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Writing Tips for by Melanie Anne Phillips Revealing Your Goal Receive Melanie's Writing Tip Newsletter While the structural nature of a story's goal is crucial to developing a plot that makes sense, the storytelling manner in which the goal is reveals can determine whether a plot seems clever or pedestrian. In this tip, we'll explore the impact of some of the key methods of revealing your goal. Sometimes
the goal is spelled out right at the beginning, such as a meeting in
which a General tells a special strike unit that a senator's daughter
has been kidnapped by terrorists and they must rescue her. Other
times, the goal is hidden behind an apparent goal.
So, if your story had used the scene described above, it might
turn out that was really just a cover story and in fact, the supposed
"daughter" was actually an agent who was assigned to identify
and kill a double agent working in the strike team. Goals
may also be revealed slowly, such as in "The Godfather," where
it takes the entire film to realize the goal is to keep the family alive
by replacing the aging Don with a younger member of the family. Further,
in "The Godfather," as in many Alfred Hitchcock films, the
goal is not nearly as important as the chase or the inside information
or the thematic atmosphere. So
don't feel obligated to elevate every story point to the same level. As
long as each key story point is there in some way, to some degree of
importance, there will be no story hole.
You may still have a lot of interest in that story point,
however. A
character's personal goal, for example, may touch on an issue that you
want to explore in greater detail. When
this is the case, let your imagination run wild.
Jot down as many instances as come to mind in which the
particular plot point comes into play.
Such events, moments, or scenarios enrich a story and add passion
to a perfunctory telling of the tale. One
of the best ways to do this is to consider how each plot point might
affect other plot points, and other story points pertaining to
characters, theme, and genre. For
example, each character sees the overall goal as a step in helping them
accomplish their personal goals. So,
why not create a scenario where a character wistfully describes his
personal goal to another character while sitting around a campfire?
He can explain how achievement of the overall story goal will
help him get what he personally wants. An
example of this is in the John Wayne classic movie, "The
Searchers." John
Wayne's character asks an old, mentally slow friend to help search for
the missing girl. Finding
the girl is the overall goal. The
friend has a personal goal - he tells Wayne that he just wants a roof
over his head and a rocking chair by the fire.
This character sees his participation in the effort to achieve
the goal as the means of obtaining something he has personally longed
for. And
how does your story goal exemplify or affect the moral message of your
story as part of the theme? When
you see the story goal mentioned in your story synopsis, see if you can
incorporate aspects of theme, and when you see theme, try to add a
reference to the goal. In
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain has the boy cooking up some food for Tom
Sawyer. He puts all the
vegetables and meat in the same pan and explain that his pop taught him
that food is better when the flavors all "swap around" a bit. Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips The Top 10 Most Popular Articles Be a Story Weaver - NOT a Story Mechanic! How to Create Great Characters! Conflict Can Limit Your Characters Writing From A Character's Point Of View Writing Characters Of The Opposite Sex Our Most Popular Products |
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