I will be treating all forms of scripted entertainment as equal in this tutorial. It’s for writers, regardless of what they write for. Also, this is a huge tutorial. Get yourself a coffee; you’ll be here for a while.
A lot of TV shows in particular, may appear to emulate everyday life. However most of us will agree more happens in a single half hour episode of a TV show, than in their entire week.
Why is that?
It’s because all forms of scripted entertainment, be they books, TV shows, movies, computer games, or any of the other aforementioned entertainment mediums are a form of escapism.
We read or watch or play to escape our own lives and enter the life of someone else, because it is more interesting than our own. Or perhaps because they live the life we wished we lived. Or perhaps because while we don’t really want to be a dateless, drug addicted private investigator, it’s a fun costume to slip into on weekends. We can romanticise a lifestyle or dilemma and enjoy it, despite the fact we wouldn’t enjoy it in the slightest in reality.
As a writer it is very important to understand this. A lot of first time novelists are accused of wish fulfillment or writing biographical fiction. Their writing is their personal escape and they have characters and setting and dilemmas that cater to their own personal desires and interests. These generally aren’t interesting for anyone else to read and rarely sell.
Writers have to cater their fantasies to engross a larger, wider audience. This is not, as some people may think, a form of selling out, but there is a huge difference between twisting a genre you enjoy, to writing a genre you don’t enjoy to sell money.
Often the changes will be simple and subconscious as a writer matures and grows, however for those for whom it isn’t, this tutorial should give a shove in the right direction.
So how do you create a plot that will appeal to a wide(r) audience than, say, you, yourself and thee?
This is where characters start to play a HUGE roll. A character’s age and gender has something to do with the target audience, but not as much as you think. Teenagers, for example, prefer to read about teenagers and adults about adults, but this is not an insurmountable barrier. Far from it.
What a character needs to appeal to a reader (or watcher) is a characterisation or motive that a reader can identify with, empathise with or understand.
This doesn’t mean the character needs to be good, or interesting, or righteous, but a reader does need an ‘in’. Even a character whose actions and motives are deplorable can keep a reader interested; as long as they see something there they understand or believe in. Likewise, a character that is good and kind and saves kittens might have no fans whatsoever if people can’t identify with them.
Hannibal Lecter eats people, for example, but he is still a compelling character. He’s still, if not likeable, enjoyable. Because he’s intelligent and sophisticated and, okay, maybe we all have a dark side that he appeals to.
Jesus, on the other hand, was a very likeable character, but we identify with him, not because he cured blindness and saved the immortal souls of the living, but because he was persecuted for trying to do what he thought was right. We all know how that feels.
The second part to this is the dilemma the character faces, and how they deal with it. This is often a pivotal point in many story lines, as it is the consequences of those actions stemming from the original dilemma that fuel the movement of the plot.
Let’s say a man finds some money in a bag thrown over his back fence. Maybe he hands the money over to the police and maybe he doesn’t. How might his decisions change if he has a huge gambling debt? Or his child is sick and needs surgery? How about if he recently got out of jail and is desperate not to go back? What if the old, critically ill woman down the road had the same amount of money stolen two days earlier? Or if his neighborhood is controlled by a street gang?
Different people will keep or give up the money in those situations. However the Good Samaritan who gives up the money to the old lady when his child is ill, may have to deal with the consequences of the child’s death when he can’t pay the bills.
If a character makes the right decision at the beginning of a plot, and there are no ill consequences, you don’t have a plot. Actions of characters, be they for good or selfish reasons, should have results that invite conflict.
And then, it is how the character deals with the resulting conflict that keeps people reading, watching or playing... assuming your character is acting in a manner people can identify with.
So what plots and conflicts will keep people interested? That depends greatly on your genre, medium and target audience, but there are some basics that remain consistent.
There is a basic formula you can apply to summarise any fiction plot. In some cases it will have to be twisted and abstracted, but for the most part, it’s fairly standardised:
1. Firstly you have your main character(s)/protagonist(s)
2. Your villain(s)/antagonist(s) (who are NOT faceless entities of evil, because that is boring)
3. Your conflict(s)
4. Your cost: emotional, physical or otherwise.
5. Your motives (for protagonist and antagonist)
All of these can vary immensely depending on genre and medium, however it is important to look at your cost. The cost is what will happen if the hero doesn’t *fill blank appropriately*.
The total destruction of the world and life as we know it is a popular one, however it is usually not the ONLY one. Most protagonists have a more personal reason for saving the world than the obvious (death and suffering, etc). Perhaps they are saving themselves from something: torture, guilt, regret, loss. Or perhaps they are saving someone closer to their heart than the world as a whole: children or a lover.
Either way, the cost is something that has to ring true for the reader. It has to be something the reader would fight for and suffer for, or you have to make them really believe that the protagonist would.
The reader needs to feel like the threat is genuine. The reader needs to WANT the hero to succeed and save his marriage/stop the destruction of the planet/find his lucky hat. If they don’t, they have no motivation to read, watch or play.
Another vital aspect of entertaining is pacing. Nathan Bransford said it best when he explained (and I’m paraphrasing) ‘Pacing is the space between conflicts’.
The days of long novels ripe with extensive description and very little action are long past. This is an age where people want excitement and action and they want it the moment they open the book. This is exactly the point where books need to compete with TV shows and TV shows with each other. You need to hook a reader or writer within the first line, or the first few seconds of viewing. It’s too easy for people to put down a book, or change the channel.
However if you hook them in that first moment, you then have to keep drawing them along. That is where your pacing comes in. I’ve heard a rumor John Grisham aims to put conflict on every single page in one of his novels. That sounds tiring to me, but I personally wouldn’t write a novel without conflict in every chapter.
Conflicts can be little things. However humans are drawn to conflict. It’s instinctive for us. Look at something as simple as a lion hunting a gazelle. There isn’t a person alive who could look away from a life or death chase like that. Why?
Because when we were apes living in trees, those predators were after US. Then, when we came down from trees and began hunting ourselves, the success of a hunt became the difference between eating and starving to death.
The nature of conflict is embedded in our instinct.
I, personally, can’t watch an animal run without feeling the tug of instinct to chase it. Though I don’t hunt -- rifles don’t appeal to me -- I understand people who do.
Likewise, conflict in fiction appeal to us in the same way. We are designed to face conflict. Our ancestors were killed by lions and hunter mastodons. You could argue that a lot of fiction is designed just to cater to those instincts and fulfill that need for survival conflict.
Conflict can be more complicated and subtle than death and hunting, of course, it is another aspect that is affected by genre. However the primal instinctive nature of humans is worth keeping in mind while you write.
So now you have your complex and appealing characters, your villains, motives and personal cost. You have perfect pacing and a plot so enthralling no one will be able to put it down. What now?
You write! Write like the wind!
Part Two -- Forms Of Entertainment
Copyright Talitha Mitchell. 2007.