Elements of Story: Plot

I did a recent little series on story telling, where I told three stories and asked you to help me analyze them. I outlined four key essentials to any story - a place, a plot, people, and conflict. Now I'm interested in working through those essentials and would like to start with Plot.

Don't start with plot as the basis of your story, first off. The basis of your story should be your characters - the natural conflict in your characterizations will lead to your plot. I'm starting with plot now because I already have an idea of what to say.

Most plots can be broken down into a plot archetype. There are many ways of identifying the different plot archetypes, and I've narrowed it down to this particular list of seven (By Christopher Booker).

1. Overcoming the Monster - the protagonist learns of a great evil and sets out to destroy it. (Terminator)
2. Rags to Riches - the protagonist moves from a place of oppression to a place of glory. (Aladdin)
3. The Quest - the protagonist learns of something that must be done/received and sets out to do it. (Indiana Jones)
4. Voyage and Return - the protagonist leaves his calm and peaceful world and enters a place of adventure, only to return as a more mature individual (Inception)
5. Comedy - the protagonist is prevented from reaching his goal (usually marriage) by the opposition, and is finally allowed to get his happy ending (The Princess Bride)
6. Tragedy - not the opposite of a comedy, but the opposite of overcoming the monster; the protagonist spirals down into darkness, eventually becoming the monster (Macbeth)
7. Rebirth - the protagonist begins a downward spiral into darkness (like in a tragedy), but repents and is 'reborn' (Let's go with Star Wars, and Anakin Skywalker in particular)

Obviously, stories can have elements of all these plots in them. The larger the story, the more plots it will contain. "Lord of the Rings" taps on all 7 of these plots at some point; "Jaws" taps on three to five; "Little Red Riding Hood" really only has one or two.

Now we have 7 types of stories. We need to evaluate what stories we are telling and what categories they fit into. This can help us 'lean' down stories and trim the fat of filler. For example, if I was trying to tell a story about a young man who sets out to fight a grizzly bear, I would want to trim the focus from his relationships or his finances, as though are different types of stories.

This can help us focus on our lives as well - what types of stories are we leading? Are we slowly edging into a tragedy - becoming our parents?!? Are we focused only on the rags to riches, trying to climb a corporate ladder? Do we view our lives as a comedy, where everything conspires against us and we must strive to get our happy ending? And if we like the story we're telling, perhaps we need to cut out the parts that don't add to the story, so we can tell a better story.

I want a great story for my life (and for the stories I tell). I want an epic story like "Lord of the Rings," not a cgi-filled yet empty and meaningless story like "Transformers."

Strengths: Woo

Strength #4: Woo

Wait, what does that mean? Woo apparently stands for "Winning others over." I derive satisfaction from meeting new people and making connections.I 'exude an exuberant outlook towards life' while 'regale people with illuminating accounts of incidents in my life.' Basically - I like being around people and charming them.

How do I use this knowledge? Suggested action steps:

Deliberately build the network of people who know me.

Learn the names of as many people as I can.

Whenever possible, be one of the first people others meet.

Practice ways to charm and engage others.

Partner with a person who is skilled in relating or empathy, so they can grow the relationships I cultivate.

Practice telling stories. I want to be a great storyteller (which relates to another one of my upcoming talents, hint hint), and to do that I need to practice more - identify what elements of story work and what don't.

Roles in which I would succeed: A job in which I can interact with many people over the course of a day (receptionist?)

I think this relates to how I am interested in small group communities.I like being in group settings and charming people. It reminds me of conversations my wife and I had when we were getting married - because she is very skilled in relating and empathizing (not my cup of tea, by any means). We were excited about the partnership - because she can relate one on one, and I can relate in group settings. I'm excited to see that identified as a positive step, and one I've started working on.

Elements of Story

I recently told 2 stories here on the blog - one about our temporary dog and one about my first kiss. I was searching for something in the stories that would allow me to use them as more stories. In reflecting on the telling of the story, I started reflecting on the elements of storytelling (a flashback to first grade!)

All good stories have these elements. I want to now examine the stories I told in light of these elements, and see where the strongest elements of each story lay.

1. Setting - where and when is the story happening?

Neither of the stories have particularly strong settings. "Chopper" takes place in Charleston, two or three years ago. The dominant location is our house, and I don't do a particularly strong job of laying out the geography of the house. "First Kiss" for the most part happens in a driveway.

In telling stories, I think this is sometimes my weakest element. I don't do well with laying out a scene in a particularly interesting or engaging way. This is an element I need to work on, clearly.

2. Plot - what is happening in the story?

Plot can be a hammer if you're not careful. I've written in the past to not let plot be the primary driver in any story, fictional or nonfictional. Plot should happen as a result of characterization. Looking at my two stories, the plot is more natural in the "First Kiss" story. There is a definite order to what is happening, but the reason it's happening in that order is because of the characters involved. The plot involved with "Chopper" is more by-the-numbers - x happened, then y, then z.

3. Characterization - who is the story happening to?

The primary drive behind any good story is solid characters. One of the reasons I remember Stephen King novels is because he creates wonderfully vivid and engaging characters. This is an element of story that occurs (for me) most unnaturally. I have to struggle to imbue the characters on paper (or on-screen) with the character that they have; it's a challenge to not end up in cliche. In writing Ashram, I worked the hardest at bringing out the essence of each team member. Writing the plot and conflict was easy - but making the characters true to the real life persona's was most difficult area. One of the notes I remember getting from Dave after he read the manuscript was "Um, could Keith and I not be idiots the entire way through?"

In the two stories, the characters are mostly flat. You don't get a sense of Steve through his actions in "Chopper" - probably the most developed character is Chopper himself. In "First Kiss," you can see some of my essence coming through in what I wrote (pretty easy to write for yourself!) but you can't really see Jess. This is an area that I need to remember to work on.

4. Conflict - why do the characters care about the plot?

Ultimately, why are the characters invested? Conflict should arise naturally as a result of your characterization. I reflect on Lost, season two, and one thing that seemed so clear going in was how epic of a showdown Mr. Eko and Locke were going to have. The reason you could feel that coming was that both had very strong characterizations, and those characterizations were in conflict. For them to be true to their characters, they needed to have conflict.

In "Chopper," the conflict is readily apparent - our house was being destroyed by a demon-dog. In "First Kiss," there are two conflicts occuring, but only one illustrated. The first conflict is between Jess and I specifically, about the status of our relationship. The second conflict, the one I didn't (and should have) addressed is the conflict inside of me - how should I respond?

Those are the elements of story, as I recall them. Thoughts?

Fill in the ______: The First Kiss

I'm supposed to lead a 30-45 minute devotional next week for a group of people I don't really know. I led a devotion for them last year, and told some funny stories about India (straight out of Ashram) and then connected them. I'd like to do something this year, but I don't want to talk about India again.

I have three funny stories that don't come from India. I'm going to tell them on the blog over the next couple of days, and I'd like you to tell me:

• What elements interested you?
• What elements bored you?
• What meaning do you see behind the story?
  
• Can you draw any lessons / parallels from the story?
• Any advice on telling the story?

Today's story is "The First Kiss."

I moved across the country for a girl once. Not the long ways across, but from the south side to the north side anyway. This girls name was Jess, and I had fallen hard for her in college. After college, I moved away to pursue an internship at a church. We kept in contact throughout the years, and once my mom died, we began to tentatively explore the idea of being in a real relationship together.

I immediately packed everything I owned and moved back to Michigan. Well, not immediately, but that was how it felt. I left a great house full of great friends and a good job. With very little cash (and right after Hurricane Ike drove gas prices to 5 dollars a gallon) and no firm place to live, I drove north.

All of the housing and job stuff worked out (as it always does if you're patient), and I started seeing Jess on a regular basis. Well, I saw her once. We started dating on a Tuesday, and she invited me over to meet her parents on a Sunday.

We ate dinner with her parents and played some card games. Afterwards, I walked Jess to her car.

"I think we should break up."

I was stunned. We had been dating 5 days and I was pretty sure I hadn't screwed anything up yet.

Jess started explaining, without really looking at me, how she had talked to her sister and didn't feel like we were meant for each other. She said she wasn't sure that she wanted to date me, and wasn't sure if I was her Prince Charming.

She said I wasn't the man she fell asleep dreaming about.

After this verbal explosion, she finally looked at me and said "I would really appreciate it if you said something now."

I stood outside her parents house, in front of Jess's car, and had no idea what the correct response was. At this point, I didn't know if there was a correct response. I cared about Jess more than I cared to admit; and the thought of having moved across the country for this was a more foreign idea than anything I encountered in India. I could feel tears welling up - but I wasn't sure if they were tears of sadness and grief or tears of anger and rage.

"Please say anything," Jess begged.

And so I did.

"Screw it."

And then I kissed her.

Fill in the ______: Chopper

I'm supposed to lead a 30-45 minute devotional next week for a group of people I don't really know. I led a devotion for them last year, and told some funny stories about India (straight out of Ashram) and then connected them. I'd like to do something this year, but I don't want to talk about India again.

I have three funny stories that don't come from India. I'm going to tell them on the blog over the next couple of days, and I'd like you to tell me:

• What elements interested you?
• What elements bored you?
• What meaning do you see behind the story?
  
• Can you draw any lessons / parallels from the story?
• Any advice on telling the story?

The first of the three stories is "Chopper."

I lived in Charleston, South Carolina, for about two years, in a house with three other guys. We were all bachelors, which was something about ourselves that we wished to change. Over the course of two years, we hatched many plots to change our bachelorness. We tried creating groups and inviting women - swing dancing, prayer, 80's movies. We hosted bonfires every weekend. We pretended to like "The Notebook." And when none of that worked, we decided to break out the big guns - we were going to get a dog.

Having always been partial to Golden Retrievers, I lobbied for one. It was only then that we realized that dogs are not cheap. A golden retriever could easily run several hundred dollars on the low end! Even getting a dog from the shelter requires about two hundred dollars to pay for vaccinations and spay/neuter. We were desperate yes, but we were also cheap.

And then Steve, my roommate, solved our problems. His coworker was getting married and wanted to get rid of his dog - and he was giving it to us for free! This probably should have been our first clue.

I went with Steve to pick up the dog. I was convinced it was just some sort of mutt, with the lineage of forty different breeds or whatever. I did not expect to show up and find a 120pound pit bull named Chopper.

Okay, so this dog is huge and looks scary. Chopper didn't act scary though. He was nice - he definitely cried when leaving his old owner, and made pathetic mewling sounds.

Once we got Chopper home however, he dropped the act.

I generally like dogs. In fact, I don't think I've ever been scared of a dog before I met Chopper. Playing with Chopper was not recommended. I always enjoyed playing tug of war with a dog, wrestling them for control over a rope or a bone or whatever.

If you made a move torwards Chopper's current toy of choice (bone, shoe, stuffed animal, foodstuffs he had broken into), he would growl. No, scratch that. The frigging T-Rex he kept in his throat would growl. It sounded out of this world terrifying.

We didn't want to leave him in the house when we went to work, because of his propensity to eat the things we cared about. So the first day we left him in the garage, figuring that there wasn't really anything in there he could eat or kill.

I came home from work that day and found Chopper sitting idly on the living room couch. This concerned me, because our couch is not located in our Garage. I went to the garage to see how Chopper could have escaped - perhaps he broke a window or something.

No. Chopper chewed through the inner garage door into the house. Chewed through the door.

Steve and I replaced the door, and vowed to get rid of Chopper before he killed us. We couldn't do anything that night, so the next morning we tied Chopper to a post outside and went to work. Steve tried to contact his coworker to see if he would take Chopper back; this was to no avail. I contacted a few shelters, but none would take an unspayed pit bull. And spaying him brought us back to the fact that we were cheap. Putting him down was also annoyingly expensive.

I returned home that night without any success, only to find Chopper once again on our couch. Being as our couch is also not in our backyard, I was immediately filled with a sense of dread.

Apparently, while we were gone, Chopper broke part of the porch we had attached him to and then chewed through our back door into the house. That's right - Chopper 2, Doors 0.

The next morning, Steve loaded Chopper into his car. I was never really clear what happened to Chopper - Steve said he released him into the wild to destroy trees and eat more wood. I don't think Steve was lying, but I know I lay awake for two weeks, concerned that Chopper was going to go all "Homeward Bound" and chew through our front door in the middle of the night.