When writing fiction of any kind, the main question with respect to plot is always this:
What is the problem?
The problem, also known as the conflict, is the thing, or things, standing in the way of the hero/protagonist getting what he or she wants or needs, and as such, it sets up his or her journey. When that problem is compounded, it raises the stakes, creating tension and compelling the reader to turn the page to find out “what happens next?”
Generally speaking, literary problems/conflicts fall into one of four classic categories:
- Hero versus someone else
- Hero versus society
- Hero versus nature/natural events
- Hero versus him or herself (conscience, or inner struggle)
Sometimes these overlap, or the problem encompasses more than one category. Let’s look at some examples from a few well-known children’s books:
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems – Hero vs. someone else (the bus driver has told us not to let the pigeon drive the bus), hero vs. society (like the child reader, the pigeon is too young to drive), hero vs. himself (the pigeon is desperate to drive!)
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelman – Hero vs. nature/natural events (Madeline has a burst appendix)
Owen by Kevin Henkes – Hero vs. someone else (Mrs. Tweezers, the nosy neighbor, persuades Owen’s parents that their son is too old to have a blankie); Hero vs. society (Owen is starting school, where blankies are not allowed)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Erica Carle – Hero vs. himself/Hero vs. nature (no matter how much he eats, the caterpillar is still hungry)
The hero’s problem can be circumstantial, or it can be informed by character. Ideally, it’s both. The pigeon is desperate to drive the bus (character) but he’s too young (circumstantial). Madeline’s appendix bursts (circumstantial) but how she, her fellow students and Miss Clavell handle the problem is informed by character. Owen’s neighbor, parents and school want him to give up his blankie (circumstantial) but he is unswayed in his devotion (character). The caterpillar’s appetite is never satisfied because he is a caterpillar (character) and has only so much time before he has to cocoon and transform into a butterfly (circumstantial).
So… what’s your hero’s problem?
One of the small problems about flying off next week to tell stories at Delhi's Bookaroo Children’s Book Festival(with surrounding holiday) is that . . . . er . . er . . . part of me quite wants to stay home here in Yorkshire working on Tome Two.
I’m behind on my personal deadline. This Autumn’s run of visits tore into the energy I need for my writing work. This is not a complaint, especially as the schools and libraries were really great, but the big fact in most author's writing/earning balance. Visiting is essentially “Out There”; Writing is “In Here”.
I know I should be up and at the Tome every spare second, but my creative mind doesn’t work like that, and before anyone quotes inspirational tales of Messrs Trollope or Archer or even the feted Miss Price, I have no servants, assistants or anyone else writing down my book words.
However, the enforced silence was useful. Returning to the Tome, I suddenly saw that a certain light and subtle story twist was actually constructed of a material somewhat heavier then lead. It required, and will require, strong and severe plot-wrangling.
There is also another problem to solve. The small matter of X, a secondary character: a pale, pitiful creature doomed to arrive at a poignantly early end.
X has decided to be nothing of the sort. In true Jasper-Ffordean manner, she is stomping on furiously, full of life and health and wanting to have her own way. Just now I can’t see how or if I can ever take her in hand, let alone what she will do to the main characters. So much for the power of the synopsis! She cannot be trusted alone.
So I have decided that in Delhi, home of the power-cut,I must keep writing, but it will be - aagh! - by hand. Even though that means facing up to my awful over-excited scrawl. Even though I need the protective “writing distance” my computer screen gives me. I considered the lap-top option, but that adds weight and safety issues. Hand-writing sounds so much more reliable, doesn’t it?
I fear it will all come back to me: the stained fingers, the gloom as the paper is covered in more and more deletions, the awful over-writing, the sense of homework badly done. Ho hum. I must try to be positive.
Will my back-to-scribbling plan work? It's essential that it does, because I’ve reached a significant point in the making of Tome Two, a moment that ABBA writers may recognise, and it is joyous. When I sat down to work this last week, the writing had begun speaking back to me.
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Dreaming seems (if you will forgive the pun) to be on some of the ABBA bloggers’ minds lately, and it set me to wondering. Does anyone else use sleep and dreaming as a conscious (I use the word advisedly) writing tool—as an aid to working out those knotty plot problems which hinder any further writing progress until they are resolved? Perhaps I am just weird, but maybe—just maybe—this odd habit of mine might help someone else who is stuck in their writing process. So here goes….
Going to bed for an occasional nap in the middle of the afternoon is something I have done for years—ever since I had
M.E.. I refuse to feel guilty about this, even in the face of disapproving looks and mutterings about laziness and the cushiness of being an author who works at home. It’s simply the way I keep going when I need to recharge my very-prone-to-going-flat physical batteries. I have also discovered that I can use afternoon napping to my creative advantage. I am currently writing a sequel to my first novel,
Hootcat Hill. This one is bigger, for a slightly older age group, and a good deal more complicated, since I have to keep track of several other worlds and two parallel plots (which will eventually merge). Although I know where I am going with the whole book—in a very broadly brushed sense of the word ‘know’—I quite often come to a point (and it’s always in that dead, middle part of the afternoon) where I can’t see further ahead than the next full stop. I have learnt that staring at the screen intently does no good at all when I am in this stuck frame of mind. Nor does grinding of the teeth, nor shouting at the characters to ‘just come on and tell me what you’re doing next’. They simply carry on being obstinate, obdurate, silent—at least they do in the awake world. In the dreaming world they are active, alive and vocal. It is usually at this point that I sigh, surrender gracefully and enact a small ritual—if housework, food shopping, general life management and the myriad siren calls of the outside world allow me to.
I switch off the computer (and the phone and the mobile). I make myself a hot water bottle (the central heating is broken and my bedroom is cold). I undress and dress again in my snuggly ‘inspiration’ pyjamas. I get into bed, lying on my back (not my nighttime sleeping position), and close my eyes. It’s just me and the characters and the plot now. Nothing else is allowed to intrude. ‘So what is going on?’ I ask in a relaxed sort of way inside my head. ‘Where do we need to go next?’ I fix the problem in my mind—really think about its shape and form, and about why exactly it is that it has appeared. I allow myself to drift into it, quite casually (and yes, I do use meditation techniques here to block out the irrelevant mindchatter). Sleep comes—but it is a conscious sort of sleep—a focussed sleep. I may wake an hour later, sometimes less, sometimes more. The important thing is that when I do wake up, I usually know where I am going next with the book—the mechanics of my particular mind have allowed my characters to wander around in my unconcious and sort things out for themselves—and they are kind enough to let me know this so that I can carry on mapping their lives. So for me, napping is working (daydreaming is working too, in my opinion—but that’s a whole other story). I do, however, find it terribly difficult to get this message across to other people—and I wonder why my acts of dreaming make everyone outside my immediate family so cross and snarly when I mention them? I am simply using the writing tools that work best for me. The tools that get creative results and help me to write books that I can sell—for money. Is that so hard to understand?
Writing by pen! I'd rather eat my own manuscript.
Thank you for putting that thought into my head. So now my worries include whether I'll be able to tell the difference between the neat rectangular notebook and the neat rectangular plane meal-pack.
Delta Star moment! (copyright T Pratchett) How wonderful, congratulations!
I've just rediscovered longhand - maybe it's just the change of scene, but I find it's making me concentrate more and the story actually flows (rather than me having to squeeze the dry old bones of every word till blood flows).
I will try and use your description of the process as an inspiration to succeed in the scribbly task, Gillian!
I find writing in longhand (only do it when I absolutely have to!) is both a bind and a freedom.
A bit of a bind because I scribble so badly I can often hardly decipher it, but a kind of freedom almost because I know I will be typing it out and changing it again later, so it feels like a sort of freestyle and anything can happen because it is somehow less permanent almost as if it is just thinking and trying it out rather than just writing it
- yes I know that is weird but who knows how the creative process really works!
have a wonderful time whatever happens!
Yay for your writing speaking to you. It's such a whoohoo moment when that happens.