Significant Other
As Jean-Paul Sartre put it: ‘Hell is other people’.
But don’t worry, this isn’t a blog about social distancing. What I wanted to write about today is the usefulness of considering relationships when it comes to Story Structure. Particularly how the subplot of a central relationship can be used to represent the internal change in your protagonist.
In other words: think of your story in three layers.
The external things that happen. These are the observable, reportable events that happen in the world of the characters, and which are caused by the characters’ actions (with possible exception of inciting incident, for which you get one free random card). These events form the central story question in your reader’s minds, the one they definitely want answered by the end of the book, i.e. will Alice make a success of her new life working in the NYC fashion world? Will Charles discover which staff member of the British Embassy in 1944 Turkey is leaking documents to the Germans? Will Hamlet revenge his father’s death by killing Claudius?
The internal change in a protagonist. This involves the protagonist’s fatal flaw, or flawed belief. And by that I mean whatever modus operandi is presently getting in his/her/their way: the beliefs they hold about how best to survive or proceed, the beliefs they hold about themselves. Their way of interacting with the world up this point – which in the story we are now being told, is no longer proving a help. (Otherwise there’d be no story.) In fact, it’s a large part of the problem. And the story will end tragically or happily in direct correlation to the degree in which the protagonist is able to adapt and change. That change is the point of the story and usually contains what the writer is trying to say.
The central relationship. It’s a very rare story in which a protagonist Is entirely alone. (I can’t think of any…though I’m sure there must be a few.) In most stories, though, a supporting cast exists to fulfil all sorts of functions, as a block or a support, a friend or a foe. And it is often the case that the subplot of the dynamics of these shifting relationships is where a writer can helpfully play out the internal change his protagonist needs to embrace. (Or not, if it’s a tragic ending.)
Let me take this a step further and add that it can be an extremely powerful story-making tool to choose one character in this regard.
Look around your story and ask yourself the question: Who is the person your protagonist most needs to resolve in their heart and mind, in order to resolve their overall problems?
This could be the person who is putting the most pressure on protagonist in the Number 1 External Events storyline, via that person’s actions. But it doesn’t have to be. Because the pressure in the Number 1 storyline could be coming from a government, or a natural disaster, or a corporation, or the need to find a virus, solve a crime. (I’m saying that there isn’t always a single designated baddie.)
This will definitely be a person on whom the protagonist is projecting their flawed beliefs. The person about whom their understanding and opinion will need to change, if they are going to save themselves.
I am finding that in my work with writers the process of identifying this central relationship, that needs to evolve alongside the external story events and the character’s internal change, can be the final much-needed piece of the story jigsaw, and particularly when coming to the end of a first complete draft.
I hope it will be so for you.
(And don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. )