October 17, 1989, at 5:04:15 p.m. (PDT), the epicenter of a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit nearly smack in my garden. The doorframe I clutched shifted erratically, the floor beneath me shook, the house creaked and moaned and all water in the little neighborhood pool rose up into the air and broke over the side. As Robert Page, U.S. Geological Survey writes of the event:
"It was a wakeup call to prepare for the potentially even more devastating shocks that are inevitable in the future."
That's sort of like what happens to the protagonist when hit by the Crisis around the three quarter mark of your story. The ground shakes, uncovering all illusions about herself and the world around her, leaving her blinded by the truth of her own insignificance.
What truly defines the protagonist is what she does after the crisis. From one extreme of intense vulnerability to another of shame and discomfort
WHILE also knowing she had a part to play in her own demise
AND that the crisis is merely a wakeup call to prepare her for the potentially even more devastating shocks that are inevitable in the future.
Her motivation must be strong and meaningful to go forward in the face of such torment. So much easier to get lost in the haze of addictions and self-loathing… oh, that's the human condition. For your protagonist, there is no stopping beyond a spell of reflection, gathering resources and allies and letting go of everything that no longer serves her.
At the point she steps over into the last quarter of the story to gain her true freedom, the End begins.
Along the way on her ascent to the Climax, quake your story with some of those inevitable and more devastating aftershocks. Entering the End she's wobbly, uncertain, and highly vulnerable. Her emotions are at their peak. The hits give her chances to stretch beyond who she was beforethe crisis, come into mastery or at least a firm grip of all the lessons and knowledge she's gained and prepare her for the Climax where she demonstrates who she is becoming.
The drop in the energy of a Universal Story is symbolized on the Plot Planner by the downward line after the Crisis. This entire downward line can be viewed as the threshold separating the middle of the story from the end. Literally, a threshold is a doorsill or the starting point of an experience.
On the Plot Planner and in the Universal Story, this threshold encompasses the integration of and preparatory time needed after the crisis and before the actual crossing over into the final quarter of the story. The length of the line as the energy contracts depends on your story. In high-action stories, the drop in intensity may occur over one short scene. At its core, this time of regrouping takes place on a purely cognitive level. Though the protagonist may assemble the resources she plans to take forward with her, until she takes her first step toward her final goal she remains in the middle of the story and, as yet, has not entered the final one-quarter of the story.
This is a time, whether brief of for several scenes, of rest for the protagonist and recovery after the Crisis. It's a time of recollection, integrations, assessment and review. Before blindly reacting as always, finally now, she takes time to re-evaluate, re-invent, re-form, and redo things. She's unsteady after all that has befallen her. She makes mistakes, misjudgments and misreading as she reflects and prepares for the final ascent to the Climax.
The drop in energy allows for the reader and audience to rebuild anticipation and expectation for what will happen when the protagonist ultimately leaves the middle of the story and sets out for the climax at the end of the story.
As the protagonist considers the thoughts that have held her captive, she can mourn what was. But rather than hold onto those same old beliefs and continue to retard her progress, now she is free to reshape her life by speaking and acting in her own truth. Once she develops a new belief system, a shift occurs in her life. Having wakened to her potential, she is finally clear to seize that which she most longs for. And… the End begins. (Excerpt taken from
The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master.)~~~~~~~~PLOT WORKSHOPS and RETREATSA PATH to PUBLISHING using the
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