Story Arc – F.C. MALBY

What We Can Learn About Plot Writing From Thriller Series, Vigil

Plot is arguably one of the most important elements of fiction writing – from it stems, the characters, the mood, the pace. It sets the scene for the whole tone of a fiction novel, so it’s important to get it right. When you’re writing crime or thriller novels, it is absolutely key, and there are ways of raising the stakes to keep your reader hooked.

Here are a few that I noticed, while watching the BBCs recent new thriller, Vigil. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it on catch-up. As a writer, it’s difficult not to consider plot, when watching high-tension drama on television and and in Film!

Put your characters in a challenging environment or physical danger.
Introduce vulnerabilities and character flaws.
Create secondary characters to add new tensions to the plot.
Allow tension to ebb and flow.
Create obstacles and conflict between characters.
Keep raising the stakes.
Make the viewer (reader) ask questions.
Create internal and external conflict.
Leave things unresolved until close to the end.
Remind the reader of the stakes.

The plot hinges on a Detective Chief Inspector Amy Silva (played by Suranne Jones). DCI Silva works for the Scottish Police Service and is sent to HMS Vigil, a Trident nuclear submarine, by helicopter for three days, at first, to investigate. Shortly after the mysterious disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler, a member of the crew on Vigil is murdered, and DCI Silver has been sent to investigate. The series takes viewers on a journey into a world of submarine warfare and security threats.[Skip ahead to the next paragraph to avoid a plot spoiler] Having lost her husband in a car crash, where the car is submerged in water, Amy manages to rescue only her daughter. She suffers from flash-backs, depression and anxiety, for which she is taking medication.

Much like Carrie, in Homeland (a highly-skilled, but bipolar CIA operative), it’s this vulnerability that makes Silver so likeable and her achievements all the more impressive as the plot unfold (see no. 2 in raising the stakes). Finding character flaws and vulnerabilities draws the reader to the character. The human need to connect through vulnerability is best illustrated in Brené Brown’s TEDxHouston Talk, The Power of Vulnerability. In this twenty minute TED talk, she describes vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure, but says that vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our most accurate measure of courage. It’s this courage, despite character flaws and vulnerabilities, that makes the best protagonists so appealing and keeps viewers and readers hooked.

DCI Silver’s investigations, along with her team on land, create conflict between the police, the Royal Navy and MI5 (see no.5 in the list of raising the stakes). She is in a challenging physical environment (see no.1) in a confined space, away from her daughter, her normal routine and recent partner, DS Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie), leaving her conflicted.

While there were a few plot holes and inconsistencies in places, it was a gripping series, with tensions ramping up towards the end. The finale provided both the tension and resolution that viewers were hoping for, with some impressive redemptive qualities.

You can find out more about plot, tension and story arcs, from several of my other posts (links below):

Narrative Arc: Shaping Your Story (one of my most read post’s with almost 15,000 views)

Plot, Characters, Homeland, and What You Need to Achieve to Keep Readers Engaged

What we can learn from Beauty and the Beast About Plot, Tension and Obstacles

Disney’s much hyped adaptation of Beauty and the Beast was released at the weekend. The film broke box office records with an estimated $170 million, making it the seventh largest opening weekend of all time. It’s a story that engages your emotions and keeps you hooked to the end. I was discussing the film with someone today who wanted to go and see it. She said it was her favourite fairytale and we were talking about what makes this particular story stand out. It occurred to me that part of the pull is the constant tension throughout the story, the conflict of interests, and the fact that the Beast is somehow flawed as a love match for Belle.

We all know the plot – an arrogant young prince and his servants fall under the spell of a enchantress, who turns him into the Beast until he learns to love and be loved in return. The headstrong village girl Belle enters the Beast’s castle after he imprisons her father Maurice. With the help of his servants, Belle begins to draw the cold-hearted Beast out of his isolation.

There is a tension between Gaston’s claims that he will marry Belle, and her desire for independence and dislike of his puffed up ego. Part of her appeal is the fact that she doesn’t want a relationship and is a strong and independent girl. She loves books, loves her father and, unlike the other girls in the village, refuses to fall for Gaston’s false charm. There is a tension between either Belle or her father being held prisoner in the tower.

There are obstacles in the way, in the form of wolves, Gaston, the villagers when they storm the castle, Belle’s need to rescue her father, and the Beast’s appearance and initial hostility. Every time you come up for air, another obstacle presents itself. Life can feel like this at times, but it is used as part of a plot to ramp up the tension and keep the viewer engaged and rooting for the main characters.

The fact that the Beast sees himself as unlovable and flawed because of the curse put on him, appeals to us because most of us feel flawed in some way, however big or small, aware of our less-than-perfect self. Yet, he wins her affection despite his appearance, which has kept him in his tower. It is in part because of this that we want their relationship to work.

I want to leave you with one of the highlights of the film…the library!

Beauty and the Beast

That Awkward Question: Where Do Writers Find Their Ideas?

Throes of Creation by Leonid Pasternak

Yesterday I watched a really interesting set of readings from the Cheltenham Literature Festival. This was a special event (link to the programme will expire in 4 weeks) welcoming all six writers on the 2014 Man Booker Prize shortlist to the Festival: Joshua Ferris, Richard Flanagan, Karen Joy Fowler, Howard Jacobson, Neel Mukherjee and Ali Smith. The authors discussed and read from their shortlisted novels, then took questions from the audience. The readings gave a good sense of the tone and subject matter of the books. What was particularly interesting, and uncomfortable, though, were the questions after the readings. I don’t think there was a single question posed to the authors that wasn’t either ‘naughty’, in the words of the host, or just difficult to answer. They were asked, if they had to swap their novel with one of the longlisted books, which one they would choose. Needless to say, nobody answered this question. They were also asked how they felt about sitting with two Americans (the Prize was opened up to American authors for the first time this year). Neel Mukherjee said he preferred an inclusive approach over exclusivity. This has been much debated over the years. Joshua Ferris broke the ice with some humour, adding, ‘I think I speak for Karen when I say, we are completely beside ourselves’. The most awkward question, and this was possibly the worst set of questions I’ve heard from any audience to a panel of writers, was whether they had read each other’s books. Ali Smith, thankfully, had read the whole set and thought that they were ‘fantastic’. They were also asked how you know when you have truly finished your novel. The authors agreed that it was much like a painting where you added the last brush stroke. This was one of the better questions, but the question that struck me as particularly familiar came from a young girl in the audience. She asked the eternal, ‘Where do you find your ideas?’, question. And it’s one that makes many writers uncomfortable, primarily because it is difficult to answer.

WHERE DO WRITERS FIND THEIR IDEAS?

The responses from the authors varied. Karen Joy Fowler said that her ideas came from her daughter, and that the question had once been difficult to answer, but was now all sorted. A very tongue-in-cheek, and slightly evasive answer. Howard Jacobson suggested that the word ‘ideas’ may not be the right one to use, and that he sees a scene. He mentioned Milan Kundera in his point that it might be better to try not to have ideas. Joshua Ferris’s answer was closest to what I experience when I write. He said that he has sentences before he has ideas, and that those sentences come from somewhere. From that sentence come other sentences and at some point you find a rhythm. Ali Smith, after a joke about Waitrose (although she failed to mention Peter Andre), says that ideas are absolutely everywhere. Every single thing that we encounter is filled with possibilities and at some point there is a chemical process, a fusion of ideas. She talked about the need to have your senses open. Neel says he gets his from reading other people’s books. But don’t tell anyone! His title came from a a book called Light Years, by James Salter. And finally, Richard Flanagan shared his view that novels are a ‘crack diary’ of your soul.

“NOT TO LOOK FOR THE IDEAS BUT TO HAVE YOUR SENSES OPEN.” ALI SMITH

I don’t think I have ever managed to answer this question successfully. But, if I look back to the seeds of a novel or a short story, and I have many short story ideas, the ideas come in the waking moments of half sleep, of semi-consciousness. Are they a dream? Not really. They are the thoughts that creep into my mind when it is not preoccupied with the thoughts of the day and the ‘to do’ lists. We wake with so many things to do and places to get to, that our imaginations become squeezed out by the necessary thought processes that we go through on a daily basis. Our imaginations wait on the sidelines for the quiet moments, to come into play when we have a conversation with the lady in the local chemist and talk about travel and family, when a friend tells us about a particular issue that they are facing (although I never use confidential information in my writing). They feed on the everyday encounters that we have, as Ali Smith said, when we have our senses open. Writers tend to notice people, body language, unusual situations, things that are out of the ordinary. They observe. Most will admit to being people watchers. Ideas also come from memory, from fears and from the ‘what if’ scenarios that play out in our minds. Neil Gaiman wrote a good essay on this question, saying that the ideas are not the difficult part, but creating believable characters and making the story interesting. He suggests that the most important questions are, What if, If only, I wonder, If this goes on, Wouldn’t it be interesting if…

I often begin with a scene, as Howard Jacobson mentioned, and if it won’t go away, I commit it to paper, building a story from that scene, asking who the characters are and what they want, what is blocking their desires and what might happen next. I try to feel the atmosphere. With my current work in progress I initially had five key scenes but I knew that they were scattered, and the difficulty lay in linking these once they were written. It became a jigsaw puzzle. I usually write chronologically, but there are no rules. And there in lies the problem: no rules, no solid idea of where the stories begin, but you only need a seed. You allow it to grow and then shape it into something that you hope will inspire and challenge readers. Ideas are as much a mystery to writers as they are to readers. You experiment with different ideas to see what works and, often, ideas will surprise.