Good stories don’t happen by accident.
I have the privilege of reading a great many original scripts, as well as beta reading novels, and have seen far too many writers who blither ahead with half an idea and not much thought until they run out of words and stop. You can write a novel like this (and you can write a successful novel like this), but unless you’ve been incredibly lucky your editorial process is going to be a total nightmare.
Instead of trying to write a good novel by accident, it is essential that you include an element of analysis to help you get from beginning to end: from question to answer, essentialy. You have to earn your ending.
Wow, that was a posh opening. Let’s try again.
Ever got to the end of a story and thought “bouf”, then instantly forgotten the book. There’s a reason why this happens. In this article I’m going to explain why.
The end is in the beginning
Call and response. Question and answer. Problem and solution.
There is an order to things that we come to expect. Much as it may affront our artistic aspirations, telling a story is very much like writing an essay (much as a good essay tells a story.)
A question is posed. The question is explored and explained. An answer to the question is presented. That answer is then critiqued, and an alternative is presented and compared: the two are then either synthesised or one is chosen over the other. This is known as syllogism and is a form of deductive reasoning, largely derived from Hegelianism. Which you don’t need to know.
What you do need to know is that a story, like an essay or a piece of research, is about exploring and answering a question. Thus, every good story opens with a question. Actually, it opens with two.
The External Question
The first is the external question, the question that gets the audience hooked and gives them a sense of direction. Can Jerry Maguire make a success of his “honest” agency business? Can Elizabeth Bennet help her friends and sisters find marriages that will secure their futures?
Here’s the rub, YOU HAVE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION. You can follow a usual three, four or five act structure, as you like, but must always tack back to a sense of progression towards finding the answer to this first question you ask. If you don’t end the book with the answer the reader will feel like the book didn’t end properly.
You’ve got to be careful here. It’s easy for the reader to think the book is about one thing when you’re writing about another. Sometimes you even want them to do this. But by the end of the book you reader should be able to describe what happened in the book, and that pretty much always comes down to what question was answered.
Also, the external question mustn’t be boring. Please, God, don’t let it be boring. I’ve read so many damned scripts where the opening pages just make me want to put my head through the wall. The essence of the story, the bit that will make it a success, is elsewhere. But if your external question isn’t a corker nobody will bother reading. Bigger, better, faster, sexier, more explosions, more pain – just don’t bloody bore me!
But the External Question is a Trick: The Internal Question is the Essence
We establish an external question early and we follow the character’s quest to answer it until the end. However, this external question is merely the shell for the much more important internal question. It is the internal question the provides the emotional core of your story, and the emotional impact for the reader. Will Jerry learn to be authentic in his feelings and risk loving someone who actually loves him? Will Elizabeth learn to see past first impressions and care about people for who they really are?
While the external question gives you a structure on which to hang your plot points, it is this internal question that must truly be answered. And it must be hard. Nobody wants to read stories about easy questions. As any good economist will tell you, this comes down to what the character has to pay – what do they lose – in order to get what they need.
How do we find the internal question?
So, from where do we get the internal question? It almost always centres on a false world view, and here I am grateful to Nina Harrington and her book “How to Plot Romance Fiction” because she sums up the idea beautifully. Harrington describes the internal question as stemming from the character’s “wound.” Something bad happened to the character when they were young (young is substantially better because we are more impressionable), and it hurt them so much that it permanently changed the way they see the world. Because of this something is missing from their life that prevents them from being whole and happy.
This question should be the story you want to write about. If what you want to write about is spaceships blowing up, fine, great, but at the heart there must be a wounded character who heals (or fails to heal if you’re writing tragedy [warning – tragedy doesn’t sell as well]) BECAUSE of their adventures with exploding spaceships. Write that book, I’ll read the hell out of it.
At the end of the book, we need to show the reader if the wound has healed or not. If it’s part of a series, then progress is acceptable (actually, well done, progress can represent a tremendous victory). But if you don’t answer this question then your book will fail.
So, how do we earn our ending?
Think of a character who has been wounded in some way during their youth, and that wound has given them a distorted world view that is preventing them from being happy. This is our internal question: how can they change to become happy?
Second, give them something to lose. This might be a physical thing (a home, a treasure), a status thing (a job, a position, a reputation), or, my personal favourite, a relationship (a parent, a friend, a lover). This value of this thing, howeever important, is dependent on their distorted world view. To successfully answer their question, they must lose this thing: the apparent asset is in fact and obstacle. This will give the ultimate victory emotional weight: that which is obtained too cheaply is esteemed to lightly 😉
Third, find an external question – a plot – which will force them to confront the internal question. This will largely be determined by the genre you want (or are being paid) to write in, and, whatever you fancy writing about. Feel free to be imaginative as possible. The most important things are a) it forces the protagonist to answer their internal question and b) it gives a clear thread for the reader, so they know what is going on in the story.
And that’s it. We earn our ending by forcing our characters to lose something they think is important in order to heal the emotional wound that is making them unhappy. You don’t (and probably shouldn’t) put it like that to the reader, but this is the magic that makes a story memorable.
I make no claims to be perfect
I’m not as analytical as I imply. I wish I were that clever. Also, if you think too closely about “WHAT YOUR STORY MEANS!!!” you may well block yourself. So, just remember that your character has a wound they need to heal. Their adventure forces them to confront the wound. And they should sacrifice something something to get their happiness. Note those things down before you begin and see where your writing takes you. You should find yourself at a much better ending.
Image by meineresterampe from Pixabay
