Now I’m also going to assign you a second exercise for your current reading material. Because I don’t believe in doing things halfway.
Flip over that scrap of paper or used envelope on which you’re jotting down your plot design research and scribble the name of the protagonist of whatever you’re reading on the back. If there’s more than one protagonist, scribble the name of the main one. Now chew your pencil for a few minutes (don’t eat the paint—just destroy the little metal bit that holds the eraser) and ask yourself, “What does this character need more than anything else in the entire world?” When you’ve got it, write it down under their name. “And what do they need that conflicts with this need?” Write that down too. Put a big blocky square all the whole thing.
Got it?
Good.
Now, every time you reach one of those milestones you outlined on the other side of this paper, I want you to jot down on this side what happens to the protagonist and their conflicting needs. I can guarantee something does.
Is one need satisfied in some partial but slightly fulfilling way? Just enough to keep them addicted to the search for total fulfillment?
Is their search for fulfillment of one need thwarted in some way? Enough to freak them out, but not enough to make them think, “Screw this. I’m giving up”?
Are their needs ever totally fulfilled?
Are their needs ever totally thwarted?
Scribble, scribble, scribble. Do your scribbling. You’re a scribbler.
Then—you knew I was going to say this—chuck it in that box on your desk. And start the whole thing over again with another book.
When you’re ready, you’re going to take these scraps out of the box and study them. What patterns do you see? How do all these different authors lead their characters by the nose through the hoops that have been set for them, feeding their needs, denying their needs, feeding their needs again, denying their needs again? How does this rhythm build to a crescendo by the end, driving both character and reader nuts with frustration and anticipation?
How have these authors kept you addicted?
Do you ever watch fireworks—for Chinese New Year, Mexican Independence, a hobbit’s eleventy-first birthday?
The next time you do, be thinking how it would feel to have them go off inside your heart. Then think about how your favorite authors make the Climaxes of their novels feel. . .
Exactly. That. Way.