Humor writing continues to be in great demand = as always, comic relief keeps the darkness at bay.
An agent flings a promising work against the wall. When asked why, she rants about all the times she has read entire manuscripts only to be disappointed in the end. She softens as she explains how, by the time she reaches the final quarter of the story, she longs for the work to succeed. If it fails, disappointment stings all the more. 
For those of you more literary minded, 3rd Annual International Plot Writing Month is not an attempt to establish literary rules and regulations. Far from it. Nor, do we want to rob you of the riches of your minds and souls. Quite the opposite.
In completing the first draft of your screenplay, memoir, or novel, you likely encountered countless ambiguous and difficult elements, all of which, no doubt, spurred you yet closer to finding your true voice of creativity and expression. Yet, even within the catalyst for creative production that we all desire, some structure and guidelines often prove helpful.
THE END: TRANSFORMATION
The End (final 1/4 of the story) is made up of more than the Climax (which we covered Day Nine). When you followed the assignment for Day Eight, I trust you were able to remember and plot out scenes from this final section besides just the Climax.
By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 5/27/2010
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers
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writing the climax, writer's journey, ending a story, how to end a story, final 1/4 of a story, father daughter story, Add a tagThe final 1/4 of a story carefully builds in tension with several "above-the-line" scenes that culminate at the Climax with an ultimate emotional release.
By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 8/24/2009
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers
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By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 4/28/2009
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers
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Writers with the gift or innate talent to write funny lines make it look easy. It's not. As with most aspects of writing, humor writing can be taught: timing, subject matter, and how to keep from crossing over to satire. With humor writing, the reader laughs along with the characters. Satire holds human folly and vice up to scorn, derision, or ridicule and causes the reader to laugh at the characters or at least at the characters' action.
Good humor writing can blur aspects of character development, dramatic action, and even thematic significance when going for a laugh. A character can even act "out of character," if doing so is funny and furthers the story.
In the end, however, humor writing like every other genre in that the story at its core is still about the protagonist's transformation. Humor writers, like all writers, benefit from plotting out in logical and meaningful character change step-by-step to the ultimate transformation that drives the Climax. The character who delivers the punch line at the end of the story behaves differently at the Climax than the character we're introduced to in the Beginning. At its deepest level, that change is what the story is about.
At the Climax, the protagonist faces her biggest fear, deadliest antagonists, most taxing test, deepest prejudice. This is the moment the entire story has been steadily marching toward.
After the Climax, the energy of the story immediately drops. In the Resolution, the character acts in her newly transformed way. This reinforces that her new skills are fully integrated in her new life. The character, now surrounded by allies, has nothing to fear. Here, at the end, she demonstrates her new behavior with ease and great humor.
By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 4/18/2009
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers
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Agents, editors, directors, audiences, and readers alike expect the scenes of a story to add up to something meaningful in the end.
The End is the Beginning
T.S. Eliot said, "The end is in the beginning."
The beginning of any entertaining and well-crafted story tells as much about where we are headed as to where we will be at the end. This means that until you write the end you will not truly know the beginning.
Which comes first? Does a writer labor over the first three quarters of a project where the groundwork is laid for the end? Or, does one write the climax itself first?
Before a writer can lay the groundwork about the character and the situation to build to a climax in a way that makes the highest point of the story seem both inevitable and surprising, doesn't the writer first need to know the climax? At what point do we surrender our idea of the story and our will, and let the story have its head?
Whichever which way you get there, the choices you make for the end of your story deserve attention.
Connecting the Dots
A finished draft allows the writer to stand back from the story and think both forward from the beginning and middle, and backwards from the climax. In other words, the beginning defines the end and the end defines the beginning.
As Apple co-founder Steve Jobs says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." Of course he was referring to students at their commencement, but it applies to plot as well. For the end to be meaningful and convincing, first specific character emotional development must be established through the use of dramatic action.
What is your story really saying? What do all those words you wrote add up to? Your story is a reflection of a truth. Not necessarily true for all time, but true for the story itself, and likely for yourself, too. What is the deeper meaning? The truth beyond the physical? The protagonist has undergone a transformation. What does that mean? Jot down the ideas that come to you.
The Climax
The protagonist introduced in the beginning 1/4 of a story spends twice that time in the caldron of dramatic action of the middle. In both the beginning one quarter of the story and up to the next three quarter mark toward the end of the middle, the character's emotional make-up is revealed through successively challenging events that are linked by cause and effect.
The dramatic action and the details and interpretations of the story hold the reader's interest and at the same time show the reader what they need to know to follow the story to its climax.
The climax hits close to the very end of the story. It is the point at which the story turns from being an interrelated deliberately arranged set of scenes to gold. "Any event that seems to the given writer startling, curious, or interest-laden can form the climax of a possible story,” writes John Gardner in The Art of Fiction.
The Climax serves as the light at the end of the tunnel. In the final quarter of the work, the protagonist moves toward the light -- one step forward toward the ultimate transformation, three steps back, a fight for a couple of steps, being beat backwards.
The Climax spotlights the character as she comes into full transformation and demonstrates full mastery of the necessary new skill or personality, gift or action.
The protagonist "shows" herself in scene acting in a transformed way -- in a way she could not have acted in any other part of the story because she first needed to experience everything she does to get to the final stage.
When the dramatic action of a story changes a character at depth over time, the story becomes thematically significant. Ask yourself which scene most dramatically shows your protagonist demonstrating her transformed self?
When you know the answer to that question, you have your climax.
The Climax, in turn, informs all the other scenes in the entire project.
Hollywood Endings
The happily-ever-after endings of the 1950s were replaced in the ‘60s and ‘70s by darker works like A Clockwork Orange, Coming Home, and Midnight Cowboy. The next decade brought in the era of Wall Street.
By the late ‘90s and early 2000s, we could afford to produce books and movies that depicted great loss and enduring hardship. As in the The Horse Whisperer and Cold Mountain, the reward in the end often came in the form of a new life.
Today, the shadow side of survival in these later films is fast becoming the reality in more and more book buyers’ and moviegoers’ lives.
Darkness or Hope
Of the two kinds of people who go to film festivals, view popular movies, and read books, one kind believes the universe is orderly and expects us to act morally responsible. These people usually find stories that end on a hopeful note enjoyable and inspire enthusiasm.
Then there are those people who accept a more random view of things. These people are often more at peace with stories that end by reinforcing a grudging acceptance that life is hard.
Both sorts of people are affected by the increasing connectedness of scenes and emotion in a story. In both cases, if unable to find enjoyment in a story or grasp a deeper acceptance for life, people will ultimately stop reading or opt to leave to the movie early.
Thematic Significance
While writing and rewriting the final quarter of the story and the climax itself, a writer looks hard at the meaning of things. An exploration of deep-rooted ideas for the fundamental meaning of events reveals thematic significance, which in turn dictates the final layer in the selection and organization, nuances, and details of the story.
Filmmaker Halidan Hussy, co-founder and executive director of Santa Cruz Cinequest Film Festival, says, “You go to find films that get you thinking, that open you up.”
Stories that get you thinking resonate with meaning. Stories that open you up create opportunities for a shared experience with others. A promising story with a thematically rich climax leaves the reader to ponder the deeper meaning and, in that way, is sure to deliver success.
io
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By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 12/10/2010
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By: Martha Alderson, M.A.,
on 12/10/2010
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Martha Alderson, Blockbuster Plots for Writers, International Plot Writing Month, writing the climax, Writing the End, Add a tag
Yes, the Climax is the crowning glory and it really deserves more than one day, but it is time to move along.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, said at a commencement speech: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future."
Your job as writer is to connect the dots. And, because you know the future -- the Climax -- you do not need to rely on trust. You can actually connect the dots.
Work backwards from the Climax -- which is the moment when the protagonist finally stands firmly in her power, stands up to her greatest fear or confronts the thing that has beat her up spiritually. The scenes in the final 1/4 of the project lead up to the Climax.
As you see, the line ascends quickly. The scenes you plot here serve primarily to advance the protagonist to the Climax. Nothing new can be introduced, no pontification or philosophizing. The reader does not want the story to end, but they can not stop reading. They have to know what happens. Keep things moving.
Yes, the Climax spotlights the character in full transformation as she demonstrates the necessary new skill or personality, gift or action, but the scenes that build up to the Climax show us the transformation unfolding step-by-step. The reader lives the experience with her. Together the protagonist and reader moves closer and closer to her goal, firmly aware that she had to experience everything she did throughout the entire book to get to this final stage --
0 Comments on Day Ten--3rd Annual International Plot Writing Month as of 12/10/2010 9:24:00 PM
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Each culminating ending scene builds in energy to the next scene. Thanks to the earlier Crisis (at around the 3/4 mark of the story), the protagonist becomes more and more conscious of her flaws and strengths and of the world around her. No longer bogged down by fear or pity, she shows through dramatic action the release of pent-up feelings, of tension and of the past. Having died to her old personality, she embraces new ideas with the ultimate expression of mastery at the Climax.
The relationship between a girl and her father represents a universal archetype. Can a writer who has not resolved her own personal issues with her father write end a story of a daughter and her father with truth and emotion?
Yes, I believe she can. But... not necessarily in the first, or second, or even third drafts. The section of the story she will find the most difficult to write is the final 1/4 of the story.
If the writer's own feelings about her father are bogged down with self-pity, the story is likely to end angry and unresolved. If the writer fears her own pent-up feelings, the story is likely to end superficially and in cliche.
Until the writer honestly accepts her own truth , she will struggle. To accept new ideas, she herself must first die to her old personality. Then, she can fully allow her protagonist a free rein to embrace all possibilities and ultimately discover the unexpected.
1 Comments on Climax, last added: 5/28/2010
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Continued from 8/22 blog post:
One of the most gratifying aspects of reading and going to the theater is the experience of living someone else's life (meaning to enter into the protagonist's skin) and surviving a Crisis. Stories give us the idea that we, too, can survive the dark night of the soul and know that moment when consciousness slays the ego.
Suspense builds as we read or watch for what the character does next.
When we, in real life, get hit with a Crisis, we can either accept what is and move on OR we can return to unconsciousness, crippled by victimhood.
In stories, the Crisis (the scene of most energetic intensity in the story so far) serves as a slap in the face, a wake-up call, the moment when the character becomes conscious of life's deeper meaning (thematic significance = look for more on this in the next blog post).
Stories are about, at their core, their essence, character transformation. After the Crisis, in order for character transformation to occur, the character moves out of unconsciousness to a place of acceptance.
The author decides whether the character will move from the Crisis to acceptance only, or whether she will move on into enjoyment and ultimately, if she sets a goal for herself, to enthusiasm.
After the Crisis, the character is now consciously even more aware of all the sensory details around her, more alive, more alert. She is absolutely present in what she does. The reader senses the alert, alive stillness within the character in the background of the action.
Her earlier goal -- outer purpose -- expands into something much bigger now that she is empowered by consciousness. This new strength, insight, power fills her with enjoyment in the next step towards transformation. Added to that enjoyment comes an intensity and creative power beyond her imagining.
Once the character is awakened -- thanks to the Crisis, -- she moves toward her outer goal and her enjoyment turns into enthusiasm. From this moment on, the story's energy field vibrates. Tension builds. Behind each step the character takes, the story grows in intensity and energy.
The character is more involved in each step (moment-by-moment action) as she steadily moves toward her goal than she is at arriving to her goal. Stress falls away. Confident she will arrive at her goal, in the knowing, she savors each moment in aliveness, joy, and power.
"[The character] will feel like an arrow that is moving toward the target--and enjoying the journey." A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
The Climax is the "target" -- the moment when the character steps out of her ego and into pure alignment with the creative source.
The Climax (the scene of highest energetic intensity much more so than that of the Crisis) is the place where the character is once again tested. In the Climax, the character is often confronted again by her greatest antagonist. Unlike earlier encounters, this time, however, the character is able to yield, walk around, embrace, or turn the opposing energy into a helpful one. Because of all the antagonists she has been confronted by and learned from along the way (the Middle = 1/2), at the Climax, the character is able to show us yet another way to live life in triumph.
The reason the story can not continue for many pages moments or pages after the Climax is that when a goal is met the tension is gone.
In the Resolution, the character surrenders to the return movement in a state of joy and the story ends.
In a series, at the end of one story, the author promises a new wave of creative energy to come along with renewed enthusiasm.
(NOTE: I invite you to also consider the above elements of the Universal Story form as a template for your own individual writer's journey. In your knowing of the structure, you are able to bypass a Crisis yourself and rather, everyday write with a sense of consciousness more concerned with the next sentence than reaching the end, more concerned with sending out queries than attaining an agent, more concerned with your next story than reviews...)
1 Comments on Meaning of the Crisis & Climax Cont., last added: 8/25/2009
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1 Comments on Humor Writing / Character Consistency, last added: 4/29/2009
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4 Comments on The End is the Beginning, last added: 5/12/2009
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Very thoughtful - and thought-provoking. Thanks!