Plot Archives - Stacy Lyn Jensen

What Makes a Good Mystery Story?

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I have discussed the basic elements of plot several times. Most plots have the ‘event’ that happens that causes the story to begin. Then, we have rising action, where the protagonist tries and fails to do the thing, and then we have the climax where the big confrontation happens, and then we have falling action, resolution or conclusion and then the end. If you can keep those things in mind, then you can write a good story. There are other things that make a story, right? Like, the ‘event’ at the beginning needs to be compelling enough to keep the reader engaged. The protagonist needs to have real stakes in the story, they can’t have just stubbed their toe. That’s not a reason for an adventure. Mysteries, however, are a whole other beast. Not only do they require to be a compelling plot with rising action, a climax and falling action, but they also need to have the mystery at the core that the reader should not be able to easily figure out. A mystery author needs to have the ability to keep their readers guessing the entire time. So that brings me to my question, what makes a good mystery story?

1-The Crime Must Be Interesting

Said another way, the crime that the protagonist is investigating should be something that the reader wants to understand. If it’s “who took my stapler,” maybe that will work, if all of the characters in the office are compelling and interesting and have reasons why they took the stapler. However, most readers of mysteries are used to murder being at the core of the story. If you don’t want to write about murder, then make the crime an interesting one. Make the characters (like I’ve already said) compelling, give them reasons why they could be guilty.

2-No One Should be too Innocent

Nothing is more upsetting to mystery readers than being able to pick the guilty person from the first chapters of the book. Or pages of the story, if it’s short. There should be some skeletons in everyone’s closet. There should be multiple possible killers or guilty parties.

If you are not a reader of mystery and you are looking to write in the genre, I would suggest that that is a bad idea, I don’t know if there is a finickier bunch of readers besides maybe sci-fi enthusiasts. If you don’t understand the tropes of the genre, or the things that have been overdone, then you aren’t going to be able to write a story that people are interested in reading.

3-There Should be Red Herrings, but not too Many

You should be able to write a story that leads readers in the wrong direction, but that also rewards careful readers. The point here is that you should use foreshadowing in such a way that when a reader gets to the end and finds out the who in the whodunit, they maybe are surprised, but they aren’t angry because they were tricked.

4-The Crime Should be at or Near the Beginning

Whatever mystery is occurring in your story, it should be right at, or near the beginning. This can happen as early as the prologue or in the first chapter. You can call the crime the ‘inciting incident’ if you want. For example in the Italian Job, the movie starts with a heist that goes wrong and one of the members of the group dies, while another one runs off with all the money.

Since that happens right at the beginning, the audience is hooked into the story and wants to get revenge along with the protagonist throughout the rest of the story. I don’t normally use movies as reference, but this one is a very easy to see example of what is meant when you’re putting the crime at the beginning. A book example would be in Cuckoo’s Calling, the very beginning of the book goes through a model dying by maybe jumping maybe falling off a balcony, and then it skips time to introduce the main character, a PI who the readers follow as he investigates the crime. In the book, the beginning leaves it ambiguous enough that the reader is unsure if the model jumps or is pushed.

5-There Should be Several Possible Suspects

We can’t have two, or three. I think at least four people that may or may not have done the crime is a good number. Just think, if you need to pick between two people, it’s a fifty-fifty chance, right? Put another person in there and it gets more interesting, but one more, and then it’s like okay…any one of these people has a reason to have done it.

I’m not saying they all need a lot of time, but well thought out reasons are good. Like, the person who was killed owed them money, or maybe there was an old grudge. Stuff like that.

6-The Victim Should be Interesting

The victim shouldn’t just be a victim. They should be a whole person. They should have an interesting life: friends, relatives, enemies. If they are an adult, they should have a job or a career. Maybe they are an addict, or they gambled. Interesting quirks or habits make them come to life (even though they aren’t alive in the book) and give you more to work with, as far as why someone didn’t want them to be alive anymore.

7-The Investigator Needs to be a Main Character

This happens in a lot of different ways. Maybe the person who is investigating is an amateur. Or maybe they are with an agency, or police, or a PI. But someone who is performing investigative work needs to be a main character. You could also have other main characters in the story. You could have the victim’s significant other, you could even do some POV from the person who committed the crime as long as you don’t give away who they are and spoil the ending for the readers. But mystery readers enjoy investigating along with the investigator, so knowing how the investigator thinks, or what they see that is unique and different from what other people see will help the story feel more “real” to the readers.

So that’s what I have so far. Let me know if you feel like there is something in the what makes good mystery story article that I missed.

Here is the list:

1- The mystery must be interesting

2-No one should be too innocent

3-There should be red herrings, but not too many

4-The crime should be at or near the beginning

5-There should be several possible suspects

6-The victim should be interesting

7-The investigator should be a main character

Silent Hill 2 Review

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I recently played through the Silent Hill 2 Remake; at the end of 2025. Since I didn’t get to this until recently, I am a little later to the party. However, it is a horror classic. So, I would like to write my thoughts out in this Silent Hill 2 review/interpretation of the story.

Originally coming out in October of 2024, Silent Hill 2 Remake was developed by Bloober Team and published by Konami. Expectations were very high because the original game is considered to be one of the greatest horror games of all time. People thought that it was either going to be an awful game and that Bloober Team would never make another game again from the shame of the thing. Or, that it would be an amazing remake and everyone would love it. Luckily, it was the second.

Because I am an Xbox gamer, I had to wait for an entire year from the time it released until it was available on my system. In that time I was able to watch some of my favorite streamers play the game, and talk about the game and I watched as everyone talked about how the game was true to its roots, and how well it played, etc.

What is Silent Hill 2 Remake About?

Silent Hill 2 Remake follows James Sunderland as he goes to the town of Silent Hill. James goes to Silent Hill because he received a letter from his deceased wife asking him to meet her in “our place.”

Sparsely populated is the town. There is a suffocating fog. The residents are monsters. Some of them have sexy boots on, some are all legs, and some of them have stitching all the way up their bodies and they crawl on the ground. James finds a few other normal people, but they are battling their own demons.

The other world. When Silent Hill changes into the other world, it becomes rusty and the people that are in it change as well. The enemies in the other world are similar and they fight similarly but they look different from the ones in Silent Hill.

What’s really going on in Silent Hill 2 Remake?

My take on what is happening. I believe that Silent Hill represents a type of Limbo. Or purgatory for James. I can’t say if James is alive or dead during the gameplay. But I believe that he has an immense amount of guilt and other unresolved issues. During the gameplay he has to resolve/come to grips with/admit that they exist in order to move on or not.

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James enters the world, looking for someone that he lost. In the first scene, we see him staring at himself in the mirror. It’s as if he doesn’t know how he got there. His car is there, but in the game, he never gets into it; he never drives into or out of Silent Hill. His looking into the mirror could represent how things are backwards, upside down, or otherwise reversed for him.

Characters in Silent Hill 2 Remake

As the game goes on, we meet Angela, who is also looking for someone. Her mother. Angela keeps on repeating “have you seen my mama” which makes her seem like a young child even though she’s an adult. James first encounters her in a graveyard, which indicates that she’s also searching for someone who has passed away. When he asks Angela if she would like to come with him for safety she refuses and acts oddly afraid of him. Later in the game, it is revealed that Angela killed her father after he did something awful to her. Angela is a representation of fear and how dangerous fear can be when it’s backed into a corner.

James meets a woman named Maria, who’s the next important character. She looks like his wife. But she acts and dresses very differently. Gamers have discussed the meaning of Maria for years. The consensus I found was that she represents all the physical wants/needs that James had, but was unable to get because his wife was sick in the hospital.

The next character is Laura, a little girl who says that she knew Mary, and who makes life difficult for James in Silent Hill. Near the end of the game, Laura gives James a letter that Mary wrote to her and it talks about how she wishes that they could go and live together like they talked about. So, the letter makes me believe that Laura represents the future that Mary wanted. The family and normal things that she didn’t get to have.

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The final character is Eddie. Eddie is a representation of the darkest parts of James. He gets offended easily, he eats junk food and over-reacts. My interpretation is that Eddie is the extreme version of all of the dark desires that a person could have. He killed people who made him angry, and he thinks everyone is out to get him. He has similar coloring to James (blonde hair and blue eyes); it’s as if he’s a reversed mirror, a foil showing James, “this is the worst you could be.”

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review, Thoughts on Themes and Interpretations

This game is a great example for something that you can play/interpret multiple ways. Anyone can play the game and think “oooh creepy” and then finish and shrug and enjoy the experience and move on. But someone that is really looking to dive into the game can get a lot out of it.

There are numerous interpretations of the game, many things that I haven’t explored yet for myself. I watched a video that stated that James’s wife is in the car. However, I didn’t see or notice her in there. But it definitely is possible.

My belief that he is dead is based on the weird state of the town, and how impossible time moves, the way that he harbors guilt, but he can’t face what he’s done. The other people in the city, except for the child, Laura, have guilt. I do think that they are all there to reflect different aspects of James back to him, and help him to come to his realization that he killed his wife.

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I have read other stories where the protagonist has a hard time coming to terms with the fact that they died. A lot of weird things happen around them, and they just accept it. By the end of the story, they do come to terms with their own death, but it takes a lot for them to realize that they died and they are in limbo/purgatory. I feel like James is in the same situation, where he is being punished for the sins he committed during his lifetime, but he hasn’t yet come to terms with the fact that he’s dead.

Another option that people brought up is that he is going to commit suicide. He has killed his wife, and she’s in the car. And he plans to drown himself in Toluca Lake. Also, the letter he has, apparently, is blank by the end of the game. I didn’t check it at the end. Also, I didn’t think to check it when I got close to completing the game. Furthermore, I got the “leave” ending where he and Laura leave together. I’ve only played through once, and so I haven’t gotten any other endings.

Found Footage Horror Books

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As an avid reader, watcher, and player of Horror over the past decade or so. The phenomenon of found footage horror books is not lost on me. I have enjoyed many of the genre and I find the idea of using found footage in a novel format to be interesting and, well, novel.

Let’s talk about the advantages of using this format.

Advantages of Found Footage Horror Books

In a novel, you don’t have to show everything visually. So you aren’t stuck with using the hokey “this footage was retrieved from…” There might be a journal entry, or an email. This can tell some parts of the story. These things really lend themselves well to storytelling.

Before tearing things apart, I do want to quickly remind everyone what the definition of horror is. These are books written to terrify readers. They are the kind of books that without a happy ending. They leave the reader with an uneasy feeling.

My favorite books in the Found Footage Horror Genre are:

House of Leaves

House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski: I’m pretty sure that this is the “classic” of the genre. I don’t know if there is another book out there that exemplifies that Found Footage Horror Book genre just quite the same way that House of Leaves does. It is a book that isn’t for everyone. It comes complete with pages that need to be turned upside down to read and footnotes.

A quick description of this book: There is a tattoo apprentice named Johnny. He is given a trunk by his friend. The trunk is from the friend’s neighbor’s house. It contains the writings of the neighbor. The writings are about this documentary about this man who moved his family into a house that was bigger on the inside than the outside. The story that unfolds is quite the ride.

Episode 13

Episode 13 by Craig DiLouie. This one is about the cast of one of those paranormal TV shows. The ones where the cast members go to haunted houses and “talk” to the ghosts at the location. This book is written as if it’s a screenplay. I listened to this one, so I can’t say what the book looks like. But, needless to say, the ending was very intense.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reed. I don’t know if this one counts in the Found Footage genre, but I’m going to count it. This book is fantastic. I haven’t seen the show. Throughout the first 3/4s of the book, the reader feels like they are in the head of the protagonist. It is only at the end when the reader is shown the truth.

Horrorstor

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix: This one may not count as found footage, but I’m putting it here. There are these little epigraphs that show the reader parts of the catalog from the store. They give the book a feeling of found footage. Allowing the readers are able to almost interact with the store and see, via catalog entries, how it devolves as the story takes them deeper into the store.

Conclusion

The Found Footage Horror Book genre as a whole is hard to get right. There are many ways to fumble it. Sometimes things get too complicated, or too unbelievable, and then readers get lost. But when it’s done right, the book can be beautiful to read.

I believe that some techniques are applicable to any genre. “Found Footage” doesn’t have to refer to only horror, it can be any kind of book. I can see romance working well with little found items, or alternative history, or even sci-fi.

Is there a found footage horror novel book that you really like, or maybe one that I mentioned that you don’t like at all? Let me know! Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Final Draft: How do you Know When you’ve written it?

I finished a first draft of my latest project a little while ago. Ever since I wrote the end, I’ve been both excited to move on, and also scared of the process. I’d like to discuss all the expected steps in writing, and help people realize when they’ve come to the end. First, we’ll discuss the steps, and then how you know if you’ve arrived at your final draft.

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Steps

Outline
Zero Draft
First Draft
Second Draft
Third Draft
Final Draft

Outlining

This step can take a lot or a little bit of time, depending on which type of writer you are. Even the most seasoned of discovery writers will still have at least some idea of the plot before they sit down to work.

An outline can be as simple as a couple of index cards that have a few vague sentences about your plot. Or as complex as a codex with character backstories and sketches, along with the economy of your fantasy world going back 1000 years.

At the end of the day, the outline should help you get started. They do say that you either spend a lot of time in edits later, or you plan everything in our outline and don’t have to do so many edits at the end to figure out how to make your plot work together.

When you are done with your outline, you move onto…

Zero Draft

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The zero draft is the draft that you are okay to mess up a bunch. I like the term zero draft, because it feels like, with this draft there are no stakes. One of the best things you can do for your writing habit is to take the pressure off. If you feel like you need to have a certain feeling, or write during a certain time or in a specific location or using something special; you are putting too much pressure on yourself.

If, because you have to be in a certain place or use something specific to write, and you find yourself not wanting to do so because of it. Then, stop. Writing is a difficult and messy process. There is no reason why, if you are thinking about something, not to jot it down anywhere. You can write on and with almost anything. Although, I wouldn’t suggest trying to write the great American novel with blood. Ha.

The zero draft is the first time the story that’s been in your head for so long will come together. Even if you’ve been outlining for weeks and feel like you know everything that will happen, at least in my experience, it will change. The zero draft gives you permission to make the changes, to allow all the messy nonsense to happen on the page.

Then, after you’ve finished your draft, you’ll move onto….

The First Draft

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It’s okay for your first draft to be messy. You also want to go through and begin clean up.

It’s always important to think globally before you think locally. By this, I simply mean to fix big problems before you start fiddling with the small ones. So, if you’ve outlined a lot maybe you don’t worry so much how your plot hangs together, but it is important to be aware of all of the big idea items. Make sure that the gun that was on the wall in act 1 is used during the climax in act 3.

After you finish a first draft, you may feel like giving it to an alpha reader. That’s fine. Not necessary, but fine.

Then, you’ll move onto…

The Second Draft

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When your work is ready to be considered a second draft, it should have a plot that makes sense. It’s okay to still have grammar errors at the second draft.

This means, that during the second draft, you should start working through which characters are doing what and why, does it make sense for the overall plot? You should have a working understanding of all of your characters and their motivations, you should know if it makes sense for a character to run into a dangerous situation, and if it doesn’t make sense but you need it for the plot, then you need to figure out what kind of extraordinary circumstances they would require in order to go into the situation, and then make those present in the work.

Once the plot is in line, and the characters are acting in ways that make sense, you can send the draft to an alpha reader. Still not required, but definitely going to be a good option.

Then, you’ll move onto…

The Third Draft (not the final draft yet)

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Edits. This is where you will want to start editing. You want your syntax to shine. The words should work together to build the story you are trying to tell. Editing also happens from “big” to “small.” As you’ve gone through the drafting process, you will have already done some editing. The first type of editing, developmental editing, is what you are going through as you get your plot in line, and make sure your characters make sense.

In the third draft, you get more granular. Starting with line editing. Line editing is where you focus on the flow and style of your prose. Then, you’ll want to do proofreading, where you identify and correct your grammar and spelling errors.

Now, it is absolutely time to give the draft to several beta readers for feedback. You can always give them a list of things you are concerned about, and make sure to get feedback on those things. It is not helpful to have a couple friends read your work, and tell you it’s amazing. If you want to feel good, it’s wonderful. But, if you want constructive feedback, you’ll most likely need to find people who are going to be impartial judges of your work. That is the best way to get it to shine

Final Draft

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Once you’ve received and corrected the novel as much as you can, taking into mind all the feedback from your readers, then it will be time to send it out to wherever you want it to go.

Congratulations on finishing!!

Plot:Character Arc

Recently, I realized while writing my current WIP, one of my main characters had an issue with their arc. After discussing it with a friend, I thought it may be a good subject to write about. Not only the issue at hand, but also how do we make character arcs that are compelling? Read on for more information about character arc, how to write it, why it’s important, and what kind of impact it has on the plot.

Character Arc

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What is it?

The character arc is the inner journey that the main character or characters go through over the course of the story. Usually, there is some important trait that the character(s) need to develop in order for the plot to resolve itself. For example: in A Christmas Carol the main character goes from being an old miser, who wants only to keep all of his money, to being a generous person. His inner journey is that arc. It walks hand-in-glove with the plot, all the elements that are happening on the outside.

How do you make one?

How do you make your character arc? Essentially, the first thing is to envision what you want the character to be at the end of the story. Do you want them to learn a lesson about being a better fighter? Do you want them to learn that it’s not good to be a bully? Whatever the story is that you are telling, you need to think about what you want the character to learn, and then you work from there. If you want your character to be harder than they were at the beginning, then make sure that they are soft when the story begins. If you want them to learn about kindness, then they need to be unkind.

How does this work into Plot?

It is, and it isn’t the plot, if that makes sense. The plot is the thing that the story lives on. The skeleton, or the roadmap, or whatever you want to call it. The character arc is the meat that goes on the bones, kind of, or the way that the story becomes believable, or maybe the way that the reader is able to suspend their disbelief long enough for the story to take place. The character arc is written into many plot points. There are moments where the character is able to learn a new skill. Or do something they failed at before. Those moments not only require that the character is at the right location at the right time, but that they have gone through enough mental growth that the moments are possible.

I don’t think I have one, do I need one?

Probably. Most stories involve some kind of personal growth. Even if that growth is learning a new skill (like going from being a down-on-their-luck paper pusher to being a CIA agent, or something). It is still mental and physical change, of some kind. Learning a skill will take not only practice, but also confidence building, and probably encouragement from someone the character admires. However, I will put a caveat here: there are some stories that don’t have a character arc, really long series’ like Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. In these, the character doesn’t change much over the course of a single novel; simply because the reader expects that they will be getting into the same kind of antics during the course of the next one. Because of that expectation, we cannot have the character change and get their life together every single novel, just to have it fall apart again.

Character Arc Conclusion

At the end of the day, when you make a character arc, the trick is to think about where you want your main character(s) to end up. Then, think about what kind of story you are telling. Where can those two things meet? If you want to write a horror story, and you want to end up with a character who has learned that it doesn’t pay to be a bully; maybe you start out with your characters as camp counselors, and your main character is making the younger kids feel bad. Maybe there is one in particular they are picking on. Then, the horror starts, and the main character has to take care of the kids and make sure they are okay, and the main character’s arc is getting the kid that he made fun of to trust him, so that he will survive the ordeal.

Even though I am what you would call a pantser or a discovery writer. These things, if you want them to come out right, they do take planning. You either plan before, or you change everything during a rewriter when you figure out it didn’t work.

Plot Archetypes

Now that I’ve gone over the different plot structures here, here, here and here; I want to talk about types of plots. They say that there are only seven plots out there. That those seven plot archetypes can encapsulate all literature, and every story ever written.

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The seven plot archetypes are:

Overcoming the Monster
Rags to Riches
The Quest
Voyage and Return
Comedy
Tragedy
Rebirth

Let’s go ahead and look at each of the archetypes in detail and what kind of story you would tell while using it.

Plot Archetypes

Overcoming the Monster

This one would be used when you have a character who has an issue that needs to be resolved internally. Maybe they are an addict, and the story is about their journey to sobriety. Another, more literal interpretation could be a fantasy story where someone is captured by some kind of monster, and they have to either befriend or defeat the monster in some way. The Princess Bride definitely has this plot type.

Rags to Riches

Easy enough to figure out this story. A poor person finds success. I would say that we see this one more commonly, where someone in the first exposition has everything; then they lose it, and they have to gain it again from nothing. Cinderella would be an example, although in more modern re-tellings Cinderella does get to gain her good fortune back, in the old fairy tales, she just waited for rescue in a more passive role.

The Quest

Our characters have to do something. There are usually pretty high stakes in these types of tales, it’s important to get the baby to the person because the world may end. The most modern example of this I can think of is Disney’s Onward. Which is, of course, a movie. A book that has a quest plot is really any fantasy book you pick up. The Way of Kings has some questing, Words of Radiance as well. Any story where the characters need to find something, and the stakes are high would qualify.

Voyage and Return

This is The Hero’s Journey. The characters go on a journey, and then they return home. The journey could be far reaching, it could take them into a whole other dimension–like in The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, or across the universe like in: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The most popular example of this archetype is, I think, The Lord of the Rings.

Comedy and Tragedy

As they say, comedy ends with a wedding and tragedy, a funeral. When I think of these two types, I think of Shakespeare. There are so many examples of both in his works. The comedies normally revolved around a mistaken identity, while the tragedies dealt with all kinds of heavy subjects. A lot can be learned by studying the bard’s works.

Rebirth

The character is born anew. The Hunger Games books do this, do a degree. The Katniss we meet at the beginning of book one, and the Katniss that we end the last book with, are very different people. Although, whether that is due to her own inner thought processes, or simple PTSD is left up to the reader/audience to decide.

The Plot Archetypes are a mix and match bag of tricks for the writer to use. Use a Quest and a Comedy, or a Rebirth and a Tragedy. It’s important to know what kind of story that you are writing. One part of knowing that, is to understand what kinds of stories are out there. The only way to understand what exists in the world is to study it. I know it sounds boring, but it is important to know what you are doing.

Thank you for reading my post about plot archetypes, please let me know if you would like to see more of this kind of thing, or if you would like to know something else.

The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is the first plot type that I looked at when it first occurred to me that there was such a thing. I think it may have been the first one that appeared when I began a search. I feel like this plot type ends up in so many places, because it is so easy to recognize. Once I read about it, I immediately thought of Lord of the Rings. Joseph Campbell wrote a book called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This book goes through all the stages of this plot type. Without further ado, here are the seventeen stages:

The Hero’s Journey: Stages

1. The Call to Adventure

As we’ve seen with Plotting: Freytag’s Pyramid, Plotting: The Three-Act-Structure, and Save the Cat Story Structure plots have a tendency to begin with a “day in the life,” The Hero’s Journey is no exception. Our hero starts out living their normal life, and then something happens, changes, or someone invites them to do something that starts them on their journey.

2. Refusal of the Call

This is also a typical moment. The hero doesn’t want to go on an adventure. They want to keep on living their life, but there are reasons that they cannot say no, or other forces that keep them from saying no.

3. Supernatural Aid

The hero receives some kind of otherworldly help in the beginning of their journey.

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold

This is where they take their first steps into the new world. They really begin their journey at this point.

5. Belly of the Whale

This stage represents the final separation of the hero from their known world and self. The hero is showing their willingness to fully immerse themselves in the unknown and change themselves for the better. The hero may have a minor setback at this stage, or some other struggle where they lose something.

6. The Road of Trials

The hero experiences a series of trials, usually in threes; before he is able to move forward in their journey. These are fluid and ambiguous. They will lose some and have to keep moving forward and gaining confidence in order to move successfully through the story.

7. Meeting with the Goddess

The hero meets someone who provides them with something that will help them later on.

8. Woman as the Temptress

Despite the poor name for this stage; essentially it’s about something that the hero wants, but shouldn’t have. It’s really about the differences between what should be and what is.

9. Atonement with the Father/Abyss

The point of the story that everything has been moving toward. This is a confrontation with an entity that holds the power of both life and death within it. The hero has to trust in the figure that they will be able to confront whatever it is they need to confront, and come out on the other end better/unscathed, etc. The thing given by the other figure earlier in the story will be helpful at this point. The two figures should be mirror images of one another.

10. Apotheosis

The hero reaches a greater understanding. They have learned the lesson that they needed to learn.

11. The Ultimate Boon

The goal of the quest was achieved. Whatever the hero set out to do, was done.

13. The Refusal of the Return

Having found success in the other world, the hero does not want to return to the ordinary world.

14. The Magic Flight

The hero may have to run with the boon, if they have angered the gods, or have made them jealous by winning it.

15. Rescue from Without

Just as they needed aids and helpers to begin their journey, the hero may need help getting back to the ordinary world. This is particularly true if they were wounded or weakened.

16. The Crossing of the Return Threshold

This one seems a bit overly complicated. The hero, not only needs to return to regular life. But, they also need to retain the wisdom they gained on their journey. And they need to share that wisdom with the people around them. That’s a little hard to fit into the last chapters of your novel.

17. Master of Two Worlds

In the end, the hero will be a master of both their inner and outer worlds. They will be happy in both.

So, those are the stages of The Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell’s book on the subject was published in 1949, so you will forgive a lot of outdated phrasing. However, you can easily see how any adventure story can fit into the stages. Campbell studies a lot of myths from a lot of different cultures to come up with the ways in which we tell stories across cultures.

This information is always good to know as a teller of tales, because, no matter what kind of stories you want to weave; you are adding to the tapestry of your own culture. You are putting your own mark in your way, making your own folklore if you will. Adding your own voice to the many that have come before you. And it matters. Allow your voice to be heard, remember that the way you see the world is important, your views are important. Your way telling of Beauty and the Beast or that incident that happened a couple of years ago that’s now family legend; it’s yours, and it’s important. I suppose that’s a post for another day though.

Tension and Conflict in Writing: What is the difference?

Tension and conflict are the heart of a story. Both are important tools to use, it is necessary to a successful story that the tension raises throughout the tale. The tension needs to pull the reader/audience along, it keeps them turning pages. While the conflict of the story, does the same thing, but in a different way. We will talk about these two important pieces of story. Tension and conflict in writing.

Tension and Conflict in Writing

Tension

Tension is the feeling that something bad is going to happen. That feeling of something around the corner. This is used in a lot of different ways, we up the tension between characters, sometimes it’s two people who don’t get along that well; sometimes it’s sexual tension. Other times, the tension is a feeling of things about to fall apart. The plan, so carefully constructed, isn’t going to work at all. Maybe, if your story is of the thriller or horror variety, the tension is the killer/monster getting closer, while the protagonist remains in the dark.

The tension in the story should draw tighter and tighter, before releasing, and then it should do it again. You should have several moments in the story where tension is released, and then it builds back up, before crescendoing during the climax, and finally breaking once and for all during the resolution

Conflict

Conflict, while easier to understand, can also be easy to misunderstand. Conflict is not always an argument or a fight. It can simply be a moment where the character has two things that clash with each other. Maybe they have two goals; but if they reach one, the other is hindered. That itself would create conflict in the story.

Conflict can also be direct, the protagonist and the antagonist, a fight or even a war, depending on the story. But, think about everyday life. There are lots of things that are in conflict with each other all the time. You have little arguments with your spouse/child/brother/sister/mother/father/the weird lady at the service counter. You have issues in traffic, or you have conflicting opinions in your own mind. All of these things feed into the story. Every step of the way, you should have tension that raises, and conflicts that need to be resolved.

Every story needs to have both tension and conflict in writing. Hopefully this article gave a little clarification on what that means, and how to apply to your own writing. Thank you for reading, let me know if you would like more of the same types of posts, or different ones.

Save the Cat Story Structure

Save the Cat is a plot type where the different parts of the plot are broken into “beats.” All the beats have a particular percentage associated with them. Which allows an aspiring writer to understand how much of the story belong to each part. Without further ado, here is Save the Cat story structure.

Save the Cat Story Structure Beats

Act 1

Opening Image (0-1%): A snapshot of the protagonist and their world.
Theme Stated (5%): A statement, made by someone else, not the protagonist. It hints at what the character arc for the protagonist is going to be. This is also referred to as a life lesson.
Set up (1-10%): This is what I call the “day in the life of.” This is where you see the protagonist’s world before things change for them.
Catalyst (10%): This is the inciting incident, the thing that happens that changes everything for the protagonist, and makes their old life impossible to go back to.
Debate (10-20%): A section where the protagonist debates about what to do next. This should show their resistance to change.

Act 2

Break into 2 (20%): This is the moment where the protagonist accepts the call to action, essentially they decide to take action in a way that moves the story forward.
B Story (22%): A new character is introduced that will help the protagonist along the way. This person will help the protagonist grow, and assist in resolving their character arc.
Fun and Games (20-50%): This is where we see the character in the new world, they are either succeeding or floundering. This section represents the “hook” of the story.
Midpoint (50%): The fun and games section culminates in either a false victory, or false defeat, and should raise the stakes and push the story forward for the protagonist.
Bad Guys Close In (50-75%): If the mid-point ended with a false victory, then everything should start to get worse. If it ended in a false defeat, then things should start to look up for the protagonist. Either way, the protagonist’s deep-rooted flaws are closing in.
All is lost (75%): The lowest point. Something pushes our protagonist to rock-bottom.
Dark Night of the Soul (75-80%): A moment where the protagonist reacts to everything that has happened so far. They should be worse off than they were at the beginning of the story. This is the moment right before they figure everything out.

Act 3

Break Into 3 (80%): The moment when the protagonist realizes what needs to be done to fix the problems from Act 2, and also to fix themselves. Their character arc is almost completed.
Finale (80-99%): The protagonist enacts the plan that they came up with. The world is not only saved, it’s better than it was before.
Final image (99-100%): This is a mirror to the opening image, where everything is fixed.

If you have read some of my other posts, or you have some knowledge of plot structure, you will notice the similarity to Freytag’s pyramid, and to the three-act-story-structure. In reality, most plot types will follow the same trajectory. This is one is good if you need to know about specific things and when they should happen in your story to keep yourself on track.

The next time I discuss plot, we will look at a structure that is near and dear to my heart, the hero’s journey. So stay tuned for that, and thank you for reading and let me know if you have any questions.

Plotting: The Three-Act-Structure

Writing starts in your mind. In everyone’s mind, what happens is a strange question takes shape. A what if? Question, maybe. Or possibly just a thought about a character. The only difference between writers and regular people, is those strange little questions, or characters that flit through everyone’s minds–in the mind of a writer, those thoughts take root, they end up sprouting until we have to write them down–that’s where plotting: the-three-act-structure may come into play.

Even if you are a pantser (a discovery writer), you will need to keep some form of plot in mind as you spin your yarn. A plotter will have all of this figured out before they start writing, possibly. With the idea that plot is important no matter what kind of writer you are, we will go over the Three-Act-Structure below. You will note the similarities to freytag’s pyramid, which has been discussed previously.

Plotting: The Three-Act-Structure

Act One: Setup

The first act contains exposition (again, I’m going to go back to what I call “a day in the life of…”) When we meet the protagonist and most of the other characters, and we learn about the world they live in. This will also contain the inciting incident. The inciting incident is the thing that happens that starts the plot moving along, an example of this is: in The Stand when the military employee chooses to escape via the malfunctioning gate. The rest of the first act needs to introduce the question that the rest of the work will answer.

Second Act: Rising Action

The second act is where the protagonist tries and fails to answer the question raised in the first act. There needs to conflict and confrontation. There should also be character development, the protagonist, in their struggle to answer the question that arose in the first act, should grow as a person. We, as readers or audience members, should be rooting for them to win at the end of the day. An example: in The Hunger Games, we see Katniss go through all kinds of horrible things during the second act, she almost dies of dehydration, then she gets hit with a fireball, and she gets stung by tracker-jackers. All of this happens before the climax of the story.

The Third Act: Resolution/Climax

The third act is when the question is resolved. The climax should happen during the third act, it should be the most dramatic part of the story, and it should resolve the question posed in the first act. After which the story should be resolved quickly, and the ending should tie up any loose ends or subplots, without too much exposition. An example: at the end of The Shining, we get a brief moment with Danny, his mom, and Mr. Halloran; leaving the readers happy that they all survived the ordeal, all that the readers need.

That is a brief overview of plotting: the three-act-structure. There are many resources for looking at plots, because it is such an important part of the writing process. Just something to keep in mind while wandering through your story, think to yourself if it has the elements it needs to pull your readers along.

Thank you for reading!