Sustaining A Plot With Obstacles And Sub-Goals (Secrets Of Narrative Drive), by Sarah Mussi

by Steve Rossiter on September 11, 2013

In case you are a newcomer to this series of posts, I’ll summarise briefly what I have set out to do in them and how far I’ve got.

In post one I said: Getting teenagers to read is a tough job. I pointed out that we know they have plenty of other things do with their lives, so as writers for young adults we need to roll up our sleeves and apply every tactic known to the craft of storytelling to get them not only to pick up our books but to carry on reading. So far I’ve shared seven secrets that have helped me do that. They are:

Create a collision course for your protagonist and your antagonist
Relegate ‘literary genius’ to second place
Create a promise that something is going to happen
Make sure that ‘something’ matters very much to your protagonist
Be wicked and mean to your protagonist
Make sure your protagonist has a clear dramatic goal
Make sure every action your protagonist takes is a step toward achieving the goal

That’s as far as I’ve got – so now for secret number eight.

Secrets of Narrative Drive

Secret Number 8

drum roll… tada!

Each focused action taken by your protagonist should rarely be achieved

Here’s why:

If each action is met by an obstacle, each obstacle results in a sub-goal
The plot (drawn from the character) becomes movement toward your protagonist’s goal through obstacle and deflection toward a sub-goal, encountering a new obstacle, deflection toward a new sub-goal and so on until the climax of the story
This creates the continuing tension of something meaningful always about to happen… while delivering happenings

So how you can use this secret?

Make sure your protagonist fails in each action toward their goal.
Make sure it is the action itself that causes the failure
Create a new ‘sub goal’ to overcome the problem an obstacle poses to your protagonist achieving their goal

WATCH OUT FOR THE NINTH SECRET OF NARRATIVE DRIVE COMING UP ON MY NEXT POST

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Sarah Mussi’s author website: www.sarahmussi.com

Sarah Mussi’s bio page

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