Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure (22 page)

Read, or better, study the immortals and you will be forced to conclude that their unusual penetration into human character is what has kept their work fresh and alive through the centuries.

— Lajos Egri,
The Art of Creative Writing

Great plots have great characters. While this is not a book on character creation and implementation, we can't let the subject of plot go without touching on at least one aspect of character work that is all important: character change.

What makes a plot truly memorable is not all of the action, but what the action
does to the character
. We respond to the character who
changes
, who endures the crucible of the story only to emerge a different person at the end. It may be a major difference, as with Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
. Or it may be a subtle change, as when Scarlett O'Hara finally matures at the end of
Gone With the Wind
(just not soon enough to keep Rhett).

What deepens a plot is when characters grow. Events happen and should have impact on the characters. Are there novels where the characters don't change? Sure. But these are not usually classified as “enduring.” In a detective series, for example, the main character may remain rather static, the only change from book to book being the nature of the case.

Even in a series, however, subtle changes in the character over time can elevate the books from mere entertainments. Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Robert B. Parker's Spencer are examples.

So look to create character change in your novels in a way that deepens the plot and expresses a theme. For when a character learns something or suffers because he changes for the worse, it is an expression by the author about the larger canvas — not merely what happens in the novel, but what happens in life.

As opposed to the
plotline
, the character arc is a description of what happens to the inside of the character over the course of the story. He begins as one sort of person in the beginning; things happen to and around him, gradually moving him in an “arc” that ends when the story is over.

Your lead character should be a different person at the other end of the arc.

For example, in the film version of
The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy begins as a dreamer, a farm girl with her head in the clouds. She dreams of finding a better life “over the rainbow.”

At the end, she realizes “there's no place like home.”We might describe this arc as going from
discontentment
to
contentment
, an arc of 180 degrees. Or from
dreamer
to
realist
.

However we put it, we are saying that Dorothy has grown because she has learned a life-changing lesson.

The character arc has a build to it. It must, or the change will not be convincing. A good character arc has:

• A beginning point, where we meet the character and get a sense of his interior layers (more on layers in a moment)
  
• A doorway through which the character must pass, almost always reluctantly
  
• Incidents that impact the layers
  
• A deepening disturbance
  
• A moment of change, sometimes via an “epiphany”
  
• An aftermath
  

Let's take a look at each step in more detail. We'll use the example of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
as our prime example. This is the greatest character-change story ever written. It's a good model.

When we first meet Ebenezer Scrooge, he is described as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!” Dickens goes on to provide a biting physical description of Scrooge, and then proceeds to
show
us what Scrooge is like. In one instance, some men have stopped by Scrooge's place of work to seek donations for the poor. Scrooge snaps:

“Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments, I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can't go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

A bit later, Scrooge's clerk, Bob Cratchit, once more requests the day off after Christmas. It is, after all, only one day a year. As you know, however, Cratchit's simple request is denied, further illustrating the heartless nature of Scrooge.

We all have a
core self
. It is the product of many things over the years — our emotional makeup, our upbringing, our traumas and experiences, and so on. Most of the time we're not really thinking about who we are. Yet the core is there.

And we will do what we can to protect this core because, by and large, people resist change. So we surround that core with layers that are in harmony with our essential self. Working from the core outward, these layers include: (1) beliefs; (2) values; (3) dominant attitudes; and (4) opinions.

If you think about it, these layers get “softer” as they move away from the core. Thus, the outer layers are easiest to change. It is much easier to change your opinion, for example, than one of your deeply held beliefs.

But there is always a ripple effect when a layer experiences change. If you change an opinion, it will filter through to the other layers. Initially, there may not be much effect. But change enough opinions, and you start to change attitudes, values, and even beliefs.

On the other hand, suddenly changing a core belief automatically affects the other layers because it's such a strong shift.

How might we describe Scrooge's core self at the start of
A Christmas Carol
? He is a miser and a misanthrope. He loves money and hates people.

His
beliefs
include the pointlessness of love and charity.

He
values
money over people.

His
attitude
is that profit is more important than good works.

In his
opinion
, Christmas is a humbug, clerks are always trying to take advantage, and so on.

The Force Field of Character Change:
Pressure from the outside penetrates the layers. When all the outer layers are sufficiently changed, the core — self-image — changes automatically.

To make Scrooge into a new person, these layers are going to have to be disturbed. How is that to happen?

Ghosts, of course.

Scrooge is to be visited by three ghosts. The first, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to a familiar scene:

“Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!”

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.

“Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And what is that upon your cheek?”

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

Scrooge is crying! This hard-bitten man who seems so intractable has, at a scene from his boyhood, connected with long-forgotten emotions. They affect him. He attempts to divert the Ghost's attention. It is the first, small indication that somewhere inside Scrooge's cold, uncaring body is a warm person who may re-emerge.

The Ghost takes Scrooge to see the shop where he was a young apprentice, Old Fezziwig's. Scrooge remembers how generous Fezziwig was to his employees, how he brought joy into their lives. This brings Scrooge to another moment of reflection on his own relationship with his employee, Cratchit. The moment results in a softening toward Bob Cratchit, whom we met earlier in the story when Scrooge barked at him. Some of the outer layer of Scrooge has been affected.

And the plot advances.

The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge for a look at the Cratchit family. What Scrooge witnesses there is the joy of Christmas as shared by a poor family, including Tiny Tim:

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

We are starting to get into deeper levels with Scrooge here. There is an interest “he had never felt before.” The shadows are doing their work.

Before the Ghost of Christmas Present leaves, Scrooge sees one more image that sears into him — under the Spirit's robe are two young children tainted by poverty and want:

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

The bell struck twelve.

Notice how Scrooge's own words (the references to prisons and workhouses), planted early in the story, now come back to haunt him.

This is a powerful technique for character change. If you can repeat a motif, or have the character somehow come face to face with his “earlier self,” the reader will see the pressure to change powerfully conveyed.

It is best to underplay such moments. In Dickens's time a bit more on-the-nose writing was acceptable. Don't overdo it, or you may lapse into melodrama. We'll say more about that later in this chapter.

We are fast coming to the point where Scrooge will try to become a new man. The ultimate disturbance is when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows the dismal aftermath of a despised man's death.

And then Scrooge is shown the Cratchit family again, where he learns that Tiny Tim is dead.

The Ghost next takes Scrooge to a graveyard, and points to a headstone. With this shock to his system, Scrooge finally snaps:

“Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

“Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it:“Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”

The kind hand trembled.

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

Scrooge has declared that he is a changed man. But that is not enough. We must see some action that demonstrates the change, shows that it has truly taken effect.

First, we see a Scrooge we haven't encountered before, bounding out of bed and rejoicing in his own happiness. Then he goes to the window and stops a boy running by. He engages the lad to buy a prize turkey:

“I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's!” whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim.”

There is an action. Now we know Scrooge is different. We've been shown. The showing continues when he finds the two men whom he rebuffed who had solicited a donation from him the day before and makes it up to them. Scrooge then dines with his nephew, and the next day raises Bob Cratchit's salary and asks to assist him with his family.

So, when we get to the final words of the great Dickens classic, we believe them:

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. … [A]nd it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!