Darth Vader Missed It and Dracula Never Tried – Character Plot Twists that Matter

What single choice could make a story? Sure, we writers have dozens of strengths we might weave into a tale, but could there be one clear decision that pushes it to a whole other level?

It’s been on my mind lately, now that The High Road is out and I’m looking at a mix of blank screens and early drafts for Freefall and Ground Zero. What would the perfect keystone, first step, heart of a story look like?

I’ve got plenty to start with. The first book left Mark starting to master his flying magic, while Angie is… in case you haven’t read it yet, let’s leave her status up in the air (there’s always a flying pun available somewhere). He’s gotten to know a bit about his enemy, and he has old and new allies and a plan for the future.

Lots of next steps for them. So many ways to chase their enemy, from tracking his history to digging deeper in their own magic to forcing him to fight on their terms. So many ways he can push back. I could dive into those strategies and not come out for a dozen books…

Then I worry about Dracula.

Straight-up Adventure (plot twists as action)

We all know the original story… if you haven’t read it, look up the plotline and see how much of it you know anyway from what’s passed into clichés ages ago: The hero walks into a castle not knowing it holds a vampire (“Enter freely and of your own will,”) and barely escapes with his life. The Count comes to London and begins stalking pretty girls for blood and pleasure. Van Helsing leads our heroes to chase him down.

And, it drew all that from (or created) the basic steps of what a vampire wants, what he can do, and what that gives a hero to track him and fight him with. The twists of the plot are mostly what new clue or weapon or new target for the monster’s evil are revealed, and which moves will fail at what cost. (Poor Lucy, playing the original “bit” part.)

It’s a fine book, to this day, from its sheer energy and how inventive it is with its concepts. (Turn a vampire’s influence on a girl against him, with hypnosis? Cool.)

But… it’s basic. The cast mostly go from semi-fearless vampire survivors to fearless vampire hunters, except for the designated victims. All its twists still settle into the same steady push forward.

When people talk about “plot-centered” rather than “character-centered” stories, this is what it comes down to. The characters here are still at the center, but nothing about them breaks them out of what the plot forces them to become—and that means, half of what the tale says to our own vicarious sharing in it is “If I were there, maybe I could fit in that mold too.” Not so many options, variations, or revelations about human nature there.

Lord of the Rings has some of the same focus. A hobbit and a ranger may not see the quest the same way, but they all follow the same plan; half the books’ surprises come down to who yields to the ring’s influence and which way the one wild card (Gollum) will jump.

Does that make either story weaker? Not at all, not when they both choose their own territories and use them so masterfully. But, just what are those tricks they don’t use?

Plot Twists – Under the Helmet?

For one thing, those tales aren’t just sticking to “old-fashioned” simple heroism as if it were the best anyone could do at the time. After all King Arthur’s tale is many centuries older, and Lancelot and Guinevere actually act on that “forbidden love” and bring the kingdom down.

(Come to think of it, Tolkien used Eowyn to hint that Aragorn just might go off-script in the same way… but only a small nod to it, since he’d barely showed us Arwen at all. The LOTR movies set up enough more that we could at least see the possibility.)

Or these days, Harry Dresden’s torn between so many overwhelming forces you wonder if any side he allies with will let him protect the innocents around him. And anyone in Game Of Thrones is struggling so hard to survive that there are no sides that last (let alone innocents).

So what makes the difference? What does one kind of story make do without, and others sink their roots into?

It might be Star Wars that has the answer, just from comparing its first two movies. The original New Hope played a grand simple storyline better than anyone ever had… and then Empire let Vader blow it all up with four words.

(Or, it would have blown it up except the movies only gave us the buildup to that one shock, and then Luke simply recovered and decided he could save Vader. On the other hand, that “simple” first movie gets its real high point not from Luke finding the power to make that shot but from Han riding to the rescue first. It’s a basic but clear thrill from seeing who stands where, and why.)

Call it the power of rooting the plot twist in the people. Dracula finds different directions to throw the same threat at us, but there’s nothing in its heroes to make us wonder how they’ll respond; Star Wars gives us a limited amount of the same. They’ve both got brilliant buildup with Dracula floating about and Yoda warning Luke what he’s not ready to face, but the hunters only fight harder and Luke flinches for a few scenes before he begins re-twisting the plot back into line. Compare that to Lancelot and Guinevere following through with their failings, or Dresden selling only a bit of his soul but having to do it again and again each book, and the Game of Thrones parade of all-too-real changes…

By these lights, there are three chances to build a harder-hitting tale:

Set up the twists. Use everything from background to atmosphere to misdirection to fill the characters and the reader with a driving need to survive the threat, destroy their enemy, complete their quest… and then spring how the key to that is nothing like what they thought. The simpler tales live and die on a few surprises and a smooth path along the way; Dracula mostly plays with how to fight and what other lives are in danger.

That might be enough. It might not.

[bctt tweet=”A simple vampire-chase story could use a #plot stake *from* the heart. #writetip” via=”no”]

More: twist a character against himself. The deeper changes build on how a character honestly could choose something above the same struggle he’s been on. (And that means, how we readers don’t have to be in a swordfight to have been pulled in some of the same two directions.) Lancelot convinces his fans that true love might be worth risking loyalty and everything he’s built. Game of Thrones does some of the same with every new chapter, and usually tears that apart too the next time around.

And:

[bctt tweet=”If your #writing’s dangers hit the hero as rarely as a Stormtrooper’s blaster, you don’t know what you’re missing.” via=”no”]

Most: twist until something breaks. Every plot change is a chance to tease a reader with how much the heroes could lose, or win—or it can follow through and make real, lasting changes nobody can forget. Lancelot did it. The Dresden Files does it halfway since Harry wriggles out of so many compromises, but each one he makes leads to so many more. And Star Wars blinked, since in the end Vader simply came around… but imagine how unsatisfying that scene would have been it hadn’t cost him his life instead.

(Then again, a bigger miss with Darth Vader might have been back in the “setup” category: The movies made him one of the most iconic evil figures of all time, with zero balancing hints that he could be redeemed except Luke’s faith, but they simply went there anyway. And that’s not counting the prequel movies, that couldn’t make us care what happened to that version of Anakin at all. In the next few years we’ll see how well “Episode VIII” and “IX” touch those bases…)

So, put the story on a course where the upcoming twists make the biggest difference. Have them make the deepest difference by using what honestly could turn a person away from their path. And sometimes, let them actually turn.

Intriguing….

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The Plot-Device Machine – Motive

A story is its people. We all know that, and that’s why Motive is different from the other Plot Device points. We’ve seen how Movement and especially Knowledge can organize the plot around the Strengths that will determine just who gets what they want… but Motive is what they want. And it doesn’t matter if the rest of the story is about fighting Dracula or diabetes; it’s plotting from the characters’ Motive that really brings it to life.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

What counts as Motive? I’d say,

[bctt tweet=”Motive is what characters want or don’t, or some belief that ‘filters’ their choice.”]

In its simplest, it’s what goal someone could go after in the story. Fight or flight. The patriot’s war, the money-grubber’s deal, or the mother’s child. Family, love and friends, work, and coping with other problems are the common starting points (I’ve got a post on those options). And it isn’t only action stories that tend to make it “negative” rather than “positive,” on the grounds that saving a planet or a relationship (or at least rebuilding one) can make a more intense story than building it the first time. That’s just how we humans are wired, to react to threats faster than we notice opportunities.

Or Motive could shade into attitudes, expectations, or patterns that aren’t strictly “get this/ stop that” goals. This could be filters over charactrers’ actual goals, but one that’s just as key to what the people are and how we can use them: the company man who just won’t see what his firm is really doing, or the giver who’ll stick her neck out for anyone. Anything that affects the choices they make.

Why is Motive juicier than the other pieces of the story? I like to think it’s so fundamental it really is the part that the reader’s own life can share in. We just don’t connect a tale’s spotting a murder weapon lying in the corner (or even a time-saving accounting trick) to our own struggles, not the way we watch Peter “Bannon” in Hook missing his son’s proverbial baseball game and think of the choices we make every day. And it isn’t about kids, or any match between story subject and reader (though we all know it doesn’t hurt!), since so much of our lives are always dealing with other people. We don’t need to meet an alcoholic—or a vampire—to let a character with a secret remind us everyone has their private demons.

[bctt tweet=”Human nature: in the end we’re all fighting the same battles. I think that’s why stories work.”]

But… every writer talks about character and motive. Don’t I already have enough of that in my story?

Moments for Motive

One way to make full use of Motive is to check scenes, character layers and their conflict (for all characters), and larger contrasts. For instance:

Which scenes really hinge on Motive rather than Strength, Knowledge, or Movement? Star Wars might be crammed with shootouts and chases, but the loudest cheer in the theater always comes when Han and the Falcon drop in to clear out the Death Star’s trench after all.
How many Motives does a character have? “Depth” is a word we like to throw around, but can you count how many goals and beliefs each of your cast has that make a difference? We can tell a minor character by only having two or three… but if a side character has more Motive issues than the hero does it just might mean you’re telling the wrong person’s story.
How much do those Motives clash? Indiana Jones doesn’t slow down often to show off his issues, but he lets the Nazis (the frickin’ Nazis!) get a chance at the Ark’s ultimate power because he’s too much of a scholar to blow it up.
- Still, build-up beats bigger stakes. For every story worth remembering, we’ve all seen way too many that announced everything was life or death, but didn’t take the time to establish why we should care. Has Michael Bay ever seen The Blair Witch Project, let alone read A Christmas Carol?
How many characters have layered Motives, complete with all the above? Even building the story around a multilayered hero shouldn’t hide the chance to make other characters the key to some some scenes, and to build up just how hard a choice they have to make. In fact…
What patterns do characters’ Motives form? This might be as simple as giving hero and villain opposite drives—or as careful as making the villain all too similar (the famous “Shadow Self”) to spotlight that one defining difference. It at least ought to mean sheer variety in the cast; what’s the point in giving the hero two friends if they’re both driven by revenge?
- Answer: to show how two very different people can have that Motive in common. Or how two “similar” folks can become different.

Some of the best-designed stories out there can come from combinations of which characters seem similar but have a different Motive, or seem different but turn out to have something in common. Lord of the Rings gives us Boromir’s desire to save his people, that opens him to the Ring’s influence… and his brother facing the same choice and resisting. Meanwhile Frodo sees Gollum is actually another hobbit driven by the same hunger for the Ring that he’s coping with himself, until he can pity his enemy and make him an ally—and all the back-and-forth twists that that leads to, to make us wonder how far either of them can be trusted with this kind of power around. Or how much poor Sam will put up with.

[bctt tweet=”If you want a theme, compare two characters with their #motives. Or six, and their changes. “]

To me, that’s what writing is. It’s a chance to explore what kind of character has what in common with who else, or how different they can be—and then how the story can change those to show more truths underneath those. My Paul Schuman thought if he could stay away from his family he might have some kind of normal life again; Lorraine will fight for a complete life beside Paul’s brother, but still not tell Greg what she’s become part of. Mark Petrie wants to keep Angie Dennard and her father safe, but by getting them away from danger, not using the magic Angie wants to master, while Joe Dennard has his own reasons for avoiding it. Contrast, of Motives.

Well, the story’s that and pinning those Motives to the Strengths those people need to work for (and against) them, and spreading the storylines out with the evolving Knowledge of how they and the reader can only see so far, and the Movement that some of their “steps” to it mean they never know what might happen when they pass the next dark alley.

But it’s all there.

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Character-Centered and Plot-Centered – Making Room

“Do you write plot-centered or character-centered stories?” is a favorite question between writers. But it’s usually asked just as a way to insist on strong characters, sometimes suggesting a mix but sometimes to claim a plot doesn’t even matter compared to the people in it. From my own Unified perspective, I always want to join the authors who hold out for balancing the two… except I keep seeing some hard facts in favor of the “Characters Rule!” approach that are hard to balance out at all.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Of course, “character” means different things to different people. Indiana Jones is an unforgettable guy, but not as much for the reasons most people think of when they really get into character-building. Yes, he’s an action hero who dares to be afraid of snakes, but that only goes so far as a “deep, realistic human being.” He’s great partly for adding just the right touches of humor and humanity to the thrills, but also because the overall film (from plot to lighting levels) coalesces around him to make him look great—“I love Indy” is partly shorthand for just loving watching his movies.

–Or is it the other way around? Maybe the character isn’t a tool for the overall story, maybe the story is a device to make us believe the character is possible. Not “possible” in that “If I get mugged someone will whip the thug’s gun away,” but meaning that heroism, facing fears, style, and all the rest of it have something to say about our own lives.

It’s not like we writers don’t know how valuable characters are. Loosely speaking, “plot” can be absolutely whatever comes into the story, and some tales are all about lingering over their people while others rush on to the next task to take on. But we humans are the proverbial social animal; we’re wired to notice anything about a Who more than we do about a What or How. So any time some hero’s about to duck a bullet through sheer skill, we know it would be so much more thrilling (and easier to explain) to say that it instead comes down to him facing his fears or realizing it’s the “friend” at his back who’s going to shoot him.

But is even that getting away from the characters? Many people think so; sometimes “plot-centered” is code for turning up their noses at any kind of genre fiction and any challenge or adventure that isn’t perfectly everyday.

The thing is, they’re partly right:

First Danger of Dangerous Plots: is what’s at risk so big that you’re skipping most of life’s questions of whether a goal’s worth struggling for, for the hero and everyone around him?

Once someone finds a killer hunting him or her plane goes into a crash-dive, they don’t have to resolve if that’s their priority now. That can be an advantage for higher-stakes tales—once you settle on a big threat, you don’t have to convince the reader it matters. But it also means those characters aren’t dealing with the ordinary choices about how things compete with their regular lives, and how persuasive the easy choice and “What if I just walk away” are for all of us.

So, when we choose what kind of story we want to write, we need to see how much that’s limiting its ties to those regular challenges even if it’s adding focus to the bigger thrills. But it doesn’t mean a strong plot has to squeeze out some of our character choices.

One clue to that is that sometimes even small, adventureless tales end up being more plot than character anyway. A “career tale” can be purely about how to be a better accountant or rock star, or a romance can slip from the character issues of “Who’s right for me?” to plot twists struggling over “Can I get her alone in time to say I’m sorry?” But of course these tales still have one way they’re usually closer to character-based than the bigger-stakes tales:

Second Danger of Dangerous Plots: is what’s affecting the plot so different from ordinary life, so that how he copes with it doesn’t generalize as well to the reader’s own struggles?

(Yes, in my Plot – Just Three Tools? breakdown, this is drawn from the Difficulty tool while the other Danger was the Reward and Cost questions.)

One of the biggest reasons characters are fun reading is that anything about human choices has some meaning to everything else human. Most readers haven’t tried hunting killers, but we don’t even need to have had a demanding boss ourselves to relate to the hero biting his tongue and trying to listen hard for what he needs to keep his job.

Whatever the story’s plot is, here are a few ways to make the most of your characters:

Character is deciding What someone wants, not just How to get it. A romance could be “Can she get the promotion to face her boyfriend as an equal?” but it’s exploring character more if she can’t get it and has to consider if dating her boss is worth what it does to her self-image. –Of course, one thing both versions depend on is neither character losing their jobs so the problem disappears.
Character is visibly Caused by Characters, not just events. The less someone is forced into a position by big events (let alone “just born bad,” or good) and the more we see they’ve made choices to get as far as they have, the more we see the choices they have ahead matter too.
Character is Checking All The Choices. You can rush the plot along by showing there are only a few things to try doing next… or you can take a moment to show someone trying to consider every option, and/or showing their blind spots. Bad characters in danger never call the police, good ones realize they don’t have time—and great ones have reasons they hate to trust anyone (or they have a really well-presented Don’t Have Time scene).
Character is solving the How with the Why. You can do a great story of how a general wins a war on his maps and blasts through the enemy lines, but it’s so much more human to focus on his own weakness of being suspicious or impulsive, or learning to work with his superior. Biases and bosses, biases and bosses are always fun.
Character is Other Characters being free too. If you want to do justice to the hero winning a victory through human insight, don’t let the people he has to persuade or figure out have their own choices locked in. A cop who sees the hero chased by a murderer has a lot of choices, but not as many as a cop who only sees him get some threatening calls, or if the witness is only a neighbor who isn’t sure he wants to get involved. Real folks deserve a full range of real folks to deal with.
Character is Consequences, even to the plot. A strong plot often means finding a path to the end that you want… but it can lead to doing “character development” as various dead end things the hero tries that just lead to him getting back on course, supposedly changed inside but not really outside. How often have we seen a hero tempted to leave the struggle for others to take over, or to sacrifice himself for innocents, but events force him to do what the story needs? You can measure how much character affects story by how completely a “change” he goes through really changes where the story’s going and how his life stands now. (Or better yet, it puts him in a wheelchair, or teaches him to fly.)
Character might be a Plot After The Plot. Decide where your story is on the range between one main plot goal fed by a couple other threads, versus defining the tale as several separate goals. The more the story can completely finish one goal and still be about what’s next as much as it was about the last thing, the more clearly it’s like real life. Isn’t that the kind of thing Fitzgerald meant, about American lives that don’t have “second acts”?
Character is Character-ization. Going back to Indiana Jones again, he’s memorable partly for a great movie but also for the mix of little touches that constantly say what he’s like… that is, much of screenwriting a new Indy would be the three words “cast Harrison Ford.” There are whole posts’ worth of little things that even the fastest-paced tale can take a moment to include: gestures and extra actions, clothes (the hat!) and home, the right dialog style and thoughts. And yes, you can mention or even show what the hero’s doing an hour before the next plot-relevant scene, or a year before that. On the one hand it might slow things down, but on the other every glimpse is part of what he is, and you never know when some reader will fall in love with a character for a passing statement about how he paid his college bills.

–So by all means, let’s keep the classic question in mind: How does your hero do his laundry?

It’s all character. A strong plot can keep circling back to the character too, or it can be streamlined to carry him along but mostly interact with the world… it’s all degrees of focus, and knowing your options. Either way, the character’s still there in the center, and it all helps make the story.