WEBVTT
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If I asked you to tell me what happens in your story, you could probably do it.
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You know the opening, you know how it starts, you know the big plot turns, you may know how it ends, you might even have it outlined chapter by chapter.
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Now, let me ask you a different question.
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Who is your character at the end of your story that she wasn't at the beginning?
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What can she see, face, or do that she couldn't before?
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If that's harder to answer, it may be because you've spent more time figuring out what happens to your character than what it changes for her.
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And that's often where a story that is plenty happening still doesn't feel like it holds together.
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In last week's episode, we talked about how one clear event gives your first chapter its shape.
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So today I want to zoom out to the whole story and to the person at the center of it.
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Think of your story as two lines.
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There's the plot line, the external events, everything that happens.
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That's the horizontal line.
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Then there's the vertical line running through all those plot events.
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That's your character's inner story, how she understands what's happening, how she responds to it, what she believes about herself and other people, and what she isn't ready to face yet.
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It's the emotional structure.
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Those two lines are bound together like brick and mortar.
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The external events are the bricks.
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Your character's inner story is the mortar that holds them together.
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Without the mortar, you've got a pile of bricks.
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Without the bricks, the mortar has nothing to hold.
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But here's the part I want to focus on today.
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Your plot serves your character, not the other way around.
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And many writers focus more on what happens than who it happens to.
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They create all these dramatic events in the plot, and the characters are just reacting, and they're often reacting in predictable ways.
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No surprises there.
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Now, that doesn't mean you have to figure out your character's entire character arc before you start writing.
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You might discover it through the scenes you write.
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You might get halfway through a draft before you begin to understand what this story is asking your character to face.
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But whether you're drafting or revising, the question is the same.
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What do these plot events mean for the person living through them?
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And how do her responses, her choices, shape what happens next?
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How do her choices affect other characters?
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How do their responses change the trajectory of the plot?
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Okay, so let's get into it.
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Here's a question I want you to think about as you write.
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What hangs in the balance for your character?
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There may be something very concrete she could gain or lose: a job, a marriage, her home, her safety, or something less tangible, like her identity.
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But what does that mean to her?
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Losing the job might mean losing the one place where she feels competent.
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A marriage ending might force her to question a version of herself she's held on to for years.
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Falling in love could mean getting hurt again.
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That's where an event begins to matter beyond the fact that it happened.
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Two characters could experience the same event and respond in completely different ways, because different things hang in the balance for each of them.
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One character hears criticism from her mother and thinks, I need to try harder.
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Another thinks, I knew I couldn't trust you.
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And those interpretations lead to different choices.
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So when you're deciding what happens next, don't stop at whether the plot event is interesting.
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Ask what it puts at risk for this particular character.
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What does it challenge?
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What does it make harder for her to avoid?
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When you know that, even a quiet scene can carry enormous tension.
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Change is movement, not a mood.
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A character's inner story isn't just a record of how she feels.
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She can be lonely in chapter one, lonelier in chapter 10, and devastated in chapter 20.
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You've intensified the feeling, but has her understanding changed?
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Has she made a choice that creates a new problem?
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Has she tried something she wouldn't have tried before?
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Has she risked something?
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That's the movement we're looking for.
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If your character starts out lonely and wants to do something to solve that problem, what decision does she make despite being scared?
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What risks does she take?
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And what complications come out of those risks to challenge her?
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She might still be alone at the end of the story, but perhaps she's not lonely anymore.
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What being alone means to her has changed.
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And change doesn't have to mean becoming happier or wiser.
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A character can become more guarded.
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She can recognize something and refuse to act on it.
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She can make a choice that costs her more than she expected.
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What matters is the experiences of the story have consequences inside her, and those consequences affect what she does.
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For example, in Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine.
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When we meet Eleanor, her life runs on routine.
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Work, the same meals, vodka on the weekends, Wednesday phone calls with her mother.
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She keeps other people at a distance, and she will tell you she's completely fine.
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But as readers, we begin to see the loneliness she herself doesn't acknowledge.
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So we have the circumstances of her life, and we have the way she understands those circumstances.
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Those aren't quite the same thing.
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Then Eleanor decides she's fallen in love with a musician she's never met.
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She builds a fantasy around him and begins preparing for their future together.
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New clothes, new hair, a plan for becoming the woman she thinks he'll want.
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There's movement there.
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She wants connection.
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But look at the form that connection takes.
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She's imagining a relationship with someone she doesn't know.
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She can give him all the qualities she needs him to have without the uncertainty of getting close to a real person.
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Meanwhile, she and Raymond, a colleague from work, come across an older man who has collapsed on the street.
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They help him, and helping Sammy brings Eleanor into contact with his family, their warmth, their invitations.
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Now she's encountering something she can't control through fantasy.
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Real people who include her, who notice her, who might come to matter to her.
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And that creates its own discomfort.
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Wanting connection doesn't mean she knows how to accept it.
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Then her fantasy about the musician collapses.
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When she sees him perform, the man in front of her doesn't match the man she's invented.
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That disappointment is devastating because of what she's invested in it.
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This was supposed to be her way into a different life.
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And when Eleanor reaches her lowest point, Raymond shows up.
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She begins accepting help.
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She starts counseling.
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Slowly, she begins facing the past and questioning things she's treated as true.
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By the end, her life isn't neatly resolved, but her relationship to other people and to her own experience has changed.
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She's beginning to let herself be known.
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Now here's how the plot serves Eleanor.
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Look at how these events work.
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The musician gives Eleanor somewhere to place her longing without having to navigate an actual relationship.
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Helping Sammy brings her into contact with people she can't simply invent.
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The collapse of her fantasy exposes how much she's been depending on it.
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And Raymond's presence gives her an opportunity to accept the kind of help she spent so much of her life resisting.
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Each plot event puts pressure on something inside her.
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But Eleanor also shapes the plot.
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She pursues the musician, she participates in helping Sammy, she responds to invitations, she accepts help.
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What happens affects her.
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What she does in response affects what happens next.
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That's how the two lines move together.
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If we knew nothing about Eleanor's loneliness or the hopes she's placed in the musician, his disappointing performance wouldn't be that impactful.
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It would just be another thing happening.
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It matters because we understand what it means to her.
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Choices are where change becomes visible.
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This is how readers experience a character's change.
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We can learn a great deal through her thoughts, through what she remembers, notices, judges, or realizes.
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But we also need to see what she does with that understanding.
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Does she answer the phone this time, tell someone the truth, stay when she would usually leave, ask for help, then wish she hadn't?
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Those choices don't have to be dramatic to be significant.
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And they won't necessarily move in one direction.
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Your character can take a risk, feel exposed, and retreat.
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She can recognize an old pattern and repeat it anyway.
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That doesn't erase the movement, it gives you something to work with.
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Now she knows something she didn't know before.
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What will it take for her to act on it?
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Sometimes your character doesn't change.
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The frustrating truth is that sometimes people can't change, sometimes they won't, sometimes they refuse to change.
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For example, Frank Wheeler in Revolutionary Road is scared to change.
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He holds on to the life he's claimed he wants to escape, and the outcome is tragic.
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His refusal has consequences, and by the end, we understand something about him that we couldn't see at the beginning.
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So when you sit down to write and you're not sure what comes next, return to your character.
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In last week's episode, I asked you to think about what your character wants when we first meet her.
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Now follow that want through the whole story.
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What does she want right now?
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What is she trying to protect?
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What isn't she ready to face?
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Then consider an event that puts pressure on one of those things.
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It might force her to choose between what she wants and what feels safe.
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It might give her exactly what she's been pursuing, only to reveal that it doesn't solve the problem she thought it would.
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Or it might offer her something she needs but isn't ready to accept.
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And once that plot event happens, stay with her response.
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What does she think it means?
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What fear or resistance does it kick up?
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What does she do because of that?
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What consequence follows?
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You don't need to know every turn before you write, but these questions can help you find the next plot event that grows out of the story you're already telling.
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So let's recap.
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Here are three things to take with you.
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One, your story has an external line and an internal line, the horizontal plot line and the vertical line running through those events.
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The events and what those events mean to your character work together like brick and mortar.
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Two, ask what hangs in the balance.
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What could she gain or lose and why does that matter to her?
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3.
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Follow her response.
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How she interprets an event shapes her choices, and those choices help create what happens next.
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Your character's inner story gives you a way to decide which events belong and to understand why a scene with plenty happening might still feel empty.
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And if you're struggling to see how the pieces of your draft fit together, I'm hosting a free live masterclass on Tuesday, October 13th, 7 p.m.
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Eastern.
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I'll help you see the structure already taking shape in what you've written, the frame your story hangs on, so you can return to your pages with a clearer sense of where you're going.
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Now I only have 50 spots open, so go to mylivemasterclass.com to hold your spot.
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Mylivemasterclass.com.
00:16:43.680 --> 00:16:48.879
So when you're looking at your draft, don't just ask, does enough happen?
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Ask why does what happens matter to this person?
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What does it ask her to face?
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What does she do in response?
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And what happens because of that choice?
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We keep reading because we want to know what happens next, but we also want to know why it all matters to your character, what it will mean for her.
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That's how your plot begins to hold together.
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If I asked you to tell me what happens in your story, you could probably do it.
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You know the opening, you know how it starts, you know the big plot turns, you may know how it ends, you might even have it outlined chapter by chapter.
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Now, let me ask you a different question.
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Who is your character at the end of your story that she wasn't at the beginning?
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What can she see, face, or do that she couldn't before?
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If that's harder to answer, it may be because you've spent more time figuring out what happens to your character than what it changes for her.
00:01:51.359 --> 00:01:59.840
And that's often where a story that is plenty happening still doesn't feel like it holds together.
00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:09.759
In last week's episode, we talked about how one clear event gives your first chapter its shape.
00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:16.159
So today I want to zoom out to the whole story and to the person at the center of it.
00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.680
Think of your story as two lines.
00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:25.280
There's the plot line, the external events, everything that happens.
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:27.680
That's the horizontal line.
00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.560
Then there's the vertical line running through all those plot events.
00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:48.000
That's your character's inner story, how she understands what's happening, how she responds to it, what she believes about herself and other people, and what she isn't ready to face yet.
00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:51.280
It's the emotional structure.
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Those two lines are bound together like brick and mortar.
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The external events are the bricks.
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Your character's inner story is the mortar that holds them together.
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Without the mortar, you've got a pile of bricks.
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Without the bricks, the mortar has nothing to hold.
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:15.680
But here's the part I want to focus on today.
00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:22.319
Your plot serves your character, not the other way around.
00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:26.799
And many writers focus more on what happens than who it happens to.
00:03:26.959 --> 00:03:35.599
They create all these dramatic events in the plot, and the characters are just reacting, and they're often reacting in predictable ways.
00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:37.439
No surprises there.
00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:46.239
Now, that doesn't mean you have to figure out your character's entire character arc before you start writing.
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:49.280
You might discover it through the scenes you write.
00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:57.199
You might get halfway through a draft before you begin to understand what this story is asking your character to face.
00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:06.000
But whether you're drafting or revising, the question is the same.
00:04:06.799 --> 00:04:12.560
What do these plot events mean for the person living through them?
00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:20.079
And how do her responses, her choices, shape what happens next?
00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:23.199
How do her choices affect other characters?
00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:28.319
How do their responses change the trajectory of the plot?
00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:31.280
Okay, so let's get into it.
00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:35.519
Here's a question I want you to think about as you write.
00:04:35.840 --> 00:04:40.160
What hangs in the balance for your character?
00:04:40.400 --> 00:04:53.040
There may be something very concrete she could gain or lose: a job, a marriage, her home, her safety, or something less tangible, like her identity.
00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:56.240
But what does that mean to her?
00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:01.120
Losing the job might mean losing the one place where she feels competent.
00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:08.079
A marriage ending might force her to question a version of herself she's held on to for years.
00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:12.000
Falling in love could mean getting hurt again.
00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:17.920
That's where an event begins to matter beyond the fact that it happened.
00:05:18.719 --> 00:05:31.839
Two characters could experience the same event and respond in completely different ways, because different things hang in the balance for each of them.
00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:38.079
One character hears criticism from her mother and thinks, I need to try harder.
00:05:38.319 --> 00:05:41.839
Another thinks, I knew I couldn't trust you.
00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:45.680
And those interpretations lead to different choices.
00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:52.879
So when you're deciding what happens next, don't stop at whether the plot event is interesting.
00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:58.079
Ask what it puts at risk for this particular character.
00:05:58.319 --> 00:05:59.839
What does it challenge?
00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:04.399
What does it make harder for her to avoid?
00:06:04.719 --> 00:06:11.360
When you know that, even a quiet scene can carry enormous tension.
00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.279
Change is movement, not a mood.
00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:20.399
A character's inner story isn't just a record of how she feels.
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:27.040
She can be lonely in chapter one, lonelier in chapter 10, and devastated in chapter 20.
00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:33.040
You've intensified the feeling, but has her understanding changed?
00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.879
Has she made a choice that creates a new problem?
00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:40.959
Has she tried something she wouldn't have tried before?
00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:43.839
Has she risked something?
00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:46.800
That's the movement we're looking for.
00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:56.959
If your character starts out lonely and wants to do something to solve that problem, what decision does she make despite being scared?
00:06:57.279 --> 00:06:59.279
What risks does she take?
00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:04.560
And what complications come out of those risks to challenge her?
00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:10.879
She might still be alone at the end of the story, but perhaps she's not lonely anymore.
00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:15.279
What being alone means to her has changed.
00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:19.920
And change doesn't have to mean becoming happier or wiser.
00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.599
A character can become more guarded.
00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:27.360
She can recognize something and refuse to act on it.
00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:32.560
She can make a choice that costs her more than she expected.
00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:44.000
What matters is the experiences of the story have consequences inside her, and those consequences affect what she does.
00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:51.199
For example, in Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine.
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:55.920
When we meet Eleanor, her life runs on routine.
00:07:56.240 --> 00:08:02.480
Work, the same meals, vodka on the weekends, Wednesday phone calls with her mother.
00:08:02.719 --> 00:08:08.800
She keeps other people at a distance, and she will tell you she's completely fine.
00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:15.360
But as readers, we begin to see the loneliness she herself doesn't acknowledge.
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So we have the circumstances of her life, and we have the way she understands those circumstances.
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Those aren't quite the same thing.
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Then Eleanor decides she's fallen in love with a musician she's never met.
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She builds a fantasy around him and begins preparing for their future together.
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New clothes, new hair, a plan for becoming the woman she thinks he'll want.
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There's movement there.
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She wants connection.
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But look at the form that connection takes.
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She's imagining a relationship with someone she doesn't know.
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She can give him all the qualities she needs him to have without the uncertainty of getting close to a real person.
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Meanwhile, she and Raymond, a colleague from work, come across an older man who has collapsed on the street.
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They help him, and helping Sammy brings Eleanor into contact with his family, their warmth, their invitations.
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Now she's encountering something she can't control through fantasy.
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Real people who include her, who notice her, who might come to matter to her.
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And that creates its own discomfort.
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Wanting connection doesn't mean she knows how to accept it.
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Then her fantasy about the musician collapses.
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When she sees him perform, the man in front of her doesn't match the man she's invented.
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That disappointment is devastating because of what she's invested in it.
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This was supposed to be her way into a different life.
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And when Eleanor reaches her lowest point, Raymond shows up.
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She begins accepting help.
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She starts counseling.
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Slowly, she begins facing the past and questioning things she's treated as true.
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By the end, her life isn't neatly resolved, but her relationship to other people and to her own experience has changed.
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She's beginning to let herself be known.
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Now here's how the plot serves Eleanor.
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Look at how these events work.
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The musician gives Eleanor somewhere to place her longing without having to navigate an actual relationship.
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Helping Sammy brings her into contact with people she can't simply invent.
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The collapse of her fantasy exposes how much she's been depending on it.
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And Raymond's presence gives her an opportunity to accept the kind of help she spent so much of her life resisting.
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Each plot event puts pressure on something inside her.
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But Eleanor also shapes the plot.
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She pursues the musician, she participates in helping Sammy, she responds to invitations, she accepts help.
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What happens affects her.
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What she does in response affects what happens next.
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That's how the two lines move together.
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If we knew nothing about Eleanor's loneliness or the hopes she's placed in the musician, his disappointing performance wouldn't be that impactful.
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It would just be another thing happening.
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It matters because we understand what it means to her.
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Choices are where change becomes visible.
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This is how readers experience a character's change.
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We can learn a great deal through her thoughts, through what she remembers, notices, judges, or realizes.
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But we also need to see what she does with that understanding.
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Does she answer the phone this time, tell someone the truth, stay when she would usually leave, ask for help, then wish she hadn't?
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Those choices don't have to be dramatic to be significant.
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And they won't necessarily move in one direction.
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Your character can take a risk, feel exposed, and retreat.
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She can recognize an old pattern and repeat it anyway.
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That doesn't erase the movement, it gives you something to work with.
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Now she knows something she didn't know before.
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What will it take for her to act on it?
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Sometimes your character doesn't change.
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The frustrating truth is that sometimes people can't change, sometimes they won't, sometimes they refuse to change.
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For example, Frank Wheeler in Revolutionary Road is scared to change.
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He holds on to the life he's claimed he wants to escape, and the outcome is tragic.
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His refusal has consequences, and by the end, we understand something about him that we couldn't see at the beginning.
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So when you sit down to write and you're not sure what comes next, return to your character.
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In last week's episode, I asked you to think about what your character wants when we first meet her.
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Now follow that want through the whole story.
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What does she want right now?
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What is she trying to protect?
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What isn't she ready to face?
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Then consider an event that puts pressure on one of those things.
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It might force her to choose between what she wants and what feels safe.
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It might give her exactly what she's been pursuing, only to reveal that it doesn't solve the problem she thought it would.
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Or it might offer her something she needs but isn't ready to accept.
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And once that plot event happens, stay with her response.
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What does she think it means?
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What fear or resistance does it kick up?
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What does she do because of that?
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What consequence follows?
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You don't need to know every turn before you write, but these questions can help you find the next plot event that grows out of the story you're already telling.
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So let's recap.
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Here are three things to take with you.
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One, your story has an external line and an internal line, the horizontal plot line and the vertical line running through those events.
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The events and what those events mean to your character work together like brick and mortar.
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Two, ask what hangs in the balance.
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What could she gain or lose and why does that matter to her?
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3.
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Follow her response.
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How she interprets an event shapes her choices, and those choices help create what happens next.
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Your character's inner story gives you a way to decide which events belong and to understand why a scene with plenty happening might still feel empty.
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And if you're struggling to see how the pieces of your draft fit together, I'm hosting a free live masterclass on Tuesday, October 13th, 7 p.m.
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Eastern.
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I'll help you see the structure already taking shape in what you've written, the frame your story hangs on, so you can return to your pages with a clearer sense of where you're going.
00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:33.600
Now I only have 50 spots open, so go to mylivemasterclass.com to hold your spot.
00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:37.200
Mylivemasterclass.com.
00:16:43.680 --> 00:16:48.879
So when you're looking at your draft, don't just ask, does enough happen?
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Ask why does what happens matter to this person?
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What does it ask her to face?
00:16:58.800 --> 00:17:00.640
What does she do in response?
00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.920
And what happens because of that choice?
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We keep reading because we want to know what happens next, but we also want to know why it all matters to your character, what it will mean for her.
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That's how your plot begins to hold together.
