Friday, February 11, 2011

Characters and Plot

Today's writing challenge is writing a scene where an ordinary person's reaction to a magical disturbance is to do something illogical and make it seem natural instead of like "something the author needed the character to do to advance the plot."  

  • Strategy one: The character is in shock and is jolted into following the advice he's previously discounted.  Pros:  The plot moves forward.  Cons: Removes some agency from the character since he's not in his normal mind.
  • Strategy two: The character just does it and the author will fix the problem later.  Pros:  Yay! Story!  Cons:  "Seat-of-the-pants Writing, which I'm trying to get away from.  Pluse, I can hear the critiques at Wordos now....
  • Strategy Three:  The plot as written is broken; go back and re-write it so the character's emotional calculus is in sync with their actions and the plot.  Pros:  Probably a better story, at least plot-wise.  Cons:  But the bad guys have to do what they've done.  Arg.  This was supposed to be the protagonist's Precipitating Moment.
  • Strategy Four:  Think out loud on the blog until I've re-shuffled the story enough to get to The Writing Place.  Pros: Wildly Creative.  Cons:  Uh, I'm supposed to be writing, remember?

...and... GO!

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