Problems with the Premise 4: Needs and wants.

I thought I'd conclude this last time, but my efforts met with Calamity. Just as with fiction, articles can take unexpected turns if you let them. Nonetheless, your life is made easier if you have a strong premise to begin with. It's a bit like knowing the rules before you break them. No matter how far you might stray, you know you can return to solid ground. And that can help you go confidently into the unknown.

As a reminder, the formulation for a premise is this:

To achieve an important Goal, the Protagonist must Act and overcome Obstacles, or Calamity will occur and she/he will not get what she/he Wants and/or Needs.
 
This time, we'll look at the protagonist's needs and wants. A good place to explore wants and needs is Maslow's hierarchy.




This is a good place to start, though I have problems with some wants like curiosity and the desire to feel complete.

Also, for practical reasons, many of these need to be reversed:

Food --> Hunger
Water --> Thirst
Security -->Anxiety
Friendship --> Loneliness
Esteem --> Humiliation

And, honestly, I don't know what you'd put that was useful for the inverse of Self-Actualization (or if it would work in fiction). Dissatisfaction? 

My reversed list is not complete, but, if you think of stories where people are trying to dodge killers, escape poverty, avenge a wrong, recover from a divorce, break out of prison, etc., you can see how building a backwards view might be valuable and you come up with wants and needs.   

The Wants in your story should be evident. Usually the Goal is what the protagonist wants and he/she attempting to attain it provides the engine for the story. That goal is visible. Achieving it should be something you could take a picture of, according to Michael Hauge.

But it is good to explore Wants more deeply. The hero or heroine will want an external goal for an acknowledged reason that is internal. They have their own version of why they are doing something, and that is important to understanding the motivation even if it is wrong. They may even state why they are obsessed (and all story goals are obsessions) with achieving their goals. The stated reason may have be real, provide a whiff of the real reason, or be the exact opposite of the reason the main character is pursuing the Goal, but it is unlikely to be unrelated. The only major exception I've seen has been what the reason is parroted. Always be suspicious of a reason that is in almost the same words as someone else who has sway over or control of the main character.

Needs are, of course, what the character needs deep down to grow, develop, and evolve. They are often hidden from the character or only given lip service. In a sense, they are the reason the writer writes the story. For commercial fiction, they do not need to be in a premise presented to others, but they should be articulated in a premise used to build a story. Life is easier if you know the character's Needs early, but it can be fun to discover them in the writing. 

I often cannot clearly articulate the Needs before a draft is done. In one case, the true Needs did not emerge until the third draft, and they ended up changing the ending to something that was much more powerful. So, even with an action story that does not demand much in the way of an internal life for your character, it is often valuable to make the effort to articulate Needs. Once you have them, they can raise the level of your story.

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Upcoming classes

April 15-April 29 Story Bootcamp (face-to-face) Westchester Community College http://www.sunywcc.edu/continuing-ed/ce/
May 1-May 29 Bigger Stories (online) http://lowcountryrwa.com/workshops/all-workshops/#MAY 

Problems with the Premise 3: Calamity, needs and wants

A premise can be a strong foundation for storytelling, ensuring the key elements are understood and articulated. Unfortunately, writing a good premise isn't easy. There are lots of ways writers can go wrong. I've already discussed Backstory and Goals and Actions and Obstacles in previous posts.

As a reminder, the formulation for a premise is this:

To achieve an important Goal, the Protagonist must Act and overcome Obstacles, or Calamity will occur and she/he will not get what she/he Wants and/or Needs.
 
This time, we'll look at Calamity.

Damon Knight once told me that, as long as there are other options, a hero facing the loss of a job is not a calamity. Taking this further, any loss that can be replaced in a reasonable way does not create sufficient stakes for most commercial stories. 

One way to get around this is to add other elements. If the loss of the job means a child's life or death operation cannot be paid for, that's a calamity. Looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the consequences of job loss are pretty fundamental. Similarly, if losing the job will inevitably lead to divorce, this may be calamitous. 

Does an actor losing the job he loves on a soap opera count as calamitous? Probably not. Yes, the part he was born to play, the true expression of his talent is gone forever -- but most readers don't get much chance for self-expression in their jobs, so they aren't likely to feel too sorry for him. 

Does a politician being voted out of office seem like disaster? Not likely. She can serve society in other roles, and readers understand that.

Of course, there are losses other than job losses that need a closer look. Losing a car carries less weight than losing a beloved grandfather's watch. Losing your hair, even if it is just before the senior prom, is less grave than losing your leg. Any pure loss that is attached to the top of the hierarchy is questionable in commercial fiction, if it stands alone. These are what some people term "first world problems."

There is one important exception -- comedy. It is perfectly fine to have the protagonist see something minor as a tragedy and obsess about it. Comedy often puts the audience in a superior position while still eliciting a measure of empathy.

What can you do if the consequences of failure are too slight? First, you might want to take a closer look at your premise. If it is inherently weak, there may be no saving it. On the other hand, it may have strengths and you may be able to push the premise so it becomes more powerful. 

I was going to conclude with protagonist Needs and Wants, but I'll save that until next time.


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Upcoming classes

April 15-April 29 Story Bootcamp (face-to-face) Westchester Community College http://www.sunywcc.edu/continuing-ed/ce/
May 1-May 29 Bigger Stories (online) http://lowcountryrwa.com/workshops/all-workshops/#MAY 

Problems with the Premise 2 - Actions and Obstacles

Last time I wrote about the elements of a good premise, and I discussed problems writers have in adding backstory and establishing goals.

The formulation for a premise is this:

To achieve an important Goal, the Protagonist must Act and overcome Obstacles, or Calamity will occur and she/he will not get what she/he Wants and/or Needs.
 
And you can find several examples from movies in my previous post.

Some writers have problems with what they include in the action. While how the Protagonist Acts my be expressed in a very net way in the premise, here are the general requirements for action:

• Actions should be visible, defined, and often time-bound. 
• They are not internal (decisions, changes in perspectives, new understandings, feelings, opinions, values, or knowledge), although these may mix in.
• The actions that the protagonist takes must involve sacrifice. 
• They must be difficult and get more difficult as the story progresses. 
• There must be a coherence and reason for the order of the steps taken.
• They can involve convincing, compelling, tricking, or commanding someone else to act in a visible, defined way, though this often leads to problems with a lack of investment by the main character. 
• They can also involve stopping someone from acting, but this needs to be done by way of a scene that involves conflict that's usually more than a simple argument is almost certainly more than providing knowledge that could have been provided earlier in the story.
• Actions should be distinct. A common problem is repeating the same action (such as escaping from bad guys) over and over again.

The Obstacles can cause problems for writers, too.

Most often, the obstacles are too easy (and the risk is too low). As above, it's not good if the problem can be solved with a simple conversation. Having someone else solve the problem (except when they do it for an onerous price) can feel like a cheat, bordering on deus ex machine. 

It's good to remember that the more extreme the challenges are and the more difficulty the protagonist faces, the better the story. If, even in the premise, it seems as if the task is impossible, you'll hook readers. So take the protagonist out of his or her comfort zone. Keep raising the stakes.

Next time, I'll conclude the look at the premise with some thoughts on Calamity, Needs, and Wants.

Problems with the Premise 1: Backstory and goals

To achieve an important Goal, the Protagonist must Act and overcome Obstacles, or Calamity will occur and she/he will not get what she/he Wants and/or Needs.

Not too difficult or complex, right? There are six or seven elements to be filled in. You can try it out with famous movies.

GONE WITH THE WIND

To save Tara, Scarlett must fight union troops and carpetbaggers, feed her family, get the crop in, marry men with money, and run a business, or Tara, her family, and much of what she holds dear will be destroyed.

STAR WARS

To save the rebel alliance, Luke must escape Tatooine, rescue a princess, learn Jedi skills, and destroy the Death Star or his friends, the leadership of the alliance, and a planet will be destroyed.

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

To win the love of her life (Sam), Annie must discover his identity, send a note that stands out from many competitors, defy advice and her own sense of what’s reasonable, dump a fiancé, and make it to the top of the Empire State Building before it closes or she will end up settling for a life that has only a pale shadow of the true happiness she longs for.

Okay, all of those could be improved, and none delve into important subplots, but they should demonstrate how a premise can come together. It is hard to write a good premise, and making one that is compelling is an art that even some wonderful writers have a difficult time mastering.

John Marlow has an excellent lesson and example (JURRASSIC PARK) on writing loglines (all of which explore and articulate premise) worthy of your attention. I’ll go at this from a different angle, what can go wrong, but first one more.

ROCKY

To go the distance in a prize fight with the champ, a washed-up fighter Rocky, must work with a hostile coach, deflect mocking press and naysayers, train physically and mentally, and handle powerful punches in the ring, or he will be humiliated and lose his only chance to demonstrate his quality as a person to his community.

In this last one, as opposed to the others, I slipped in some backstory. It is important to our understanding that this is a redemption story. The others didn’t seem to need any backstory, but this one cried out for it.

Most writers are in love with backstory, and it can be fatal to a clear premise. It distracts. It confuses. It can hide weaknesses. And I often get premises from students that have more words devoted to what has happened before the story began than to what happens in the story. It is great to know the backstory. Focusing too much on it can misdirect the writing. Solution: Create a version of the premise with no backstory.

Another common problem is the Goal. If it is too generic or (for a commercial story) only internal, it won’t work. Michael Hauge recommends testing goals by asking, can you take a picture of it? Crossing a finish line. Slaying a dragon. Bedding an object of affection. Graduating from college. Escaping prison. All of these qualify.

Learning a lesson? Adjusting to old age? Finding peace and self-acceptance? All of these are good things that may lousy Goals in a premise.

Saving Tara means restoring the house and farm and paying the taxes. Crops growing, fresh paint, and handing over the tax money can all be photographed. Destroying a Death Star is a vivid, memorable image. Sam, Annie, and Jonah taking the elevator down TOGETHER (as a family) is a visible statement of Annie winning the love of her life. Rocky still standing after the last round is the picture we’ve been waiting for through most of the movie.

Now, there is no picture of Scarlett paying off the taxes or Sam and Annie marrying, but that has more to do with cinematic presentation than story. In either case, these scenes would have fit and been accepted by audiences.

Premise, it seems, is a little more complicated than it first appears to be. And problems show up for the other elements, too. I’ll cover some of these in the next blog post.

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Upcoming classes

April 15-April 29 Story Bootcamp (face-to-face) Westchester Community College http://www.sunywcc.edu/continuing-ed/ce/
April 20-May 25 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop (face-to-face) 
May 1-May 29 Bigger Stories (online)http://lowcountryrwa.com/workshops/all-workshops/#MAY 

Outrageous Characters -- Deepening reader interest

Think of your favorite characters in fiction. Chances are, they behaved badly from time to time. Sherlock Holmes is excessive and frequently rude. Scarlet O'Hara is wily and audacious. Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp is sweet, but subversive. Many of the characters loved in fiction have moments in their stories that would fit nicely onto the covers of tabloid newspapers.
We like our fictional characters to be outrageous. According to Jack Bickham, we need them to be outsized so we can see them through the dusty lens of language. In his book, Writing Novels That Sell, become talks about how he tried to make this point to his class by designing an absurd cowboy. He got plenty of laughs and, later, plenty of sales with that character in several books.

As much as writers enjoy outrageous characters, they often find them difficult to write. They are caged in by their own reasonableness. None of us wants to look silly. But we don't want to be boring, either.

In general, it is much easier to write an over-the-top character and tone him or her down than it is to take a more conventional character and add some zip. So, let me offer some suggestions.

Mine your childhood memories for characters. When we were kids, we experienced a lot of people via a big, ridiculous, and emotional view of the world. Over time, they may have become legendary to us. That makes them fair game for your stories. Give them a chance to live again in your head and in front of your readers.

Investigate heroes villains from history. Since history is written by the winners, there is a built-in level of exaggeration in the records. The losers are cast as more evil and the heroes are cast as more virtuous and stronger. It doesn't take much to grab someone like Hannibal, put him into your story, and discover what I guys you would march elephants over the Alps might do in a science fiction story or an action story or even a love story.

Read the Tabloids. Yes, they (and weird online sites) are out there. And they are as valuable to writers as they are to the Men in Black. It seems like Florida and Texas provide the best fodder for stories.

Would your characters do outrageous things? Try. See if you can make it work.

Minimally, list the most extreme things they would do. You can think in terms of story, but consider mundane things like how they eat, how they walk, what drives them crazy, what they are passionate about.

It's also a good idea to push them as far as you dare with one of the seven deadly sins.

For some reason, it's easier to give villains the best stuff.  Give your hero an outrageous act you've assigned already to the villain.

Then think of the story goal. It must be pretty big to carry a whole novel. And life or death for your characters. What they would do to achieve their story goal? Consider all the outrageous stuff you've been exploring, and imagine them doing these things in service of the story, maybe even as a final test.

As an exercise, I force myself to come up with outrageous things respected people, like Nobel Peace Prize winners (well, some of them that are respectable), would never do, and then I imagine them doing these. It works often but not always. Some things, they would never do, unless...

And then I think of what the unless would be.

Free your characters.