Tag: writing-tips

On Writing: General structure – Prioritary

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Once you’ve come up with a list of meaningful plot points that should happen in your story, the Acts structure (generally three, but could be strengthened by turning it into five) is a proven method to organize those plot points in a way that makes the story more cohesive, and usually building up in tension.

The following are prioritary points of a story that need to be covered in each specific act.

Act 1 (the setup)

  • Hook / Disturbance
  • What is the flaw / need of the protagonist, and how do you show it?
  • What is the inciting incident of which the turning point of the first act will be its consequence? (problem)
  • A notion about what will happen at the First Plot Point. When those two things are on the table—the concept and a First Plot Point twist—almost everything that follows, both in terms of planning and execution, happens in context to them.
    • What is the accepting of the call, the turning point that launches the desire line?
    • How is a major force of antagonism through the story revealed?

Act 2 (the confrontation)

  • Character realizes external goal
  • Display of flaw
  • Drive for goal
  • Part Two Exposition (response, journey begins)
  • Antagonist revealed
  • First Pinch Point
  • What are the forces of antagonism and how do they escalate?
  • Midpoint / Mirror Moment. Does it involve the protagonist changing toward curing his flaw?
  • Revisiting flaw
  • New drive for goal
  • Antagonist attacks
  • Second Pinch Point
  • Part Three Exposition (hero becomes proactive) / Attack
  • What is the worst possible point, the worst possible consequence of the story’s inciting incident, and that will make the climax possible? (The Second Plot Point)
  • List the plot complications of the second act, that leave the protagonist worse off than she was before.

Act 3 (the resolution)

  • Changed goal
  • Part Four Exposition (hero becomes catalyst for…)
  • What have you envisioned as the climax? Does the protagonist do something heroic? Does he solve or not the problem?
  • Ending/Resolution

Important notes:

  • Successful planning is when the mission-critical story beats—Hook, First Plot Point, First Pinch Point, Midpoint, Second Pinch Point, Second Plot Point, and the Climax scenes—have been optimized.
  • Come up with the major crises that would make the act breaks, in which MC’s flaw causes him to choose a path that’ll drive him further into trouble, until he changes by his choice at the final crisis, if he changes at all. For each of those decisions, brainstorm which could be the worst possible consequences.
  • See what dilemmas there are at the end of each act and try to make sure they are real dilemmas. No easy answers.
  • Try to come up with crisis plot points that seem impossible to come out of.
  • Define the goals for each of the acts, and make sure each successive goal is bigger than the last.
  • List every climax of every act, try to come up with events or information that would have made them completely unpredictable or impossible, and try to use them for red herrings and misdirection.
  • Make sure each successive goal in your story gets bigger. Most amateur stories start out big then fizzle. How do you prevent this? By making each successive goal for your characters bigger than the last.

On Writing: Plot point generation #4

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Escritura2 Comments

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

A story is made out of meaningful stuff that happens. Each unit of meaningful stuff that happens is often referred to as a plot point. Here’s how to come up with them, before you consider fitting them into a structure.

  • What hard, horrible, impossible choices could be made in this story?
  • Brainstorm instances in which your characters must brainstorm between goods or between evils.
  • What’s the worst that could happen in the story?
  • What’s the worst thing that could happen to your main characters physically?
  • What’s the worst thing that your character could ever have to deal with emotionally?
  • How could you create greater possible losses, more collateral damage?
  • How could you steal from a main character something very important for him?
  • What wonders could you show a main character that you would then take from him?
  • How could you create higher stakes, bigger risks?
  • What can the protagonist lose that she thought was vital?
  • Everything your protagonist does can have consequences. Their actions, decisions, causes and mistakes can be leveraged for tension. Think of consequences for actions you already know the protagonist will take.
  • Brainstorm events that will illustrate on what side of thematic concepts are different characters positioned.
  • What’s the most difficult decision they could ever make – the one thing they repent for the rest of their lives?
  • What is the worst thing they could do to someone else?
  • The worst thing they could ever do to themselves?
  • Is there an opportunity for a moral argument between hero and opponent, that gives the audience a clue about what values are really at stake?
  • Is there an opportunity for the main oponent to give a moral justification for his actions?
  • Think up escalating immoral actions your hero takes that hurts someone else. How are they outgrowths of his great moral weakness?
  • What plot point could make a character question his beliefs and goals?
  • Find a point in your story at which your protagonist is stuck, stymied, undecided, overwhelmed, or in some other way suffused with inner need without having a means to move ahead.
  • Often the trouble that brews is in the form of surprising information. Brainstorm bits of information that might be delivered as a surprise.
  • Is there opportunity for circularity, using a similar event but show the protagonist making a different choice?
  • Can you set up a contrast between a character who thinks he’s being moral, supporting the beliefs of the society, and the effects of those actions and beliefs, which are decidedly immoral?

On Writing: Scenes and Sequels

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Without getting into complex structuring of a story (the act-based frameworks), you could produce a compelling story relying on a couple of alternating units: Scenes and Sequels.

I first came across the notion of Scenes and Sequels in Dwight V. Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, which I read back when I was obsessed with writing technique. Jack M. Bickham expanded upon Swain’s notions in the book Scene and Structure, which I also recommend. The alternation of Scenes (action-driven) and Sequels (emotionally reflective), creates a rhythm of tension and resolution. Scenes drive plot; Sequels explore consequences.

A Scene is a unit of action where the protagonist pursues an immediate objective.

Goal: The character’s concrete, short-term aim (e.g., “Find the hidden map”).

  • Why it works: goals anchor the reader and create stakes.

Conflict: Obstacles blocking the goal (e.g., a rival steals the map).

  • Key detail: conflict should escalate through active opposition, not coincidence. It should be easy to determine if the conflict is meaningful: it should hinder the stated goal.

Disaster: A negative outcome forcing adaptation (e.g., the map is destroyed).

  • Purpose: avoids static victories; ensures ongoing tension. The disaster need not be catastrophic: it might be unintended consequences (e.g., gaining the map but betraying an ally).
  • It’s important to think of a disaster instead of plain resolutions, because a story should be composed of escalating tension. Setbacks help the story maintain momentum.
  • Ideally, a Scene’s disaster answers the dramatic question proposed by the goal (e.g., “Will the protagonist find the hidden map?”) with a resounding “No.” However, there are variations: “No, and in addition…” as in not only the goal fails, but something gets even worse. The disaster could be a “Yes, but…” However, you should avoid concluding a Scene with a plain “Yes,” unless it’s only a temporary “Yes” that doesn’t let the reader know what bad stuff the disaster has triggered in the future.
  • Each disaster should ideally worsen an overarching problem.

A Sequel processes the fallout of the previous scene’s disaster, focusing on inner turmoil.

Reaction: The character’s emotional response (e.g., despair, guilt).

  • Function: humanizes characters: show vulnerability before resilience. Offers opportunity for character development, emphasizing how that character reacts in an idiosyncratic way. Developing the emotional reactions prevents the characters from appearing robotic.

Dilemma: A problem with no good options (e.g., trust a traitor or go alone?).

  • Tip: dilemmas should test the values of the character or characters involved. Offers lots of opportunity for character development.
  • Dilemmas are often used to explore the story’s thematic questions (e.g., “Does ends justify means?”).

Decision: A new plan emerges (e.g., “Find the traitor and negotiate”).

  • Critical nuance: the decision must logically lead to the next Scene’s goal.

Alternating Scenes (fast-paced) and Sequels (slower, introspective) creates rhythm. Thrillers use shorter Sequels; literary fiction may elongate them for depth. Each Sequel’s decision becomes the next Scene’s goal, creating a chain reaction. This prevents episodic storytelling. Note: a Scene can be followed by another Scene, particularly when the context is clear, but a Sequel should always be followed by a Scene.

Keeping in mind the notion of Scenes and Sequels helps enormously when outlining a story: they force you to think in terms of goals, conflict, dilemmas, and setbacks, which are the fundamentals of a satisfying story.

In addition, knowing you’re writing a Scene helps you understand when to start its narrative: as close to the statement of the goal as possible. For example, if the character wants to convince another character to do something, you can start with the first character engaging the second, without much preamble. This is generally called starting in medias res with the goal already in motion.

Scene and Sequel ensure narratives remain driven by cause-effect logic and emotional authenticity, keeping readers perpetually engaged in the “what happens next?”

On Writing: Plot point generation #3

On By Jon UreñaIn advice, Arte, Escritura2 Comments

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

A story is made out of meaningful stuff that happens. Each unit of meaningful stuff that happens is often referred to as a plot point. Here’s how to come up with them, before you consider fitting them into a structure.

  • Is there a test that the protagonist could go through and that he doesn’t believe he can pass? What events would it suggest?
  • What does the protagonist have to confront to solve the problem set up for him?
  • What events could come up from bringing unresolved issues to the surface?
  • How could you push your characters to the limit?
  • Find that thing that your character would rather die than do, and make them do it.
  • Characters must confront the very thing they would least like to, and confronting this thing is a kind of hell. More precisely, it is their own personal hell. But through this confrontation, they are transformed.
  • How can you make the conflicts varied and surprising?
  • Imagine situations in which internal conflict will attack severely a character.
  • Disturbances don’t have to happen just at the beginning. You can sprinkle them throughout. When in doubt about what to write next, make more trouble.
  • Come up with a long list of obstacles and opposition characters that can be thrown in the lead’s way. Go crazy. When you’ve got fifteen or twenty of these, choose the best ones and list them in order from bad to worse to worst.
  • Does the conflict force the protagonist to take action, whether it’s to rationalize it away or actually change? Imagine what would you want to avoid if you were your protagonist, and then make her face it.
  • A story’s job is to put the protagonist through tests that, even in her wildest dreams, she doesn’t think she can pass.
  • Do expose your character’s flaws, demons, and insecurities. Stories are about people who are uncomfortable, and as we know, nothing makes us more uncomfortable than change. A story is often about watching someone’s house fall around their ears, beam by beam. Besides the fact that perfection is not actually possible, things that are not falling apart are dull. It’s your job to dismantle all the places where your protagonist seeks sanctuary and to actively force him out into the cold. But a hero only becomes a hero by doing something heroic, rising to the occasion, against all odds, and confronting one’s own inner demons in the process. It’s up to you to keep your protagonist on track by making sure each external twist brings him face to face with something about himself that he’d probably rather not see.
  • Don’t forget there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This is another way of saying everything must be earned, which means that nothing can come to your protagonist easily, after all, the reader’s goal is to experience how he reacts when things go wrong. Stories can help us expand the range of options in life by testing, in small increments, how closely one can approach the brink of disaster without falling over it. This means the protagonist has to work for everything he gets, often in ways he didn’t anticipate, much harder than anything he would have signed on for. The only time things come easily is when they are the opposite of what is actually best for him.
  • For maximum conflict, always put your hero in the last place he wants to be.
  • For some great conflict, place your characters in an environment that is their opposite.
  • The scene where a character must ask for help from someone he screwed over earlier always works.
  • You gotta throw your characters in the shit. You gotta kick them. You gotta demoralize them.
  • Take a character who hates something more than anything, then put him in a situation where he must pretend to love it.
  • Take a character who desperately wants to get somewhere, then have him held up by someone who wants to talk.
  • Deliberately write your characters into situations that are impossible to get out of, then figure a way to get them out of them.
  • Place your hero in plenty of “character emergencies.” A “character emergency” is when your character is placed in a situation where he has no choice but to act.
  • What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
  • Think of ways to create lots of internal conflict (hard choices).
  • Who can betray the protagonist?
  • Make your characters clash. Think of ways of doing so.
  • How would the other character(s) and the world react to what the protagonist (or other characters) are doing?
  • How could you pull the rug out from under your protagonist when he’s at his most vulnerable?
  • How do you make it harder for your protagonist? See what bad thing could happen, and let it happen. Try to make it worse than he imagined it could possibly be, worse than you imagined it could be at first blush.
  • Look for conflict that flows from the plot, and that comes down to character, to character motivations, goals and reactions.

On Writing: Plot point generation #2

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura4 Comments

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

A story is made out of meaningful stuff that happens. Each unit of meaningful stuff that happens is often referred to as a plot point. Here’s how to come up with them, before you consider fitting them into a structure.

  • Could weather create delays and accidents? Could it obscure vision, or make someone weak or faint?
  • What setting in your story could make some character to feel sad, fearful, nostalgic, angry, guilty, etc.? Think about the plot points that could be derived from that.
  • Find in your setting specific places that have extra significance, or places where events recur. To make a place iconic, make something big happen there.
  • Prior to the climax of the novel, find, brainstorm, try to apply six points at which your protagonist can demonstrate some heroic quality.
  • How will you show what your characters feel? What will express their thoughts? What will reveal their inner struggles?
  • Have your characters do things only they would do. Every character action represents that character. So when they act, have them act in a manner unique to them. Use every character action in your story to sell us on the unique nature of that character.
  • What events would reveal character?
  • Create stakes-raising dilemmas that give your protagonists opportunities to use their unique abilities. Let that explain why this character succeeded where others failed.
  • Can you allow characters to do the things that characters with different labels (protagonist, villain, etc.) would do?
  • How would a reflection character show the protagonist why and maybe how he can make it through the door, when he might slip back, have fear and doubt, second-guess himself?
  • Figure out plot points in which the allies are there for your hero, stick by him, speak truth in love, reflect back what the hero needs to see in order to understand and move one step closer to his goal?
  • In what plot point could the most “ally” character oppose your character regarding her goal?
  • Can you find a moment for each of your main characters to want the opposite of their hearts’ desire? Can you make it bigger, more emotional?
  • Where can you have characters say something other than what they mean (subtext)? Hint at something secret?
  • Can you find/add five places in your novel where a character acts rashly, inconsistently, contrary?
  • Imagine a moment when your protagonist is moved, unsettled or disturbed. This might occur when he’s facing a difficult choice, needing something badly, suffering a setback or surprise, having a self-realization, learning something shocking, or feeling in any way overwhelmed. Write down all the emotions inherent in this moment, both obvious and hidden.
  • What’s the biggest way in which your protagonist can act out? What can she destroy? Whom can she attack? What truthful thing can she say? What will shock others in the story?
  • Let your characters make mistakes: protagonists, antagonists, and secondary characters.
  • What events would push someone’s buttons relative to worldview and personal belief systems?
  • What would a character’s belief/past experience cause him to do?
  • What secrets does a character have, what lies he has told, to others and even to himself, that might cause plot point issues?
  • Think of plot points that would suggest the main character will get just more entrenched in his flaw, making it impossible to change, and others which suggest the possibility of changing.
  • What key moment in your novel showcases the primary reflection character/ally’s support?
  • What is your protagonist good at doing? Throw them the opposite of what they’re best at and make them deal with it.
  • Think up a moment in your novel in which the hero and the antagonist agree on something.
  • Think of a moment in which the antagonist is actually vulnerable and / or empathetic.
  • What is the primary antagonist and what key moment showcases the big conflict and issue between them?
  • The impact character may or may not be actively trying to get the protagonist to see that Truth, but he’s going to be there at crucial moments in the story to help the protagonist see the error of his ways. He has the answers the protagonist is looking for (even though the protagonist won’t know that at the beginning of the story), and those answers are going to end up being pivotal to the protagonist’s ability to conquer the antagonist and the external conflict in his quest for his story goal.
  • A character can’t change without something that impacts him by consistently and convincingly conflicting with his belief in the Lie.
  • What events could show off or amplify the inner journey?
  • Start by determining self-revelation, at the end of the story, then go back to the beginning and figure out the hero’s need and desire.
  • Brainstorm actions that prove the transformation.
  • Plant a redemptive action, the actions which could solve MC’s “fatal flaw”, and have the other person fail to do it.
  • Think of a way of showing a character’s change by putting him in a similar situation but acting differently, even to the point of disagreeing with his previous action in similar circumstances.
  • What event could bring about change for your protagonist?
  • What event could bring about change for a secondary character?
  • Throughout the story, the protagonist and his blind faith in his Lie are going to keep running smack into the impact character’s Truth. The protagonist may want to be left in peace with his Lie, but the impact character’s persistent presence keeps churning up the protagonist’s awareness of the Truth–and creating internal conflict.

On Writing: Plot point generation #1

On By Jon UreñaIn Escritura1 Comment

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

A story is made out of meaningful stuff that happens. Each unit of meaningful stuff that happens is often referred to as a plot point. Here’s how to come up with them, before you consider fitting them into a structure.

  • Imagine great scenes. See them in your mind and justify them later. Who are these people? Why are they doing what they are doing?
  • Take a stack of fifty or so index cards and start imagining scenes. Whatever picture comes into your head. When something vivid comes to mind, jolt the idea on a card. The notation may be as brief as: bar fight with biker.
  • Imagine memorable moments playing out on the big screen. What scenes would audiences talk about for years to come?
  • What are the things that frighten you? What would you usually try to avoid?
  • What events would provoke the greatest uncertainty in the reader?
  • How does the setting impact the characters, and viceversa?
  • Think of new events as actions taken by your hero or opponent.
  • Create a situation in which your exceptional protagonist is in over their head, feels unprepared, is simply lost, or in any other way must admit to themselves that they’re not perfect.
  • Think of what scenes you need in order to tell the story you have in mind.
  • What would the other major characters be up to, unseen?
  • Imagine scenes that add contrast to the motivations of characters, focusing on their differences regarding the actions, decisions, and attitudes. For example, two characters want to get control of an artifact, but while one character tries to negotiate their way to it, someone else intends to go in guns blazing.
  • Imagine moments in which your characters will change, be forced to make a choice, be pushed into despair.
  • Which plot points would be possible in this concept but almost in none others?
  • Picture a movie poster for your story. What one key scene is pictured on it that embodies your concept?
  • What iconic scene can you write in your story that will showcase the essence of the premise? How can you make it even bigger, more intense?
  • What events would hurt the important characters’ prospects?
  • Figure out what they want most, then put the things they fear most in their way.
  • Think about active events the villain might cause to thwart the good guys’ goals.
  • Can you put the object of desire of the scene’s driver in the room and have another character try to hide it?
  • What plot point could make a character rethink their decisions and goals?
  • What events would force the protagonist to deal with their inner issues?
  • What events would force a character to confront and deal with the issue that keeps them from achieving their goal, the thing that’s holding them back?
  • Brainstorm situations that force a character to confront their flaw.
  • What scenes would expose a character’s deepest secrets and most guarded flaws?
  • What scenes would force a character to confront their demons?
  • Use your action scenes to challenge your hero’s fatal flaw. This way, it’s not just about the action, but how that action affects your hero.
  • What scenes would show that a character is trying to overcome their flaws?
  • Figure out plot points in which an antagonist attacks a weakness, forcing that character to deal with it.
  • Which would be examples of how a character’s flaw limits their effectiveness?
  • What kind of events would test a character’s, particularly the protagonist’s, flaw to the max, in order to open their eyes?
  • Imagine an event in which a main character discovers, realizes, or is shown their inner need.