
three-act structure, seven-point structure, and the MICE quotient, which you might have
heard something of. So, first of all: there's different ways to tell stories, and let's
talk about this first. Does anyone want to, actually no. I've got this first one.
You have a pointer? I do!
Wow. I'm very prepared.
So, this is representing the Western, I don't know what the title of it is, but it's basically
what we're used to in novels and any story of any length, the plot. And this is what
we read in all our books, almost all of our books, and it's what we're, what we usually
think of when we think of story structure, when writing. Um, a little bit different than
that is short stories. Did anyone actually read my story for preparation?
I read it during the, the... the whole time Nice!
I read the first moments!
Anyway, you didn't actually have to, but thank you. Basically, the way you tell a story in
a short story is a little bit different. You don't go into as much detail, and you just
basically cover what you have to cover and no more. The long story format is a lot more
involved. You tend to generally cover everything at some point. You spell everything out instead
of leaving anything, really, unsaid. Now, completely different than that, basically
what defines this and, well, both of these, is that they can be split up into a three-act
structure. Or one of these other structures that we're going to be talking about today.
Basically, this is what we're going to be talking about the rest of the time. So, just
for information reasons, different than that is what we might call Eastern storytelling.
Animes tell it like this. Their stories can't be split up into the three-act structure.
Basically, you all know this pattern if you've watched anime, that you know, you have this
main character and some friends, the main character's strong, but he doesn't ever come
in until when he's needed. They work their way through different challenges on their
way up to the bigger challenge. And they're always looking ahead to "that thing we need
to stop there". The whole time they are acting towards a goal. Against impossible odds, and
they grow stronger in order to beat those odds, and that's the pattern of Eastern storytelling,
which, uh, you also kinda run into that with a few fanfictions you read. It's not very
common, because it doesn't quite translate as well to a open-and-shut story, just text.
Um, another one. It's kind of unique to anything we post online, is serially-published stories.
Basically, stories that, they might be planned, but they're not, they just keep going as long
as the author wants them to, and stuff just happens episodically. Anyone know this story?
Yes. Which one is it?
Diaries of a Madman.
Yes. It is the longest-running story on Fimfiction, and it's really good.
Longest single story. There's a series that's longer.
On Fimfiction.
Oh, yeah. Single story. Couple million words?
I think it's like two point three.
It's like, a hundred and thirty-some odd chapters, and each one of them's ten thousand words.
Give me a second and I can tell you exactly once I find it.
Just two of those chapters is the length of my longest story.
Up to date, I don't think he has a single chapter that is less than ten thousand words.
Yeah. Anyway, it's been going for like, two years now, or longer, even. And, um, he's
got kind of an overarching story, but really, it's just about the character going on adventures.
Things just happen and there's not like, an overarching beginning and end, and there's
not, you can't divide it into three acts, because each arc has its own act, and you
see this in other long stories, especially ones that we have in our fandom, or ones that
are published online. Just for fun, you guys all familiar with Fallout: Equestria?
Heard of it.
You've heard of it.
I've read the first half.
How many people have read it? Wow. You guys should, it's really, really good. I was convinced
for like, a year and a half that Brandon Sanderson was the secret writer of it, but then I found
out that Kkat was a girl.
Wait...
The author.
Wait, wow.
Yeah.
That is impressive.
Alright, so, um... the original Fallout: Equestria is very much a Western style. Western Traditional
or whatever you want to call it. It's... it has a beginning and an end, and it follows
a predictable pattern to that end, and it follows the structures that we've talked about.
You all know Project Horizons, the spin-off one by a different author? That's even longer?
Heard of it.
It's like twice as long.
Like Wheel of Time.
It's just as good, in my opinion, I finished it. Um, that one tells stories more like this.
It has an overarching storyline, but it doesn't tell it the same way that Fallout: Equestria
tells its main storyline. It's a lot more episodic. They cover different challenges,
kind of like Eastern storytelling. They have multiple conflicts, multiple villains, they
tackle each of them very... they run into them like, all the time, but when they finally
get around to resolving certain conflicts, they do it one at a time. This big one, okay,
we've finished that one. This big one, and then this big one. And it's different. So,
it's really just for awareness. So next time you read something really long, think about
it to yourself what kind of story it's telling, and how it's telling it. Alright, so let's
get into, uh, why is this thing still up here? Hold on, there we go. Alright, so first one:
the Three-Act Structure. Does anyone, everyone's familiar with that, does anyone not know it?
Okay, so most everyone does, the basics of it, at least? I'm gonna say, the three-act
structure is not my favorite. I don't think it applies as universally, or it's not as
obvious pointing it out, but there's a, um, pretty much any traditional-style story that
you read or watch, or whatever, can be split up into three basic part. They're not going
to be, all the time, of equal lengths. Sometimes they are. But, basically, it's a beginning,
middle, and ending. And the best way I've heard it described is in the first act, you
run your characters up a tree. They're running away from a threat, they're just reacting
to whatever the conflict is. If there's a bad guy, the bad guy is usually carrying out
his plan, people are just starting to notice it, and so by the end of Act One, they're
stuck in a tree, and they're, nothing really too important happens, but while they're up
there, they're having rocks thrown at them. They're in danger, even though they're safe
at the moment, but they can't stay there forever. Basically, it's the middle part, it can be
just normal life, depending on the story. Not everything is, you know, peril all the
time. The Third Act is getting them down from the tree to go tackle the threat. So, it's
the climax, it's the point, basically, somewhere in the middle of Act Two there's gonna be
a point where your characters stop reacting and start acting, they start being proactive.
So, today we're going to be talking a lot about Harry Potter, 'cuz it makes such a wonderful
illustration of all these things. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone can be split up,
like I said, wonderfully, into three acts. First act, Harry is being introduced into
this world, and his friends are in, they're just like, "Whoah! Look at these staircases!
They're doing cool stuff, and everything's magic! Wow!" But they're starting to notice
the clues that something not quite right is going on. Act Two, they're used to the world,
they've found their place in it, and things are starting to heat up. They're starting
to realize, "Wow, we need to do something about this." Act Three, they go for it. In
Harry Potter, Act Three pretty much starts when they realize, "We need to go down the
trapdoor." Actually, no, it starts earlier than that when we realize, "Hey, we need to
talk to somebody about this, we've found this out, some thing no one else knows. We need
to..." Is anyone here not familiar with the story of Harry Potter, before I go too far
with this? Good, okay, cool. Awesome. Alright, Next way of looking at a story, the MICE quotient.
Does anyone know this? No one does? Okay, so you've heard of it. It took me a while
to quite understand it. So, this is Orson Scott Card's method that he has explained
in a couple of books, like How to Write Science Fiction, I think is one of the books. Um,
it's not about mice, or math.
That would be adorable.
What it is, it's an acronym. It stands for "Millieu, Idea, Character, and Event." And
basically, what these are, they're less about, like, the order of a story and like, when
things happen, or what exactly is happening, they're more about what the story is about.
It's basically four different things that you can write a story about, that can be a
plot arc. Millieu is a French word, don't worry about that, it's basically setting.
I'm pretty sure that he only picked "millieu" so it would be an "M" and so it wouldn't be,
like, "SICE", it would be something memorable, you know, "MICE." Anyway, Millieu is setting.
When a story is about setting, it ends when the new setting is introduced, or sorry, it
begins when a new setting is introduced, it ends when they leave that setting. So basically,
when the character leaves home, the story starts. Or, the Millieu story starts, the
Millieu plot. When they leave, when they go back home, the plot ends. Or, maybe it's when
they go to a new place, I don't know. Yeah, so Alice in Wonderland is a classic Millieu
story. The real story begins when she goes to Wonderland, it leaves when she leaves.
Even though there's stuff before and after, Wonderland has its own arc, basically. She's
exploring it. Other examples, The Hobbit, he leaves the Shire, goes back home. Same
with Lord of the Rings. Anyone have any other things that pop in their mind?
Narnia.
Narnia! Very good, yeah. That's awesome, I never thought about that one. Anyone else?
Does this make sense? Alright, Idea is another kind of, well it's even more obvious. Basically,
the Idea plot starts when you ask a question, and it ends when you answer the question.
Mystery stories are almost exclusively Idea plots at the center. Sherlock Holmes. Um,
so, you know, at the beginning, even thought there's some introductory stuff, the real
story starts, "Who did this? How did it happen?" and it ends when we find out why, and how,
and maybe we confront the person, and we gotcha. Character. This is the most central of all
of them. Modern writing, you know, you've all read the classic stories, and they're
just kind of like weird and boring? A lot of it's because we're used to, in all our
stories, having a Character plot at the center. We're used to watching the character grow,
you know, seeing things from their perspective, having an arc pretty much all about them,
and their personality, their experiences, and the way they view things. So, for instance,
Harry Potter, the entire thing, instead of being the story about the struggle of good
versus evil, the story of the magical world, it's a story about Harry, at the center of
everything else.
It's called "Harry Potter."
It is! Yeah. It's not "Hogwarts," that's not the title of the series, it's not...
It's not "Beating Voldemort."
Yeah. "Stopping Voldemort."
"Hermione and Her Awesome Friends."
So, Character's really important, so remember that. Event is pretty self-explanatory. The
plot starts when something happens, or maybe when something doesn't happen that's supposed
to happen, it's basically when the status quo is broken, the Event plot starts, and
it ends when the status quo is re-established, or they have a new one.
Has anyone ever read the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson?
Has anyone not read it in this room?
It's a great example of that.
Of Event? It definitely is. When you get to the end of the series, that is.
At the end of the third book, yes.
I think it kind of covers all four of those bases, though.
It does! So, that's what I was gonna talk about. Is this, uh... yes! So! You might notice
that not every story is limited to one. Now, short stories, really short stories, they
usually just focus on one, and they don't have to tell the others, 'cuz they don't have
time, or room, or whatever. Long stories, like full novels, they usually have all four.
Basically, the longer a story is, the more of these MICE points should be involved. Make
sense? Okay, so if we're combining them, say for Harry Potter again, we have a Millieu
arc, Hogwarts and the magical world, it starts when Harry leaves the Muggle world and goes
there. Probably, the first time he goes to the Leaky Cauldron, we'll call that the start
of the MICE arc, of the Millieu arc. And it ends when he goes home at the end. We have
an idea, that Harry is famous. We don't know why, we find out why eventually, and he's
famous because he's special. And it ends, Harry finds out why. Dumbledore tells him,
he's like "Hey, this is how you beat him, because your mom died for you. So you're special."
We have a question and an answer. The Character, at the very beginning. Harry is this sad little
boy, who lives under a cupboard and stuff, and he has no friends, no one likes him. He's
really kind of pathetic. At the end, he has all these friends, he defeated Voldemort as
an eleven-year-old boy, and he's famous in this magical world, he's learning how to become
a great and powerful wizard. There's a bit of a contrast. Event, something's going on
in the wizarding world, someone tried to steal something out of Gringotts, which has never
happened before, no one's actually succeeded in breaking in. So, that's our first clue,
that's pretty much when it starts, either when he finds out or when he sees Hagrid take
the thing out of the vault. It ends, we have the confrontation, we find out, it wasn't
Snape, it was Quirrell with Voldemort the whole time. And the event is resolved, Harry
beats Voldemort and Quirrell, and the status quo is returned. Alright, next. So, there's
a lot of programmers in here, right? Everyone here's at least taken algebra, so you'll be
very familiar with parentheses, and the way that they open and close with each other.
Now, MICE Quotient, the four different plots that any given novel usually has, they work
a lot like that. So, basically, whatever you open with first is the central plot of your
story. Harry Potter opens with the Character plot. By this logic of the paranthetical whatever,
plots, that's the one you have to end with, after you've ended with everything else. Whatever
order you open them in, you have to close them in reverse order. And this isn't, like,
you have to, this is basically what makes the most sense to the reader. Anything else
and they'll kind of leave the reader, like, "Why?" It just tones down the importance of
what needs to be important, and what they have considered important all along, and will
leave them kind of confused. So, Harry Potter. We open with them introducing Harry and his
struggles, not counting the prologue. He finds out about the wizarding world, opens up the
Millieu plot. He finds out that he's famous in the wizarding world, and he finds out that
something's going on in the wizarding world, in that order. In reverse order, Harry defeats
Voldemort, finds out why he defeated Voldemort, as he's leaving, he resolves everything about
his character for this book. Now, the ends can be a little bit blurry, because things
kind of happen simultaneously, and some of these openings and closings can be less single
events than, like, scenes, like this whole scene of him leaving. We don't actually see
him go home, in the movie at least. I don't even think we do in the book, I don't remember.
But basically this whole scene symbolizes him leaving this world and going back, and
that's what they talk about. Anyway, so there's a little bit of, you know, room for blurriness
here. You don't have to do it exactly like this, but this is just something to keep in
mind while you're writing. This is basically the formula that will give you the most success
with your readers understanding what's going on. Alright, let's move on. The Seven-Point
Story Structure. Anyone know this one? No one? Awesome. Okay, So, this is something
that Dan Wells, you know Dan Wells from Writing Excuses? Yeah. Alright, he is basically the
one that is known for this. It's a screenwriting technique that has been used for a long time,
but he picked it up from a role-playing game guide, how to tell a good story, and he's
like, "Wow, this is awesome! I'm gonna use this in my books!" And he did a whole YouTube
series, you can look up Dan Wells and Seven-Point Story Structure, and he explains it in great
detail. I'm gonna summarize it. Basically, it splits up a story kind of like the Three-Act
Structure does, but instead of sections of your story, it's different events that are
key to the plot. These seven ones, the Hook, or actually before the Hook, there's actually
a secret Eighth one. But it's not listed here because it's not always there. It's not really
secret, but it's not listed with the Seven. It's the Eighth one, it comes before, it's
the Prologue. Does anyone know what the purpose of a Prologue is? Yeah?
Kind of a way to set things up before actually beginning the story?
M-hm. Yeah?
I think, actually, the biggest thing it does is create suspense. Because, if you don't
have a prologue, it's like, "Alright, why am I caring about some random, you know, orphan
that has all this going on?" But with a prologue, it's like, "Oh, what's this mysterious story
behind him, and who is this person that put him there?" And it creates a lot of, you know,
interest in the future.
That's true. Yes?
I've written an Idea story before, and I, just basically starts with a prologue, was
to be, like, this is the central idea.
Yeah. So those are all good ones. Now, almost every story you read or watch, you kind of
know something about it beforehand. You know basically what it's about, what you'd expect,
whether there's gonna be action, whether there's gonna be magic, whether there's gonna be sci-fi
stuff, you've read the description, you've probably heard stuff about it, whether it's
good or not. You know, you go into it knowing what to expect, pretty much everything you
come across as a story. The Prologue, the real purpose of a Prologue is to give you
a taste of what you're expecting before we actually get into it. Now, Harry Potter Number
One, you're expecting all this magic and fun stuff. You don't actually get that for the
first half hour, you get Harry at home with his aunt and uncle, and you don't really get
what you're expecting for a long time. So, we have this Prologue to say "Hey, these are
wizards and witches." They're practicing magic, you get to see them do it, and they talk about
the crazy stuff that happens, that has happened, and the reason, and how it's gonna be important
later. And it gives you a quick taste to say, "Hey, yeah. Everything you expected is actually
gonna happen, don't worry." That's basically what a prologue is for. You all know Game
of Thrones. Has anyone actually read the books?
Yes. I read the first one.
I haven't. Does anyone remember the prologue from the first book?
Isn't that over the wall?
I don't remember, I haven't actually read them.
I'm pretty sure that the prologue takes place with some random knights that are watch-people
over the wall.
Okay, I remember something, someone said something about an ice monster. Does that sound familiar?
Yeah, there is.
Kay. That's the example that Dan Wells uses, is the "Ice Monster Prologue." Basically,
for the Game of Thrones, it's saying, "Hey, yeah, you're not gonna see it for a long time,
but there will eventually be magic, and monsters, and all this fun stuff. It's a fantasy setting,
it's not just historical."
Another good example of that is the Eragon series.
M-hm.
Because in the very first book, they set it up with this big magic swordfight, ambush
thing, then it goes to him.
Yep! There you go. All examples of what the Prologue is for. So not every story has to
have one. If your story is shorter, if there's not gonna be much difference between the first
section and what's gonna be happening later on, that your readers want to read, then you
don't really need a prologue. A prologue can also be used to give crucial information,
but you'll notice that with a lot of prologues, they don't actually say anything that you
wouldn't be able to figure out in the first, you know, First Act anyway. Yeah?
At least part of the reasons for that, I've heard multiple times from, like, actual authors,
that apparently lots of people just skip prologues and don't read them at all, so you never really
want to put anything too important in there, because otherwise, these crazy people who
don't read prologues, for whatever reason don't know what's in there.
I say punish them for skipping it.
Another thing to avoid in Prologue is just doing it because it's expected, or doing it
too prologue-y. Does that make sense? Pretty much every prologue, I mean, you kind of know
what to expect in a prologue. You know what it's going to be like, because a lot of prologues
are pretty much the same. Um, and that's not a, I don't know. Basically, make sure you
know what your prologue is for. And don't just put it in because you think you have
to. Or because you think you wan to. Alright, so after the Prologue comes the actual beginning
of the story, the Hook. For instance, after the space battle in Star Wars, you meet Luke,
who the story is actually about. See, Star Wars is another great example of a prologue.
Alright, so we meet our character, the MICE thing is opened up, the Hook is basically
what our starting point is, and it's basically an exact opposite of the Resolution. The Seven-Point
Story Structure is basically the story of how we get from this point to this point,
and what happens to change things. So we meet Harry, we know his situation, that's our Hook,
we go into Plot Turn One, which basically is when the world is flipped. Plot is turned
from where it was heading, and realize, wow, we are going in this direction. Hagrid shows
up, after all the letters and stuff, and says, "You're a wizard, Harry." Yeah. That's our
Plot Turn, it's kind of big for him, he really was not expecting that. That's really the
point we realized we've got a story here. We've got something going on worth reading,
or watching for the next hour, or month, or however long it takes to read things. Alright,
Plot Turn One leads into Pinch One. Okay, we've got to this new world, we've gotten
used to our new situation, but things aren't quite right here, something bad happens. Think
of the Pinch, it's basically whoever our character is, characters, this is where they first exercise
whatever it is that's going to let them win in the end. Basically think of it as a trial-run
for the Resolution, for the climax. This is where he first has to use his, they have to
use their teamwork, their wizarding skills, his athletic skills, to beat something. And
it's huge. And it brings them together. The Pinch leads you, it gives the characters the
strength they need to get to the Midpoint. Now the Midpoint is really, really important.
This is the point where the character switches from being reactive to acting, to be proactive.
So this whole time, whatever the conflict is, it's been running the show, and the characters
have just been reacting to it. From this point on, the characters start making their own
decisions, and working towards a goal. This is usually when they set that goal, and they
make that decision. Harry finds out Voldemort's trying to get the Stone, and he needs to do
something about this. At first, it's "talk to Dumbledore," and he realizes "We can't
do that, I need to do something about this myself." Okay, after the Midpoint, Pinch Two,
where we're working towards our goal, but there's something in the way. Um, it's something
that we have to, just like with Pinch One, we have to work together, use whatever skills
we're going to use in the end, and exercise them now. This is basically what lets the
reader or the watcher, the viewer, know that whatever happened in Pinch One isn't just
an isolated incident, this is something that the characters can repeat. This is a skill
they have that wasn't just a fluke, our characters are actually competent, even though they run
into problems. After that, we're getting towards the end, Plot Turn Two. This is where the
character has another big revelation, kind of like Plot Turn One, but this is basically,
think of this as, "I have the power within me." That's the moment. It's the "Power Within
Me" moment. It's when the character realizes, "Wow. This isn't... to beat this, it's not
gonna be quite the same as it was in the Pinches, I'm gonna have to use something else. Something
that has been hinted at the whole time, but something that hasn't been quite revealed
until now. It's been foreshadowed, but this is where it actually shows up. Harry realizes,
"I'm the only one who can get the Stone out of the Mirror." And he gets it. He realizes
that by getting it. And then, we get into our Resolution. Everything's tied up, the
conflict is resolved, we got our answers to our questions, and we tie up our MICE plots.
Make sense? Anyone have any questions about the Seven-Point part yet? Okay, that's good.
I've got more to say. So, this doesn't just apply to the story as a whole, what's great
about the Seven-Point Arc is that you can actually, the Seven-Point Structure, is you
can have tons of them going on in a story at once, for different arcs. So for instance,
in Harry Potter, we have a friendship arc (we're going to be talking about Harry Potter
a lot, like I said) about him meeting his friends, them becoming friends after going
through trials together, they work together to overcome their problems, they are friends.
And if you were to look at this an analyze is very closely, you'd find that there is
an entire Seven-Point arc, with a Pinch, and a Plot Turn... Yes?
If Hogwarts is a magical place, and they have friendships there, could you say that...?
Well, there's an entire Slytherin House where there's no friendship at all. So it's at least
three-quarters magic. Alright, Harry also has a family arc, where he's finding out about
his heritage, his parents. He finds out your parents were magical, and it wasn't like we've
taught you your whole life, they died because of this. And that's our Plot Turn One for
the family arc. We have this other thing, he finds out he's like his dad, he's on the
Quidditch team. He may not actually be a Seeker, but they were both on the Quidditch team.
And then it gets tied up later on. This isn't where it gets tied up, but you can see that
there's a whole arc about his family? And it can be explained just like the other one,
and just like the main story, it can be explained with the Seven-Point Structure. There's an
entire mystery arc, we talked about it a little already, that goes through them suspecting
Snape and doing all these things. Yeah, that's my favorite, "That's not a limp, that's my
swagger." Yeah. And then there's a Plot Turn Two when we realize Snape is not the one.
Anyway, So let's talk about, so the Seven-Point Story Structures, they can work together differently
than the MICE ones. So the MICE paranthetical thing, Seven-Point Structures, they kind of
overlap, and their points tend to cause each other. There's a lot of interplay between
them. So the first thing we have in Harry Potter is the prologue, that starts, that's
basically the start of the, um, I don't know. It's the start of one arc. It introduces us
to a lot of concepts. After that, we get Harry, and we get his Character arc started. After
that, Harry starts getting these letters, he finds out all this stuff about magic and
stuff, we start the mystery arc after that as he's getting ready to go to the school,
and these things happen in order, and you can kind of see that they lead into each other
a lot, I don't really have time to explain it in detail. But the different events that
happen in Harry Potter, or any story, they tend to cause other events in other plotlines.
Does that make sense? So because he is going to Hogwarts and getting ready, he finds out
about the mystery. It leads directly into that storyline and gets that one going. And
likewise, we keep going from there and find out stuff, and we get to the end. Alright,
so this is just kind of an example, I can't really explain it. I wish I could, but I don't
have that kind of time. Alright, so what's great about all these three ways of looking
at stories is that you can use all of them at once. So, first of all we have a Reactive
half of the story, and a Proactive half. They don't actually have to be exactly half of
the story, but that's basically the way you split it. You can split it from there into
Act One, Act Two, and Act Three, you can use the Seven-Point Structure at the same time,
and you can also go through your MICE Quotient. Now this is really, this is basically, what
we're talking about is how to outline, if you're an outliner you can go through and
plot everything out from the beginning, but these are also things you can keep in mind
if you're a discovery writer and you just write as you go along, or if you're somewhere
in between. Just remember as you're writing that at some point, these things need to happen,
and that means I have to prepare for it. Alright, any questions? No? Awesome. Okay, so let's
talk about how you put together a story from scratch in the Seven-Point-Structure. There's
kind of an order to it, and it's not just beginning to end. This is the coolest thing
about the Seven-Point thing, is that you can use this to construct a really sound storyline
in seconds. And what you start with is the ending. Basically, you say, "What do I want
in my fic? Like, I've got, maybe, some characters lined out, maybe a setting. I want to figure
out what I want them to be at the end. I want, in my fanfiction I want my OC at the end to
be an alicorn, and to save the day. From there, we have our ending, we can make our hook.
From there, you delete your document and come up with a new story.
We can derive our Hook, our beginning. We basically want to start, from that point,
that situation, we want to start as far away from that as we possibly can. Usually it's
the opposite. So if he's an alicorn now, we want him to be as weak and boring and, uh...
Inept. Tom the rock. What if he really is Tom the
rock?
Yes! Let's put our, yeah... Tom the Guardian of Mirror Pond. By the end, he becomes an
alicorn.
So, Tom, Guardian of the Mirror Pool... It sounds like something out of the Shipfic
Folder.
Alright, so basically what we need after this is we need a Midpoint to get us from beginning
to end. At some point, we need him to stop being a rock and start being something closer
to an alicorn.
If that's the middle of the story, then...
It doesn't have to be the exact middle, though. It's just the middle of the plot. It doesn't
have to be the middle of the length.
Good.
This can be much closer to the beginning, closer towards the end.
I want the first five chapters to be Tom as a rock, doing rock things.
Now basically, the Midpoint is the big turning point, we have the Plot Turns as little turning
points between those, that lead you to the next one. So, we have him becoming from a
rock to this change, we need a plot turn to make that... something has to be revealed
that could be the cause of it.
Discord's brother. No no, Maude and Rarity get into a fight over
Tom, and it's revealed, no no. Okay, they both get into a fight, with Maude wants to
keep him the way he is, and Rarity keeps thinking that he's actually a pony trapped as a rock,
and she needs to save him, but Maude's like... I was gonna say that Maude created him, but
then I realized that Rarity actually created him.
Well actually, Discord created him, which could help. Now, what if Discord shows up,
he's like, "Hey, this is my rock, I'm gonna turn it into a pony." At some point we need
to have something that leads us from the beginning to that point. That's what we call our Plot
Turn.
That's what the romance sub-plot...
Now, the same thing happens after the Midpoint, we have to have a Plot Turn that takes us
towards the end, toward being an alicorn in charge of something. So, what's that point,
let's say, what does Discord do, first of all, in the midpoint? What are we gonna say?
Cackles maniacally. Maybe the spell wears off and he turns back
into a pony.
Oh, so he turned a pony into Tom?
Originally.
Originally, and now...
Maybe he's like, from the era of Discord's first reign?
Okay, so after our Midpoint...
Maybe he's Starswirl the Bearded.
Maybe he's a pony named Tom. Anyway.
No, he's a human trapped- no, I'm just kidding.
No, we're not doing that. So, our Midpoint leaves us with another situation, kind of
like our Hook does. We're part of the way to the end, but not quite. Now our situation
is that we now have a pony, and we want to make him into an alicorn. How are we gonna
do that? Probably not Discord magic.
We can have a sci-fi plot, where he... He's actually a meteor.
He died. He's a mortician, where he's like, working with, you know...
That's super morbid. Wait, are you trying to suggest that he becomes
the understudy, or the student of the grim reaper? And he becomes the alicorn of death?
The title of our story was The Guardian of Mirror Pond, wasn't it?
Maybe he clones himself into an army to fight the changelings.
Maybe the clones that, like, disappeared, he just takes their wings and horns, and like...
Maybe he clones himself, and at some point, at the end maybe, he combines with his clones,
and they become an alicorn.
Or maybe he makes so many clones... And that's how Equestria was destroyed.
No no, he makes so many clones, and he's the first clone that got cloned, and he's actually
the origin of the changelings. If he's guarding the Mirror Pool, he's protecting
Equestria from the chaos that would cause, so what if he is the alicorn of like, sentinels,
like protecting Equestria from chaos.
Alright, so basically, whatever they happen to be, we have...
The Golem.
You understand how these work with each other, these Midpoints, and these Plot Turns, and
these ends and stuff? So, after that, we also need our Pinches. Now Pinches are basically
what test us, and what lead us to need a choice in the first place, to need a turn, a Plot
Turn, or a Midpoint, or whatever. So, we have Pinches, something happens, say before, when
he's still a rock, and before Discord shows up. Actually no, after Discord shows up. Some
Pinch has to happen that leads to Discord turning him back into a pony. What's that
Pinch?
He sees Maude and Rarity fighting over him, and decides just to have more fun with it.
He needs some fresh chaos. So when he sees them fighting over it, he
wants to make it more interesting.
Maybe Discord has something to do with the Mirror Pool, he needs to get through and he
realizes, "Hey, this rock used to be a pony that I turned into a rock. I'm gonna change
him just to mess with..." Maybe someone else is involved, probably. Someone's trying to
get to the Mirror Pool, maybe Discord tries to stop them, and tells the pony that he turned
to the rock, he said, "Hey, your job is to protect the Mirror Pool." I don't know. Anyway,
so that's an example of a Pinch, kind of. It's less... it doesn't always have to be
a conflict, even. Just something that leads to a choice. A need for a choice. Alright,
so, and they're also, both of the Pinches have something to do with the Resolution,
the final climax. If our Pinch is that there's a need for a live, active defender of the
Mirror Pond, that Discord thinks we need one, then maybe that has something to do with what
happens in the end.
Maybe Sombra wants to clone himself.
Maybe. Or maybe he ends up having to protect it from Discord, and maybe that's why he needs
alicorn powers. Alright, so that makes sense, right? So, this is how the points work with
each other, and how you can create a story with that. We just took an idea, that we wanted
to make an alicorn out of something, and then we decided that we wanted to make it from
Tom. We wanted to turn Tom into an alicorn. And we figured out a way to actually make
it work, more or less. But with some extra thought, we could actually make this into
an actual story. This is what the Seven-Point Structure is for. Kay? Ending first. Keep
that in mind. Make sure you have one in your mind. Alright, some other things to keep in
mind, important things in any story. Crisises, crises, whatever you... however they're spelled.
I don't know if spellcheck actually works in this program, but it likes "crises". Anyway,
these happen in every story. There's some, something important going on, let's just stop
with Harry Potter, let's move onto the Lord of the Rings. Things are important, sorry,
things go wrong, basically, that lead to a change in situation. You know, Gandalf dies,
Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo. You know, this leads to them changing their
course, and Aragorn taking over and realizing "We can't go the same way Gandalf wanted us
to go, we have to go a different way." This leads to Frodo needing to leave the group,
because he realizes, "Wow, if Boromir can betray me, then they all will eventually."
At the end, Gollum betrays them again. And, uh, that's a crisis. Does that make sense?
You understand? Does anyone have any questions about crises? Anything you want me to try
and answer? Okay. Crisises, like we talked about Pinches, they lead to decisions. They
lead to Plot Turns and stuff. When something goes wrong, you have to make a decision. Aragorn
has to decide whether or not he, you know, what we need to do after Gandalf is gone.
But what's really important is what decisions the characters make, personal decisions, and
there're a few of them that are core to every story. Basically, in the beginning, the character
decides to do something important. Harry decides to take his ticket to... that's an important
decision, even though it's an obvious one. Frodo decides to take the Ring to Rivendell,
eventually he decides to take the Ring from Rivendell, when it's not quite so obvious
a choice. Sam decides to go with him when he splits up with the group, and Frodo decides
to take Sam. Frodo decides to keep Gollum. Frodo makes a bad decision. Not all decisions
are good ones. What's really important is failure, sometimes. You have to, or else things
get boring. So decisions are just as important as things going wrong. What you want to remember
is you main character has to decide in the beginning to have a story in the first place,
and at the end they have to make an important... there has to be some, let's see. In the middle
they have to decide to start acting instead of reacting. They have to decide on a goal
and how to work towards it, and at the end there's usually some other decisions, which
can take any number of forms. And there's lots of ones in the middle. Alright, something
to remember about these crisises and decisions is you can't just throw them in out of the
blue. You can't. Kay, that's what we call Deus Ex Machina, and it can be negative or
positive. What you have to do is you have to foreshadow these things. They're basically
so the reader isn't completely fed up with your story, to avoid reader frustration. Before
Gandalf dies, we gotta frustrate- foreshadow, not frustrate, that there is something dangerous
down underground, and Gandalf is not quite up to the task. He's afraid of him. And that
fear eventually plays out. So Tolkien and Jackson and whoever else is in charge of these
decisions gives us some foreshadowing to show us what's going to happen eventually. Before
Boromir makes his betrayal, which would be really out of the blue if there was no foreshadowing,
we have all this foreshadowing. He spends all this time talking about what he wants
to do, that's against what's best, but it's what he thinks is best, even when he's not
thinking all that good. But it's foreshadowed long before it happens, and if you didn't
know the story of The Lord of the Rings, you could generally kind of predict what's going
to happen, if you know what to look for. If you're just receiving and not actually thinking
about what you're watching or reading too deeply, then these things are actually really
cool, because when it finally happens, you're like, "Woah! I should have seen that coming."
If you're like me and you've been studying this way too much and start analyzing things,
then you start to say, like, "Oh yeah, Gandalf's totally gonna die. Boromir's totally gonna
betray him." It kinda takes away some of the enjoyment.
The TVTrope problem.
Yes, that's it.
TVTropes will ruin your life. It also enhances your life, though.
It's so wonderful.
And the last part of the story, movie or book, whatever, Return of the King, it's not told
as a prologue in the book, but in the movie, we have this prologue of the origin of Gollum.
He's kind of important to the events of the story. What happens in the prologue- and prologues
are great for foreshadowing, by the way- what happens is, he betrays his cousin out of the
blue, for no real reason, for this stupid ring. Which shows that it's really important
to him, and he's willing to kill for it. We've seen, at the end of Two Towers, he was like,
"Yes, we could let her do it." Coming up with a plan. This is foreshadowing of what happens
after that first betrayal, that he's not gonna be gone, just betraying them, he's gonna try
and kill someone. Basically, the more foreshadowing something has, the more important it's going
to be, and the general rule is if you're going to have any sort of crisis or important decision,
you want to have at least three mentions of it beforehand, for foreshadowing. The rule
of three. Here, for instance, with Gandalf, we have this book that Saruman reads, and
he's like, "You fear to go into those mines." And we have, later on, he says to the group,
"There are darker and fouler things than orcs here in these mines." And, there's a lot of
like, imagery foreshadowing, also, not quite imagery, but not flat-out said... When the
Balrog finally, like, starts to show up, and there's like, flame and everyone's running
away- running away can be foreshadowing, all the orcs running away can be considered foreshadowing-
Gandalf foreshadows his death, by saying "This is a foe beyond... anything, whatever." He's
basically saying, in not the exact words, but he's saying that "I'm going to die." I'm
not strong enough to beat this thing without dying. Make sense? So those are the three
big foreshadowings. Well, the second one not so much, there's probably another one I'm
not thinking of. Whatever. Alright, so foreshadowing is very important, you have to keep that in
mind if you're discovery writing, you'll want to keep it in mind if you're outlining, different
ways. Alright, after this. Okay, we talked a little bit about failure, when we talked
about decisions. The Try-Fail Cycle is incredibly important to what you're writing. Basically,
your character, your story is about your characters trying to do something. Sometimes they don't
decide to do that something until halfway through, or even two-thirds of the way through.
But they have to try, and not just that thing, but lots of other things. Not every try should
be a success. In fact, most of them should be failures, until the end of whatever they're
trying to do. 'Cuz you know, when you succeed in something, that something is... gone. Anyway.
If you have a character like, uh... I don't know what example to use.
Like from fanfiction?
Oh yeah, sure.
Well, there's the famous "My Immortal" fanfiction, where you have the main character kind of
waltz through Hogwarts, about as perfect as can be.
Yeah, there's lots and lots of negative examples. Basically, if you don't have failures for
your characters often, not too often, you don't want it to be like every time.
Series of Unfortunate Events.
Yeah. If you have a story where the character just succeeds at everything they try, who
cares? Like, why are we reading this? There's no conflict, we don't care what happens. An
example of this... I think this is the next picture. Yes! Okay. Jack Sparrow. Jack Freaking
Sparrow. How often does he fail at things he tries?
Quite often.
Yeah, but think about, like the little things. Not like the big important plot things.
He fails with style.
But when he does, does he ever actually fail at anything? Are there any actual consequences
to his failures? He always wins in the end. Think about, in Dead Man's Chest, okay, the
whole island scene with the cannibals. The crazy stunts they do, I mean, have you seen,
you guys know the Everything Wrong With so-and-so, CinemaSins? Have you seen the one for Dead
Man's Chest?
No.
That's one that I was like, "So yes! So much yes!" It was him, and he got like, flipped
over a cliff, with the pole on his back, and he just lands perfectly on the cliff, and
it's like, completely improbable, but what the guy said, he says, "Okay, it's things
like this that make me not care about the characters. Okay, if he's not actually in
danger, every little danger he's in gets resolved immediately, by like, fate, just like accidentally,
like surviving all these things, it makes moments like this, when he's being chased
by an army of cannibals who are planning to eat him, alive probably, we don't care for
him. We're not scared for him. Because we've seen him in all sorts of dangerous situations
and he gets out with no effort."
Laughing at his misfortunes.
M-hm. Pretty much. Yeah?
This is an example from something else, but if any of you have played the new reboot of
the Tomb Raider series, the first game gives an excellent sense of the difficulty of like,
achievement versus the consequences of actions, like, the main character is beat up, and she
like, gets frostbite and shock, and any time something bad happens, she has to pay for
it, and it's a long time in the game before you actually, like, fight someone for the
first time, it's a major accomplishment.
They add a lot of interesting depth to the story. They make you feel. Contrary to this,
we have Indiana Jones, from the actual ones. He has Try-Fail Cycles all the time, and when
he fails, it has consequences. Even though he works his way out eventually, it's not
the same way that he does. He actually gets in trouble. He gets hurt, he gets, I don't
know what happens, I don't remember.
The Nazis capture him.
Yeah. He gets captured, and they actually, like, kill people. But you understand, with
him, because of the Try-Fail Cycles, when he's actually in danger, we're actually, like,
we don't know what's gonna happen. We aren't, like, completely confident that it's gonna
work out fine. It could work, working out fine might have to wait until after something
bad happens. Make sense? I don't know if it's the best example, but it's the one I thought
of. Alright, next. This is really the last, yeah, this is like the last thing. Promises
to the reader. Does anyone recognize this scene? Maybe the red sword, the cloaked guy.
Is this from Game of Thrones? No, this is from Eragon.
Yeah, this is Eragon. The movie.
That's why I don't recognize it. I forgot about that abomination.
Please don't recognize it. Continue not.
The only thing good about that were the special effects.
Yep. Alright, so what happens... now, Eragon the book series, the Inheritance Cycle, Paolini
was very careful to follow all these structures very carefully, which is why they work out
well as a story, most of the time. But the movie kind of botched everything in really
important ways.
Oh yes.
Yeah. And one of these is by failing to follow through on promises to the reader (viewer).
So, this is something to keep in mind, it's not something you can plan for. This is something
you need to watch out for. Now when you write, whether you're a discovery writing or planning
things out, whenever you start putting pen to paper, so to speak, and coming up with
text that people will eventually read, you are... like I talked about when I did my editing
lesson, you are looking at it as an author differently than any reader will. And that
means that basically, they will notice things that you won't. Now, a lot of those are things
that you refer to, things that you say, things that happen that the reader will come to,
from reading that, they will expect follow-up later on. And we call these promises to the
reader. And you have to watch out for those as an author. And another note on prereading:
When you ask a pre-reader to go through your work before you actually submit it, to publish
it or whatever, a really good thing to do is to ask them to look for these promises.
Say, "Based on reading this first chapter, what sort of things do you want me to follow
up on later?" A good prereader will watch out for those, if they know what they're doing
pre-reading, what to tell you about. So Eragon fails in this. The movie, at least. So my
worst, my least-favorite part of that whole movie was the Ra'zac's death. Right? They
kill them off in the first, like, forty-five minutes of the movie, which is stupid, because
the whole beginning of the movie was setting you up that there's gonna be this huge chase,
you're not quite strong enough to beat them yet, but you will be if we keep working, I'm
only bringing you along until I can get you to this other place and do this other stuff,
but the Ra'zac and confronting them was set up to be this huge thing in both the movies-
the movie and the books. And in the movie, they just kinda throw it away. It's like,
we watched this whole thing, we're expecting, later on, a confrontation when Eragon has
progressed enough that he's ready to fight them, and it'll be important, but instead...
he just learns magic, and he... I mean, he finds out what magic is, he learns a few words,
and he uses the "plant" word to take a vine and strangle one of the Ra'zac. It's like,
I don't know where this skill came from. I mean, I don't know. They didn't up this as
an answer to a promise, they just got it out of the way. This is what you want to avoid.
Anyone have any questions? Alright. So, that's the end of my slideshow. I was gonna have
a whole 'nother slide where we look at Harry Potter Two, and analyze it with all these
things, but that would've taken a long time and we only have, like, five minutes. So,
yeah, basically... any questions about anything whatsoever?
Anything whatsoever?
Yes.
When will we have human-level AI? Um...
He's got an answer.
I doubt it.
Probably not.
Alright.
The year three-thousand forty-two.
Well, if there's no questions...
When does Season Five come out?
If there's no questions for me, then I guess we're done. Alright. Thank you very much.