Day 75: Shadow Mentors

Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash

In the day 74 post, we looked at three characters from Treasure Island as luminary mentors to the protagonist, Jim Hawkins. Each of these mentors, Livesey, Smollett, and Trelawney, represent an aspect of Plato’s tripartite psyche, demonstrating rational judgment and ethics, courage and discipline, and desire and ambition respectively. The cast of characters also includes shadow mentors who have similar capacities but without the same moral constraints. They are Silver, Hands, and Gunn. 

Livesey/Silver

Livesey and Silver both possess the ability to keep cool and listen, which reveals their rational natures, but they have very different worldviews as revealed through their treatment of others. The two perspectives show Jim and the reader two ways of applying reason to human relationships: preserving dignity versus reducing people to instrumental good. 

Livesey values Jim's intelligence and observation while guiding him toward ethical behavior. He encourages and nurtures Jim for his own good. He shows Jim his belief in the inherent worth of humans by treating the sick and injured pirates as patients. 

Silver recognizes Jim's potential while trying to corrupt him toward pragmatic amorality. Instead of empowering Jim, Silver grooms him as a potential ally while being willing to sacrifice him. He treats potential allies as disposable tools.

From these mentors Jim learns observation and strategic thinking with two distinct types of leadership: ethical versus manipulative. Ultimately, Jim chooses Livesey’s path of using his wits for the good of others. Even in his most Silver-like moments when Jim makes autonomous decisions, he ultimately serves the innocent crew members. 

Smollett/Hands

Smollett and Hands both possess strong attitudes about authority, but they employ different means to secure their power over others and have different sources. This can be seen in their approach to discipline. 

Smollett maintains strict control through abstinence and military routine. His displeasure with Jim’s behavior isn’t personal but a concern about the disruption to the proper hierarchy and the dereliction of duty. Smollett represents legitimate authority based on principles. Hands enforces control through indulgence paired with physical violence and resents any challenge to his authority as a personal challenge. Hands favors raw power based on physical domination. 

By observing Smollett and Hands, Jim experiences two forms of authority: principled discipline that protects and brutal force that dominates. Through their dislike of Jim, each pushes him to prove himself. He wants to show Smollett that he can act responsibly, and he meets Hands’s physical violence with moral courage. In his fight with Hands to keep control of the Hispaniola, Jim employs physical courage like the pirate in service of a righteous cause like Smollett.

Trelawney/Gunn

Trelawney and Gunn both demonstrate an appetite for adventure, which makes them ambitious. They can convert this energy into action taking them closer to what they desire. Trelawney shows the ability to move toward productive action that enables him to defend his friends. Unlike Gunn, who spends his entire share of the treasure within nineteen days of returning to England, Trelawney successfully integrates his appetites with social responsibility. In this way, he goes from being a liability (getting duped by Silver at the outset) to being an asset through the disciplined use of his natural gifts (applying his marksman skills to enable the innocent crew members to escape the Hispaniola). Gunn fails to be transformed by his experience. His years stranded on the island without human connection have put this possible development out of reach. 

From the examples set by these two mentors, Jim can see two paths for adventure-seeking including Trelawney’s evolution toward channeled enthusiasm for the good of others and Gunn’s cautionary tale of unintegrated desires. In the beginning, Jim is drawn to pure adventure, like these two mentors, but he learns to balance adventure with responsibility. The treasure itself is the ultimate test. Like Trelawney, Jim learns to use the power of wealth responsibly and shows no interest in pursuing more treasure by adventure. 

Jim’s Education

These patterns suggest that each luminary-shadow mentor pair demonstrates not just qualities (reason, spirit, ambition) but how those qualities interact with power, authority, relationships, and human development. Jim (and readers) gain a complex education in how character shapes the use of power and influence through the clear consequences of each approach. Jim's journey can be seen as navigating between these paired approaches to power, authority, and morality, learning from both the luminaries and shadows before integrating the lessons into his own character.

By the end, Jim has developed reason that serves moral ends (Livesey/Silver), learned courage that upholds principles (Smollett/Hands), and channeled his appetites toward productive ends (Trelawney/Gunn).

What's particularly elegant is how Jim doesn't simply choose the "good" mentors over the "bad," he learns skills and capacities from both sides but integrates the lessons in a moral direction.

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This post is the final of my 75-day writing challenge and experiment. Every day since September 9, I’ve posted daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. My goal was to explore and share short posts with value for writers. Now that the challenge is over, I will reflect on the experiment and decide what to do next. As part of that process, I’ll organize and revise the material with intention. 

If you  have questions about anything I’ve shared in these posts, please feel free to write to me: leslie@writership.com.

Day 74: Building a Cast of Characters

Photo by Tanner Mardis on Unsplash

I’ve been exploring the conflict in Treasure Island by looking at Jim Hawkins, the protagonist, and Long John Silver, the primary antagonist, especially their similarities and differences. We can see how Jim could easily have taken the route that his primary shadow mentor, Silver, has done, becoming a pirate with all the consequences that flow from that lifestyle. 

There are some other relationships that show the true depth of character development in this story. 

Jim is a young man who recently lost his father, but he has three men, luminary mentors, that he can observe and learn from: Livesey, Smollett, and Trelawney. Each of these men represent one part of Plato’s tripartite psyche, the person, lion, and monster, and they offer lessons and insights to Jim through their actions in the story. Livesey (reason/person) represents rational judgment, professional ethics, and societal order. Smollett (spirit/lion) represents courage, discipline, and righteous anger. Trelawney (appetite/monster) represents desire, ambition, and material interests. 

During the story, each of Jim’s luminary mentors makes mistakes due to an excess of their primary natures, but they soon correct them. 

Livesey make errors through overconfidence in rational planning, but he learns to adapt when his initial assumptions prove wrong. He comes to make difficult choices with incomplete information (abandoning the stockade while not knowing where Jim is). This teaches Jim that true wisdom includes understanding the limits of rational planning.

Trelawney's unchecked appetite leads to poor decisions (loose talk, and poor hiring), but he earns redemption through channeling those same qualities. He transforms from a liability to an asset when he becomes the marksman defender. His journey shows Jim that passion and appetite aren't inherently bad but need proper direction.

Smollett accepted a crew he hadn't chosen himself against his usual procedure. This suggests that even discipline requires judgment about when to assert one’s authority. His later steadfastness (the flag incident and maintaining naval discipline) shows how to recover from early compliance. This demonstrates to Jim that courage isn't just about fighting but about maintaining principles under pressure.

In the next post (the final post of this series!), I’ll write about the tripartite shadow mentors who add complexity and perspective to the story.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 73: Plot Form Example—Treasure Island Part 2

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

In the day 72 post, I walked through the process of identifying Norman Friedman’s plot form in Treasure Island with a focus on the protagonist, Jim Hawkins. 

In this post, I’ll analyze the plot categories from Silver’s perspective and compare the two to show how the clash between the two characters creates a satisfying story.

1. Who is the antagonist?

The antagonist is the source of the problem presented by the inciting incident in a story.

Long John Silver doesn’t appear until about a quarter of the way through the story, but he is the primary antagonist. His pursuit of Billy Bones causes the old captain to take up residence at the inn and brings Jim into contact with violent pirates when Black Dog, Pew, and others are sent to find the treasure map. Silver leads a violent gang of pirates whom he enlists as crew on the Hispaniola and is the author of the plot to kill the innocent crew members. 

2. What is the state of Silver’s fortune, character, and thought at the beginning of the story and at the end?

Fortune: When we first meet Silver, he is the successful proprietor of the Spy-Glass Inn. He’s a legitimate business owner and well-liked and respected among the seafaring folk of Bristol. Squire Trelawney trusts Silver and recommends him as “an honest man.” As first-time readers, we hope he will make good on the opportunity to be the ship’s cook on the Hispaniola and improve his fortune with a crew member’s share of the treasure. By the end of the story, he has stolen a share of the treasure but lost access to his legitimate business because he’ll be hanged if he is caught in England again.
Note: Bones’s warning about the seafaring man with one leg foreshadows an encounter with the dread pirate, but this is a fact that gains relevance in retrospect. When we’re analyzing a story, we often do so from the perspective of the author who knows how everything works out. But for Friedman’s plot forms, we consider the beginning of the story as first-time readers with a subjective experience of hopes and fears not yet realized. Therefore, we start where the story really begins for the reader—with Silver as the seemingly honest innkeeper who appears to be a stroke of good fortune for the expedition.

Character: Silver has a strong will, and maintains a facade of loyalty in the beginning of the story. He charms the innocent crew members, who believe he is a man of good character, and balances his multiple loyalties with ease until they approach the island. There are moments when he is presented with the opportunity to become the man Trelawney believes him to be, like when he forms a genuine connection with Jim. He rejects the chance for redemption, however, and stays true to his core nature of self-preservation at all cost through pragmatic adaptability.

Thought: Silver begins the story with a sophisticated understanding of human nature and strategic awareness of power dynamics. He demonstrates this when he convinces Jim not to tell Squire Trelawney about spotting Black Dog in the Spy-Glass because neither of them would look good. While Silver gains specific knowledge about events and people, his fundamental way of thinking and seeing the world doesn't significantly change.

3. What is the primary change Silver undergoes?

Fortune is the primary change because it represents the most concrete and irreversible transformation in Silver's situation. He escapes with some wealth but permanently loses his place in legitimate society. While Silver experiences minor changes in character (shows moments of potential redemption but rejects it) and thought (updating his model of the world as new facts are perceived), the most significant arc relates to his fortune.

4. What primary emotion is evoked in the reader?

We begin feeling admiration for Silver and hope he will be successful. This leads to indignation and horror at the violence he perpetrates, and we want justice for all the innocents he has killed over his long career. This desire is not fully satisfied because Silver escapes the gallows with a share of the treasure. 

5. What plot best aligns with the story? 

Silver’s trajectory fits Friedman's punitive plot, which describes a "protagonist whose character is essentially unsympathetic, in that his goals and purposes are repugnant, yet who may perhaps be admirable for his strength of will and intellectual sophistication." 

This plot evokes complex emotions in readers because, at first glance, the character seems to be a person of extraordinary qualities. And he is; he’s just a uniquely diabolical shapeshifter. 

It’s important to note a variation in the plot pattern here. Unlike typical punitive plots where the villain faces complete downfall, Silver achieves a mixed outcome. We gain some satisfaction from the fact that his legitimate path to status and security is lost to him, but his partial escape with some of the treasure creates moral ambiguity. The diminished punishment seems to match his willingness to save Jim, an act that Livesey, one of the most moral characters in the story, acknowledges in his willingness to speak for Silver at trial in England. 

Comparing the plots to understand conflict in the story

We can understand the two plots within the story as a match between two approaches to life, and that Jim could have easily prioritized adventure. Jim and Silver share a lot of qualities as we see in the comparison of their character stacks. But Jim matures by rejecting Silver’s path. Silver demonstrates clearly, in a way that the old captain could only hint at, the consequences of the piratical lifestyle and the failure to mature. 

Jim and Silver end up as mirrored opposites. Jim’s journey leads him to consider the needs of others in a movement toward wholeness. He integrates his shadow through encounters with Silver, as well as aspects of his three luminary mentors: Livesey, Smollett, and Trelawney. He recognizes that there is a time and place to apply the skills and wisdom of each mentor and that the shadow should not be the primary way he engages with the world. In contrast to Jim’s integration, Silver’s refusal to pursue redemption leads to fragmentation and perpetual division. A successful life within a connected community is lost to him.

Silver is a tough and strong-willed individual, but he lacks the courage to make hard moral choices and sacrifice his selfish desires for the good of anyone else. Instead, Silver takes the expedient path and resists changing. He does speak up for Jim and save his life when the pirates capture the young man. But in these circumstances, their interests overlap. Even though Livesey is willing to speak for Silver if he went to trial, in that moment, Jim is worth more to Silver alive than dead. 

These differences highlight why the maturing and punitive plots work so well as opposing forces in the story. They create maximum tension around the central question of how we should respond to life's challenges and opportunities.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 72: Plot Form Example—Treasure Island

Photo by Michael on Unsplash

In the day 71 post, I shared Norman Friedman’s process for determining the form of the plot of a story. These plots describe the shape and content of inner conflict the protagonist must confront in order to solve the external problem raised by the story’s inciting incident. 

In this post, I’ll share my analysis for Treasure Island, which builds on the protagonist work in posts from days 66, 68, 69, and 70. 

1. Who is the protagonist?

Jim Hawkins. He is the obvious choice, but we should always test our assumptions. 

Jim undergoes the most change from beginning to end. He is the character who ultimately responds to the inciting incident in the story’s climax, which leads to resolution of the primary narrative question. When the old captain, Billy Bones, comes to the Admiral Benbow Inn and disrupts life for the regulars, Jim becomes intrigued and craves adventure but fails to see the real risk of danger. The first scene also introduces us to the seafaring man with one leg, who isn’t named and doesn’t yet appear in the flesh but haunts Jim’s dreams. The narrative question is not whether Jim will survive his encounter with Long John Silver. We know he does because Jim is the narrator of this account. Our primary question is how he survives an encounter with a pirate so dangerous that Bones is afraid of him. The opening scene offers two possibilities: Jim can follow the example of Bones or Livesey. Jim survives by his own initiative and honor (with some help from his friends), resolving the narrative question. 

2. What is the state of Jim’s fortune, character, and thought at the beginning of the story and at the end?

Fortune: With the inciting incident, Jim’s fortune is low. Although Bones is a new lodger at the inn, he doesn’t pay his bills and eats and drinks a great deal. His presence raises the possibility of regular customers being scares off by his tyrannical behavior. Jim is presented sympathetically, and we hope he will end up in a better position by the end. When the story resolves, Jim’s fortunes have improved because he has a share of the treasure.

Character: Jim possess a strong will at the beginning of the story, but his motivations are concentrated in his desire to pursue adventure untempered by moral considerations. His narrow goal-focused frame (through which he determines the relevance of what he sees) causes him not to raise the alarm about the seafaring man with one leg when he first learns of the threat. At the end of the story, Jim has altered his goals significantly and wants no part of any quest to return to the island and retrieve what remains of treasure. 

Thought: In the beginning of the story, Jim is naive because he lacks experience. He has led a relatively sheltered life away from danger and cannot make the connection between the stories of violent men and the threat drawing near when Bones comes to stay at the inn. This inexperience causes Jim not to alert Livesey and Trelawney about the possibility that the ship’s cook may be the dangerous pirate he was warned about. Jim is taken in because Silver is a “clean and pleasant-tempered landlord.” Jim’s model of the world did not include violent people acting congenially. By the end, Jim has gained experience dealing with a master shapeshifter, enough to keep himself alive. He even learns from Silver, though he will apply those skills only when necessary. We accept that Jim is not sophisticated enough to understand fully what’s going on in the beginning. 

3. What is the primary change Jim undergoes? 

While Jim experiences changes in fortune (gains treasure) and thought (better understanding of potential risks and rewards), the central change is in his character (better goals). 

His goal is the first question raised and the last one resolved. The ups and downs of Jim’s fortune test his character, providing material for growth and opportunities to express his moral choice. His fortunes don’t change him but provide the fodder, when metabolized, for a change in character. 

The change in his circumstances scene to scene creates an opportunity for him to upgrade his thought/worldview because Jim adapts to his changing perceptions of the world. His adaptation at the level of thought leads him to consider the moral implications, which will change his motivations. In other words, his thought is the tool for processing his experiences, a bridge between his circumstances (fortune) and change in character through altered motivations.  

The relationship between fortune and thought leads to a change in character as expressed through Jim’s goals and actions. Jim is sympathetic, but he lacks experience of the wider world, which leads to immature goals. This is corrected through a change in fortune leading to a change in thought and finally better goals informed by his morality. 

4. What primary emotion is evoked in the reader?

We begin the story with a concern for Jim as a sympathetic and naive character with ill-conceived goals. We hope that he will transform his character and make better choices. These hopes are justified when, in the end, Jim’s motivations change to ensuring the survival of his friends, and we experience satisfaction that things have turned out as they should. But notice, much like Peter in The Tale of Peter Rabbit, there is a painful emotional cost that goes with the loss of innocence. For Peter, in a story for very young children, this is temporary indigestion. For Jim, he has forever lost his romantic ideas about adventure. 

What plot best aligns with the story?  

Friedman describes the Maturing plot (subcategory of character) this way: "a sympathetic protagonist whose goals are either mistakenly conceived or undetermined, and whose will is consequently rudderless and vacillating."

The key elements of the Maturing Plot include the following:

• Opening state: Goals mistakenly conceived. Jim’s desire is for adventure without moral consideration.

• Catalyst: Experiences that force moral choices. Over time, Jim must weigh his own desires against the lives of others. 

• Development: Must choose between selfish wants and the needs of others. Philosophically, this is a choice between Silver's path in life and Livesey's example. 

• Resolution: Achieves mature integration. Jim takes risks associated with adventure only when necessary and considered with moral responsibility.

The protagonist needs a force of antagonism to cause them to change. Change is painful, and people don’t tend to do it unless they must as a result of the right combination of circumstances. In a well-developed story, the antagonist conforms to their own plot to provide just the right conditions to make change in the protagonist surprising but inevitable. In the next post, I’ll show how to identify Silver’s plot based on the text, his essential characteristics, and character stack.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 71: Friedman's Plot Forms

Photo by Andrej Sachov on Unsplash

The recent work in this series has concerned essential characteristics and the character stack, which are interdependent tools. The characteristics help us understand why the character can execute the character stack. The stack shows how the essential characteristics function and are manifest through actions. Together, the characteristics and stack help understand how the characters behave and why. 

In the day 70 post, I compared the character stacks of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver to get a sense of how their similarities and differences create conflict in Treasure Island. In this post, I will return to looking at Norman Friedman’s “Forms of the Plot.” We use these plot categories to link character change to story structure and the events we use to build and assess our stories. For more information, see “Forms of the Plot” in Form and Meaning in Fiction by Norman Friedman (1975). 

As a reminder, Friedman’s plot categories are fortune, character, and thought (see the day 48 post for basic information and examples). These plots show how the protagonist changes internally in response to the external conflict they face.

These tools serve two major purposes for us as writers. They allow us to deconstruct a story we love to understand what makes it work. They also reveal critical elements of the bridge we need to build from our story idea to craft a story readers will love. To become familiar with the way the tools work, we look at established story examples following Friedman’s process. Once we get the hang of it, we can use these plots to generate the maps of our own stories and check our work once we have a completed draft. 

Friedman used four inquiries of a story’s text to settle on the plot form.

Protagonist

First, we identify the protagonist. This is the person in the story who undergoes a major change from beginning to end and the one who ultimately responds to the inciting incident in the story’s climax, which leads to resolution of the primary narrative question. This is typically a straightforward decision in stories that work.

Category Assessments

Second, we assess the state of the protagonist’s fortune, character, and thought at the beginning and end of the story.

• What is the protagonist’s fortune (good or bad) when the inciting incident happens, and do we worry it will get worse or hope it will get better? For this inquiry, we are concerned with external events that happen to the protagonist, and through their response, whether we think them likely to succeed or doomed to fail. In the resolution, we consider their situation and whether it has changed for the better or worse.

• What is the protagonist’s character in the beginning and how do we respond to it? We consider the protagonist’s motives and their will to do the right thing, and as a result, whether we find them sympathetic. We consider the same at the end of the story and assess how much, if at all, they have changed. 

• What is the protagonist’s thought in the beginning, and do we think the protagonist is sophisticated enough to understand their circumstances and the consequences of their actions? Here we’re concerned with how accurate the protagonist’s worldview or model of the world is at the beginning and if it changes, and in what way, by the end.

Primary Change

Third, we decide which of the three forms is the primary change for the protagonist in the story from beginning to end and how the other two forms are related. This can be a little tricky because as readers and writers we have our own models and frames that we apply when we’re analyzing a story. It’s possible for us to  see most clearly in a story the problem we struggle with the most. We do our best to focus on the central question raised by the inciting incident of the story, how it’s resolved in the resolution, and why. 

Friedman was clear that all three categories are present in well-crafted stories. External change will naturally cause adjustments in the protagonist’s fortune, how they value their own needs compared with those of others, and how they imagine or model their world. These categories are interconnected, but one is emphasized above the other two, which should serve the primary plot. The other two should support or contribute to that change.

Primary Emotion

Finally, we consider the primary emotion evoked in readers in the story’s resolution. Of course, readers may feel a wide range of possible emotions at the end of a story. But we’re looking for what’s essential. For example, does a basically good person suffer or achieve a good end? Or does a basically bad person suffer or achieve a good end? We tend to feel positive when someone receives their just deserts and negative when the consequences are unjust. 

In the next post, I’ll share the plot assessment for Treasure Island as an example.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 70: Comparing Character Stacks

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In the posts for days 66, 68, and 69, I’ve been looking closely at the protagonist and antagonist of Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver respectively, to show how the fundamental characteristics of these characters and their character stacks can help us write a better story. This process is getting to the heart of the conflict that drives the action in the story.

The conflict forces the protagonist to decide to transform (prescriptive tale) or not (cautionary tale). Random conflict does not make for a coherent story. We could get lucky, but who wants to leave success of a story to luck? To increase the chances of success, we ground the conflict (and all the other story elements) in our story’s essence, our North Star, the aspect of the story idea that is the most important to us. In this series of posts, I’ve worked through the path to move from story premise (the person, place, and problem of the story) to story essence, and from the essence to the expanded premise through which we create the cast of characters, story world, and the story’s plot. 

The posts I referenced above have been about creating the cast of characters who will populate the world and enact the plot. This starts with the protagonist and antagonist and understanding their essential characteristics by asking questions to find out what qualities the characters must have to embed the essence in the story. We use the characteristics to build the character stack (worldview, goals, strategies, tactics, and tasks). These tools are interrelated: The characteristics help us understand why the character can execute the character stack; the stack shows how the essential characteristics function and are manifest through actions. 

To off a glimpse of what’s to come, we use the similarities and differences in essential characteristics and character stack to understand the nature of the conflict in the story. From there, we can identify which plot forms from Norman Friedman’s “Forms of the Plot” are operating in our story. The plots are a bridge to generalized story events from which we can build or analyze our stories. 

For now, let’s return to the stacks for the two most important characters in Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver to see what’s revealed (the stacks can be found in the posts for days 68 and 69).  

When we analyze these two stacks, we look closely at the differences in relation to the similarities. They show us different perspectives on solving a particular problem that add complexity to our story. 

Worldview

This is the individual’s model of the world, which shapes their understanding of the goal. 

Both characters recognize the world's complexity and are able to alter their mental models based on their experience.

• Jim seeks to integrate complexity through his moral framework

• Silver exploits complexity for personal gain

Goals

This is what the individual is pursuing consciously and unconsciously. Goals and worldview inform the strategies they employ.

Both characters consciously seek adventure and treasure (external goal) for different ends.

• Jim: Uses it as means to maturation

• Silver: Uses it as a means to gain superiority

Strategy

This is the character’s theory of victory. This is how they think they will achieve the goal given their worldview and, therefore, guides their tactics.

Both characters move between social worlds but have different reasons.

• Jim: To test and develop judgment

• Silver: To manipulate and control

Tactics

These are context-specific methods used to carry out the strategy, which are executed through tasks.

Both maintain multiple connections but with different results.

• Jim: To learn and grow

• Silver: To exploit and survive

Tasks

These are measurable units of work that implement tactical choices that can be broken into actions. 

Both navigate complex social situations but for different ends.

• Jim: Building trust for mutual benefit

• Silver: Building trust to exploit

Comparing these aspects of the character stacks reveals how perfectly they function as protagonist-antagonist pair. When thrown together, their conflict is inevitable. Every similar capability points to opposing choices, which presents clear conflict between their approaches to life. It also shows how easily without the right guidance, Jim could end up living a life like Silver’s. Because their parallel skills lead to divergent outcomes, the reader gets to consider what their choices would be and see how they might work out. The relationship between Jim and Silver creates maximum tension around Jim's central choice for an engaging story climax.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 69: Coherent Characters Example Part 2

Photo by Patrick Pahlke on Unsplash

Let’s apply the character framework from the day 66 post to a story’s protagonist to see how it works. We’ll use Long John Silver from Treasure Island.

We start with five to ten essential characteristics like the examples in the day 30 post with questions from the day 41 post. 

1. Silver possesses sophisticated adaptability both mentally and physically. He is a master of moving between social worlds and can alter his personas based on his current circumstances. This is mirrored in his adapting to having lost his leg. He is strong and agile and can chase and kill his quarry.

1. He is strategically intelligent with ruthless pragmatism. Like Jim Hawkins, Silver is a keen observer and analyzer of human nature, constantly upgrading his model of the world. He acts to his benefit in the moment but also is considering long-term plans, creating webs of dependency and possibility. He is willing to sacrifice anything for his own survival To that end, he uses violence but with precision and specific purpose, not randomly.

1. Silver is the corrupted mirror of Jim's potential. This is particularly clear when we look at their character stacks side by side, which I’ll explore in a future post. The two have similar innate gifts of observation, charm, and intelligence, and if Jim was without moral guidance, he could easily become just like Silver. The story seen from Silver’s perspective is a tragic version of the coming of age story. The pirate functions as both a tempter (adventure awaits!) and cautionary example (consequences are inevitable). 

1. Silver exhibits complex moral ambiguity. His moral operating system is more sophisticated than pure evil or simple greed. He maintains a personal code in every decision he makes while violating societal morality. Silver’s honor is applied selectively; he keeps word when given but rarely gives it. He is capable of genuine connection where interests align but remains ruthlessly self-interested. 

1. Silver is a charismatic authority figure. He’s a natural leader, commanding through different means depending on the circumstances. He can inspire loyalty through both affection and fear. His disarming charm masks his predatory nature. His educational and/or cultural sophistication sets him apart from other pirates and gives him power over them. 

These five characteristics create an antagonist who is both a compelling character in his own right and a perfect foil for Jim's journey. He's dangerous precisely because he offers a seductive alternative path that could easily become Jim's future.

With all of this (and of course the text of the story) in mind, we can develop the character stack. Note: Silver’s character stack takes into account the antagonist’s failure to transform across the story. This is important because a story is about how this antagonist adapts his tactics to changing circumstances but remains largely unchanged.

Here are the aspects of the character stack:

• Worldview: The antagonist’s model of the world shapes their understanding of the goal.

• Goal: This is what the antagonist is pursuing, which informs the strategy employed, but doesn’t usually change. 

• Strategy: This is the theory of victory. This is how they think they will achieve the goal given their worldview and, therefore, guides their tactics.

• Tactics: These are context-specific methods used to carry out the strategy, which are executed through tasks.

• Tasks: These are measurable units of work that implement tactical choices that can be broken into actions. 

Here is Silver’s character stack:

Worldview: Silver believes that social order is a manipulable facade. To Silver, loyalty is a tool not a virtue. Whether he is correct or not, his experience tells him that polite, civilized society is interested in only a transactional relationship with him. He realizes that power belongs to those who understand human nature and that survival requires constant adaptation to the environment. While he’s continually adapting his worldview to attune to reality, he does not reassess his beliefs about what makes the world go round. 

His worldview shapes his goals.

Goals: Silver consciously pursues the treasure. It will enable him to survive (avoid the gallows) and thrive to a certain extent, empowering himself and disempowering others. He seeks to prove superiority through manipulation. Ultimately, he embodies an individual who has perfected the art of survival but lives in exile and cannot transcend the self.

His goals inform his strategies.

Strategy: Silver moves fluidly between social worlds, creating and exploiting dependencies and possibilities. Reluctant to give his word, he keeps several options open. He balances charm and terror as needed.

His strategies guide his tactics.

Tactics: Silver deploys personas strategically as circumstances and his desire for survival dictate. He builds up apparent genuine connections while preserving detachment because he must be willing to kill at any moment. He applies precise violence and calculated mercy while exploiting others’ moral constraints. 

His tactics are executed through his tasks. 

Tasks: Silver performs tasks that balance competing factions within his sphere of influence. He establishes a trusted position on the crew while orchestrating a mutiny and persevering plausible deniability until he can’t any longer. He mentors Jim even as he prepares to sacrifice him. 

Keep in mind what this accomplishes: The essential characteristics help us understand why Silver can execute his character stack. The character stack shows how his essential characteristics function and are manifest through actions. We can see how his worldview offers him more options for his concrete actions (he’s not limited by moral considerations), but it cuts him off from enduring connection that humans need to thrive. Together, the characteristics and stack help us keep our characters on track as well. We can constrain the possibilities for character decisions in a useful and specific way so that character actions are surprising yet inevitable. I’m hopeful that you can begin to see how these tools set up clear conflict that aligns with a story’s main message and essence. In a future post in this series, I’ll analyze the two stacks together to understand conflict within the story at multiple levels. 

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 68: Coherent Characters Example Part 1

Photo by Gery Wibowo on Unsplash

Let’s apply the character framework from the day 66 post to a story’s protagonist to see how it works. We’ll use Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island.

We start with five to ten essential characteristics like the examples in the day 30 post with questions from the day 41 post. 

1. Jim is young and innocent, which enables him to bridge social worlds (Jim holds his own in the company of gentlemen, to the hamlet folks and seafaring men who frequent the inn, to violent pirates) and enabling his growth from being naive to being mature.

2. Jim has keen observation skills and likable nature. These aspects of his personality make him a believable heroic figure and trustworthy narrator of the tale (the story is his account of his adventures) 

3. Jim shows initiative and a willingness to break rules based on personal judgment. This creates tension and conflict, but also his ability to solve the major problem of how to take control of the ship away from the pirates.

4. Working-class background providing motivation, practical skills, and physical capability. Again, this makes him a believable heroic figure.

5. Complex relationship with authority/father figures (from deceased father to his three mentors to shadow mentor Silver). Jim’s conflict with each one enables him to integrate these aspects of being a mature adult. 

6. Internal tension between adventure-seeking and moral obligation. This is the problem space he’s navigating (and modeling for the reader): when these two natural desires are in conflict, how does a young person decide what to do? 

7. Developing moral compass as he navigates increasingly complex situations. When Jim is at the inn, his moral quandaries don’t require as much consideration as when he moves out away from home to Squire Trelawney’s hall to Bristol to the Hispaniola, and finally to Treasure Island. 

With all of this (and of course the text of the story) in mind, we can develop the character stack. Note: I’ve modified the character stack to take into account the protagonist’s transformation across the story. This is important because a story is about how the protagonist adapts to changing circumstances and changes as a result (or not in a cautionary tale).

Here are the aspects of the character stack:

• Worldview: The protagonist’s model of the world shapes their understanding of the goal.

• Goal: This is what the protagonist is pursuing, which changes at pivotal moments in the story and informs the strategy the protagonist employs. 

• Strategy: This is the protagonist’s theory of victory. This is how they think they will achieve the goal given their worldview and guides their tactics.

• Tactics: These are context-specific methods used to carry out the strategy, which are executed through tasks.

• Tasks: These are measurable units of work that implement tactical choices that can be broken into actions. 

Here is Jim’s character stack:

Worldview: Jim’s worldview in the beginning is romantically simple and evolves to an understanding that reality is complex, but integration/balance is possible. Personal judgment must be tested against both rules and experience.

His worldview shapes his goals.

Goals: Initially, Jim seeks adventure, which translates into pursuit of the treasure. Later, he understands that he needs to achieve mature integration of self including shadow aspects. (Note: he’s not consciously aware of this, but he pursues it through his actions later in the story.) Ultimately, Jim embodies successful individuation/maturation.

His goals inform his strategies.

Strategy: Jim moves between order and chaos to test and develop judgment. He learns from multiple father figures (Livesey, Smollett, Trelawney, and shadow mentor Silver) while maintaining independence. He employs his perceived innocence to gain wisdom through observation.

His strategies guide his tactics.

Tactics: Jim observes before acting and tests his decisions against both rules and personal judgment. He maintains connections with both civilized and shadow mentors, but acts independently when inner compass demands.

His tactics are executed through his tasks. 

Tasks: Jim performs duties that maintain trust with both sides, makes key autonomous decisions (e.g., leaving stockade, taking the Hispaniola), reports observations to appropriate mentors, and navigates immediate moral choices.

This is a lot of work to break down a character, so what is it actually doing for you? It helps to understand how they relate to one another. The essential characteristics help us understand why Jim can execute his character stack. The character stack shows how his essential characteristics function and are manifest through actions. We can see how changes in worldview, for example, filter down into changes in concrete actions. When combined, these tools help us keep the character on track. They constrain the possibilities for character decisions in a useful and specific way so that character actions are surprising yet inevitable.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 67: Emphasis

Photo by Seoyeon Choi on Unsplash

In several posts I’ve written about the importance of what we emphasize in a story. Here are some tricks to we can use to subtly highlight what’s most important in our stories.   

Seeing, knowing, and understanding: This is about what we show, tell, and let the reader work out for themselves. For example, we can show two characters fighting, the narrator or another character can tell about a past fight, or we can show the effects of the fight (bruises, torn clothing) without mentioning it. When readers can see or experience an event, it adds more weight compared to what they know because they’ve been told or what they understand, a conclusion drawn from what they see or know. 

Repetition, especially from different perspectives: For example, in 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas, we hear about different characters who “innately know the moods and tendencies” of another character, “the way you know on a flight, even with your eyes closed, that a plane is banking.” It’s a fairly memorable line to begin with, but the repetition emphasizes the sentiment and the feeling: we all have a desire to be known this way. 

Vivid, specific words, especially in comparison to more mundane words. See, for example, the discussion of verbs used in The Tale of Peter Rabbit (day 24 post). Mrs. Rabbit and Peter’s siblings went, but Peter ran and squeezed.

Stretch time: When we slow the delivery of the action as if time is stretching out, the reader is encouraged to slow down too and take in each word. It’s similar to the effect of adding terminal punctuation after each word in a sentence. 

Play with meter: Use iambic pentameter for important lines to give them poetic resonance without rhyme. Here’s the best video I’ve ever found explaining imabic pentameter.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 66: Coherent Characters

Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash

As I’ve written before, character descriptions often focus on information that is interesting and even captivating but won’t necessarily assist us in sending a clear signal with our story. We want to choose the details that enact our vision of the story’s essence (see day 9 post) and support sending the story’s main message. We want to find the details that make our protagonist the right one for this story. 

We begin with the story essence with each inquiry. It provides the North Star for all our story decisions because it’s what matters most to us about our story. If the essence isn’t embedded within the DNA of the story, we won’t feel confident that the parts will be aligned and that the whole functions as a coherent narrative. Worse, we may feel disappointed in the story, even if it sells. We look at the result and think, that’s not what I meant. 

The well formulated and crafted story essence will suggest potential detailed characteristics for the person, place, and protagonist of the premise. More importantly, it helps eliminate possibilities that come easily to mind but aren’t aligned with the story we want to write. 

This narrative cartography process is iterative: generate, distill, reflect and assess. We’re not trying to land on the right answer immediately, but seeking the connections, patterns, and insights that emerge from the process. If we ask why? about the protagonist, for example, we might discover that their vulnerabilities are echoed in the story world. These vulnerabilities may reveal what’s wrong with the world or can cause conflict the protagonist must resolve, complicating the story’s problem.

Let’s say, we’ve done this process for the protagonist and come up with five or so fundamental characteristics like those listed in the day 30 post. What’s next? We use our characteristics to generate how the character functions within the story. The protagonist and every other character in the story is working from the following:

1. A worldview or mental model of the world: The worldview shapes their understanding of the goal.

2. A goal that refects their values and determines how they frame what they experience in the world: The attainment of this goal is what they believe will solve their problem raised by the inciting incident, and it informs the strategy they apply to seek the goal.

3. A primary strategy that is the protagonist’s “theory of victory”: This is how they think they will achieve the goal given their worldview.

With these as a foundation, we can generate possibilities for the tactics the protagonist will apply to execute their strategy and categories of specific actions they might take within scenes. This like having bins full of the Lego bricks you need to construct and animate your protagonist. One well developed character may not sound like much, but it’s a full working model from which we can imagine what they will do in any given situation, and those actions will create a stable and coherent character that makes sense and feels real. 

When we generate a stack like this for the other major characters in the story, we can see at a glance how they are similar and different. Similarities in relation to the differences show us different perspectives on solving a particular problem that add complexity to our story. The differences show us points of conflict we can leverage to make the story engaging. The whole character stack aids us in creating a subtle pattern of the story we want to create, like the one we can see in a Fair Isle knit.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 65: Building the Process

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I want to begin pulling together some of the pieces of the narrative cartography process I’ve been exploring through this series of posts. This will be brief without the full explanations because I’m laying out the pieces that make up the process to see how they fit together.
Note: Although I am presenting it in a particular order here, please understand that it doesn’t have to be a linear process and that we can fill in what we know and come back to earlier sections as we go. 

Story Idea to Premise

Story ideas emerge from the raw material of our lives. That includes everything we’ve experienced and observed and every story we’ve ever read, heard, or watched, as well as everything we have felt and thought about all of that. That means translating what is meaningful to us into a universal form that makes it meaningful to others while staying true to what’s most important to us. One step in that process is to boil the raw material down to a basic premise.

The basic premise is a high-level concept of our story that serves as a foundation: a person in a place with a problem.

Premise to Essence

With the premise in mind, we investigate to uncover what is most important to us by asking why at least five times. From the answers we consider key themes that arise so we get to the bottom of why the story is so important to us. We craft a concise statement (1-2 sentences) that captures the core of the story idea, including the main character, central conflict, and key themes. 

Essence to Expanded Problem

We use the essence to test the elements of the problem. We start with basic questions: What is the problem from your premise that your protagonist faces? Why is this a problem for the protagonist? What is the external source(s) of their problem? How does the protagonist first become aware of this problem? Then we go deeper and consider how the elements of the story’s essence create tension or conflict within the problem. 

From here, we can expand the place, person, and antagonist in the order that makes the most sense. We let each decision inform the ones that follow, and we double-check past decisions against what we discover as we move further. This back and forth helps to align all the parts so they will function together seamlessly.

Essence + Extended Problem to Story World

Through asking specific questions about the world, we come to understand the world better. We consider, for example, the foundation, physical laws, geography, and social structure. From all the details we choose five or more essential qualities. This will be the essence of the story world. 

Essence + Extended Problem to Protagonist

We ask similar questions about the protagonist to get a clearer picture of who they are, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they operate. We consider, for example, their relationship to the story world, personal history, and physical attributes. From this work, we choose five or more essential qualities to serve as the essence of the character.  

Essence + Extended Problem to Primary Force of Antagonism

We ask similar questions about the primary force of antagonist to zero in on who or what they are, their conflict with the protagonist, and how they give rise to the problem. If it’s a character, we can use questions similar to the protagonist questions. If it’s the environment (e.g., the Klondike in “To Build a Fire” by Jack London) or an aspect of nature (e.g., the asteroid in the 1998 film Armegeddon), we ask questions about its nature. From this work, we choose five or more essential qualities to serve as the essence of the force of antagonism.

Essence to Primary External Conflict and Shape of the Plot

The basic external conflict is between the protagonist and the (1) environment, (2) another individual or group, or (3) society or government.

Which basic plot will play out?

• Is it a fight between two forces? 

• Is it about a deadline (time certain) or ticking clock (time is running out)? 

• Is it a chase? Is the protagonist chasing or being chased? 

• Is it a trap from which the protagonist must escape? 

• Is it a race to arrive somewhere or obtain something?

Note: I always add the story essence to remind us to consider it every time. It is our True North. If something doesn’t align with the essence, we keep working until we find what will fit.

Essence to Primary Internal Conflict

The basic internal conflict will be a plot of fortune, character, or thought in Norman Friedman’s framework depending on the internal change the protagonist experiences. 

Essence to Aspects of Change in the story

The extent and quality of the change at the end of the story will depend on many factors related to the person, the place, and the problem that arises from the inciting incident. These questions help explore that change.

• how willing the protagonist is to change as a result of the problem (who)

• the type of problem and the human need(s) affected by the change (what)

• where the problem arises and how the environment sets up both the problem and solution (where)

• the time it takes the protagonist to process and solve the problem (when)

• the scale of the problem and its solution (how)

I’ll continue to build out more of the process in future posts.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 64: Stories and Fair Isle Knitting

Photo by Regina Mansor on Unsplash

This might not work. 

I’m borrowing that line from Seth Godin to help set reasonable expectations because I’m writing about a weird idea I’ve had about how story mimics Fair Isle knitting. 

Comparing abstract ideas to concrete objects can be a useful tool of explanation. The problem is that comparison usually relies on familiarity with one object to understand the unfamiliar idea. I’m hopeful that the image above and a video from my former knitting teacher will help you make the connection. If you do, you’ll have a new way to think about story. The more angles from which we can examine something as complex as story, the greater our capacity to understand it and craft stories that matter and readers love. 

With those thoughts in mind, let’s talk about Fair Isle knitting. This technique, which comes from the Shetland Islands, enables knitters to create complicated patterns, like the one pictured above, using several colors and standard knit stitches. The knitter creates individual stitches using the appropriate color according to the chart. If they faithfully execute the instructions, they’ll produce the pattern. The unused colors are stranded across the back of the work as you can see in the spot highlighted in this instructional video from Staci Perry of VeryPink Knits. The front of the fabric exhibits the pattern, and the back looks like several strands of yarn kind of bunched together.

How is this like a story? In a story we have lots of threads, the main plot and subplots that include lots of places, characters, objects, and events. In any given scene, we won’t see all of them. We see the characters who are necessary for the scene, but all the others exist somewhere else in the story world. The reader might learn about what other characters are doing, and this allows us to sense that the world beyond the scene doesn’t disappear or grind to a halt while we watch the characters onstage. For example, in chapter 7 of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, we learn that while Jim Hawkins waited at Squire Trelawney’s hall, the squire and Dr. Livesey were making preparations for the trip in other parts of the country. 

This idea came to me while reading Ann Cleeves’s Shetland series (Raven Black is book 1). These are what I call community or tapestry stories (see day 56) in which the whole community is altered by the crime and its subsequent resolution. There is a subtle cadence to the frequency with which characters, artifacts, and clues arise across time in the story, like the colors appearing in the Fair Isle kitting pattern. 

How might this be useful? To craft a story, writers spend a lot of time on the part that is like the front of the knitted fabric. And that is appropriate because that’s what the reader experiences. But we understand our stories better and write more coherent ones when we take the time to figure out what’s happening on the backside of the fabric to create the pattern we want to show the reader. 

This is in part what the process I call narrative cartography helps us to do.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 63: How We Will Work

Photo by Mukund Shyam on Unsplash

A short one today because it’s been a full week …

Having a plan for how we will work helps us make progress and finish our stories. 

I lean heavily on the Conspiracy—a big a group of people dedicated to working together while pursuing worthy goals—to get things done. We work for six weeks toward a chapter goal, then reset for two weeks. This enables us to experiment as we work toward something meaningful. Then we get two weeks to rest, take stock, and make changes for then next chapter. This process allows me to go deep and then pull back to see where I am in relation to where I want to go and course correct. 

Within each chapter, I use tools and a process I learned from Jessica Abel of the Creative Focus Workshop. The creative engine process helps me to remember to collect, decide, act, and reflect at all levels of my one project to keep them moving forward.

For daily practice, I do reading (day 25) and writing (days 2–6) practice to support and enrich my working life as I journey. 

These are the things I do. I’m not telling you this because I think you ought to do these things too. I write because it can be helpful to hear how other people accomplish their work. What I do might not work for you, but different perspectives and ideas can inspire us to make adjustments that do work for us. You don’t necessarily want to copy what I do, but you might want to run your own experiments. Whatever you do, be sure to consider what typically works or has worked for you in the past. 

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 62: Covert Narrative Situation Part 4

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

In the day 59 post, I offered an example of a covert narrative situation, Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, along with questions we can ask to try to discover what the narrative situation could be. 

Here are answers to more questions posed in that post. Posts on day 60 and day 61 have answers to the other questions. As you read, keep in mind we can’t know exactly what McGuire had in mind when crafting the story, but we’ll use the clues in the text to come to a hypothesis supported by the evidence.

What relationship does the narrator-helper want to establish with the narratee?

The narrator-helper seems to want to be a trusted guide by tailoring the message to the listener. If we were to think about this role as an archetype, it would be the mentor. A mentor is someone who has a different and useful perspective than the person they are assisting. They may be more familiar with the relevant place and how things work, the relevant people and how to relate to them, and the relevant problem and ways to break it down and solve it. 

The mentor role is effective because it validates the narratee’s instincts while offering a different perspective and empowers her to exercise her agency.

The narrator-helper could gain this perspective as a fellow traveler (someone with direct experience of the problem) or a wise observer (perhaps with professional training and experience). Seanan McGuire’s author note tells us that she has faced a similar situation, which is evidence of her intention. But it is possible for a writer with one experience to present the story through a narrator with a completely different perspective. If we didn’t have the author  note, we could still conclude that the narrator-helper is a fellow traveler. The details with which the story is told convey first-hand rather than vicariously acquired knowledge of what it’s like to confront the problem Antsy faces. 

What emotional distance does the helper maintain from the events?

The close third-person/selective omniscient point of view allows gives the narrator-helper lots of flexibility. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the reader-narrattee can feel Antsy’s emotions because they have access to her internal perceptions and processing. It appears to be unfiltered, but of course the narrator-helper is still curating what is shown and choosing how much to reveal. It has the feel of continuity, but the narrator-helper is choosing what to include or omit and how to present it. It’s as if there is a protective bubble around the emotionally difficult content. 

The narrative also feels objective, though because the narrator-helper leaves no trace. In this way, the narrator-helper is both present but providing room for the narratee to make up their own mind about the events. Compare with the editorial omniscient narrators of Charles Dickens’s novels who interject their subjective opinions, sometimes telling the reader what to think. 

As I mentioned in another post, the clear and methodical prose, fantasy setting, and story within a story provide the emotional distance to explore a terrifying topic without triggering panic. 

What aspects of the situation might the listener be resistant to hearing about?

Of course, the narratee will find the events involving Antsy’s stepfather disturbing. The events need to be clear enough for the reader to perceive the danger and get the message, but the narrator-helper will not want to expose her to unnecessary painful events. This is a relatively brief part of the story that shows only enough for Antsy to have a bad feeling about the man until she is clear that she must escape. 

As the narratee reads the story, she is coming to her own conclusions that adults who should be trustworthy can fail to protect, that leaving a situation might be the safest choice, and that it’s okay to prioritize her own safety over loyalty to family members. 

The narrator-helper addresses potential resistance through gradual, methodical revelation of the threat, a focus on practical actions, an engaging fantasy adventure story, and validating the protagonist’s instincts and choices.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 61: Covert Narrative Situation Part 3

Photo by Alex Vámos on Unsplash

In the day 59 post, I offered an example of a covert narrative situation, Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, along with questions we can ask to try to discover what the narrative situation could be. 

Here are answers to four more questions posed in that post. 

What kinds of problems could reading this story help someone solve?

This story could help a vulnerable young person without a trustworthy adult in her life who believes her (qualities/circumstances) and who must contend with a selfish person with power seizing her agency (problem). With those circumstances and that problem, the young person would be well served to know how to do the following things:

• recognize dangerous situations

• cope with the loss of childhood safety

• trust one's instincts

• take practical steps toward safety

• identify adults that are untrustworthy

• maintain hope while taking necessary but difficult actions

• pack effectively and quickly when escaping

• recognize that some adults who should protect you can’t or won’t

• preserve some essence of childhood even when forced to grow up prematurely

• find safe places and recognize them when you see them
  

What form might the narration take? Would it be written, spoken, something else?

My hypothesis is that the narrator would write this story down, make copies of it, and distribute it where vulnerable young people may find it. If a young person like the Antsy was sharing their problem with the narrator, they would become that trusted adult. They would immediately do what is needed to protect her, including seeing that she is taken somewhere safe. The text emphasizes what to do (actions) when there is no one to help. So it’s as if the narrator is writing this story knowing they won’t be there to guide the young person. (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is similar, though it’s written as if it’s a memoir in first person.)

Note: McGuire handles sexual abuse deftly and in an emotionally safe way. Antsy recognizes what will happen if she doesn’t leave, so the reader doesn’t have to watch Antsy suffer sexual abuse. The close third-person/selective omniscient point of view allows the reader to experience emotions (including relief and catharsis when Antsy prevails). At the same time, the choice of a fantasy story provides some emotional distance from the real-world problems the young person may be suffering. And the story-within-a-story structure of the shop of lost things creates a metaphor so the reader can watch Antsy work the problem in a world filled with curiosities and wonder. The clear and methodical prose mimics the voice of an instruction manual in the critical moments when Antsy must act in the midst of an engaging story.

In what context and circumstances might the narrator share this story?

The narrator appears to be sharing the information with a vulnerable person in case they need that information in the future. Young people who don’t have a trustworthy adult around need clear instructions, especially because no one would be present to help them make sense of more complicated ones. I don’t think the narrator is present because otherwise this would be more like a conversation in which the narrator tells the narratee the information they need instead of a story. This is part of why I think the narrative situation is in written form. 

I could imagine a supportive librarian or teacher making a story like this available to students who need it. And it could be shared through online forums where young people often seek advice for problems they feel scared to speak about in person. 

The story works on at least two levels. It is a well-crafted, exciting fantasy adventure story, but it also transmits wisdom and delivers effective instructions about how to respond when you’re in an abusive situation and don’t know what to do.

What kind of response or action would the narrator hope to inspire? 

I think the narrator wants the narratee to have this information in case she needs it by keeping the written copy with her. The clear instructions are embedded within a fantasy story that inattentive and abusive adults won’t likely read. It’s the perfect vehicle for delivering advice and showing what’s possible.

The story shows Antsy building confidence step by step and learning to trust her abilities to plan and act independently. The reader can observe a working model of how to act in urgent and chronic situations and develop the awareness to spot when things are not right without panicking. She will come to understand that seeking safety isn’t a betrayal, which will help clarify her options. And she will know she is not alone, that other vulnerable people have faced similar situations and survived.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 60: Covert Narrative Situation Part 2

​​Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

In the day 59 post, I offered an example of a covert narrative situation, Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, along with questions we can ask to try to discover what the narrative situation could be. 

We can’t know exactly what McGuire had in mind when crafting the story, but we’ll use the clues in the text to come to a hypothesis supported by the evidence.

Here are answers to the first four questions posed in the prior post. 

Who could the narrator be?

Who might want to tell this story to help someone? It could be a counselor, trusted teacher, or possibly a female relative. It’s not a parent or  guardian because, except for Antsy’s father, the parental figures are not portrayed sympathetically. In fact the story is about what to do when the people entrusted with the care of a child are untrustworthy because of abuse or neglect. I have a hunch that it would be an adult who survived or witnessed similar childhood trauma.

Who might they want to share the story with?

A young person who is facing similar dangers but might not have the vocabulary or framework to understand what's happening. Someone who needs to know it's okay to protect themselves, even if it means leaving. It’s unlikely to be someone as young as Antsy is in the story because, although the prose is quite accessible, seven-year-olds typically read shorter chapter books and graphic novels. 

Young adult and middle grade fiction often has a protagonist a little older than the kids reading it, so what might be going on here? Abusers disempower the people they target no matter their age, and so the person who receives this story likely feels an emotional resonance with the young protagonist. 

What clues are there in the tone of the narrative about who the narrator and narratee are?

The tone feels like it’s being told by someone who understands both the practical and emotional challenges of the situation. In the passage shared in the day 59 post, the methodical yet hasty preparation to run away is illuminating. This is someone with experience who has thought a great deal about the task and is pointing out what’s important to take (e.g., clothing, money, stuffed animal for comfort) but also what the risks are (e.g., being discovered escaping), and therefore what to leave behind (the piggy bank). Not every passage is this detailed, but how Antsy acts on her decisions is crafted with precision as if they are detailed instructions. 

What kinds of details are emphasized in the text?

This is what I would call a character or portrait story, and so the text emphasizes is on individual actions. Like those of Jason Taylor in Black Swan Green (day 57), the actions we see here are a product of Antsy’s immediate sensory experience, her internal processing, and her interpretation of events. In other words, her actions reveal her shifting understanding of the context and how well she is predicting what she should do based on what she knows.

Beyond that, our attention is drawn to what Antsy perceives, the sense she makes of it in the moment, what he options are, and how she enacts her decision. Of course these are steps in the structure of any story or scene. But there is something a little different that McGuire accomplishes here. We get lost in the narrative dream at times, but when Antsy enacts a pivotal decision, McGuire slows down so we get every single step.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 59: Covert Narrative Situation Part 1

​​Photo by Nick on Unsplash

During this series, I’ve begun to explain what I mean by a story’s narrative situation, the story a writer tells themselves and sometimes the reader about the existence of the story. The narrative situation is a model of communication: one person conveying the story to another in specific circumstances. 

Sometimes the narrative situation is overt—revealed explicitly to the writer as in Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding—but sometimes it is covert—not revealed to the reader as in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I’ve offered overt examples in other posts, and now I want to offer a story example in which the writer doesn’t explicitly or overtly share the narrative situation and a process to help uncover it. As writers, it’s useful to consider what kinds of options are available for narrative situations and when we should choose one option over another. That’s why we analyze the narrative situation in working stories. 

The example I’m using here is Lost in the Moment and Found, the eighth book in the Wayward Children’s series by Seanan McGuire. 

Here’s the premise (which is a person in a place with a problem): Antsy, a seven-year-old girl, (person) leaves home and enters a door that takes her to a shop in another world where lost things go (place). Antsy’s father has died, and she no longer has an adult in her life who believes her. Both at home and in the magical shop she must deal with a selfish adult who withholds the truth and is trying to rob her of her childhood (problem). 

Here’s the book description to help you get a better sense of the story. 

If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here.

If you ever wondered about a favorite toy from childhood... it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back.

And the headphones that you swore this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it….

Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the Shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she discovers that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds.

And stepping through those doors exacts a price.

Lost in the Moment and Found tells us that childhood and innocence, once lost, can never be found.

Here’s a representative excerpt from the text to help you get a feel for the narrative fabric of the story. 

Still crying, Antsy slipped out of bed and—after checking her door to be sure it was all the way closed—stripped out of her nightgown, putting on the clothes she’d worn the day before that were still at the top of the laundry basket. She was seven years old, almost eight, and she knew she should get something clean, but also knew her dresser drawers would scrape if she opened them, and it wasn’t like she’d spilled anything on herself at dinner.

Her backpack was partially under the bed. She pulled it out and froze. What did you put into a bag for running away? Her piggy bank was half-full, and she knew she’d need money, but it also jingled and jangled, and even padding it with the rest of her laundry wouldn’t stop the coins from bouncing around. She had her twenty dollars of birthday money still on top of the dresser, and that could go in the bag. 

Her favorite doll, her stuffed monkey, they both went into the bag, and she stepped into her shoes before slinging the bag over her shoulder and carefully, carefully easing her bedroom door open and peeking into the hall. There was no sign of Tyler. She could hear the sound of the television drifting up from the downstairs living room.

With this information, how would you attempt to identify the narrative situation? We ask questions to investigate the text.

1. Who could the narrator be? Who might want to tell this story to help someone? A well-crafted and multidimensional story doesn’t exist only to entertain readers but is a means of transmitting wisdom. So in our model of communication, we assume the one who communicates the story is trying to help someone else.

1. Who might they want to share the story with?

2. What clues are there in the tone of the narrative about who the narrator and narratee are?

3. What kinds of details are emphasized in the text?

4. What kinds of problems could reading this story help someone solve?

5. In what context and circumstances might the narrator share this story?

6. What kind of response or action would they hope to inspire?

7. What form might the narration take? Would it be written, spoken, something else?

8. What relationship does the helper want to establish with the listener (trusted guide, fellow traveler, wise observer, etc.)?

9. What emotional distance does the helper maintain from the events (close identification, careful objectivity, etc.)?

10. What aspects of the situation might the listener be resistant to hearing about?

11. What cultural or social context might affect how the story is received?

In the next post, I’ll answer these questions and offer some specific to this story for going even further with the narrative situation.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 58: Five Plus Qualities of Story Place Example—Every Heart a Doorway

Photo by Anna Gru on Unsplash

In this post I’m sharing another example of the five plus qualities of a story place (see day 29). I’m a big fan of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. This series of novellas begins with Every Heart a Doorway, which is a quick and engaging read. I highly recommend it. 

Every Heart a Doorway introduces readers to a context where young people can discover hidden doors designed specifically for them. When they walk through these doors, they find other worlds, and even if they would like to stay, they are often sent back. The specific location of this story is a boarding school that seeks to help students who don’t want to forget cope with the loss. The first novella is about how Nancy deals with the problem of being sent away from a world she loved and that fit her perfectly.

• Portals to personalized worlds. Within the main story world portals to other worlds are specific to a particular person(s). This is not commonly known outside of the people who travel. The doors in this world are both literal and metaphorical. 

• Worlds as growth catalysts. Each world is a place that matches the young person’s heart and soul (it meets their need), but also offers them what they need to confront in order to grow. In this context home is “a place that understood you so well that it had reached across realities to find you, claiming you as its own and only.” It is interesting to consider what each world values in the person and their behavior.

• Doors are typically temporary, not stable. Lundy, one of the adults at the school, explains, “The chances of finding a stable door that resonates with the story you need are slim.” Because people are always changing, especially during childhood and adolescence, the person who exits the door is not exactly the same person who entered. There is the essence of the person, but people always have the opportunity to change and to grow. 

• Strict rules in each world. These rules sometimes defy our own world’s logic, but they are internally consistent. 

• World classification system: Worlds are organized on a grid that measures nonsense/logic and virtue/wicked. The system affects how the inhabitants of different worlds interact. See this article with a map of Wayward Children worlds and those of several other stories.

• Danger in home worlds. Just because the worlds are tailored to the person doesn’t mean it will be safe, and children face survival threats in those home worlds. The danger often comes from the inherent nature of the world rather than a particular antagonist.

• Dissatisfaction in this world. Children/teens are not typically trusted/believed by adults in our world, and their agency is constrained in some way. 

• Readjustment struggles. Children who return often have difficulty reintegrating into our world, leading to psychological and social challenges.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 57: Type of Problem and Narrative Fabric

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In the day 56 post, I explored how the scale of the change in a story informs the narrative fabric. In other words, the scale of the problem the protagonist faces can help us identify whether the narrative should emphasize actions, tactics, or relationships. But here is at least one other factor that also influences this choice. The type of problem related to the primary need at stake (on Maslow’s Hierarchy) adds nuance to the construction of the narrative fabric because the type of problem affects how we frame the events of the story for our readers. 

Let’s look at two stories through the lens of scale and fabric: Brooklyn by Colm Toíbín and Black Swan Green by David MItchell. Both are what we would as classify literary coming-of-age stories.  

Brooklyn

Scale: This is a character or portrait story. Eilis Lacey, a young woman, moves alone from her small hometown in Ireland to Brooklyn, New York, in the 1950s after a visiting priest finds her a situation. Her problem is about finding satisfaction when she has little control over the circumstances of her life.

Because it’s a character or portrait story, we would typically emphasize individual actions in the fabric of the narrative, but the text in pivotal scenes appears to emphasize Eilis observing and interpreting social cues (for example when Father Flood offers to set her up with a position and place to live in Brooklyn).

Content emphasized: This story is a plot of fortune (see day 48), which focuses on the need for respect. We assess Eilis’s need according to her satisfaction as she attempts to find her place in world. The need arises when an external opportunity disrupts Eilis’s social position.

While a character/portrait story emphasizes personal actions, those actions might manifest differently depending on the specific type of problem in play because different types of actions will be relevant. For example, the actions in a plot of fortune will naturally be more socially/tactically oriented because it is about where the protagonist fits in the world and in the social hierarchy. A story in which the protagonist primarily faces a survival problem will have a different action emphasis, although both stories are fundamentally about the change of an individual.

Given the specific problem, the narration will point to actions that reveal social dynamics, unspoken understandings, power structures, etc. The takeaway is that some types of problems naturally emphasize how actions impact tactics or relationships.

Black Swan Green

Scale: Character or portrait story. Jason Taylor, a 13-year-old boy living in a village in Worcestershire, United Kingdom in the 1980s, must face the truth of his father’s infidelity and his parents’ divorce.

Because it’s a character/portrait story, we would typically emphasize Jason’s individual actions in the fabric of the narrative, and that’s exactly what we find in the majority of the text. Our attention is directed to Jason’s physical actions. The need arises when a mysterious phonecall disrupts his understanding of his reality. 

Content emphasized: This story is a plot of thought (see day 48), which focuses on the need for self-actualization. We assess Jason’s need according to his ability to adjust his model of the world (worldview) and make wise choices. 

The actions we see are a product of his immediate sensory experience, his internal processing, and his imagination and interpretation of events. In other words, his actions reveal his shifting understanding of the world and how maturely he’s responding to what he observes.

The connection between the type of problem and narrative fabric helps explain why some stories that seem similar on the surface (both literary coming-of-age) have differences in how the narrative emphasis is presented. The same scale of story can have a different way of showing action because the type of problem influences the details the narrator points to, showing the reader what is relevant.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.

Day 56: Scale of Change and Narrative Fabric

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

I’m continuing to look at the scale of change because there is a direct link between the scale and what I call the narrative fabric, what we emphasize sentence by sentence as we construct a story.

When I talk about scale in this context, I mean both the problem and who must change to solve it. As I’ve written before, there are three levels of story scale that are relevant for us: character, community, and world. I’ll review the levels again from the perspective of the narrative fabric and specific techniques with an example of each. 

1. Character or Portrait stories emphasize Individual Actions. 

Primary focus: What characters do, their physical movements and speech.

Example: In The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, the narrative consistently draws our attention to his specific actions, for example organizing his suitcase, writing his guides, dealing and with his dog. While Macon has relationships and exists within groups, the emphasis is on what he is doing. 

Description Choice: Detailed description of individual movements, thoughts, sensations, perceptions

Scene Selection: Scenes generally highlight personal choice and consequences

These actions carry the weight of meaning. The narrator shows us how Macon as an individual is dealing with the fact that his wife left him. Other elements (relationships, group dynamics) exist, but they serve mainly to illuminate the significance of individual actions.

2. Community or Tapestry stories emphasize Group Tactics.

Primary focus: How people work together or against each other and the tactics they employ. 

Example: In Emma by Jane Austen, while we follow Emma's individual actions, the narrative consistently emphasizes how characters maneuver within social constraints. The tactics of matchmaking, social calls, and rumors drive the conflict and solution in the story.

Description Choice: Description of social interactions, power dynamics, collective movements.

Scene Selection: Scenes that reveal group dynamics and social mechanisms.

These tactics the characters use to meet their needs for connection and belonging reveal their suitability for love and commitment. Individual actions are dramatized but primarily to illustrate group dynamics.

3. World or Cosmos stories emphasize Universal Relationships.

Primary focus: Connections between self, other, and world

Example: In All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, while there are plenty of individual actions and group tactics, the narrative consistently draws attention to how each element connects to every other element—light, radio waves, snails, diamonds, all linking the personal to universal patterns. Actions and tactics exist serve to illuminate larger universal patterns. 

Description Choice: Description of patterns, echoes, connections across different scales.

Scene selection: Scenes that show how individual moments connect to universal patterns.

This story is like a cosmic symphony. Each sentence is a note that contributes to both the immediate melody (character) and the larger harmony (world patterns). These relationships deliver the meaning. Doerr masterfully shows how individual relationships (Marie-Laure and her father, Werner and his sister) are part of larger social patterns (occupation, resistance), which in turn reflect universal patterns (light/dark, preservation/destruction, connection/isolation).

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A word of caution: This is a general rule. The scale of the problem the protagonist faces can help us identify whether the narrative should emphasize actions, tactics, or relationships. But there is at least one other factor that also informs this choice, and this factor affects how we frame the story for our readers. I’ll explore that in the next post.

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This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words. 

At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.