The Write Equation

Last weekend I finished reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.  Brown is one of the few authors these days who I will drop everything to read. In the past Anne Rice and Stephen King held such power over me.  While my tastes in reading have changed over the years, there are other authors who I still feel the same way about, but there aren’t many.

While posting a review of The Lost Symbol over at Amazon, I was glancing over some of the other 955 reviews that were already there and came across this piece from one review mentioning Brown’s lack of talent for pacing a story:

Also, Brown doesn’t advance the story at a good pace. A good two-thirds of the book (I’m not exaggerating, I counted the pages) was filled with variations on such a scene:

Character A: Have you heard of X?
Character B (usually Langdon): Yes, but I thought that was just a myth.
Character A shows or tells B something.
Character B reacts with shock.
Then, insert scenes of people walking from one place to another, being chased.
Then, insert the sentence “Suddenly everything made sense.” At least for the next ten pages.
Repeat.

This outline made me laugh and got me to thinking, not to mention that I also totally agree with it after having read the book myself.  So many times, authors have a really good idea for a story or a scene, or maybe a handful of scenes but they don’t know how to connect them together or how to give the story layers. Or in Brown’s case, they just repeat what works..again and again and again.

The majority of stories told today are born from the concept of “quest writing.”  The word itself, Quest, dates back to Medieval romances and British literature.  King Arthur’s quest to find the Holy Grail is a prime example.

We start with a central character that (A.) the reader can relate to in some way and (B.) has some kind of “super power” or intellect that will help them later.  In Brown’s case, his protagonist is Robert Langdon.  Langdon is a professor at Harvard; he wears a Mickey Mouse watch and a tweed coat, and he’s claustrophobic.  And what about that super power?  He’s a symbologist and can crack puzzles and codes like nobody’s business.  I’m not talking Sudoku Puzzles either. And in the latest book, we learn he has the uncanny ability to remember every number he’s ever dialed on his cell phone.

Next, we present our character with a dilemma (or conflict).  There’s a treasure to find or a person to save, or both.  And some times the character (and the reader) don’t even know what it is.  Sometimes the consequences of finding said person or “cracking the code” is more important, and there are always things at stake for doing it.  In The Lost Symbol, Langdon is tricked by the “bad guy” into coming to Washington D.C. to crack a series of codes put in place by the Masons that will help the bad guy find “the treasure” he’s looking for. What’s at stake?  The life of a colleague.

Oh yeah, there’s a bad guy – the antagonist. We love a good villain or “black hat.”  Hannibal Lecter has always been one of my favorites because in the majority of Thomas Harris’s writing, Lecter is behind bars and his bad deeds are not the center of attention.  They’ve already happened, but the reader learns about his crimes over time as they are mentioned by the other characters involved in the current plot. The fact that he’s already done all of these horrible things prior to the first page in Silence of the Lambs makes him even scarier. True, Harris has gone back and given his readers the prequels and shown us how Lecter became who he was, but truth be known, those books were not the best in the series.  Sci Fi writer Ben Bova suggests that your writing should not contain a villain.  In his Tips for Writers he states, “In the real world there are no villains.  No one sets out to do evil…fiction mirrors real life.”  I beg to differ.

Then, the writer introduces secondary characters.  These characters usually help or hinder our central character from completing the task at hand. Introducing secondary characters also gives the writer opportunities to explore subplots to make those characters seem interesting and to have a life of their own. In The Lost Symbol, Langdon crosses paths with a CIA agent, Capital security guards, a priest, his colleague’s sister, more CIA agents, and the head of the Capital.  The lead CIA agent is a short, stern, Japanese woman with a cancerous scar on her neck.  The priest is blind.  The colleague’s sister is studying Noetic Science, and the head of the Capital is also a Mason. Obviously, I’m summarizing here to avoid giving away too much about Brown’s latest, but the few traits I’ve listed here are enough for you to see that these characters are each complex and intriguing.

At this point, writers often introduce an inner conflict for one of the characters.  It’s not the major conflict at hand that our protagonist is faced with, but it could determine the outcome.  Perhaps, the reader is deceived by a “false hero” and discovers the good guy is actually the bad guy.  Or there’s a romance between the central character and one of the secondary characters.  These inner conflicts usually blossom into “plot twists” in Dan Brown’s case.  I’m very glad that Brown doesn’t take the romance path with Langdon and his female sidekicks.  The chemistry is usually there, but not acted upon.

This leads us to the climax, or often too many times, the false climaxes (more plot twists).  Our central character is almost there.  They are about to solve the final puzzle, or the reader thinks they are just steps away from the treasure.  But the reader pauses and notices that there is still over 100 pages left to read! Just then, another minor dilemma happens or the bad guy sends someone or something in to try to stop them. Whatever happens, it throws our lead character off course or sends them in a new direction.

But finally, this hopefully leads to a big resolution.  Inner conflicts are solved.  The bad guy is caught, or killed, or gets away (until next time…muhahaha!).  The treasure is found. Our protagonist gets the girl. The world is saved.  And readers can finally exhale….unless of course, this is just the first part of a series.

So let’s recap…

A. Central Character

1. relates to reader
2. “superpower”

B. Dilemma

1. conflict at hand
2. consequences or stakes

C. Villain (bad guy)

1. what do they want
2. how to use the central character to get it

D. Secondary characters

1. subplots
2. help or hinder central character

E. Inner Conflict

1. romance
2. plot twists

F. Climax

1. false
2. resolution

This “quest” equation is not set in stone, although it has been followed for generations.  Don’t believe me?  Just stop and think of any book you might have read.  You’ve bound to have read something where the protagonist is faced with a “quest.”

The ability for an author to play upon the different parts and add their own variations is what makes a story unique and different. Maybe your villain is the central character.  Maybe your central character is not even a person….they’re an alien, a tree, a storm…maybe your villain is a car (Stephen King’s Christine).  Maybe your protagonist and antagonist are lovers.

The point is that this “write equation” is a good place to start if you are at a loss with what to do with your characters.  Like I said earlier, you’ve got a good idea for a character or a scene, but you have no idea where to go from there. With NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) right around the corner, a good place to start with organizing your thoughts is to create an outline.The equation is just a guideline, and your outline should be too.  If it changes along the way, that’s fine. A roadmap is a good thing to have if you don’t know where you are going, but who knows what you’ll discover if you make a “wrong” turn.

Oh, and if you are interested in reading my full review of The Lost Symbol, click here.