Progressing the plot means
"raising" or intensifying the stakes.
How? Mostly, by threatening to
destroy what the hero most cares for.
While simple enough, it helps to get more specific, to look keenly at
what the hero's fighting for and find ways to undermine it.
Last
Time...
We looked at broad, universal stakes,
such as "The World" (life on a massive scale), "Culture" (a
group of people harboring a similar belief), and "Community"
(home). Today, we examine the more
personal stakes of "Relationships" and "Soul," as well as
"Other, Less Noble Reasons."
As with last time, I'll give a definition, an example using Lord of
the Rings, and my suggestions for intensifying stakes.
* * *
Fighting
for Relationships
Keywords:
Love, Friendship, "It's personal"
Definition
Any person tightly knotted to the
hero's heart. Can be a close friend, a
mentor, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a husband, a wife, a love
interest, a son, a daughter, and so on and so forth.
LotR
Example
Friendship is the main relationship
in The Lord of the Rings, and the evil ring forever tries to turn friend
against friend. This is shown from
Chapter 1 when Bilbo, when asked to give up his ring, snarls angrily at his
good friend, the wizard Gandalf. Later
on Boromir, one of the fellowship, betrays Frodo by trying to take the ring
from him. When Frodo gets captured and Sam is forced to
take the ring, he momentarily considers abandoning Frodo.
Yet in the end, despite the
temptation of an evil ring, most of the fellowship remains steadfast and
true. At the end of the book, they have
forged a bond that nothing can severe.
Intensifying
the Stakes
The curtain falls on Act 2, and the
hero groans in the rubble. Miles away,
the villain has gleefully captured the beautiful princess and taken her to his
dungeon of evil. The hero thinks of the
face of his true love and his spirit revives.
He already knew that the villain planned to destroy the kingdom, maybe
the whole world. But this is
different. Now, it's personal. No matter what, the hero cannot lose the
woman he loves.
This classic scenario has played out
so many times, it's become a cliche. Yet it keeps getting used, time and time
again, because it's effective. Writers know that the easiest way to raise
the stakes is by making them more personal and the easiest way is to toss the
villain a loved one at the climax.
However, there are other ways of
testing relationships.
Relationships based on love are the
strongest bonds in the world. We, as
humans, love to see them built and fear to see them dissolved. In a story, when we see the seeds of a
relationship, we're curious to see whether they will blossom to it's fullest
potential or whether events will cause it to wither and die. Thus, we get the romantic subplot--though, in
fairness, it could also be a friendship
blossoming or the tightening of a family.
On the opposite end, if you want to
destroy (or threaten to destroy) a relationship, there are three main routes:
death, betrayal, and separation.
Death is the most direct--if the
loved one dies, the relationship ends.
Usually. Of course, fantasy being
fantasy, the loved might possibly come back to life or become some sort of
supernatural being--ghost, vampire, zombie, etc. In most cases, however, death of a loved one
is a serious matter, and the hero will stop at nothing to prevent it. A sadistic villain will take advantage of
this, forcing the hero to choose between the loved one and the world (or
something of similar high stakes).
Betrayal is more varied--and more
fun.
You can go the obvious route--have
the princess stab the hero in the back and run off with the villain. But I prefer more subtle, personal betrayals,
using knowledge of that person's weaknesses against him. This might be ridiculing the hero when he's
most vulnerable or abandoning him during a crisis. It can be a single poignant act, or many
small gestures that accumulate. It can
be a calculated betrayal, an accidental betrayal, a betrayal coerced by the
villain, a betrayal that comes from a moment of moral weakness, a betrayal made
with sincere intention to help the hero.
In all instances, it hurts. And
now the hero has to decide to forgive the loved one or abandon the relationship
altogether.
Assuming of course, it was the loved
one that betrayed the hero. It could be
the other way around.
Separation is the third way of
threatening a relationship. Classically,
separation involves time and space--the villain captures the princess and holds
her for three years in a tower a thousand miles away. But separation may also be mental--different
beliefs or social constructs. This works
especially well with families: two brothers, one who believes in freedom, one
who believes in order, finding themselves on different sides of a civil
war.
Of course, separation by itself is
sad, but underneath the sadness is a fear that the relationship will cool. People change and grow apart--can love endure
that? Maybe, maybe not. The reunion is the moment of truth. When separated loved ones meet again, the
barriers will be stripped away and everything will feel exactly the same--or
everything will be different.
However you use relationships to
raise the stakes, remember one thing: you cannot coast on the hero's love
alone. The readers have to care about
the beloved as well. It's all very well
for the hero to fall in love with the beautiful princess, but if the readers
find her to be whiny, self-righteous, and useless, they might just root for the
villain to feed her to the crocodiles.
* * *
Fighting
for the Soul
Keywords:
Transformation, Hero, Break, Sacrifice, At What Cost?
Definition
The hero himself. His life, his personhood, his identity, his
beliefs, his loves, his personality, his spirit, his core--everything he is and
everything he might become--wrapped in one neat package.
LotR
Example
The ring Frodo carries corrupts the
soul. It did it before Gollum. Once a hobbit-like person, Gollum murdered
his cousin to get the ring and turned into a slimy, sniveling creature,
addicted to the ring and miserable. As
Frodo journeys closer to Mordor, the ring drains him of personality, eating him
from the inside out.
Sam, by contrast, starts off as
Frodo's bumbling, overly-sensitive gardener and winds up arguably being the
hero of the book. He's loyal to Frodo to
begin with, but that loyalty morphs into astonishing courage and inner
strength, as Sam takes on a giant spider and a fortress full of orcs
single-handedly to rescue Frodo. By the
end of the book, Sam is literally carrying Frodo those final steps up to Mount
Doom, the only place the ring can be destroyed.
Intensifying
the Stakes
Fighting for the soul means fighting
to become (or remain) your true self, your best self. It sounds selfish, but it is not, for it is
from the best self that all other heroics springs--freedom, truth, compassion,
love, sacrifice. In my opinion, it is
the most important thing that can be at stake.
"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit
his soul?"
Losing the soul might mean forcing
your hero to do morally despicable acts, it might mean stripping him of
everything he loves, it might mean shaking his belief in God or humanity, or it
might mean obliterating his personality.
In any case, something very human in him has been lost--maybe
permanently. Sometimes a hero must
choose between saving the world and keeping his soul. Sometimes he manages to do both.
But saving the world isn't always as
depressing as that, for as often as some heroes lose a piece of their soul,
others gain new insight into the strength of their spirit. Rather than breaking them, circumstances
transform them for the better. The
nobody farm boy becomes a king, the ragged street urchin leads a revolution,
the repentant assassin saves the world.
But when transforming characters,
remember to keep their innate personality intact. If the smart-aleck brat transforms into a
paragon of perfect virtue, the reader may feel as though the character's
actually lost a piece of their
soul. The character should already have
the good qualities inside them--the key is to bring them out and enhance them.
Does it have to be one or the
other--losing the soul or gaining the soul?
Can it be both? Yes. Though it's easier to focus on one or the
other.
* * *
Fighting
for Other, Less Noble Reasons
Keywords:
Money, Revenge, Power, Glory, Fame, Survival, "I'm in it for me!"
Definition
Any of a number of selfish or immoral
reasons, aimed to benefit the hero alone.
LotR
Example
None, really. However, in The Hobbit, Bilbo and the
dwarves go on an adventure, obstensibly to steal back their treasure. Of course, they end up defeating a dragon and
a goblin army, benefiting the land and fulfilling a bunch of prophecies in the
process. Bilbo is also transformed along
the way, discovering an inner reserve of strength, courage, cunning, able to
embrace a love of adventure he never even knew he had.
Intensifying
the Stakes
Not all heroes want to make the world
a better place. Some just want to make
money. And that's fine. The thing is, no matter how selfish and
immoral the hero's purpose may be, at some point, he's going to do something
noble, even by accident, because otherwise the story would be meaningless and boring.
That sounds harsh.
But revenge tales usually end up
being about the nature of justice.
Survival tales become about the best and the worst of the soul. Treasure-hunters often sacrifice their fortunes
for those they care about. People
obsessed with power find a cause to latch it to. Without some faint nobility, why would we
care about these characters?
When heroes claim they're looking out
themselves, the reader is waiting to see them transcend their selfishness and
find a cause worth fighting for.
Normally, it doesn't take long. A
person fighting for himself on Chapter 1, may be roped into saving the world by
Chapter 2.
* * *
That ends this installment of
Dissecting Fantasy. Hope you liked it.
