Episode 85: What scenes does your character need to reach their end goal?

In this week’s episode, JP and Crys continue their Author’s Tarot Journey, this time using The Magician to guide their discussion. They talk about what tools and resources they use to determine the scenes and trials their characters need to reach their end goals.

Question of the week: How do you plan out the scenes that you need for your character’s journey ahead of time? Share your answer here.

Show Notes

Verbalize by Damon Suede

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi 

Mugging the Muse by Holly Lisle 

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Transcript

Crys: Hello friends. Welcome to the Write Away Podcast. I’m Crys Cain with my cohost…

JP: JP Rindfleisch.

Crys: How has your writing week been, JP?

JP: Well, I’m still in California. Overall, it’s been good. This weekend’s been bad. I’ve just been zoning-outy, but the rest of the week’s been pretty good. I’ve been moving along in my projects and it’s been nice. I’ll talk about it later, but there’s a really nice accountability tool I’ve been using.

Crys: In our business chat for the Patreon. Excellent.

JP: Look at that. That wasn’t where it came from. I just thought of it.

How’s your week been?

Crys: It’s been pretty good. I think I wrote three out of five days. And the other days were focused on editing and just other projects. So that’s been really lovely. And yeah, it’s just one of those weeks where the week flew by without any major pain points or successes. I’m just like, oh, that week was lovely because I don’t remember it, in a good way.

JP: Sometimes those weeks are good.

Crys: Okay. So this week we’re continuing on with our journey through tarot, having questions prompted by the Major Arcana of the tarot deck. Last week we had number zero, The Fool. This week, we have number one, The Magician. Do you want to describe that card, Mr. JP?.

JP: Yeah. So the first few cards in the tarot deck are a lot of like character cards, just as a side note. And The Magician is a character who is surrounded by tools, so usually like a sword, a wand, a chalice, and a pentacle. And they’re ready to take action. Whereas like The Fool is taking the first step into the unknown, The Magician is the one who’s progressing with that deliberate intent and using the tools at their disposal to take action.

So upright, The Magician means a master of skill, someone who’s resourceful and using concentration. And in reversed, it’s manipulation, un focused, and deception.

Crys: Yeah. So we went from like naive, and joyful, free spirited, to now we have tools and we’re learning how to use them for good or for ill.

JP: Yeah. If you were to think of when The Magician could come into play for a character who’s going along the journey, it would be when they’re given the tools and they’re ready to take that action. So like when Harry’s given the wand, or when Luke is told that the force exists and he’s able to then start using it, it’s that ability, that deliberate intent into using skill, and that external change in the world.

Crys: So the question we have then that is prompted by this card is: how do you know what scenes or trials will prepare your character to reach their end goal? And this is the question you popped up with, so what’s your first thoughts?

JP: So I, you know me, I like planning. So I like to know what sort of end game I want my character to see, what’s that lasting effect that I want them to have. And then I like to think through what are those trials that will prepare them for that, because I think there is a skill that writers can have that each trial is another tool in the tool belt for the character to meet their end goal. So for me, it’s what does the character want to manifest at the end? And that’s how I can try to determine what those trials will look like to prepare them for that last fight.

Crys: Yeah, I really like the lie that your character beliefs. And this is actually what I recommend for pantsers or discovery writers, whichever word you prefer, and that is you may not want to know what is going to happen through your story, cause that may take the fun out of it for you, but you probably know the emotional end that you want for your character. For me, I direct that with what’s the lie my character believes because I want them to learn the opposite by the end, if it’s not a tragedy.

If it’s a tragedy then they’re probably just going to be confirmed or they’re going to have a positive lie they believe that’s going to turn into something negative. That’s a whole nother topic. But I like to know the lie my character believes. What is the thing that is inhibiting the way they move through the world, a lie they believe that stopping them from being their whole and complete selves? And then if that’s the lie they believe, what is the opposite of that?

So knowing what the opposite of that is, I may not know what gets them to the opposite of that, but I know where I’m trying to head emotionally. And so the scenes that I throw at them, the challenges I throw at them, are going to be pieces of this. Like they’re going to push at that wound constantly.

And we’ve talked a lot about this with the idea of having their story hypothesis or your armature, your theme, lots of different ways to word that. And that’s exactly what you’re doing, is you are just pushing at that wound, showing the different ways that other people answer that same wound, the ways that they failed, the ways they succeed, and giving examples to your main character of what they do want, what they don’t want, and what might work for them until they get to the end.

One of the tools I find really useful in this, particularly for pantsers, though I love it as a plotter, is Damon Suede’s Verbalize because what he recommends is that you pick an action verb that defines your character. So for Pride and Prejudice, Darcy is preserved, and Elizabeth is provokes.

And then the next step, and I’m just going over this briefly, so if this sounds intriguing, you’ll really want to grab the book so that you’re not confused by my quick description. The next step is you look for synonyms of those words.

What are synonyms of provokes? Needles, teases, angers, you just write down all those words. And then those are different tactics that your character will use throughout the story so that they’re not reacting the exact same way every time, that they’re acting in similar ways, but that it has variation within their character type.

And I find that helps with those scenes. Like these are the scenes that are going to be set up of things they have to challenge or like, ah, this is a scene where there’s going to be a conflict, let’s make sure it pokes at that wound. And now I’m going to have them act a little differently than before, let me look at my list of synonyms. I find that is a really good way, especially for pantsers who are not plotting everything out ahead of time and have a really clear view of everything that’s happening.

JP: Definitely. I really like that tool. That’s a really fun means to getting to the end point without it being the same one note beat. It reminds me a lot of how I use The Emotion Thesaurus to take a character, see what escalates and deescalates, so that I have that like wave form throughout the story, and it’s not just that single thread.

Crys: Another way of doing this, it just popped up into my head as we were talking. I’m a fan of Holly Lisle and her teaching, sometimes some of her classes on her site are really scattered feeling, some of them are really clear and step-by-step, and some of them just kinda like, ah, I feel like I’m missing some pages here. But one of the things she did super, super well, and why I love her so much, is that she centers the joy of writing in everything she teaches. And one of the things she teaches, I think in her Mugging the Muse book and class, is figuring out what your candy bar scenes are. Like, things that you’re like, oh, that would be so much fun to write and figure those out ahead of time.

And for those of us who are trying to figure out, like, how does this lead into the end, thinking just simply about what’s the emotional meaning or change for the character, at what point in their journey would this make the most sense as far as the emotional state they should be in when the scene starts and the emotional state that should be in when it ends. That might be another way, like scenes that just popped in your head and you’re like, yes, I want to write that scene, but I don’t know where it’s going to be yet. I’m just kind of future forecasting for those little candy bar scenes.

JP: Definitely. Yeah, no, I’m still like mulling my head over the poking at the wound of your character and seeing what action they take. Because The Magician is a very external card. It’s the actions you take when you’re poked and prodded. And so thinking through what those scenes could look like and how your character responds, that’s very much taking into consideration what this card means and using that towards writing.

Crys: Yeah. And also, especially early on in your story, one of the things you’re going to want to do is push your character to pick up more tools. And like any skill, you’re going to pick up a lot in the very beginning, and then it’s going to slow down as you learn mastery over those ones and pick up new ones, simply because there’s less to learn. There’s always more to learn, but there’s less to learn than when you started.

JP: Definitely. And when we look at it with Three-story Method and we use the 12 stages, in that middle section, there’s the three obstacles that are also included within the three Cs, and I like to think of those as like, what are the core three pillars that my character needs to learn before they reach their end point.

So that’s how I use the 12 stages. Obviously, it’s not three obstacles and then three Cs, like I scatter and intermix those and open loops to close them within that middle section, but that’s how I use the 12 stages.

Crys: I really like that. And taking that for pantsers and saying, what are the three things or the three characters who handle things differently that your character needs to see before they get to the end of their emotional journey?

You might not know who those characters are yet, but what are the kinds of examples that they need to see and wrestle with, probably have conflict with, in learning their own lessons?

JP: Yeah. And that’s when I would use, like you use lie and I use theme, to see what’s the various facets of your character through the theme and trying to pick apart what is a mirror character to that look like? And what is a side to that look like? What happens when someone reaches their theme, but it’s not the way that they intended to or it wasn’t through good intention? And that’s how you can pick up those different obstacles and things that your character can learn to make sure that whatever you are trying to say is hitting those key points, and you’re reflecting variations of that.

Crys: Yeah. If you’re not familiar with mirror character, hopefully you picked it up from the context, but just a quick description, is it’s a character who reflects an aspect of your character but does things differently than your character will end up doing them, showing them the shadow side of their self, or maybe like the bright side of their shadow side.

JP: Right Off the bat, the first thing I think of is in Hunger Games, how President Snow and Katniss are very similar and very different from each other because they’re mirror characters. And obviously President Snow takes it to this like 10th level and it’s very selfish, more or less. And Katniss is very the opposite, she’s very open to protecting those that she loves. And that’s how you can see what a mirror character looks like because they’re like the same character with a variation or an extreme difference.

Crys: Yeah. You can even say that Pita and Gail are mirror characters of her as well in different ways. Gail has her ruthlessness, but he also takes it too far without regards to other because he doesn’t have that protective aspect that she has. He has more of a revenge aspect. And then Pita has that protective aspect as well, but he’s all protective and almost no self-preservation.

JP: Exactly. And so right there, you have your three obstacles, your three pillars that she needs to learn from to find her own path.

Crys: So my question for our listeners this week is how do you plan out the scenes that you need for your character’s journey ahead of time, whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, what are the things that you know ahead of time or how do you plan that out?

JP: Let us know.

Crys: Excellent. Now we’re going to go and record our question for our Patreon, which has to do with what tools we use in our business. So if you’re interested in hearing that podcast, you can come over and join our Patreon. Thanks so much for joining us this week.

JP: See you later.